February’s situation remained calm.
Wang Zhong remembered that on Earth, starting from January of the second year, the Soviet Army launched the first battle of Zhelefov, and then encountered a bloody setback in the fortified zones of the Sturmtigers.
It was already February here, and the Ante Army had not yet launched any large-scale offensives.
Wang Zhong speculated that there were two reasons; the first was that the advocates for a quick victory had mostly fallen out of favor, and the dominant position was now held by the cautious faction represented by Wang Zhong.
The reason why they were called the cautious faction was that Wang Zhong, before crossing over, had read quite a few of ‘Survival in the Wild’ web novels and thought the term “cautious faction” was quite fitting, so he adopted it.
The second reason was that this time, the Prosen had retreated quite thoroughly.
After the failure of the Sturmtiger’s Operation on Earth, they didn’t suffer such a thorough defeat; they still held a salient that could threaten the capital of the Russians at any time.
Therefore, the Russians subsequently desperately tried to “flatten” this salient.
So, despite their own troops and commanders being far inferior to the Sturmtigers, the Russians launched a large-scale offensive, sacrificing a great deal in vain.
On this side, the Prosen Army retreated all the way back to the offensive line they started from in October. There was still a threat to Ye Fort, but it was not as significant as the Zhelefov salient on Earth.
Although the Zhelefov salient was named after this city, the place was actually just the northernmost point of the salient, which also had an easternmost point, only a little over a hundred kilometers from the Russians’ capital.
Zhelefov itself was only about two hundred kilometers from the capital.
Thus, this enormous salient was like a sharp knife thrust into the battle line, at any moment capable of causing the Russians to bleed profusely.
However, observing the central frontline of the Ante Empire, there was no such salient.
Ignoring the curvature of the ground and looking purely at the map, the entire frontline was a diagonal line, starting from the northernmost point of Saint Andrew Fort, slicing towards the southern Coastal Fortress-Bolsk.
If one were to consider the European part of the Ante as a handgun drumstick, then the battle line would be a cut at the bend of the leg.
The reason for such a situation was easy to understand. To the south was the large plain with relatively good infrastructure, so the Prosen pushed deeper there.
To the north were marshes, lakes, and a lot of forests, which made the Prosen Army’s progress a bit more difficult.
Also for this reason, the Prosen supplies in the north were better; on the one hand, the routes were shorter and, on the other hand, they had the support of sea transport.
Battleships were also deployed in the south by the Prosen, but given that the Prosen couldn’t support large vessels in their ports here, it wouldn’t be long before that battleship had to retreat via the strait controlled by the Neutral Country back to the port of the Prosen Empire’s ally for a major overhaul.
Such large ships need a major overhaul every year or two.
On Earth, the frontline was similarly a diagonal line with the Zhelefov salient in the middle.
One look at the map, and it was clear why the Russians were desperate to recapture this salient.
But there was no such salient here.
Wang Zhong, in his spare time these days, had sorted through the timeline and found that this change might be profoundly connected to him.
First of all, during the defensive operation in Shostka, Wang Zhong’s unit, along with the Army Group commanded by his superior Kiriyenko and Kashuk’s forces, firmly held the Duva River defense line.
On Earth, hundreds of thousands of troops that were surrounded and annihilated because of this, managed to escape from the encirclement.
This allowed the Ante Empire to launch a counterattack when the Prosen were most exhausted and to annihilate a Prosen force of a hundred thousand in an orderly fashion.
And this victory was personally led by Wang Zhong.
This triumph greatly boosted the morale of the Ante military and civilians and probably influenced the judgment of the Prosen commanders at all levels, so they retreated decisively to a position where the defensive line could be stabilized without leaving any super-large salients that could accommodate hundreds of thousands of troops.
Indeed, the Zhelefov salient on Earth was tremendous, guarded only by the Ninth Army Group, which was about the size of Paulus’s Sixth Army Group.
The Zhelefov salient was even large enough to accommodate units withdrawn from the front line for rest and recuperation.
During a Russian attack, an Armored Division resting near the breakthrough happened to have an amazingly qualified commander who assessed the enemy’s direction of attack on his initiative and launched a counterattack when Corps Command was in chaos and unable to issue effective orders.
It was also because the Zhelefov salient was vast that the Sturmtigers could implement elastic defense — elasticity requires depth, otherwise, banging on a steel plate would only make a loud noise without the sense of bounce.
A leveled frontline, without any salients, means that if the Prosen intended to attack Ye Fort again, they would have to cover a 300-kilometer advance route once more.
But the absence of a salient also meant that the Prosen High Command needed fewer troops to fill the defensive line, leaving more forces at their disposal for other tasks.
After the enemy resumed the offensive, the pressure on the southern line would increase sharply.
On Earth, precisely because of the Zhelefov salient, tens of thousands of Sturmtiger troops had to defend the salient and keep reinforcing it when attacked by the Russians, with a vast number of troops tied up at Zhelefov.
There probably wouldn’t be such good fortune this time.
Wang Zhong, this tiny butterfly, had ultimately altered the course of history.
Perhaps the Prosen Empire, with more mobile forces, would indeed push all the way to Kuba, and then Ante would have to continue fighting the Prosen Empire lacking fuel oil and heating materials.