"You missed a point? Speak up! Are you trying to keep us in suspense?"
Seeing Lelouch pause so dramatically, Major General Karl urged him to get straight to the point.
Lelouch elaborated on his analysis. "As far as I know, when the war first broke out, the Empire never expected Britannia to join the fight. Many believed that if we marched through Belgin fast enough to shock them into submission, Britannia would simply hold its nose and accept the established fact.
"But what actually happened? The Britannians decisively seized the opportunity to enter the war. Clearly, the Empire's high command severely underestimated the threat they posed! The Empire never realized that Britannia had long viewed us as their greatest rival, determined to destroy us at any cost.
"Now, our forces have nearly annihilated the Belgin army. Yet, right before this, the Britannian Minister of the Navy publicly promised to evacuate the Belgin forces by sea. When word of this reaches the international community, what will other nations think?
"They will think that not only is the Britannian army incompetent, but the Royal Navy is just as useless! The very allies the Royal Navy swore to protect were slaughtered by the Empire before their ships even arrived!
"Given Minister Warton's petty and vengeful nature, along with his history of bold and reckless gambles, do you really think the Royal Navy won't retaliate at all costs just to save face?
"Looking solely at the land battlefield, this forty-kilometer coastal corridor from Dunkirk to Ostend is indeed impossible to flank. The defenders could use this chokepoint to bleed the attackers dry.
"But what if the enemy deploys their navy? If they flank and bombard the German Army from the sea, could our brave soldiers really hold out in the ruins of two small towns against the barrage of twelve-Brit-inch battleship guns?"
Hearing this, Major General Karl finally felt a lingering chill of fear.Without a doubt, holding the line in the ruins of Nieuwpoort against direct fire from six-Brit-inch light cruiser guns was already pushing the limits of the men.
If battleships arrived—even outdated Pre-dreadnoughts—the German Army would be wiped out before they knew what hit them.
It was a simple truth, but these men were all army generals. They had no deep understanding of naval warfare and had not considered the possibility.
Furthermore, their earlier discussion had been rushed and preliminary. No one had the time to sit down and analyze the situation in depth.
Yet, Lelouch had been put on the spot just as abruptly; he had exactly the same lack of time to think.
Despite that, he had responded without hesitation, identifying the crux of the issue with absolute clarity.
Lelouch's intelligence, quick reflexes, and deep grasp of military strategy left a profound impression on Major General Karl.
"Indeed... If the Brit Nation suffers a massive loss of face and retaliates without regard for the cost, the Empire won't be able to withstand it. Withdrawing the troops from Nieuwpoort as soon as possible is the right call. It is a pity. It was such a perfect chokepoint to bleed the enemy, but we have no choice but to abandon it..."
Major General Karl wrung his hands, sighing in frustration.
However, just when they thought the situation was an unsolvable dead end, Lelouch pointed out a sliver of opportunity.
"There is still a chance here," Lelouch said. "We just need to change our approach and plan things far more meticulously."
Major General Karl's eyes lit up, his spirits lifting. He made an excuse to clear the room, keeping only Lelouch and Colonel List by his side as they moved to a private conference room to continue the discussion in secret.
"Tell me the details!" Major General Karl urged, having discarded the dignified reserve expected of a general. Right now, all he wanted was to secure more merit.
This was especially true because the men of the 6th Army, like Major General Karl, hailed from the Kingdom of Bavaria, one of the four southern German states. They were a minority within the German Army, constantly suppressed by the Junker Officer Corps of the north.
If they allowed jealousy to blind them to true talent in this situation, they would never break out of their marginalized position.
The weaker their faction was, the more they needed to band together and promote strictly on merit.
Sensing the general's full backing and courteous treatment, Lelouch did not hold back in detailing his strategy.
"To pull this off, I believe we need to solve two distinct problems," Lelouch explained. "First, we must ensure that the forces left behind in Nieuwpoort to delay the enemy can safely retreat once enemy heavy artillery locks down the coastal highway.
"Therefore, they cannot rely on the coastal highway as their only escape route. That road can be utterly obliterated by battleship guns at any time. The only way to avoid naval bombardment is to route our retreat through the flooded zones south of the highway. To accomplish this, we will need to requisition a large number of small boats and skiffs from the surrounding area.
"Normally, no boats sail through those flooded areas because they used to be farmland. However, since those zones were created when the Yser Canal's dikes burst, we can simply drag the small riverboats from the canal straight over into the floodplains..."
Major General Karl waved his hand. "That won't be an issue! Requisitioning enough canal boats to evacuate a few battalions of infantry is well within our capabilities. I'll personally assign someone to handle it."
With that problem solved, they could at least guarantee the safety of the decoy rearguard after their delaying mission was complete.
Battleships were devastating weapons, but they could not sail into a flooded canal zone. With the coastal highway acting as a barrier and lacking proper line of sight, the enemy fleet would have no way to accurately bombard small boats navigating the waters on the other side of the landmass.
Lelouch then moved on to the next critical step. "The second point is that the Empire's navy must secretly and swiftly deploy a high-speed fleet capable of destroying whatever bombardment force the Royal Navy sends. To pull that off, we are going to need some form of intelligence deception.
"Ultimately, this will allow the Empire's navy to use numerical superiority to crush the enemy's outdated warships. As far as I know, the Royal Navy's most advanced main fleet is anchored up north in Scotland at Scapa Flow, which is much too far away.
