Day five was here, Gisela had picked up reports of the exhaustion of the 11th army and despite the gains made by the 7th and 9th armies, it was clear that this battle of attrition was sapping Saunders strength away. Her goal however was to still prevent the 8th army from capturing Kowel and the only way she thought by doing this was encirclement. Looking at the map, she knew the attack of the 11th army wasn't the best place to attack as Lola had enough strength to still conduct defensive measures and not offensive ones. The 3rd army on the other hand had been considerably weakened by Kay's attack the previous day and decided that was the best place to attack.
Megumi's 3rd army was mostly a collection of other units as well as the intact Guards that hadn't participated in yesterday's attack. Most of her units were at relatively half to low strength so she didn't have much to work with, most of the cavalry they had was needed for the 7th, 8th and 9th armies so she didn't have the cavalry to cross the river. Gisela knew that an attack on the 3rd army will hopefully bring disaster and get Alexandra to relieve some of the pressure by diverting the 8th army away from Kowel. Jajka was keeping a look out as she spotted the Kuromorimine students heading down the hill to them, but the river seemed to be the major barrier that stopped them the day previously and Megumi hoped to use what she learned and stop the enemy in their tracks.
"They're coming, get ready to attack." Megumi called out as the guards' students ran over to fill their ranks. They pointed their rifles down as the Kuromorimine students began to splash their way across the river. The Maxim guns began opening fire as the Kuromorimine students were attempting to forge their way across the river. Some of the students were struck down while attempting this hazardous crossing but this was the only effective way of crossing. Megumi spotted the students attempting to cross the river while pulling out the revolver. "Now!" She called out. The students with rifles began opening fire as Kuromorimine students were arriving on the other side and attempting to climb up the bank. The Stokhod River favored the defenders instead of the attackers while the Kuromorimine students attempted to climb up. Megumi fired her revolver down into the crowd and took out a couple Kuromorimine students The Kuromorimine students attempted to unscrew and chuck their grenades into the enemy trench as it was a means of blowing up the machine gun nests much like Saunders had done so far to take out Dual Alliance strongpoints. The machine guns were tilted down and they began firing much more directly at the Kuromorimine students as many more were struck with plastic pellets. Megumi finished firing the Nagant Revolver before ducking back and proceeded to reload. Reloading a revolver such as this was much more of a chore than being quick and simple. She had to manually eject the empty casings out one at a time and load the revolver up one at a time. After a minute or reloading. She got up and began firing again. While reloading many Kuromorimine students had been taken down attempting to climb up the steep banks. Eventually the Kuromorimine students had enough and began to retreat back to the other side of the river.
"Look at them run. They weren't able to cross the river and take us on." Jajka called out with excitement. Megumi watched as Kuromorimine wasn't able to stand up to them and they had held off the counter attack. Megumi picked up the phone to Alexandra.
"Alexandra, Kuromorimine had counter-attacked at the Stokhod River but we held them off and the attack had failed." Megumi reported to Alexandra that the attack hadn't gone anywhere and the frontline hadn't changed. Alexandra was pleased to hear about this.
"Great, Nelly has told me her army has just woken up and is moving into position to advance on Kowel. The counter attack that had failed is good news. Hopefully they had been weakened enough for us to move in and break through." Alexandra replied. She was relatively excited that many Kuromorimine students had been taken out and this meant their job would probably be easier. She could be wrong but she was praying for the breakthrough.
Alexei meanwhile was preparing to advance with the 9th army as a means of trying to divert Kuromorimine's attention from Alexandra so the attack against Kowel could go as smoothly as possible. He was mixed in terms of trying to get the attack to go somewhere as Azusa could have brought up heavy artillery. The students had dug their saps trying to get as close to the enemy trenches as possible without alerting them. Alexei was ready to attack.
