Chapter 217:

Words : 1464 Updated : Sep 25th, 2025

Chapter 217: "You can’t shoot a hungry city and expect it to thank you."The order had already been given. Phase Two wasn’t Paris. It was France. At the Gare de Lyon command hub, Colonel Arnaud Bernard spread a map across the table, pinning down rail hubs with cigarette ends. "Dijon must fall by 09:00," he said, tapping the point. "No gunfire. Use the 12th Infantry. They’re locals, they’ll blend in." A major leaned in. "And if loyalists are dug in?" Bernard didn’t look up. "Cut the lines. No trains, no comms. Isolate the city. If the mayor still breathes by midday, we failed." A messenger rushed in, mud from knee to boot. "Orders from the Palais Bourbon. Marseille is resisting. Hard." Bernard snapped his head. "Who?" "General Duclerc. Southern Division. He’s holding the naval base and refusing to recognize the authority of the Paris command." Bernard turned to another officer. "Send word to Montélimar. Deploy the Alpine shock units. No half-measures. If the navy blocks us in the south, we lose Corsica, we lose Algeria, we lose the coast." In Lyon, the train carrying the 3rd Motor Infantry screeched to a halt at 06:45. Captain Marc Roussel stood at the open car, revolver in hand, as his men unloaded. "Check your ammo, load clean. Orders are to secure the prefecture and town square. Minimal civilian casualties." A sergeant grunted. "They’re not gonna welcome us with flowers, sir." Roussel smirked. "That’s why you brought the flamethrower, isn’t it?" They moved fast. Thirty men on motorcycles, eighty by foot. The main avenue was empty, save for a couple nuns crossing near the basilica. A dog barked somewhere distant. Resistance came at the Place Bellecour. Two companies of regular army, loyal to the government, were waiting behind sandbag barricades. Roussel ducked behind a tram post. Bullets cracked the air above his head. "Fan out! Suppressive fire on the left flank. Legrand, take the snipers to the rooftops!" Smoke grenades hissed across the street. Civilians screamed and scattered. A young corporal was shot through the thigh as he sprinted toward cover. "Medic!" someone screamed. "Hold that corner!" Roussel yelled, dragging the bleeding boy behind a stone planter. "You hold that line, or this city burns!" Elsewhere, on the Atlantic coast, Colonel Lemoine once headed a committee in 1935 which discussed disciplinary actions against Moreau. He helped Moreau at that time because he saw a fire. Even that day he talked to Moreau about Napoleon, Influence and what not. Nearly 3 years later here he is smiling and following his order in a revolution. Life is unpredictable. He watched the port of La Rochelle as tanks rolled through the streets with blue-white flags bearing no national symbol. Just a roaring lion. The city mayor was being escorted into military custody. He shouted, "This is madness! You have no legal standing!" Lemoine answered without turning. "Neither did those who sent you to Berlin last month." The docks were barricaded. Fishermen stared from the wharves as troops swept warehouses and seized boats. "No ships leave," Lemoine ordered. "No letters. No papers. Nothing." Inside the Ministry of War, a temporary command post now manned by loyalists to Moreau, Delon stared at the wall where France had been recreated in pins and string. "Where is the 14th?" "Near Clermont-Ferrand, sir. They’ve stopped. Commander is asking whether the President has truly endorsed this." Delon lit a cigarette. "Send him the signature. The real one." "Suppose he still hesitates?" Delon turned, dead calm. "Replace him." He looked to Beauchamp. "The window is closing. The moment hesitation spreads, the Republic resettles itself." Beauchamp nodded. "Resistance?" "Marseille. Limoges. Some holdouts in Orléans. Otherwise... the countryside is bending." Beauchamp pointed at the north. "Calais?" "Already taken. Port locked." Delon inhaled and looked at the map again. "Then begin the southern press. I want all Marseille officers arrested. If they resist, shoot to kill." In a hillside village near Nîmes, Corporal Alain Dupuy crouched in the grass beside an armored truck, his squad watching the road through binoculars. They were waiting for a train convoy believed to be carrying troops ordered by the Interior Ministry. "What if they’re friendly?" asked private Noiret. Dupuy’s jaw tensed. "They’re not. Ministry loyalists. Government still thinks it owns the rail." He didn’t finish the thought. The train rounded the bend. Then, shots. Gunfire erupted