Chapter 234: Negotiating the Enemy’s Surrender Part II
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.