Ch.13White Army’s Greatest Commander

# Stalin was in agony defending Tsaritsyn.

The military disadvantage was clear.

Those vaunted trenches were collapsing in an instant.

Moreover, his main forces were conscripted peasants.

Officers and generals from the imperial era were refusing to cooperate, perhaps because of the White Army led by the Grand Duchess. Meanwhile, Britain, France, and Germany were throwing all kinds of military supplies to the Grand Duchess, and America was providing food to the White Army through the Far East.

Even the great Stalin was struggling to defend in such circumstances, and was on the verge of being pushed back.

They had already been driven back to the Volga River region.

“Comrade. Comrade Voroshilov reports that the reactionaries’ assault is extremely fierce. The trench line has already been breached!”

Every report coming in was equally desperate.

One side barely holding. Another breached. That’s all they contained.

At this point, it was just one city, and even that might not last long.

Next would be urban warfare, perhaps.

“Damn those British and French bastards. Supporting the reactionaries. They’re all imperialists after all.”

Stalin gritted his teeth and punched the wall.

In actual history, the Red Army was also being pushed back as British tank divisions supported the White Army.

However, by ultimately defending this place, they had prevented the White armies of southern Russia from linking up with those in Siberia.

But in this altered history, with Anastasia becoming the rallying point, much had changed.

Anton Denikin in southern Russia was now moving cautiously while receiving support from Britain, France, and Germany through the Black Sea.

For Anastasia in Yekaterinburg, who had received tank support through the distant Far East, to receive more effective support from the great powers, she needed to recapture Tsaritsyn to connect with southern Russia.

And now that was actually about to happen.

Stalin wanted to tear his hair out.

The situation was too dire.

Damn Trotsky. He should have taken the Tsar’s family hostage. Why should he suffer for what that bastard had done?

“Comrade Stalin.”

“Do you have anything to say besides the defense line being breached?”

“Grand Duchess Anastasia is reportedly present at the reactionary front herself.”

At that moment, Stalin’s eyes lit up with intensity.

The Grand Duchess at the reactionaries’ front?

So she really was their leader after all.

He knew something was suspicious.

“No wonder the White Army bastards are running wild. Does the Grand Duchess’s presence alone boost their morale?”

“Yes.”

Then Comrade Lenin should come here too.

The Soviet Union was now in a precarious position.

The Bolsheviks had barely seized power, but they were isolated in the world. They needed to end the civil war quickly and focus on domestic affairs.

Yet here they were, forced into a defensive battle.

“Now that their leader has appeared, our morale should rise too.”

“That’s separate from our clear military disadvantage.”

“Damn it.”

He had planned to blame Trotsky for executing the Tsar’s family and for failing the attack on Yekaterinburg, thinking that if he could win this defensive battle, victory would be assured.

But the situation was not looking good at all.

For some reason, the imperialist bastards had stopped their war and were supporting the Grand Duchess to crush the Bolsheviks.

If foreign troops had come to support her, he could have branded the Grand Duchess a traitor and used that for propaganda. But they were only providing weapons, making it difficult.

Moreover, the Grand Duchess’s reforms had put the Bolsheviks in a bad position in many ways.

“W-what should we do?”

“Comrade. We must stay calm, especially in times like these.”

The Grand Duchess, driven mad with revenge after witnessing her parents and siblings brutally slaughtered before her eyes, was fiercely attacking the Bolsheviks.

Yes, in such a state, she would likely be advancing toward Moscow with vengeful fury.

Stalin sighed deeply.

‘Tsk. Who knew executing the Tsar’s family would lead to this?’

Rumors had spread throughout Europe that the Bolsheviks had killed Tsarevich Alexei in front of Nicholas II and the Empress, then violated and killed the Empress and Grand Duchesses in front of Nicholas II.

These rumors became more elaborate as they spread by word of mouth, but Stalin thought the local Cheka agents were certainly capable of such acts.

There were many people furious with the Tsar’s family, after all.

But because of that, the surviving Grand Duchess had awakened.

