Chapter 170: Chaotic Border
The German-Czech border.
In the mountains, the Czech border artillery position lay beneath a cold and moonless sky.
Colonel Ang Yo Hugo, dressed in the uniform of the Czech Army, exchanged a knowing glance with one of his trusted men before stepping into the telegraph communication room.
The orderly on night duty immediately stood and saluted. Seeing his regimental commander arrive in person at such an hour, he understood at once that something urgent had happened.
"Sir! What are your orders?"
Ang Yo's expression was stern, and his voice carried the weight of command.
"Order the First and Second Battalions to move their artillery to the designated coordinates immediately. Shell the German Army positions and the villages along the border. Quickly. This is a direct order from Prague."
The orderly froze.
The communication room was the nerve center of the regiment. Every official order passed through this room before being relayed to battalion headquarters. Yet he had received nothing from division command, much less from Prague.
To shell the border meant war.
His eyes shifted unconsciously toward the door. The guard standing there remained silent, but the rifle in his hands made the small room feel suddenly airless.
Could the colonel have received orders through a private radio?
The orderly's fingers hovered above the telegraph key. Thousands of lives rested on what he was about to transmit, and for a brief moment, discipline and fear clashed in his chest.
Before he could delay any further, Ang Yo noticed his hesitation.
The colonel's face tightened with both anxiety and excitement.
"Hurry," he snapped. "If you refuse to send it now, I will have every reason to consider you in violation of military orders."
Then he turned slightly.
"Guard."
The cold muzzle of a gun pressed against the orderly's lower back.
The last trace of resistance vanished.
With trembling fingers, the orderly began tapping the telegraph key, relaying the shelling order to every battalion headquarters. From there, the order passed swiftly through the chain of command, reaching battery officers, gunners, ammunition teams, and observation posts.
Moments later, the fuses of the VZ30 76.5 mm field guns were lit.
In the darkness of the mountain position, artillery crews moved with trained efficiency. Breeches opened. Shells were loaded. Commands rang out in clipped voices.
Then the first gun fired.
Whoosh.
Bang!
The shell tore through the night and exploded beyond the border. Fire bloomed in the distance, lighting the hills for an instant before collapsing into smoke and dust.
More guns followed.
One shell after another left the barrels, sparks flashing in the air before vanishing into the darkness. The already evacuated villages near the border were smashed apart under the bombardment. Roofs collapsed, church walls cracked, and empty streets were swallowed by flame.
The purpose had been achieved.
War had begun.
On the German side, Manstein lowered his binoculars.
From his observation position, the flash of Czech artillery had been as clear as a signal flare. The border incident had transformed into direct military provocation, and the army no longer needed to wait behind paper restraints and diplomatic language.
He turned and climbed back into his command tank.
Inside the cramped steel compartment, the smell of oil, leather, and cold metal filled the air. His officers were waiting for his command.
Manstein's voice was calm.
"All units advance. Objective, Prague."
At the same time, several Junkers Ju 52 transport planes slowly climbed from their runway and disappeared into the night.
Not long afterward, they reached the airspace above Karal City.
Inside the aircraft, the fully equipped soldiers of the First Elite Company, 101st Task Force Paratrooper Division, sat in silence. The men checked their straps, weapons, and ammunition by touch. Their new MP38 submachine guns were secured against their backs, and each soldier wore thick yet lightweight black leather armor that blended almost perfectly into the night.
The atmosphere in the cabin was heavy.
This was not a parade, nor a drill in front of cheering crowds. This was the first step of an operation that would decide whether Germany could tear open the Sudetenland before Prague understood what had happened.
"Arriving over target area."
The pilot turned and raised his hand.
"You may jump."
The cabin door was pushed open.
A violent gust of freezing wind rushed inside, cutting against their faces like knives. Below them, the city was a cluster of dim lights beneath drifting black clouds, unreal and silent, as if the earth itself were holding its breath.
"Three."
"Two."
"One."
"Jump!"
One squad after another leaped out of the transport planes.
Figures vanished into the night sky, dropping toward the earth like black shadows. At 800 meters, parachutes opened one after another.
White canopies bloomed in the darkness like pale dandelions. Following their squad leaders, the German paratroopers drifted silently toward their assigned targets.
The situation inside Karal City proved even smoother than expected.
Not only were the paratroopers not reported, but after residents saw the German national emblem on their uniforms, many showed unmistakable enthusiasm. Some rushed forward in whispers, while others pointed out streets, alleys, patrol routes, and official buildings marked on the soldiers' maps.
The Sudeten Germans had been waiting for this night.
Soon, the telephone lines connecting the Czech division headquarters to the front line units were cut.
Two teams of paratroopers, guided by local citizens, moved swiftly toward the Karal City Police Station and City Hall.
At City Hall, the communication room was breached by force. Before the Czech operators inside could react, the German soldiers opened fire. The room was filled with the sharp crack of submachine guns, and several communicators were cut down where they stood.
