by Larry Bond
Malanowski chewed his lower lip. That worried him. They’d lost contact with the tiny observation post more than an hour ago — shortly after the enemy artillery barrage began. Maybe the shelling had cut the telephone wires his signals troops had laid. And maybe not.
Concerned by the ominous silence on his flank, he’d sent Lesniak and a small patrol north along the river. They were under orders to make contact with the OP and report back. Now they were missing, too. Were they pinned down by the artillery? Silenced by German radio jamming? Or had the lieutenant and his men run into more trouble than they could handle?
After Malanowski’s first reports of increased enemy activity across the river, his regimental commander had promised him the first available reinforcements. But the major knew they would be a long time coming. With so much ground to cover, the 4th Mechanized Division had very few reserves held back.
Essentially the 411th was on its own.
Faced with that reality, he’d deployed his own tactical reserve, D Company, at right angles to the river, covering his northern flank. It wasn’t much, just fourteen BMPs and a hundred infantrymen, but it was all he had.
The shelling changed tempo suddenly, slowing and growing softer.
Malanowski scanned the ground sloping down toward the Neisse again. He could see shells bursting along the shoreline, exploding in puffs of grayish-white smoke. The Germans were building a smoke screen to cover their assault! He showed his teeth in a quick tigerish grin. His battalion had suffered under the enemy’s artillery fire for long enough. Now they would have a chance to pay the Germans back in full.
“Thermal sight!”
His senior sergeant handed him a thermal imaging sight they’d stripped from one of their American-supplied Dragon antitank missile launchers. He cradled the bulky sight in both hands and hoisted it up to the bunker’s observation slit.
The sight “saw” temperature variations among different objects — leaves, the water, men, and vehicles — and turned them into a clear, monochrome view of the world outside. Hotter objects showed up in shades of white and cooler ones in shades of black.
Malanowski panned back and forth between the highway bridge and the opposite shore, looking closely for the first signs of enemy movement. Nothing yet. But they wouldn’t wait much longer. He glanced at the lieutenant manning his commo gear. “Order all companies to stand to!”
“Sir.”
The major checked the river again. Still nothing. What the devil were the EurCon commanders playing at? Every minute they delayed gave his soldiers more time to scramble into their fighting positions and to clear away blast-heaped dirt or shattered tree limbs that blocked their fields of fire.
Gunfire exploded on his right flank and quickly spread down the line — first a single shot, then a crackling, ear-splitting roar as assault rifles, machine guns, and tank cannon opened up.
“Major! D Company is under attack!” Obviously stunned by what he was reporting, the young lieutenant stood shaking, with one hand still pressing the field telephone against his ear. “They’re being hit by enemy tanks and infantry! Battalion strength at least!”
Malanowski dashed to a firing slit looking north. The gray haze was thicker there. More shells burst among the shattered trees, blending with the dense, black smoke pouring out of burning APCs. Flames stabbed out of the murk — marking both his firing line and the wave of German tanks and panzer-grenadiers smashing into his battalion’s flank and rear.
Christ. He spun toward the ashen-faced lieutenant, rattling off new orders as fast as they popped into his head. “Tell A Company to reinforce the right flank! And tell Captain Stachniak to swing his T-72s north!”
If D Company could just hold for a few more minutes, they might buy him enough time to reorient his defenses.
It was too late. Malanowski could see men falling back through the smoke, pausing just long enough to fire a burst or two in the direction they’d come before retreating again. One cartwheeled backward, knocked off his feet by return fire. Another lay bloody and broken, sprawled across a fallen tree trunk. Rounds whipcracked overhead. A T-72 clanked forward through the fleeing infantry, still trailing torn camouflage netting from its turret and rear deck. Its turret whined, slewing from side to side as it looked for targets.
Whanngg.
The T-72 disappeared inside a bright orange flash — hit by a German armor-piercing round. Its rounded turret blew off and fell beside the burning tank. Secondary explosions rocked the hull as stored fuel and ammunition cooked off.
