Chapter 32
On December 31, Mackensen's 220,000 men had moved to the flank of the main Russian army; but they did not stop, but marched to the rear of the Russian army.
The Austrian Third Army also marched to Sambor (upper reaches of the Dniester River, 30 kilometers south of Przemyśl) in an attempt to tie down the Russian army.
The Austrian First and Fourth Armies, which led the frontal attack, had a total of 450,000 men, and they were ready to rescue the fortress at any time.
In order to ensure that each unit could be fully recovered, the Austrian Second Army was dismembered.
It was split into various division/brigade-level units, and 220,000 of them were transferred to other units. As for its commander-in-chief, General Elimoli, he naturally did not dare to challenge Kuster's authority at this time, and had to complain to the top leaders.
The Austro-Hungarian top leaders were very dissatisfied with Kuster's private dissolution of the organization, but they did not dare to do anything to him at this moment.
His official friends defended him and even righteously demanded that the top leaders give the command of the Second Army to Kuster completely.
The top leaders rejected this unreasonable request. But Kuster's good friend Wiltok turned defense into offense, pressing them step by step, and threatened that if they did not compromise, he would make the matter public.
Thanks to the previous royal propaganda, Kuster's reputation among the people was the highest among all Austro-Hungarian officers. At this moment, if they took the matter to the people, they would definitely fail.
Although the nobles were a little annoyed, they could not interfere with Franz, who was excited when he saw the war reports from the front line; for him, as long as it did not endanger his rule, it didn't matter which capable person became a minister, so he would not interfere with their conversation.
In the end, both sides took a step back: the Imperial Parliament no longer spread rumors that were unfavorable to Kuster; Kuster's supporters headed by Wiltok no longer made any demands and would not make the topic of this discussion public.
Although the political disputes within the empire were very interesting, Kuster, who was far away, was frowning because of the urgency of the war.
The Austrian army deployed 240,000 people in the center, 120,000 people in the south wing deep into the Russian flank, and tens of thousands of people were used as reserves.
In contrast, Russia deployed 280,000 and 140,000 people for defense respectively.
But logically speaking, they should have more than 700,000 people, but why did he only see more than 400,000 people?
Of course, this was not because the Russian army had any superb strategy, but because Mackensen's army arrived behind them and deployed these 300,000 people there.
But at this moment, Kuster did not have any accurate intelligence. He did not even know where Mackensen was now, but he knew the specific deployment of the Russian army.
This made him mistakenly believe that the Germans wanted to act alone, so he did not dare to make any moves, for fear of being discovered by the Russians.
But in order to deal with his superiors, he had to let a small force harass the Russian army and try to infiltrate it, so as to lay the foundation for the next offensive.
In the early morning of January 1, 1915, the Germans, who did not speak martial ethics, led by Mackensen, launched a surprise attack on Przemysl.
As expected of the German fighting style, this offensive was full of surprises and surprises.
As soon as Kuster got up, he learned that the Russian army in the east showed signs of collapse and was constantly retreating.
Although he didn't understand what was going on, he didn't miss this opportunity and let the army launch an all-out attack.
The small Austrian-Hungarian troops took advantage of every opportunity - this was Kuster's favorite tactic. Whenever he saw an ungarrisoned area, he would always send a few troops to occupy it.
This may pose a threat of ambush, but if you dare to expand the results, the enemy army is likely to be divided, creating opportunities for encirclement.
And this is at the strategic level, the smallest unit under command is at the division level; can one division completely annihilate another division? This is obviously impossible!
As Kuster expected, after several Austrian vanguard divisions entered the Russian position, they were not immediately counterattacked.
When the news was passed back to the headquarters, Kuster's eyes became sharp.
He realized that now is the best time to attack.
So he called all the officers over, waved his hand and said to them:
"The Russians are gradually retreating, this must be the Germans launching an attack! They didn't notify me in advance, but we still need to cooperate with them to launch a large-scale offensive immediately.
Gentlemen, please remember that the Russians are on the verge of collapse, we only need one kick to kick them into the abyss, so that they can never get up again.
I codenamed this operation "New Year Offensive", I hope you can bring surprises to the war and surprises to me."
The officers saluted each other, and soon walked out of the command post, got on their respective special cars, and went to command the battle.
After Kuster sent the officers away, he was still a little worried-his third son's tank battalion set off a few days ago, and there has been no information until now.
The worry gradually turned into impatience, but he was still the commander-in-chief, so he could only wander back and forth on the floor to ease his emotions.
Soon, good news came one after another, making Kuster excited and a little stable at the same time.
All the Austro-Hungarian troops were advancing rapidly; especially the three selected divisions, which were advancing day and night towards Przemyśl, and were now less than 2 kilometers away.
The Third Army in the south also succeeded in breaking through the Russian defense line, and troops rushed straight to the fortress.
That evening, Kuster finally received Mackensen's message.
Mackensen said in the telegram: Their troops were less than 5 kilometers east of the fortress, and he asked Kuster to lead the Austrian army to cooperate with his attack immediately.
To be honest, after reading the telegram carefully, Kuster was very angry.
However, for the sake of the war situation, he still held back and drove to the front line overnight.
On January 2, the Austrian 19th Army welcomed a familiar face - Kuster came here, and he would personally command the selected division to launch an attack on the fortress.
The soldiers were all excited about his arrival, and the offensive preparations were more active.
Kuster looked at the sturdy fortress two kilometers away. The outline of Przemyśl was very clear, and even the broken Austro-Hungarian flag on the top of the fortress could be seen.
He put down the telescope, feeling a little emotional. This sturdy fortress has endured the bitter consequences of the empire alone for several months, and now it is finally returning to the empire.
Listening to the sound of artillery fire in his ears, he was very grateful; but without the figure of his third son, his emotions piled up into bubbles with worries.
Suddenly, it was like a needle piercing the bubble, awakening Kuster.
There was a sudden sound of artillery in the distance. With his many years of combat experience, this was definitely not the artillery used by the Russians, let alone the artillery used by Austria-Hungary.
He leaned over and took out the telescope and looked carefully in the distance.
Next to the ruined bunker of the fortress, there was a Type B tank sitting; its shells had been used up, and it had to use machine guns for defense.
After seeing this scene, Kuster jumped over excitedly, drew his saber and shouted:
"Charge!"
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