The police station offered slightly stronger resistance.
Some policemen raised their hands and surrendered the moment they saw German troops enter. Others chose to fight to the death. Before they were suppressed, they managed to send urgent telegrams to the border guards, reporting that German forces had already entered the city.
At the same time, agents from Germany's Internal and External Intelligence Department, already embedded within Karal City, began their own work.
Using captured communication channels, they sent false messages to the Czech division headquarters, fabricating the illusion that Prague had issued an order to abandon the Sudetenland, only for rebellious police officers to refuse obedience and cut the telephone lines.
Simultaneously, using another Czech military radio and the Czech Army's own ciphers, they sent dispatches to front line units along the border.
The wording was precise.
The tone was official.
The instruction was simple.
Execute the order of nonresistance.
For a time, three kinds of telegrams converged in the hands of Levin Lar, commander of the First Border Division, and Kalie De Lanade, commander of the Second Infantry Division.
The first came from other units along the border, urgently asking why the artillery had opened fire.
The other two were far more disturbing.
One was an urgent telegram from Karal City Hall. It claimed that the capital had demanded an immediate cessation of resistance and ordered the army to execute the resolution returning the Sudetenland to the approaching German forces. It further stated that angry police officers, refusing to obey Prague's decision, had cut the telephone lines.
The other claimed that German troops had already entered the city and requested immediate support.
The question was simple.
Which message was real?
Without the telephone lines, there was no way to hear another commander's voice directly. Everything had to pass through dots, dashes, ciphers, and signatures. In peacetime, such a system was disciplined and orderly. In a crisis, it became a fog in which truth and falsehood wore the same uniform.
After a short but tense discussion, the two division commanders reached a consensus.
Levin Lar spoke first, his expression grim.
"Kalie, I will have the telegraph operator contact Prague General Headquarters immediately to confirm the authenticity of the order."
He pointed at the map.
"You will contact the front line units at once. Dispatch a cavalry company to the artillery regiment and order them to stand down. At the same time, send them a direct order from division headquarters."
His voice lowered.
"I suspect the artillery regiment may have encountered German troops moving toward the border and organized a counterattack on its own initiative. If Prague's order is real, then we must prevent the situation from escalating any further."
Kalie De Lanade nodded.
"Understood."
Levin immediately instructed the telegraph operator to adjust the frequency and attempt to establish contact with the General Headquarters in Prague.
Kalie personally drafted a document in his own distinctive style, then ordered the operator to send it to the front line combat units.
Compared to the tense but still orderly division headquarters, the front line units were already in complete chaos.
The armored vehicles and tanks of the German Third Armored Division had entered the combat zone.
Czech officers at the front did not know whether the order to allow passage was genuine. They dared not open fire, but neither did they dare to simply let German tanks pass through their defensive line. As a result, the two sides fell into a strange and fragile standoff.
Mika Ouro, commander of a Czech infantry regiment, felt as though his skull were being split open by confusion.
Two telegrams lay before him.
Their tone was almost identical.
One ordered him to stand down.
The other ordered him to allow the Germans through and hand over command authority to a German officer.
He could no longer determine which one was authentic.
With Prague unreachable and the division headquarters sending unclear instructions, he could only place his trust in the First Artillery Regiment, to which he had already sent a cavalry company to verify the situation.
"Send a telegram to the First Artillery Regiment!" Mika roared. "Damn it, ask them whether we should let the Germans pass or stop them. We cannot contact Prague, and the orders contradict each other. What in God's name is happening?"
At the same time, the cavalry company had not yet reached the artillery position.
Ang Yo Hugo ignored that fact completely.
The moment he received Mika Ouro's inquiry, he immediately instructed the telegraph operator to reply.
"Send this to all units. Tell them we have confirmed the latest order through the cavalry company. The government has abandoned the Sudetenland and demands that all units withdraw from their defensive areas, disarm, and await transfer in order to avoid provoking a full scale war."
The telegraph operator stared at him, pale faced.
Ang Yo continued coldly.
"Add one more line. Any subsequent telegram refuting this order is a false message sent by rebellious forces."
The operator understood exactly what his superior was doing.
This was treason.
It was a betrayal of his army, his government, and every soldier holding the border.
But the gun at his back had not been removed.
With stiff fingers and a face drained of blood, he typed out the message.
Soon, the telegram reached Mika Ouro.
Having received what seemed to be confirmation from the artillery regiment, Mika no longer dared to hesitate. If the capital had truly chosen surrender and he fired on the German Army, then his regiment would become the spark that ignited an all out war.
He gave the order.
The regiment was to disarm and let the Germans pass.
Most of the other units that received the telegram made the same choice. A small portion still hesitated, but faced with the crushing pressure of German armor, even they eventually chose to believe the message.
Thus, without losing a single soldier, Manstein's Third Armored Division passed through the heavily fortified border.
…..
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