Moltke

Chapter 660: Moltke

Under the thunder of artillery, the sky gradually darkened. The sounds of distant slaughter and battle cries rang without end; perhaps by tomorrow morning, there would be several thousand more corpses.

Marshal Moltke, who had just arrived at the front, raised his binoculars and stared fixedly ahead. From so far away, all he could see was the smoke from exploding shells.

After a moment, Moltke let out a sigh. The situation was far worse than he had anticipated. Judging from the artillery fire alone, it was clear that the Russians were no longer what they had once been.

Night fell, and both sides tacitly halted the fighting. A sinister wind began to howl furiously, as though it sought to awaken the souls of the dead.

Inside the Prussian command headquarters, Marshal Moltke, who had come to oversee the battle, began to rage.

"The war has been going on for a week, and you still haven't taken a tiny Brest. What a pack of incompetents.

"Speak! Weren't you all very capable in peacetime? Every one of you looked down on everyone else, boasting that you would defeat Russia in three months and hold a victory parade in Saint Petersburg within half a year.

"And now? You can't even take Brest. Forget about parading in Saint Petersburg—at this rate, even our strategy of cutting off the Dnieper River will go bankrupt."

Everyone lowered their heads as though receiving instruction. There was no helping it; this battle had indeed been fought terribly.

According to the General Staff's plan, the Prussian army was supposed to capture Brest within three days, then move south along the Dnieper River to seize Kyiv and cut off the Russian army's waterborne supply route.

The heart of this strategy was speed. The Russians lacked everything except