Chapter 38: Rundstedt: “We should have thought of this back in 1918…”
“Honored Marshal Leopold, Captain Lelouch Hunt, commander of Company A, Assault Battalion attached to the 12th Division of the 6th Army. It is my great honor to meet you.”
After taking a deep breath, Lelouch greeted the old man in as steady a tone as he could manage.
This old man was none other than His Highness the Crown Prince’s uncle, the second younger brother of the current king: Marshal Leopold Maximilian Joseph Arnulf.
Marshal Leopold was seventy years old this year. He had served in the army for fifty-two years, had already risen to the rank of general as far back as the Franco-Prussian War forty-three years ago, had been promoted to marshal nine years ago, and had retired the year before last at the age of sixty-eight.
After hearing Lelouch’s self-introduction, the old marshal’s unfocused gaze gradually fixed on him. He looked him up and down a few times, then planted the cane resting beside the armrest of his deck chair and rose abruptly to his feet.
“To become a captain and company commander at such a young age is not especially surprising. But for a mere company commander to be invited by Rupprecht to attend a banquet at Neuschwanstein Castle—you are the first. Even this old man is rather curious as to what makes you so extraordinary.”
The old marshal’s voice was full and resonant; clearly, his lung capacity had not declined much with age.
Lelouch had no desire to show timidity either. He knew that for a pure soldier who had spent his entire life in uniform, all unnecessary modesty would be regarded as hypocrisy. So he bluntly laid out his achievements:
“Perhaps it is because I rendered merit in bloody fighting before, and His Highness appreciated my tactical insight. At Biligin, I followed a regiment under Major General Karl and held off an enemy breakout by three divisions. In the end, I also used a stratagem to break their will and force their surrender, destroying the Biligin Army.”
Before the old marshal, Lelouch paid close attention to his wording, ensuring that it was as precise as possible so as not to leave the impression that he was boasting.
Then he changed tack and briefly summarized why he had been invited to the banquet, as well as what specific work he was to report to the duke.
Although the old marshal had retired, his eye was still sharp. After listening to Lelouch’s account, he beckoned for him to come closer.
At his age, his eyesight was no longer good, but his judgment was absolutely seasoned.
“So this is the camouflage uniform you suggested equipping the assault troops with? Indeed, its concealment effect is much better. Unfortunately, it does not quite accord with the Empire’s martial traditions of honor. It looks too filthy.
“As for this steel helmet—can it truly stop bullets? I never thought history would turn backward, only that this is uglier than ancient steel helmets.”
As a soldier, he was naturally no stranger to helmets. In particular, the Germania region had produced heavy infantry since ancient times; full suits of plate armor could be seen everywhere in museums. When the old marshal saw a modern steel helmet, he naturally thought of the great helms from the era of the Teutonic Knights.
Lelouch, however, showed no fluctuation of emotion because he was being questioned. He merely explained, in a calm manner, the design rationale behind the camouflage pattern and the specific considerations behind producing “work-safety boots.”
As for the old marshal’s doubts about the helmet, Lelouch even took it off and placed it in the old marshal’s hands, allowing him to feel the material for himself. He also said the old marshal was entirely welcome to test it with a pistol—as long as he did not fire at too direct an angle.
Of course, the old marshal could not actually test-fire a gun inside his own castle. Seeing this, he played with the helmet for a while before returning it to Lelouch, effectively accepting his explanation.
The old marshal could also tell that, ugly though this helmet was, the curvature of its forging was indeed well designed. When bullets came in horizontally, it would be easier for them to deflect and ricochet. Only when facing plunging rounds from above would it be comparatively easier to penetrate.
What the old marshal did not know was that the original helmet design Lelouch had drawn had, in fact, gone straight to the final step, avoiding as many detours as possible.
What Lelouch had referenced was the later M56 helmet. Although that thing was not produced until the 1950s, its technical difficulty was actually somewhat lower than that of the M35 helmet from the 1930s, assuming the same material was used.
