Of the two brigadiers, von Taupadel was the senior. He'd have instructed Schuster to fortify positions cutting the Wroclaw road while he took the more challenging task of continuing the flanking maneuver. That made sense, and it's what Mike would have told him to do had he been there. (Or if von Taupadel had thought to get in touch with him by radio, but never mind.) Schuster's brigade was the weakest in the division because Mike had stripped troops out of the Black Falcon and Gray Adder regiments to form Jeff's new Hangman Regiment. Its morale was shaky, too, because except for the Finnish cavalrymen all the soldiers who'd been executed for the atrocities at Świebodzin had come from that brigade.
Mike hadn't punished Schuster or the colonel commanding the Gray Adder regiment. Schuster, because he'd been elsewhere at the time and couldn't in fairness be held responsible. The colonel, because he was dead. His killing at the hands of a sniper, in fact, was one of the things that had triggered off the slaughter.
But while he hadn't penalized Schuster, Mike had privately made clear to him that if the 2nd Brigade was guilty of another such incident, the brigadier could expect to be cashiered on the spot. For a while, at least, Schuster was bound to be excessively cautious. So would his soldiers, for that matter. Guarding a road from behind fixed positions would be a good way to start rebuilding their confidence.
Mike spent a minute or so considering the situation. Ideally, he'd wait until von Taupadel had moved his brigade far enough around Zielona Góra to cut the road to Poznań. But that could take quite a bit more time. They'd come by a circuitous route, following the Bóbr river and then marching cross-country in order to approach Zielona Góra directly from the west. The easier route would have been to follow the Odra, which would have brought them close to the city. But, of course, the Poles had planned for that and built fortifications guarding the river.
The problem that Mike was now presented with was that the road to Poznań started on the northeast side of Zielona Góra. The 1st Brigade had to march almost two-thirds of the way around the city in order to reach it. If Mike waited until they got there, the Hangman Regiment might get destroyed in the meantime.
He decided the chance they might encircle and capture all the Polish forces in Zielona Góra just wasn't worth the possible cost to Higgins and his men. That had always been something of a long shot, anyway.
He turned to Long. "Colonel, we'll send the Third Brigade directly into the city. Let Duerr take the word to Brigadier Derfflinger." Mike pointed to some nearby woods. "He's in there, taking care of urgent business."
Long frowned. "If it's urgent business, he may be occupied for a while yet."
Mike smiled. "He should be finishing up any second now. It's the sort of pressing business that never makes its way into fiction."
After a moment, Long chuckled. "I see. And myself?"
"I want you to get in touch with von Taupadel. I want him to forget about reaching the Poznań road and just go straight at whatever part of the city he'd closest to right now."
Long was back to frowning. "It'll take me some time to reach him, General. By the time I do—"
"Radio," Mike said. "Use. The. Radio."
He turned in his saddle and pointed back to his communications tent, which had been set up twenty yards away. Jimmy Andersen was standing outside the entrance flap, looking lonely and forlorn.
"Sergeant Andersen will operate it. He knows what he's doing. So goes Brigadier von Taupadel's radio operator, if he hasn't died of neglect and boredom yet."
Long stared at the tent much the way a man might stare at an ogre's lair.
"The, ah, radio, sir?"
"Use. The. Radio. Now."
Duerr went straight to the radio tent as soon as he got out of the woods. Oddly enough, given his age and acerbic temperament, Duerr was more at ease around electronic technology than most younger officers. Within five minutes, all three brigade commanders had gotten their orders.
A minute later, the artillery barrages began. Ten minutes later, even at a distance of half a mile, Mike could hear the sounds of infantry regiments advancing on the city.
"About fucking time," grumbled Jeff Higgins. He and two of his captains were crouched over a map inside a small bakery. They'd been trying to figure out if there was any route that might extricate them from what had essentially turned into a trap. Unfortunately, the map was in as bad a shape as the regiment was by now. Being fair to the regiment, Jeff was sure that map had been lousy even in its prime.
Within thirty seconds, the noise produced by the artillery barrage made it impossible to talk anyway. Jeff signaled the two captains to return to their units. All they could do now was wait.