A Nation of Heroes - The Austria We All Wish We Could Be

Chapter Ten

Tanks. The British had them first.


As thirteen lumbering war-beasts of steel come roaring over the British battlements into No Man’s Lands, the Germans in the opposing trench feel the hand of fear grip their hearts.

Cries of, “What the hell are those?” and “Dear, god!” Echo throughout the German lines.

Flying proudly from makeshift masts above the machines it’s the British Union Jack. On the side of one of the vehicles, in squirrely thin letters is written, GOD SAVE THE KING.

As the German machine guns open fire, their bullets clang off the metal hulls of the tanks. Almost annoyingly, like a man having to deal with a child in a fit, the tanks bring about their huge double cannons and BOOM.

A German machine gun team goes flying through the air.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!


Fish in a barrel.

The Germans are running, clambering over each other to get away from this new form of death. But into their backs the British machine guns rake volley after volley of bullets. Scores of men stack up into mini-mounds of tribute to the God of Death. No prisoners are taken, the British remember well what the Germans did to their men during the Austrian-reinforced offensives.


Tanks. The British had them first. But the Germans mastered them.


It took a year. During that year a bloody stalemate developed. The British would mass their armor and try to pierce the invulnerable Wilhelm Line, which sat across the Rhine. But to no avail.

In the factories and laboratories of Germany, the British tank model was being scrutinized and studied.

Led by Maximilian Freiburger, an American born Austrian inventor known for developing the repeating rifle and the grenade launcher headed the project.


“Double cannons? Useless. It just takes up space and adds to many crew-members into the equation?”

“One cannon then, Herr Freiburger?”

“Yes, but it will have to cover every angle, every field of fire. We can’t afford to stick six machine guns on the thing,” the Master-Engineer laughed. “Well, actually we can. But again, crew members. We want conservative machines. Maybe we can stick the turret on top, and have it move around in 360 degrees?”

“I believe I have some sketches on record of a device like that, Herr Freiburger.” The man speaking to the Master-Engineer was his assistant, and secretary. His name isn’t important.
“Very good. Now how about a machine gun for the driver to operate, and one for the gunner to operate. Simple and easy, only two. And with good fields of fire.”

“I can have sketches drafted by tomorrow, Herr Freiburger.”

“Very good!”


What would come to be known as the Rhine Offensive (Spring, 1918) was the single largest operation of the Great European War. The Germans had assembled nearly 1,500 tanks behind their huge defensives along the ancient river that had kept the Romans out of Germany so many years ago.

One day, in April, huge metal bridges leapt across the banks of the river and tiny toy tanks began to roll across.

That’s what the birds saw.

What the British saw was a different matter.

German tanks were smaller, but faster and more flexible. As British tanks rushed up to meet their counterparts, they found themselves outflanked and ambushed at every turn. And British infantry had no weapons to counterattack against the vehicles.


In late June, German tanks rolled to the gates of Paris.

Traditionally a soldiering people, the French are, they were forced to surrender. Too much bloodshed, too much loss. Anymore and the nation of French would simply disappear.

With France out of the picture, the war was Britain’s, as the Russian Civil War had already come to a close.


France was, “put in shackles, but not executed like it should have been,” to quote the Kaiser Wilhelm. Under the jurisdiction of a military commander, half the nation of France was occupied by Pan-Germanic forces.

No longer would tanks be the masters of the battlefield, because tanks can’t fly. Now it was Aeroplanes which took the prize.
 
Work held me up, but I hope to add a little to this every time I check my computer.

One of my POD's is the inclusion of the fictional Maximilian Xavier Freiburger, a genius weaponsmith who has pioneered the field of automatic weapons and explosives in this world.
 
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