Beiyang 1917

() "Reporting to the commander-in-chief, the task of the 1st Infantry Division is to leave the division's Jingwei Battalion to continue to stick to the original position. The main force of the division will take the returned artillery regiment and set off overnight to leave the first trench and fortify the position, and secretly transfer to 20 kilometers to the east, the Kharkov River forest area is on standby, and the radio is kept silent. Unless it is an emergency, the communication is only turned on during the routine reporting time! The report is over!"

Ukrainian Infantry 1st Division Commander Artem Flodimilovich Milevsky’s answer was impeccable. Obviously, this guy, as the division commander of the main division of the Ukrainian National Army, is not just yelling all day long. Fool. ,

"Report to the Commander-in-Chief, the 2nd Infantry Division left the division's reconnaissance battalion to stand firm. It must stand for a day. Even if it is sacrificed, it must attract the air strike firepower of the enemy's air force and the artillery firepower of the enemy. The reconnaissance battalion will receive an extra bomb on its head. Or artillery shells, our other main forces will face less threats in the short term, the main force of the 2nd Infantry Division and the artillery regiment will move eastward along with the 1st Infantry Division to hide and wait for the next order from the front enemy headquarters, the report is over!"

Immediately afterwards, the commander of the 2nd Infantry Division who repeated the order was obviously also very aware of his mission, and his rhetoric was more powerful than Milevsky's!What he said caused several senior German generals to look sideways.

Then the commanders of the 3rd Infantry Division, the 4th Infantry Division, and the two Kharkov Volunteer Divisions repeated the orders they received in turn, and this difficult emergency military meeting was considered to be over.

As soon as the meeting ended, the senior generals of both sides, who had been suffocating for a long time in the basement, got up and left one after another, preparing to rush to their respective troops and positions overnight to implement Plan B.

Here Hermann von François, the former commander-in-chief of the German-Ukrainian coalition forces, stopped him and stood up to return to the official residence. The Ukrainian ruling cabinet Prime Minister Simon Petliura was about to hold another meeting on the evacuation and retreat of government agencies. ,

"Your Excellency, please stay behind!"

1918年7月29ri19：30哈尔科夫火车南站德乌联军前敌指挥部|

"What else is there? Your Excellency, General, I am in a hurry to go back to the government building in the city. The emergency meeting of the ruling cabinet is waiting for me to convene. Seeing that Kharkov may not be able to hold on, I would have known that the evacuation work would be more intensive. It’s better to make the time earlier, your plan b is now a dead end, let’s see how much trouble it will cause to my zhengfu? Is there anything we can’t talk about tomorrow?”

The Ukrainian Prime Minister is anxious to go back to the meeting, and the entire ruling cabinet members are eagerly waiting for him to bring back the latest news. If Kharkov really can’t hold on, then these dignitaries, bourgeois politicians and their families will retreat quickly Leaving the powder keg of Kharkov is the first choice. Of course, you have to be organized, but when disaster strikes, why care about everyone if you can’t care about the small family?Even Petliura himself had to send his family back to Kiev before talking about anything else.

So at this moment, Simon Petliura is very unwilling to continue tossing in the air-tight and sweaty underground air-raid shelter of Herman von Francois, but the next words of von Francois But it made his back break out in cold sweat,

"Your Excellency, don't be impatient. Even if the Allied forces launch an attack, they may not be able to reach the city of Kharkov before tomorrow evening. You know that we have pre-installed along the railway from Kharkov to the first line of defense. Explosives, the engineer battalion can explode at any time when retreating.

It is about 36 kilometers from Belgorod in the Volga Federation to the border, and it is almost 36 kilometers from our first trench defense line on the border to the northern ring defense line of Kharkov. Even if the opponent launches an attack tomorrow morning, they will be fully armed If you walk 40 kilometers, it is estimated that it will take more than 8 hours!What's more, we still have left behind troops standing firm on the first line of defense! "

Joseph von Dietrich, the chief of staff of the German-Ukrainian coalition's former enemy headquarters, smiled and comforted the Ukrainian ruling cabinet prime minister who was a little anxious and distracted.

Simon Petliura heard what German Lieutenant General von Dietrich said, his mind was settled, he turned around and walked back to his seat helplessly, and sat down. Mood, said to the two German generals looking at him,

"Okay, what else is there? Your Excellency the Chief of Staff, Your Excellency the Commander-in-Chief of the former enemy, I am here to listen!"

Here von Dietrich smiled and struck a match to light a cigarette for the head of the Ukrainian family, while signaling the other staff officers and guards in the war room to go out first, Hermann von François He squinted his eyes and looked at the Ukrainian Prime Minister, thinking about how to tell Simon Petliura about the plan c that his immediate boss, William Greiner, called back from Kiev before the evening.

"Your Excellency Petliura, according to the information fed back from Berlin, Nikolai Nikolaevich Zhukovsky, the diplomatic representative of the Ukrainian government, is still staying in Samara, the capital of the Volga Federation, and that Vasily Nikolayevitch Pepelyaev's federal government flirts with each other? Is there such a thing?" Von Francois asked casually.

"Uh~~~" Simon Petliura's heart tightened. This matter is not big or small. Since the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Volga Federation have not established formal diplomatic relations, the two sides have neither Mutual recognition of each other's du li status, so it is not a big deal to just send a diplomatic representative to contact each other. However, the current control of Ukraine by the Ukrainian ruling cabinet relies entirely on the support and assistance of the German-Austrian Allies behind it. Ukraine continuously shipped out grain and minerals, and brought in German weapons and ammunition. Today, the German-Austrian army occupying and stationed in Ukraine reached 50 people at its peak. Later, when Ludendorff launched the spring offensive against the Allied Powers on the Western Front, the main German-Austrian troops stationed in Ukraine were gradually transferred to the Eastern Front. , a group of the Allied Powers counterattacked on the western front and launched a summer offensive, and the main German and Austrian forces on the eastern front were further transferred to support the western front. This reduced the size of the German army stationed in Ukraine from one Eichhorn army group to only one now. The German 10th Army has a strength of about 10.

Therefore, in theory, Simon Petliura's Ukrainian National League is the main body of the ruling cabinet. Various policies and activities in the diplomatic field must be approved by Berlin before they can be carried out. For example, sending diplomatic representatives Zhukovsky Going to Samara and the Volga Federation to try to formally recognize each other and establish diplomatic relations between the two sides. This was acquiesced by Berlin. The purpose of Hindenburg and Ludendorff was to maintain the stability of the Eastern Front as much as possible.