If they were going to kill them, they should have killed them all at once. How could they let one fish escape and cause this mess?

It would have been better to convert the entire Tsar’s family.

It would be great if reinforcements came to attack the Grand Duchess from behind, but that was realistically unlikely.

At the very least, to avoid Trotsky’s fate, he needed to achieve something.

“How long can we hold out?”

“I’m not sure if we can last through today.”

Useless.

Yes, looking at the situation, it’s understandable that things are collapsing too quickly.

At this rate, his grand plan to bring down Trotsky and take his place might be ruined.

He needed to think about the future—should he abandon Voroshilov, with whom he had become close?

Survival was the priority now.

How could they break through that encirclement? The defense lines were already collapsing miserably, and how could they possibly face the Grand Duchess’s army fueled by vengeance?

“Comrade Stalin!”

To make matters worse, Voroshilov himself had now arrived.

Stalin briefly considered hanging himself, then quickly dismissed the thought.

At this point, he could only manage a brazen smile.

“Comrade Voroshilov. Are you telling me the Grand Duchess is now leading the reactionaries into the city to destroy us?”

“What about escaping?”

Escape, he says. What a nice word.

Is that even possible? They’re surrounded on all sides.

They say they’re preventing the White armies of southern Russia and Siberia from linking up, but they’re already connecting while surrounding them.

If they’ve been pushed back to the Volga region and the city itself is threatened, then…

Where exactly could they escape to?

Of course, they could try to escape by sending Red Army soldiers ahead, but that would make him no different from Trotsky, who was trapped in Yekaterinburg.

He didn’t want to die here, but he wanted to save face as much as possible.

“Comrade, are you suggesting we hand over the city to those reactionaries? We cannot tuck our tails and run from here.”

He wasn’t even sure if escape was possible from an encircled position.

“There’s an escape route to the north!”

An escape route to the north?

It was already a miracle they had defended this long with the overwhelmingly inferior Red Army, and now there’s an escape route to the north?

Wouldn’t the Yekaterinburg White Army be in the north?

What were those reactionaries thinking?

He racked his brain but couldn’t find an answer.

Or perhaps the encirclement wasn’t complete yet?

There was clearly some issue.

Yes, if he could live, he should live. He needed to live to complete the revolution or succeed Lenin.

But he needed a justification for fleeing.

“From the moment Trotsky failed to subdue Yekaterinburg, this outcome was inevitable!”

Indeed, he had said exactly what Voroshilov wanted to hear.

Yes, this was all Trotsky’s fault.

Because of Trotsky, he was now tasting this humiliation.

It was clear to everyone that this unwinnable battle was created because Trotsky, who controlled the Red Army, couldn’t even push back Yekaterinburg, which was controlled by a mere girl.

Of course, Trotsky could argue that it was because of the battle-hardened Czech Legion defending it.

But that wasn’t important now.

Stalin jumped to his feet.

“Is Comrade Voroshilov forcing this humiliation on me?”

“We must plan for the future. We cannot let our Red Army die in vain here.”

At the very least, they couldn’t sacrifice the Red Army as cannon fodder for those tanks until they had a countermeasure.

“Yes, in the end, it’s all Trotsky’s fault.”

Stalin repeated Trotsky’s name once more.

Anyway, all of this was Trotsky’s fault.

“We must leave quickly.”

“But even if we go, we cannot just leave empty-handed.”

“What do you mean?”

No matter what, he could never forgive being defeated by that Grand Duchess.

“Give me Red Guards who bear a grudge against the Romanovs.”

“Surely not.”

“We need to show that we did something before we retreat.”

Immune to bullets? Don’t be ridiculous.

People die even from light gunshot wounds.

Perhaps someone got lucky and survived to spread strange rumors, but let’s see if they survive this time.

# # #

The Battle of Tsaritsyn ended in victory.

Stalin did not put up a desperate resistance.

If he had, it would have been quite troublesome for us. We opened an escape route for him, and he probably didn’t want to die because of Trotsky.

He would have excuses. Now Stalin, having returned to Moscow, will compete with Trotsky over who bears responsibility for the defeat.