The smoke thinned for an instant, giving Malanowski a brief glimpse of men in “Fritz” Kevlar helmets moving closer — advancing in short rushes through the woods. They were tossing grenades and firing bursts into Polish foxholes and bunkers. His flank was collapsing. The Germans were inside the battalion’s defensive perimeter.
He made an instant decision. His soldiers were being overrun too fast to put up any effective resistance. Staying here meant dying here. But maybe he could save something from the wreckage. He pulled his head away from the firing slit. “Order all companies to withdraw! We’ll fall back south to the alternate rally point and regroup!”
While the lieutenant relayed his instructions to anyone still listening on the battalion net, Malanowski handed the precious thermal sight to his sergeant. Then he grabbed his personal weapon, an AKM assault rifle, and a knapsack from one corner of the bunker. He spun round, checking the rest of his staff. They were ready. Papers, codebooks, and maps they didn’t have time to pack up were heaped in a single pile, ready for destruction.
Machine-gun fire rattled somewhere outside. Stray rounds thwacked into the bunker’s timber roof and shredded sandbags on its sides. The Germans were closing in, and it was high time they were gone.
Malanowski and the sergeant led the way, clearing the bunker door in a rush with their assault rifles at the ready. The rest of the staff followed, crouching low as bullets whined past. The last man out turned, pulled the pin from a grenade, and lobbed it back through the door. It went off with a dull whummp, blowing dirt, sand, and fragments of shredded paper through firing slits and the opening.
Still bent low, they sidled away from the bunker. Their headquarters BMP was parked just a few meters away, surrounded on three sides by raised earth embankments and covered by camouflage netting. Its crew already had the engine running and the rear troop doors open.
A German Leopard came thundering out of the smoke only a hundred meters away. Its turret and long-barreled gun pointed off to the left, aiming at a target somewhere closer to the river.
“Down!” Malanowski threw himself prone.
The BMP’s gun barked once, slamming a 73mm HEAT round into the Leopard at point-blank range. The German tank rocked sideways and shuddered to a stop with smoke pouring out through the jagged hole torn in its armor. The corpse of its commander lay draped over his roof-mounted machine gun.
Before the Polish major could start to smile, another Leopard, invisible through the gray haze, avenged its fallen comrade with a single cannon round.
Whammm.
The BMP exploded, spraying sharp-edged metal in all directions. Malanowski could hear its trapped crew screaming in agony as they burned to death. He scrambled to his feet, hearing shouts in German to the north and east. The panzergrenadiers were practically right on top of them.
“On your feet! Move! Move!” He erupted into action, kicking and hauling stunned soldiers to their feet, then pushing them south — away from the burning BMP. With their commander urging them on, the battalion’s headquarters team faded deeper into the woods.
Exhausted, they stopped moving several kilometers and several hours later. It was nearly noon.
Malanowski took another swallow from his field canteen and swished the water around his mouth, before letting it slide down his parched throat. Then he sloshed what was left onto a handkerchief and used it to wipe away the worst of the sweat, smoke, and dust coating his face. With the sun high overhead, the
small copse of trees he and his soldiers were hiding in provided welcome shelter from the sweltering heat.
He laid the canteen aside, slumped back against the tree trunk, and studied what was left of his battalion. Besides the six survivors from his command staff, he’d found another twenty or thirty bedraggled infantrymen and footsore vehicle crewmen at the rally point. From there, they’d headed further south, intent on putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the victorious Germans.
Since they’d stopped to rest in this grove, more weary men had come stumbling in by ones and twos. Right now, he had roughly fifty soldiers under his command — armed only with small arms and a few light antitank weapons. The major grimaced. That was just ten percent of the force he’d taken into battle. The rest of his men were dead, captive, or scattered across the countryside.
Once night fell, he planned to lead this ragged, worn-out remnant of his battalion southward again, sticking close to the woods for as long as possible. With a little luck, they could commandeer enough civilian transport to rejoin their own army.
If not… Malanowski sat up straighter. He and his men would fight on as partisans, raiding EurCon’s exposed supply lines and rear areas.