That was because the smoother the curve of a helmet, the lower the processing difficulty during forging and stamping. It could even be formed integrally from a single piece of steel. Once the transitions became too angular and distinct, the steel would easily crack if directly forged and pressed, instead requiring it to be processed in two pieces and then welded together at the end.
In the original course of history, the German Army’s steel helmets during the First World War had all been made by welding together at least two steel plates.
Something with both good ballistic performance and a simple production process could be said to achieve the best of both worlds. Its only flaw was that it was ugly; many people in later generations said it looked like a turtle shell and was not as handsome as a helmet with sharp edges and angles.
But Lelouch, after all, was not a pure art student who had failed mathematics. He was good at drawing, but his grades in science and engineering were even better.
When considering problems, he would not take only aesthetics into account. Thus, without the slightest hesitation, he had chosen to imitate the M56 design.
As a result, the more the old marshal looked at the helmet, the more he felt there was something profound in it. Although he could not calculate the specific mechanical analysis, relying solely on a soldier’s intuition, he could see that Lelouch was a man who did everything for the sake of victory—practical, grounded, and utterly free of vanity.
“It is indeed rare to see a young man as pragmatic as you. From the smallest details one may perceive the whole; I can understand why that boy Rupprecht values you.” The old marshal praised him sincerely.
It was also a matter of Lelouch’s good fortune. Everything about his design had been born of practicality, out of a sense of responsibility for his comrades’ lives.
But the elderly had always tended to be steady and conservative, and had no eye for flashy things. The solidity Lelouch displayed therefore became, in the old marshal’s eyes, a rare virtue.
If a middle-aged man in his thirties or forties were this calm and pragmatic, it would not be especially unusual. But for a hot-blooded young man barely in his early twenties to be so practical—that was truly rare.
Moved by this, the old marshal’s formerly imposing manner also softened somewhat, and he became talkative, chatting with Lelouch about many topics.
An old senior of high moral standing and prestige was sometimes, in truth, very lonely inside. Having been respected by others for so long, they would come to feel the chill of standing too high.
When the old marshal asked about Lelouch’s background and academic history, he learned that Lelouch had come from the Oreo Empire to Bavaria to serve in the army. Not only did the old marshal feel there was nothing improper about this, he instead felt an added sense of closeness and naturally drew nearer to him, saying:
“You came from Oreo? Oreo is good. My wife is from Oreo. At the banquet later, she will certainly be very happy to meet a young man from her homeland.”
Marshal Leopold’s wife, who was also his cousin, was the daughter of Emperor Franz of Oreo and Empress Princess Sissi—and Princess Sissi was Marshal Leopold’s own aunt, the great-aunt of Duke Rupprecht. Cross-marriages between the Oreo imperial family and the Bavarian royal family had already gone on for many generations.
After that reflection, the old marshal, whose tongue had thoroughly loosened, also developed a desire to test him somewhat. He wanted to see this young man’s strategic vision, so he followed on from the topic of serving in a foreign army and asked:
“Then when you came from Oreo to Bavaria to join the army, what exactly were you thinking? Will you regret it in the future? What do you think the prospects of this war are?”
Lelouch was taken aback for a moment—not because the question was so difficult to answer, but because he had already answered Duke Rupprecht once before.
He had not expected that, upon meeting the duke’s uncle now, he would have to answer it again—although the two questions were not entirely the same. This time, the question probed farther and carried more of a sense of future outlook.
Lelouch naturally also wanted to seize this chance to display more of his talent while avoiding rehashing old material, so he racked his brains on the spot for a while and, for the moment, did not dare answer lightly.
In the old marshal’s eyes, however, his silence only meant that he truly had never considered such a question.
After quite some time, Lelouch finally let out a long sigh and first repeated, in broadly similar terms, the motives he had previously told the duke. But at the end, he suddenly changed direction, inserting an additional bit of personal thought he had just come up with, while also answering the old marshal’s latter two questions in passing:
“…Of course, my coming to Bavaria to serve in the army was not only because I wanted to fight shoulder to shoulder with soldiers of my own people. There was another layer of consideration as well.