"Okay the main mission is to divert Kuromorimine away from Alexandra and advance further. She is counting on us." Alexei told the group that they needed to be prepared to attack. Alexei pulled out his whistle and blew into it. The trench saps opened as the flood of students began to pour out of their dugouts and began running to the enemy. Azusa meanwhile had brought up the heavy guns as she was ready to blunt this advance dead in its tracks.
The students charged out en masse and the middle schoolers were firing away with their rifles and machine guns as they were determined to cut this wave down to prevent them from getting into the trenches. Azusa was watching patiently as the students were attempting to breach her defenses and she decided to take action. She motioned her hand forward and ordered the heavy artillery cannons to fire. The cannons did so as they were being used in a last ditch attempt to stop Alexei from advancing and breaking through. The massive firecracker rounds exploded as large sections of Alexei's advancing army was cut down to put it mildly. The Cavalry from the 7th and 9th armies saw this and decided to act by launching another swift attack in an attempt to break through. However with the 9th army's infantry completely crushed, this made the cavalry easy pickings of machine guns and the artillery which Azusa used again which completely devastated the cavalry. Alexei was watching as this wasn't going well for any of them.
"Okay I'm calling off the advances, we are unable to break through." Alexei told what remained of the 9th army that their advance had been completely blunted by heavy artillery and they were unable to advance. Whatever manpower Alexei had remaining would become defensive as he had no hope of continuing the advance. Azusa had stopped another major part of the offensive so with three out of five armies deactivated, Kuromorimine and its allies could focus on one thing, preventing Alexandra from capturing Kowel.
Alexandra was on her horse as she was getting ready to declare final victory over her enemy and use whatever strength she had to take the final objective that mattered to her. One of the students decided to call her as Konstantina had rode up to her and decided to give the message.
"Alexandra, the message is from Alexei, he has reported that he was unable to advance and all of his offensive assets had been crushed by Azusa who has battered the 9th army with heavy artillery." Konstantina began. Alexandra didn't respond but in her mind, she was completely furious about this turn of events. This meant taking on Kuromorimine was going to be harder and she hoped that she would act quickly enough to seize Kowel. The artillery had fired the last remainder of their shells and whatever artillery ammunition remained of the three deactivated armies had also been used up as well meaning they had no more artillery ammunition left.
"Okay he did all he could now it's up to us." Alexandra told Konstantina before she got out her saber. Nelly and the Gregor legion were ready to go as well and the 3rd army was going to launch an assisting attack to get over the Stokhod River. "Okay this is all or nothing in this attack, hopefully we have rested and have the strength to take the last objective. Now let's attack!" Alexandra called out. The whistle blew as the remaining armies went on the attack but Alexandra didn't know was the fact that she long lost the incentive and the Kowel capture wasn't going to be hers.
Nelly and the group charged forward first as they were going to act as the explosive units to break through the machine gun positions. Maho however knew how to conduct the defense to prevent the breakthrough. She flicked her hand in her order to fire the artillery. The artillery began firing away as the Saunders students continued to charge at the trench. The firecracker shells landed close to their own trenches but this was a good thing as the enemy students were coming close to the trench and they were desperately firing away. Alexandra looked ahead, the infantry attack was foundering as many students were getting taken out. Alexandra looked around to see the cavalry squadrons and a few remaining armored cars she had left, she was going to use these into a single fist to break through the 4th army and advance to Kowel. The armored cars went in first as they were going to attempt to break through the defenses but for Maho, the armored cars were a big threat to the success of the defense. She flicked her hand first to take out the armored cars. The artillery fired away and began to knock out the armored cars one at a time and within a minute, the armored cars were all taken out. Alexandra charged in with the cavalry in a last ditch attempt to finally break the enemy lines and take the objective but the Kuromorimine students began firing away as the cavalry was quickly blunted by concentrated rifle, artillery and machine gun fire. Many students fell off of their horses as their horses scattered away and the students were unable to retaliate. Alexandra and Konstantina tried their best to continue the push but for her, the offensive was quickly being cut down as Konstantina gave the order.
