Reincarnated as Nikolai II

Blood flowed endlessly, giving winter no chance to freeze, turning into rivers of blood.

It didn’t take long for a hellscape worthy of the Chinese idiom "corpses piled like mountains, blood flowing like rivers" to unfold on the northwestern front.

"Hey, I’m out of bullets! Someone give me ammo!"

"Just pick up whatever you find and use it!"

"Just keep running!"

Roman’s army charges forward.

"The enemy... comes like waves."

"These crazy Tatar bastards... there’s no end to them."

"They... they want us to stop that?"

Hindenburg’s army must stop them.

The stakes in this massive poker game between Hindenburg and Roman were hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

Like pawns sacrificing their lives to advance one step in chess, the soldiers became pixels in the grand picture painted by these two commanders.

"4th Army’s 16th Corps has been annihilated."

"Deploy the 14th Corps along with the riflemen. Is the 3rd Caucasian Corps all that’s left in the 4th Army?"

"That’s correct."

"3rd Corps standby. Deploy immediately when 14th Corps is annihilated."

Terrifying orders fall from the commander’s lips.

"Chief of Staff! The enemy is launching wave attacks! Our forces are being pushed back!"

"Didn’t you hear the order to hold position! Go make them hold the line whether you have to shoot the reserve troops or charge in yourself!"

Below them, staff officers and officers try their best to fulfill these orders.

"General Rünken’s 17th Corps has engaged with Russian 14th Corps! Continuing to face off!"

"Attach Lieutenant General Morgen’s 3rd Reserve Division behind Rünken. They’ll surely come with SC or TC attached behind them too."

"The 3rd Reserve Division is composed of conscripts. They’re bound to be pushed back compared to the enemy."

"If we attach Lieutenant General Brecht’s 1st Cavalry Division too, they should somehow be able to hold."

While Roman, who had been sparing lives until now, ordered deaths without batting an eye, Hindenburg also didn’t hesitate to move according to Roman’s orders.

"Tell General Zhilinsky I’ll attach a Guard Division, so go."

"Where... sir?"

"Where else but where the 3rd Caucasian Corps was annihilated this morning?"

The orders continue endlessly.

"They’ve sent more. Let’s send all our remaining Bavarian divisions too."

Similarly, Hindenburg’s responses don’t stop.

"Pardon my boldness, but with the enemy’s superior numbers, perhaps we should avoid battle..."

"Look here, Ludendorff. This gambling house isn’t somewhere you can leave just because you won some money. If it were, Roman wouldn’t have come out from the line he made himself."

Even as his staff questioned the commander’s decision out of fear, Hindenburg didn’t stop.

"But at this rate, our forces will just die for nothing!"

"Then where else do we stop the enemy if not here? Now that Ivan has rebuilt the Polish railways, they’ll connect rails to Posen? Eisenhüttenstadt? Will their offensive weaken in Brandenburg after we’re driven from Poland?"

"Commander, perhaps a gradual delaying action would-"

"Damn it, you know too! We can’t retreat. Retreating now won’t weaken the enemy’s supply capacity, nor strengthen ours! It’ll just... put Berlin in danger."

The enemy supplies from 1,500km in their homeland?

Now that those supply lines have been perfected with Polish railways, nothing changes even if 1,500km becomes 1,600km or 1,700km.

Likewise, even if we retreat from here, the bear that’s already left its cave will keep advancing endlessly in search of food.

So here.

We must stop the enemy.

’Just once. If we can stop them just once, there’s hope.’

If we can make that hungry bear return to its cave wounded.

Then this Eastern Front will regain peace.

Back to the usual where only one unit gets half-destroyed. Back to daily life where only hundreds or thousands die crawling out of trenches when engaging the enemy.

Therefore, Hindenburg thought he must be firm when dealing with this animal.

That he has no intention of moving the front line here.

So they should get lost back behind their defense line too.

But to this, the bear answers.

"1st Army needs reorganizing too. 4th Army has had three corps half-destroyed in 10 days."

"General, concerning voices are coming from Warsaw. They seem worried about the excessive casualties."

"Don’t worry. This is what Warsaw General Staff wants. Now then, shall we move the 10th and 12th Armies?"

Such wounds are merely itches, he says.

We can still endure, he says.

If he was going to hurt from just that level of losses, he wouldn’t have defied Kuropatkin’s orders in Warsaw.

’Hindenburg, you seem to want to assert stubbornness to me, but I didn’t think you’d withdraw with just this much either.’

’How long do you think you can keep pushing like this? 100,000? 200,000? Even death has its limits.’

Whose orders prevail.

In other words, whose will is realized.

Even as the bills of countless deaths piled up on both their desks, the two men’s wills only grew stronger.

The decisions of these two commanders weren’t based on sunk cost fallacy.

Not what they had lost so far, but what they would have to lose. Both men had bet the future of the Eastern Front on this intense battle.

"So let’s go to the end. Push the Korean Imperial Army into Schneidemühl."

"All of them, sir?"

"They’re volunteering, aren’t they? Let’s see if they can show us something."

Attack.

"Colonial troops? Looks like you’re running short on manpower too?"

"We cannot retreat further in West Prussia!"

"Good, give General Belobero the 1st Reserve Corps and remaining mobilized divisions. They should be more than enough to stop mere colonial troops."

Defense.

"Hmm, 23rd Reserve Corps? You’ve reached the point of pulling troops from the front? Then let’s issue offensive orders where troops have been withdrawn and wait."

"Are you creating new attack routes besides Posen and Schneidemühl?"

"No, just observing the enemy’s reaction." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Counter-offensive.

"Let’s thoroughly erase their illusion that we’ve pulled back the line. Thoroughly erase these Tatar units advancing only trusting their numerical superiority from Polish soil."

"That risks weakening our defenses at Posen and Schneidemühl, where the enemy’s main force is certain to be."

"This is a dam. If holes appear anywhere, we must block them to prevent collapse at the source!"

Retaliation following like needle and thread.