Poland had been beaten before, but her soldiers had fought on. Malanowski had heard the stories again and again as a cadet. Now they would continue that tradition, fighting the enemy any way they could. They had lost a battle, not the war.
19TH PANZERGRENADIER BRIGADE, HIGHWAY 12, NEAR LUBIESZOW
A dull red glow in the west marked the setting sun and cast long black shadows over the highway. It was already dark under the trees lining both sides of the road.
The muted roar of heavy traffic could be heard for kilometers around — a steady rumble of powerful diesel engines and the squeaking, grinding, clanking of tank treads on pavement. Thousands of tanks, APCs, and trucks were wending their way through the gathering darkness. With the 19th Panzer-grenadier Brigade still in the lead, the 7th Panzer was pushing deeper into Poland.
Inside the dimly lit interior of his M577, Willi von Seelow braced himself against the APC’s motion with one hand and marked his map with the other. Led by Bremer in person, the brigade’s advance guard was already thirty-two kilometers beyond the Neisse River. Strong patrols from the division’s own recon battalion were probing even deeper — cutting telephone lines and setting up roadblocks to keep the news of their breakthrough from spreading. Although the 19th’s losses at Olszyna had been heavier than he’d hoped, they were making good progress. Since the morning battle, opposition had been light, almost nonexistent.
So far, at least, Summer Lightning was going according to plan.
Early that morning, III Corps had attacked far to the south, near Gorlitz, where the terrain was more open — better tank country. It was also the sector where the Poles had massed most of their defending forces. Reports indicated that the Polish troops — the 11th Mechanized Division and most of the 4th — were holding their ground in very heavy fighting.
And that was just what the EurCon high command wanted.
While III Corps pinned the enemy in place, the 7th Panzer and the rest of II Corps were pouring across the Neisse, plunging southeast through Poland’s western forests toward Legnica. Once there they would wheel south, trapping and annihilating the better part of two Polish mechanized divisions.
The Confederation’s political leaders were confident that a defeat of that magnitude would be enough to bring Poland to its knees and to the bargaining table. Then, with their larger ally humbled, the Czech and Slovak republics and rebel Hungary would be forced to do the same. All of Europe, from the Russian border west to the Atlantic, would be under the effective control of a single alliance. And once their Eastern European allies switched sides, America and Great Britain would surely see reason. Robbed of any continental foothold, they would face only the prospect of a long, bloody, uncertain war for uncertain aims. Isolationist sentiment was still strong in both countries. Pressure from their own people, weary of war for no conceivable gain, would force Washington and London to sign their own peace with Europe’s new superpower.
Willi von Seelow wasn’t so sure about that. Too much of the EurCon war plan depended on their enemies reacting slowly and predictably to the military moves already under way — dancing to the Franco-German tune. But what if the men in Warsaw and Washington had another melody in mind?
JUNE 6 — MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE, WARSAW
General Wieslaw Staron, Poland’s Minister of Defense, leaned over a map showing western Poland, studying the road net and terrain. Staron knew the map as well as he knew his own face in the mirror. Thirty years in uniform had given him a fine appreciation of the uses of terrain, and he now saw it not just as roads and rivers and forests, but in terms of movement rates, defensive strengths and weaknesses, and communications centers.
He’d moved troops around the Polish landscape for twenty-five of those years, starting with a platoon and working his way up to a full corps. While few in the Polish Army had engaged in combat, no one was better qualified to send it into battle.
Bushy brown eyebrows knitted together. He looked up and shook his head slowly. “I don’t like it, Ignacy.”
“No, sir.” Lieutenant General Ignacy Zdanski, the chief of the general staff, kept his face carefully impassive.
“Not at all.” Staron looked down at the map again. He tapped the river line near Gorlitz. “Two enemy divisions here — with a third in reserve. Yes?”
His younger, leaner subordinate nodded. “The 5th Panzer, 4th Panzergrenadier, and the French 3rd Armored. They’re across the river in several places, but not very far.”