"Fall back we're going to get slaughtered." Konstantina called out. Alexandra, Konstantina and the rest of the cavalry fell back. For Maho this was what she wanted. Alexandra's 8th army was unable to break through. Alexandra rode back to camp as her phone rang with a text from Megumi. It read thus:
The offensive by the 3rd army was unable to cross the Stokhod River and we sustained heavy casualties as a result.
Alexandra was silent. Not only was Megumi unable to breakthrough but Alexei was blunted along with her failure to take Kowel. Alexandra knew that the offensive was over.
The students would finally return to their schools after the five days of the offensive. Alexandra was speaking to Megumi, Nathalia and Konstantina about the results of the whole offensive and the results that followed.
"This offensive has hit our school army hard and if this was real life statistics, the offensive of yours would easily net up to a million casualties." Megumi began. She knew this offensive was a very costly multi-day affair and Alexandra was remembering how Lola managed to lose three entire infantry groups in a single day of constant attacks.
"But it was successful in the end." Konstantina told Megumi that the offensive, although costly, had achieved its goals. "We managed to save BC Freedom and Anzio in the end as both of them had to divert a lot of their strength away from fighting both schools to shore up the lines. We had captured Lutsk, Czernowitz, Kolomea, Detalyn, Brody and Stanislau back from the enemy. Although we weren't able to capture Kowel, Lemberg, Pinsk and Przemyśl."
"That's good. As long as we were able to destroy the enemy we're okay with that. The students won't stop talking about the offensive and I'm kind of happy about it." Alexandra told Konstantina that the offensive, although having to pay a heavy price meant they were able to break through and it was a high point for the school, the offensive only stopped when Saunders ran out of supplies and got stuck along with Kuromorimine reinforcing the lines.
"I'm glad to hear." Konstantina replied. "This offensive was one of the worst crises that the Dual Alliance had to face as if real life statistics were applied, the Dual Alliance would have lost 1.5 million soldiers, many of them taken prisoner and Kuromorimine losses would be around 350 thousand. And because of this offensive, it broke the back of the Dual Alliance and it will never recover its strength."
"Our efforts had hit them that hard? That's excellent to hear." Alexandra told Konstantina that she was impressed with all of this. Seeing this one offensive completely decimate an entire school was excellent to hear about in Alexandra's case. And the Kuromorimine casualties that were mixed in meant that they had done a lot of damage. Alexandra was quick to learn but was this victory going to be one that they could continue to build their success under? Only time would tell. Lola entered the room as she had a piece of paper in her hands. She was smiling as she was super excited to hear about this.
"Well the news is in." Lola began. She handed the slip of paper to the group. Megumi took the piece of paper and began to unfold it. She began to read it over.
"This is excellent news to hear." Megumi told the group.
"What's excellent?" Alexandra asked. Megumi and Lola turned their heads to Alexandra as if she didn't know about the news.
"Mahou has announced that Count High School has joined us and has declared war on the Central Powers. We have got ourselves another ally." Megumi told Alexandra. Alexandra was excited about getting another ally but this left Alexandra a little worried.
"True that they joined the right alliance but they joined at the wrong time." Alexandra began. "They had just made their decision and sent the news after our offensive had concluded. This means Manami and the rest of Kuromorimine have enough freed up students to be sent to Count High School and invade them properly."
"Should we flood them with our own troops to try to hold them off and reinforce Count High School proper?" Megumi suggested if this was going to be the case to defend their new fresh allies. Alexandra knew that the front had been extended southward into Count High School and left less reserves along the rest of the front. The situation was now a double edged sword for her.
"Yes. And do it quickly so losses aren't catastrophic." Alexandra gave the order. Megumi nodded before she walked off to send their reply to Count High School to tell them that significant reinforcements were on the way. Alexandra needed to figure out what Mahou had in mind and figure out a new plan to meet up and try to collapse the Dual Alliance completely. She needed to get them down and fur her plan to succeed. Alexandra got up and headed off. "I'm off to think about what we are about this news and what to do about them."
