Those Skilled at War Have No Glorious Exploits

At the Prussian Army headquarters in Poznan, Moltke was busy convening a military conference to discuss whether they should retake Poznan.

From a geographical standpoint, Poznan lay at the heart of the Polish Plain and was both a transportation hub and an industrial center. Naturally, it was better to keep it in their own hands.

Situated on the Polish Plain, Poznan had nothing to do with strategically advantageous terrain. As a city deep in the interior, it had no need to worry about foreign threats, and naturally possessed few defensive works.

On the surface, it should have been easy to capture. In reality, the opposite was true. The main force of the Russian Eighth Army was holed up inside the city, and to defend it, they had driven all the civilians out of the urban area.

In later generations, this might have been a good thing, since it meant the Prussian Army would not need to worry about civilian casualties and could go all out.

But this era was different. Artillery had limited destructive power; destroying a city required vast amounts of ammunition and time.

To let the Warsaw garrison delay for as long as possible, the Prussian Army had left behind a great deal of artillery ammunition when withdrawing. The ammunition they carried with them was not much.

Even if supplies could be sent from home, it would not help. The Russians had clearly decided to fight street by street, and this was not something that could be settled in a day or two. The Prussian Army did not have enough time to waste here.

The Berlin Government had repeatedly ordered them to return quickly and deal with the Russian force that was nearly at Berlin's doorstep.

As for the Poznan battlefield, only the military was still striving. Most