The Defense Minister frowned. “And why not?”
“The force ratio isn’t in their favor.”
True enough, Staron thought, focusing on the map — trying to see the terrain as though he were a young tank commander again, and not a middle-aged military bureaucrat penned in a Warsaw office in the middle of the night. With only three divisions attacking against nearly two defending, the French and Germans couldn’t possibly hope to achieve a breakthrough in the south. According to the latest satellite and signals intelligence provided by the Americans, EurCon still had at least three uncommitted divisions on the border. Possibly more. So what were they playing at? Then he saw it. The EurCon commanders didn’t want to punch a hole in his lines there. They were playing a different game entirely.
He’d once heard inspiration described as “a zigzag streak of lightning in the brain.” This wasn’t like that at all. It was more like watching a curtain rise slowly, revealing a suddenly familiar stage. “The Ardennes!”
“Sir?”
Staron stabbed a thick finger down on the map. “The damned Ardennes! That’s what they’re trying to do to us. Here.” He traced the highway running from Olszyna to Legnica. “They’re coming this way. Through the forests. Cutting behind us.”
He thumped the table for emphasis. “Look at it, Ignacy! It all adds up.”
“Mother of God.” Zdanski turned pale. It did make sense. The communications failures plaguing that region since early yesterday morning weren’t random chance or the work of isolated raiding parties. They were the first warning signs of an oncoming tidal wave.
Staron put both fists on the table. He’d let misguided political considerations sway him into deploying half the Polish Army along the frontier in a show of force. But he’d be damned if he’d repeat all the mistakes of 1939 by allowing his units to be surrounded and rolled up by another German-led blitzkrieg.
The Defense Minister fired out directions. “Order the 4th and 11th Mechanized to withdraw. Immediately. Tell them to break contact and fall back to… here.” He circled a position near Wroclaw itself — seventy-five kilometers back from the Neisse. If his commanders moved fast enough, they should still be able to escape the closing jaws of the EurCon trap.
“But what about the President and Prime Minister? Will they agree to aband
on so much of our country to the enemy?”
“They’ll agree,” Staron growled. “Land can always be retaken. Soldiers are harder to come by. And Poland lives so long as she has a fighting army in the field!”
While his subordinate hurried away to issue the necessary orders, the Defense Minister returned to his study of the situation map. Even a successful withdrawal would only delay the inevitable. Matching two Polish divisions against two full enemy corps was a prescription for certain defeat. He needed to put more men on the battle line. But where could he pull them from?
Not from the east. Not yet. Russia’s declared neutrality in this conflict meant nothing. Marshal Kaminov and his cronies had already stabbed Poland in the back once for French gold. Who could say that he wouldn’t make the same kind of bargain again?
Staron’s eyes moved north, tracing the line of the Oder as it flowed toward the Baltic Sea. EurCon forces had made only a few scattered thrusts across the river there — small-scale battalion and company-sized raids that went nowhere. But were they trying to lull him into complacency before launching a bigger offensive later? No, he judged. France and Germany wanted a quick, uncomplicated war and a quick, decisive victory. They were making their main effort in the south.
He nodded to himself. He would gamble in the north.
HEADQUARTERS, POLISH 5TH MECHANIZED DIVISION, NEAR SWIECKO
The tall, rail-thin colonel in charge of the division’s intelligence section finished his briefing without notes, using only a map tacked to an easel and a long thin pointer. “In summary, at least three EurCon divisions have crossed the Neisse River at Forst and Olszyna. Our best current guess is that they’re aiming for Legnica in an attempt to pocket our units withdrawing from Gorlitz.”
Major General Jerzy Novachik watched the officers crammed into the headquarters tent react. All of them were worried by the news of the EurCon breakthrough south of them. Few were very surprised by it. As a show of force during the early stages of the crisis, Warsaw’s decision to deploy half the nation’s army in a thin, dispersed screen along the frontier had made some sense. Once hostilities flared, it had been an open invitation to military catastrophe.