Alexandra knew she was finding the situation turning against them once again, with Count High School having declared war on the Central Powers, she didn't know how well prepared the school was going to be. She spotted Kay before she flat out ignored her. She felt something brewing within her that she wanted to blow up. She turned as she heard Kay talking to someone. Someone she wasn't really comfortable with.
"We've opened up the grain reserves and we're making as many buns as possible. This is for the offensive we've pulled off and we're going to be using all of this to celebrate. A nice big party for us all, the biggest one we have seen yet." Kay began speaking. Her friends were on board.
"Yes. celebration and party time for all of us." One of her friends told her. "Set the party up, we're going to be having fun tonight." Alexandra was horrified when she heard this. She didn't know how much grain Kay was going to use up and their limited supply was going to be used to help feed the people, especially with many students away fighting Kuromorimine and her allies. She decided to get out a piece of paper and began to write on it. She wanted her message to be heard loud and clear if she was to begin trying to make some kind of change. She didn't know where it was going to come from or who was willing to help her. Once done, she decided to find a stapler before she began to staple the message to the board. The angry message read thus:
KAY YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A SILLY IDIOT WHOM AFTER WEEKS OF WAR STILL DON'T KNOW THE FIRST AND MOST BASIC LESSONS OF WARFARE.
Alexandra huffed, hopefully she could start to convince the public to turn against Kay and not attend the party that she was hosting. She didn't know if her message was going to be broadcasted to the rest of the world.
Meanwhile in Count High School. Mizuki, Noemi and Ileana were busy doing their chores as Noemi was busy chopping wood. Ileana was cleaning up the pieces while Mizuki was getting fresh logs for them to chop.
"Look at her go." Noemi began. There was a knock on the fence, it was Mahou. She walked in carrying a few slips of blue paper. She walked up to the three of them as they were busy with their work.
"It's time." Mahou told the three of them. Noemi looked up. Mahou had been on the fence regarding mobilizing for war but with her decision made to fight along the side of the Entente powers. They knew they needed to be ready. The three of them stopped what they were doing and began to follow Mahou. War had finally come to the school.
The Count High School students had been mobilized and they were now marching with their M1893 Mannlicher rifles in their hands with bayonets attached. They were going to use their strength against the Dual Alliance whom they believed Saunders had weakened down for them. Mahou was hoping for a smooth ride while the students chanted among themselves.
"La arme, cei de-un sânge şi de-o lege! La arme, pentru neam şi pentru rege! Când Patria ne cheamă sub drapel, Datori sunt toţi copiii ei s-alerge, Să-l apere, să moară pentru el!" The students would chant to themselves, they marched in their formation as they were heading off to join their Saunders allies. What Mahou didn't realize was the fact that her school was poorly prepared for this war.
[A/N]: A short chapter but this is more or less the conclusion of the five day slugging match that Alexandra had hosted. Saunders was hit pretty hard with this one offensive and the Dual Alliance had its back snapped in half because of it. Kuromorimine is going to have to do more work if they are to pick up the Dual Alliance's slack. Looks like Manami isn't happy with being "Shackled to a Corpse."
On some more exciting news, Count High School has joined the war after seeing Saunders own success, however, they joined the war after the offensive had concluded and not during the offensive. This is going to have some consequences going forward in the next chapter. The next chapter will be Count High School's battles as well as Saunders attempting to support them.
I also plan on doing a couple more battles until something big happens in Saunders. Kay has opened up the grain reserves and Alexandra isn't happy about this. She thinks they still need to ration resources to try to keep the populace from going hungry. Now with these grain reserves opened. Alexandra thinks they will quickly run out of grain and despite getting some supply of it from other schools, she doesn't know if this will be enough.
See you later.