"The only force capable of reaching the Belgin coast in time is the Channel Fleet, which is stationed in Dover and Portsmouth. According to public intelligence, the Channel Fleet's capital ships consist of only three Pre-dreadnoughts, right? And it's highly unlikely that all of those relics are even combat-ready.
"But the biggest hurdle here is coordinating with the naval commanders. We need to find an admiral willing to trust our judgment and take the risk of dispatching a fleet..."
Listening to Lelouch make such grandiose proposals, Colonel List's expression turned troubled.
The scope of this plan was too massive, far exceeding the 6th Army's authority to coordinate.
Fearing the general would grow angry, he stepped in to pump the brakes. "Lieutenant Lelouch... don't you think you're overstepping your bounds? An inter-branch joint operation of this scale is not something we have any right to dictate!
"The Junker Officer Corps' obsession with seniority and conservative tactics is even worse in the navy than it is in the army! Pitching a whimsical, rushed plan like this is utterly impossible! Don't drag the general into this mess. We should just abandon Nieuwpoort and be done with it."
However, even as Colonel List poured cold water on the idea, Major General Karl's expression only grew more solemn and focused.
He pondered the plan deeply for a long time before waving his hand. "List! Do not dismiss his ideas so quickly. The fact that Lieutenant Lelouch is thinking at this level is a good thing. Whether or not it can be executed is a different matter, but we must allow our men to speak freely.
"Besides, his proposal isn't entirely impossible to push through... It's true that the vast majority of high-ranking naval commanders have no ties to us. But there are a few exceptions from our Bavarian Faction. Take Rear Admiral Hipper, for example. He commands the First Raiding Squadron and hails from our very own Kingdom of Bavaria. In his youth, he even served as an adjutant to my royal brother, Duke Rupprecht...
"Furthermore, Rear Admiral Hipper is famous throughout the navy for his audacity. In the three months since the war broke out, he has already led three battlecruisers in bombardment raids against several Brit Nation ports! Each time, he unleashes a few rapid salvos and escapes at top speed, and he has yet to lose a single capital ship.
"With his daring nature, if there truly is an opportunity to earn merit by annihilating the enemy's Pre-dreadnoughts, he will absolutely take the bait! But we need to be absolutely certain our intelligence estimates are accurate, and we must ensure a guaranteed victory... If we can promise that, I will personally telegraph my royal brother, and have him send a telegram directly to Rear Admiral Hipper..."
Major General Karl muttered as he worked through the logistics, but the moment those words left his mouth, Lelouch threw etiquette aside and interrupted.
"General! Your tactical decisions are always brilliant and prudent, but discussing this via telegram... I fear that will introduce far too much risk. The Empire's communication networks are far from secure."
Lelouch spoke with frantic urgency, but he had no other choice.
As a transmigrator, he knew exactly how badly the Empire's telegraph codes had been cracked during World War I. Their communications were practically an open book to the enemy.
So, even though he lacked hard evidence, he had to boldly seize upon whatever minor clues were available to force the general to take the issue seriously. He would just have to find a way to justify his claims after the fact.
Besides, before Lelouch even brought up this entire plan, he had already settled on one crucial fact: if they wanted to pull this off, radio deception was an absolute necessity.
In fact, if they couldn't feed the Britannians a steady stream of reverse radio deception, he would rather pretend he had never spoken up today and abandon this golden opportunity entirely!
Major General Karl's expression darkened. As much as he had come to trust Lelouch, this claim was too severe to ignore. "Lieutenant Lelouch! I'll accept everything you've proposed so far, but you cannot make baseless accusations like that! You are merely a lieutenant. What gives you the right to claim that the Empire's communication networks are severely compromised?"
Lelouch's mind raced. He knew he absolutely could not mention that the Empire's radio codebooks had already been cracked. It would sound completely unhinged.
Even though he had read the history books and knew that the Britannians had salvaged an intact codebook from a sunken German submarine back in August, he had no reason to know that right now. No one would believe him, and they would likely dismiss him as a lunatic.
Fortunately, Lelouch had another excuse prepped. He recalled the undersea cable laid down by the Siemens Company along the coasts of Belgin and the Netherlands before the war. Just three days ago, it had been severed by a Britannian cruiser.
Until now, the high command had no idea what had caused the cable to fail.
As Lelouch had personally overseen the maintenance for that exact line, he had unquestionable authority on the subject.
Seizing the perfect opportunity to make a mountain out of a molehill, Lelouch delivered a perfectly logical analysis. "A few days ago, our platoon was temporarily dispatched to Nieuwpoort by the army group headquarters to inspect an undersea telegraph cable. My subsequent investigations confirmed that the line was severed exactly three kilometers offshore.
"If the enemy hadn't obtained the precise coordinates from the undersea cable's blueprints in advance, there is no way they could have pinpointed the line to dredge it up and cut it. I have repeatedly investigated the three parties who had access to those blueprints. The Siemens Company has no reason to commit treason, and the Belgins did not have the time to sell the intelligence before we attacked. That means there is a ninety-nine percent chance that a Britannian spy has infiltrated the Netherlands' state-owned telegraph company!
"I don't know how much influence this Britannian spy has inside the Netherlands telegraph company, nor do I know how many of our communication secrets they've intercepted. But it never hurts to be careful. We absolutely cannot discuss this plan via telegraph. In fact, we can use this opportunity to beat them at their own game. We can use our telegraph lines to test if our codes have been compromised or if our physical cables are being monitored..."