The commander of the Serbian Army sent with orders of “fighting until the last man” in order to buy time for a victory in the south against the Hellenic Army was more or less committing treason. His objective was to negotiate a peaceful surrender with the Germans, not only for his own men, but for all of Serbia.
He knew he wasn’t exactly in a position to do so, and he also knew that Serbia, or more specifically its royal family in conjunction with the Black Hand, was guilty of a great many crimes. Crimes against not only the Habsburgs, but Bruno personally, as well as many innocent people in the Balkans.
At the end of the day, there was nothing he could really do to make amends for these sins. All he could do was ask for more peaceable terms than total annihilation by giving the enemy a show of good behavior.
This was entirely the way he had volunteered for this “suicide mission” and the commander was all too aware of what his reputation would be should he succeed in his goals. But so long as Serbia survived in some capacity, his personal pride and honor were ultimately
meaningless.
Even knowing all of this, he and his officer cadre were sweating bullets as they walked through the rank and file of the 300,000 or so Germans who were one of three advancing armies across the Northern Serbian Landscape.
Granted, reports stated a million Germans were advancing onto the current capital of the Serbian Provisional government, and the Serbian commander had assumed Bruno had split his forces. Which while this was true, deciding to capture and occupy more ground with the division of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian armies under the control of their own generals.
The ultimate misunderstanding was that all one million men were German soldiers with advanced equipment, which was a falsehood creating by poor training of scouts hastily thrown into their roles.
Either way, 300,000 German soldiers surrounding the Serbian cadre, and giving them haunted looks, were not exactly something that gave a sense of comfort to their guests. Even so, eventually the Serbian officers were brought into Bruno’s personal tent, albeit, they were thoroughly disarmed, and patted down for anything that could remotely be used as a weapon before doing so.
Once inside the tent, they found that the entire structure had been hastily constructed. Only a few folding chairs and a small table were set up with not even the slightest of comforts prepared for the Serbian officers acting as diplomats.
The only thing Bruno offered was a cigarette to each of them, as he made his stance clear.
“You offer terms. I ask for nothing less than total surrender. If you are unwilling to accept such demands, then go back to your army and prepare for battle…”
Utter silence prevailed for a few moments until finally the Serbian officer in charge spoke up. The man wasn’t even technically a general, at least he wasn’t until hastily promoted to the
position after the formation of the Serbian Provisional Army.
He sounded completely defeated as he made his stance clear.
“I understand you want to end this war as soon as possible. It was, after all, a war you did not start, one that has personally affected you in ways I can’t truly begin to understand. It stands to reason you would obliterate our capital, especially after our king refused to surrender despite the situation he was in.
I am willing to have every man in my army lay down arms and enter your custody until this war is over. In exchange, all I ask is you do not take such excessive actions with the remaining of Serbia as you have done in Belgrade…
It is impossible to guarantee that the remainder of the Army will do the same. In fact, they are currently in the South combating the Greeks, thinking they have a chance to oppose you. But as far as I am concerned, the war is already lost, and enough blood has been shed to appease the Habsburgs, has it not?”
As both Bruno and the Serbian officers smoked in silence, Bruno eyed them carefully, watching every twitch of their facial muscles to determine whether the words they spoke were with sincerity, or were simply a means to conceal a far more sinister plot.
In the end, Bruno only opened his mouth and began to speak his peace after he had put out his cigarette on the ashtray, which was the only thing sitting on the table.
“You wish to surrender the arms of you and your men in exchange for leniency towards Serbia and its people? Your terms are acceptable, assuming of course the remainder of the forces we have to fight don’t do anything foolish to provoke an excessive response. I can agree to your terms.
The Usurper and his wicked spawn have been gassed into extinction. The men responsible for the death of the Austrian Archduke are either all in custody, or have choked to death on mustard gas. And the people who have caused unnecessary bloodshed in the objective of stoking national and ethnic tensions in the region have been rounded up and shot against the wall.
There is no further reason for your people to suffer to such an extent, not unless they decide to continue this war in an extended and bloody guerrilla campaign. If you want peace, then tell the Serbian people to lay down their arms and accept their defeat as you have done. Allow me to make myself abundantly clear, as my men march further southward into your lands, should we encounter any resistance by militias, partisans, or any other form of uniformed combatant taking up arms against our occupation, I will take ten heads for every one rebel I come across. And another ten further forever casualty the men beneath my command sustain.
I want you to truly understand what this means as I accept your terms. Because if you disagree with such tactics, then you have every right to go back to your army and fight us until your last dying breath. Though… I would not recommend such a foolish and reckless course of action…”
The look in Bruno’s sky-blue eyes as he spoke these words to the Serbian officers was enough to lower the room’s temperature by a full fifty degrees. He was not exaggerating in the slightest when he made such a threat, no… a promise to the men trying to negotiate a more peaceable end to the Balkan Campaign.
He would very much tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people to avenge the loss of his men killed by civilians, and not soldiers. After all, that was the only way to truly win a war against an enemy engaging in a guerilla campaign.
Either wipe out the population to the last man, so that nobody was left to resist your occupation. Or make the people truly understand that was the ultimate end for them should they continue to fight such a futile war was extinction.
Survival was a basic human instinct, and it was very easy to write off the men, women and children that Bruno would inevitably line up against the wall in retaliation for the deaths of his soldiers killed during the occupation as “ununiformed combatants” who were currently not protected by the rules of war.
After all, his soldiers dying in battle against a proper army was a natural consequence of war, but their deaths at the hands of partisans? Such a thing required excessive and brutal response, or else they would continue to fight and kill Bruno’s men. Who at the end of the day he valued the lives of far more than the innocent people he occupied.
This was one of Bruno’s largest complaints about how the ISAF handled themselves in Afghanistan during his past life when he was a soldier fighting there.
In accordance with the rules of war as they existed in the 21st century coalition forces ultimately chose to sacrifice the lives of their soldiers in order to prioritize the lives of Afghani civilians rather than level entire villages where the Taliban hid and occupied, more often the not with the aid of those very civilians who were being protected by the ISAF.
Even if such a thing became international law in his time serving as a German General in this life, Bruno would never put the lives of his own men at risk in exchange for prioritizing the safety of civilians who lived in an active Warzone. The lives of every single one of his soldiers were worth more than a million Serbians, Italians, Frenchmen, or any other country he
marched into.
And he would conduct war with such a mentality if need be. Considering the way Bruno had clarified this stance, and the almost demonic gaze that accompanied his monstrous words, the Serbian Officers were quick to agree to Bruno’s requests, and would gladly act as propaganda pieces to help coerce the local Serbian population not to engage in any violent behavior towards German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian “Peacekeeping” forces.