With the recapture of Tsaritsyn, the southern Russian White Army threatening Moscow will join us here.

In the meantime, we need to govern the domestic affairs across southern Russia, Siberia, and the Far East.

“It’s a shame we missed the opportunity to capture all the enemies.”

“Indeed it is.”

Kolchak and Krasnov are expressing regret.

But this is the right move for now.

“Who contributed the most to this battle?”

“Mikhail Drozdovsky. He led as the Grand Duchess instructed, with tanks at the front and infantry following.”

“What is his original position?”

“He’s the chief of staff. But he wanted to try driving a tank once. He wouldn’t listen.”

Isn’t he one of the few great generals in the White Army?

I heard he supported the White Army in the civil war, but he supported a constitutional monarchy and backed Grand Duke Michael rather than Nicholas II.

Shouldn’t he be dead?

I definitely heard he died of sepsis in 1918.

Did something go wrong somewhere that allowed him to survive?

Did that damn old man make me Anastasia because I knew a little about Russia?

No, if that were the case, he would have chosen someone who actually liked Russia. I’m just an unlucky case who got caught up in this.

Anyway, a man who should be dead is alive.

He’s not a fellow transmigrator like me; it seems that after I transmigrated, the civil war took a strange turn, and through a snowball effect, someone who should have died is now alive.

Well, let’s enter Tsaritsyn first.

“Let’s enter Tsaritsyn now.”

“Yes.”

The atmosphere in Tsaritsyn was gloomy.

Well, it had been a city under the Red Army.

They must have been influenced by Bolshevik ideology.

What if there’s another assassination—

“Grand Duchess Anastasia! I will kill you in the name of the people!”

Damn, is this an annual event?

I’ve lost count of how many times this has happened.

The dead Austrian Archduke would be quite envious.

“Your Highness!”

Bang!

Do bullets still not work?

Still, I was startled. This time my forehead actually stung.

“W-why won’t you die? Why don’t the bullets penetrate!”

The same scenario again.

The assassin, confirming that bullets couldn’t kill me, stumbled backward and fell.

This plot-breaking development is indeed interesting.

“Unfortunately, I don’t want to share the fate of the Austrian Archduke, so I prayed to the Lord. I asked Him to please not let me die by bullets. I’m fundamentally different from you.”

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The man who just shot at me was riddled with bullets by the White Army’s fire and died.

And.

The citizens of Tsaritsyn witnessed this scene.

The unkillable Grand Duchess, Anastasia. The citizens under the Red Army also saw the truth behind those rumors.

“Is she truly a saint?”

“Is that really why she survived in Yekaterinburg?”

This will spread more rumors.

Fortunately, the White Army generals were following behind me, so they didn’t see it properly.

It will be recorded in history as a rumor spread to deify Anastasia.

This will likely cause protests from various factions, including the Mensheviks, who barely united under the banner of defeating the Bolsheviks first.

Well, I’ll put that aside for now.

Now I need to think about integration with southern Russia.

There are people preparing to welcome us after entering Tsaritsyn first.

The Black Baron and Mikhail Drozdovsky.

The two greeted me from the Tsaritsyn Bolshevik headquarters, which had been destroyed by artillery.

“You must be Pyotr Wrangel, and that’s Mikhail Drozdovsky.”

I had seen Pyotr Wrangel in photos once or twice.

Before my world turned into that mess, I enjoyed exploring historical knowledge.

“I’m relieved that Your Highness has survived.”

“It’s an honor to meet the Saint of Russia.”

“Where is your superior, Lieutenant General Anton Denikin?”

“The Lieutenant General is overseeing supply support from the great powers in the Crimean Peninsula.”

“Hmm. I see.”

I heard that man was not only responsible for the failed Moscow offensive but also for tyrannical rule.

Well, it’s better to put that issue aside for now.

What’s important now is that I’ve met the Black Baron, Pyotr Wrangel.

The greatest White Army general who led South Russia and tormented the Bolsheviks until the end.

Now he stands before me.