from a farmhouse along the tracks. Someone had tipped the loyalist unit off. Grenades flew. The train screeched. Its engine car burst into flames. One of Dupuy’s men was down, blood pouring from his chest. "Ambush! Pull back! Lay cover!" Dupuy shouted, dragging the injured man behind the embankment. Another man fired wildly into the trees. From the smoke, a voice shouted. "Cease fire! Frenchmen! Cease fire!" Dupuy hesitated. Another voice answered, closer. "Which France do you serve, dog?" The answer came in bullets. By 07:30, more than 400,000 men across France were mobilized. In Toulouse, the mayor was deposed. In Strasbourg, a cathedral was used to broadcast emergency military announcements from a field transmitter. In Bordeaux, two regiments mutinied after hearing Moreau’s name on loudspeakers. They shot their commanding officer and joined the revolutionary columns. Reports flooded the War Ministry. "General Faure has defected with three artillery units." "Factory workers in Lyon are on strike. They’re flying tricolors but refusing the government emblem." "The Navy in Toulon refuses orders but has not declared loyalty to anyone." Beauchamp, now leading Phase Two logistics, turned to his aides. "Start martial control. Use bakeries, use schools, I don’t care. Establish trust with food and fire." A lieutenant frowned. "You mean... feed the people?" Beauchamp looked tired. "You can’t shoot a hungry city and expect it to thank you." By 08:15, in Marseille, the battle was at its peak. General Duclerc had fortified the port with naval guns, blocking Moreau’s troops from entering through the southern approach. Captain Vasseur led the 9th Mountain Regiment through the suburbs, weaving between narrow stone houses and alleyways. Shots rang overhead. Men screamed. "Grenadiers forward!" Vasseur yelled. A soldier next to him took a round to the neck. Another collapsed from a grenade blast near the docks. They pushed forward through smoke and debris. A naval officer screamed from the rooftop, "This is still France, traitors!" Vasseur crouched behind a brick wall. "France died in silence ten years ago," he muttered, then stood and fired. A naval truck exploded on the hill. When it was over, the flags on the port flew blank. And Marseille was in their hands. By midmorning, resistance in Orléans was collapsing. Colonel Mireille Joubert had received conflicting orders. One from the Government or what was left of it another from the War Ministry now under Moreau’s men. She stared at both letters, her officers surrounding her. "Which do we follow?" someone asked. Joubert sighed. Her second-in-command said. "The Paris one has blood on it." "They both do." She folded the papers slowly. "Formally surrender the prefecture. We’ll survive to choose sides another day." In a countryside inn near Angers, two Moreau-aligned soldiers found themselves face to face with ten regulars still defending the old guard. There was no high command. No orders. Just men with guns. One of the loyalist sergeants shouted, "Why are you doing this? You swore the same oath we did!" Private Hugo Vanel stepped forward. "Yeah? And where was that oath when we were sent to die in the Alps with no ammo? Where was it when our pensions were stolen? When our colonels sold arms to Spain behind our backs?" Silence. The sergeant lowered his rifle. "I just want to go home." "Then don’t stand in our way." By 09:00, resistance was fading, but not dead. Grenoble was tense. So was Metz. Skirmishes continued in small towns and valleys. But the ring was tightening. And the stars were changing. In Paris, Delon sat reading casualty reports. Across from him, Moreau finally returned from his rounds. Blood stained his boots. "They opened the gates in Marseille," he said. Delon looked up. "Took them long enough." Beauchamp entered behind him. "Lille and Nantes are stable. Train routes are secured. Banks have frozen transfers. Prefects across the country are surrendering. Unarmed or escorted." Moreau nodded. Delon asked, "And the Interior Ministry?" "Secured." A moment passed. Then Moreau said, "We’re halfway there." "No," Beauchamp said quietly. "We’re past the point of no return." S~eaʀᴄh the NôvelFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. France, by 09:30, was no longer one voice. It was a thousand, ringing across bloodied courtyards and broken radios. But beneath it all, a new order was forming. Phase Two was nearly complete. And Phase Three is coming soon.

Chapter 217:

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