“Because when I saw that Britannia had also entered the war, I realized that the Central Powers had already been insidiously schemed against. No matter how capable I might be, if I remained in my homeland, Oreo, I could only sacrifice myself pointlessly and change nothing.
“Because Oreo’s internal problems are too severe. Like Rusha, it is a giant with feet of clay. If one wants to change the outcome of the war, and at the same time save my homeland, the only hope is for the Germania Empire to perform beyond all expectations.”
Lelouch’s words were exceedingly bold in tone, yet also appeared exceedingly sincere.
Even the old marshal found them somewhat hard to believe: What tone was this young man taking? From what he meant, it seemed that if he did not act, their side’s camp would be finished? And even if he did act, only by acting in Germania could he defy the heavens and change fate?
Was that what he meant?
Fortunately, the old marshal had only just heard that this young man had changed the final outcome of the “Race to the Sea” campaign, repeatedly using clever stratagems to pull the situation back from the brink of collapse and annihilating the Biligin Army…
Only because of that did the old marshal have the patience not to immediately drive him out as a madman.
“So you believe this war’s hopes are already slim? Then tell me: under what you consider the best possible circumstances, what sort of result can the Empire strive for?”
After the previous clash and probing of ideas, Lelouch had more or less straightened out his train of thought. Coupled with the fact that he had read history thoroughly, he was no longer nervous and spoke with confidence:
“I believe the Empire’s hope of victory lies on the Eastern Front. If the Empire’s upper echelons can all see the situation clearly, and if they can achieve unity from top to bottom, with everyone striving as one, then the best-case scenario is victory in the east and forcing a draw in the west.”
When the old marshal heard him say this, his originally somewhat angry expression drew back again, and he became serious once more.
“You think the Empire’s opportunity lies on the Eastern Front? That is very inconsistent with the General Staff’s view. Everyone in the General Staff, from top to bottom, believes that the Eastern Front has vast strategic depth. To win a complete victory over Rusha would absolutely take a very long time. Moreover, the terror of Rusha’s inland winter cold was something even Napoleon could not conquer back then.
“By contrast, how much strategic depth do the Franks in the west have? If you had fought a little better at Ypres this time, and repeated that several times, gradually nibbling away at them, could you not destroy the Franks? Just because the Griffin Plan failed on the Marne a few months ago, have you all become discouraged?”
The old marshal threw out several questions in succession, then finally stared straight into Lelouch’s eyes and asked without flinching: “Tell me honestly. Did Rupprecht reveal something to you—tell you that after the New Year, His Majesty the Emperor may summon me back into service to take command of the southern wing on the Eastern Front—and that is why you are saying the Empire’s hope lies in the east, in order to curry favor with me?”
The old marshal’s gaze burned as he tried to find a flaw in Lelouch’s eyes, to see whether he had said this merely to flatter him.
But Lelouch’s gaze was extremely firm, without the slightest hint of evasion.
Neither servile nor overbearing, Lelouch said, “His Highness the Duke told me nothing, and I did not know you would return to service and go to the Eastern Front. The banquet is about to begin; when His Highness returns, you can personally confirm it with him, can you not? I could not possibly lie about such a matter.”
The old marshal thought about it and found this to be true, so he no longer questioned whether the other party was flattering him, and instead returned to the professional issue: “Then explain it in detail. On what basis do you believe that this war’s hope lies on the Eastern Front, while the Western Front can at most be forced into a draw? As long as what you say is reasonable and shows strategic vision…”
The old marshal had originally wanted to say a few words implying official promotion and future rewards, but on second thought felt there was no need. It would not be sufficiently dignified, so he said no more.
However, his meaning was already very clear. Lelouch was merely a captain, while he himself was a marshal about to return to service.
If Lelouch could earn a marshal’s appreciation for his strategic vision, would he still need to fear having no one to promote him in the future?