Chapter 266: The actual plan of Moreau was to bring Germany and Italian on the same battlefield.

Words : 1098 Updated : Sep 29th, 2025

Chapter 266: The actual plan of Moreau was to bring Germany and Italian on the same battlefield.The narrow roads of the Valle de Tena were not meant for war convoys. But today there was noise. German trucks had been modified canvas-covered frames, matte-black lanterns shielded on all sides, each one manned by crews dressed as Spanish railway workers. In the lead vehicle, Lieutenant Otto Kessler sat beside a local guide, a Carlist sympathizer named Rafael. The man knew the passes, spoke enough German to get by, and had two brothers already buried under French shelling near Barbastro. "You take this bend wide," Rafael said. "Or the rear axle snaps." Kessler didn’t reply. His hands gripped the edge of the cabin as the truck leaned dangerously close to a ravine. Below, a hundred meters down, the Aragón River reflected a silver line of moonlight. Behind them, eight more trucks followed. No panzer divisions. No Luftwaffe. Just materials, spare barrels for German machine guns, field rations, gasoline in rust-proof drums, and crates of radio components disassembled for plausible deniability. As the convoy croosed the last ridge before the descent into Aínsa, Kessler saw the faint orange glow of campfires. Spanish troops Falange militias, mostly had established a temporary depot in the ruins of an old stone granary. Kessler stepped out as the trucks began to park in a loose crescent. One of the militia captains approached. "You’re late," the Spaniard said in French. Kessler replied in clipped Spanish, just enough to carry meaning. "Weather." The man nodded, not expecting more. The unloading began immediately. Wooden crates were passed down by hand. Tarpaulins were drawn. The men worked in silence. Two hours later, inside the granary, Kessler met with his assigned liaison Oberst Bremer. He had arrived from the German embassy in Madrid under false diplomatic credentials and was now coordinating the first proper network of German signal observers in Aragon. "They’ve lost five towns in nine days," Bremer said, drawing a line with a pencil across a grease-stained map. "Their defense is collapsing not from fighting, but from absence. The French don’t dig in. They arrive, and the next day, there’s a power line and a radio tower. It’s like watching a city appear from dust." Kessler unwrapped a sandwich and didn’t respond. Bremer continued. "We’re positioning men in the zones behind their most recent losses. Alquézar, Vicien, and we’re watching Casbas. The French use a twenty-four-hour advance cycle. That’s our window." "To do what?" Kessler asked. "To learn. Track. And stall where we can. We’re not here to fight, Otto. Not yet." In Rome, the Ministry of War was not as quiet. Unlike Berlin’s shadow maneuvering, the Italians moved slowly and cautious. A coded telegram reached the military mission in Palma, relayed to General Mario Roatta at the Ministry. He read the message once, then handed it to his aide. "Two hundred tons of medical equipment, building materials, and transport rails," Roatta said. "Loaded in Genoa. Offloaded in Valencia by local intermediaries. No tricolors. No flags." The aide nodded. "Crews?" "Contracted civilians with fascist militia training. They know who signs the checks." "Command structure?" "None. These are not Italian soldiers. Not officially." He walked to the map pinned across the eastern Mediterranean wall. "We route through Mallorca, then up the coast. Materials move inland on Republican-marked trucks we seized last month. That makes it a civil asset." "Smart." "No," Roatta said. "It’s cowardly. But necessary." By the next evening, Italian shipments were moving up the coast from Alicante to Alcañiz under local escort. Outside Huesca, in a bombed-out farmhouse repurposed as a field post, an Italian observer named Pietro Casali scribbled notes in a leather journal. The local commander a weary Spanish colonel stood nearby. "We don’t see the French," He said. "They don’t shell. They don’t shout. They arrive and erase whatever we had." Casali flipped a page. "Your radio masts?" "Gone. They cut the lines during the storm. Then they left a new one, broadcasting in two frequencies one for field comms, one for their engineering corps." "They left it?" "They built it. On our ground." Casali didn’t speak for a moment. He drew a small circle near Casbas. "And here?" "They turned the church into a relay station. No guards. Just wires and a generator." "Any civilians?" "Still there. Still eating." Casali folded the journal. Outside Zaragoza, near the village of Zuera, Guderian stood in the shadow of an old bell tower, talking with Franco’s liaison, General Monasterio. "Why here?" Monasterio asked. "This town is three kilometers from the line." "That’s why," Guderian said. "We hold what isn’t contested. We seed supply into gaps. Let them step around us, and we reoccupy the moment they pass." "You think they’ll leave gaps?" "They must. They can’t cover this many kilometers with engineers alone." A soldier approached with a sealed packet. Guderian read it, then handed it to Monasterio. "Valencia port now moving Italian supplies. Nothing military, but their volume doubled in two days." Monasterio frowned. "I thought they weren’t coming." "They’re not. But their cargo is." He looked out across the horizon. "We’re not here to stop them," Guderian said. "Not yet. We’re here to change the equation they’re building." In some small town. The mayor’s old hall was now a field hospital. Not a French one. Not a Spanish one. An Italian-funded civilian operation, staffed with Catalan doctors, equipped with supplies stamped only "Industria Torino." Rivet walked through the corridors, clipboard in hand. Behind him, a local nurse showed him the patient logs. "Wounds are minimal," she said. "These are not battle casualties. Mostly cold, fractures, fevers. Construction injuries." "Any signs of coordination with the east?" "You mean Italians?" He didn’t answer. She shook her head. "They don’t speak. But they bring goods." Rivet thanked her and stepped into the street. He looked at the piles of metal rods, concrete mixes, the marked lines for a future tram station. He lit a cigarette. Sometimes he gets scared with how accurately Moreau plans. From Gamelin to Renaud to Hitler they thought they figured out Moreau. They thought his plan was to occupy Spain. Unfortunately for them Moreau has made monkey out of them. His actual plan from the start was. First make it a slow drawn battle to attract Germany. Then switch it to fast mode. Doing all this will give enough time for Hitler to recalibrate his strategy. And at the end he will send troops and resources. Yes! The actual plan of Moreau was to bring Germany and Italian on the same battlefield.

Chapter 266: The actual plan of Moreau was to bring Germany and Italian on the same battlefield.

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