Chapter 241: Kobdo's Trap

The town of Westman is 30 kilometers southeast of Paris.

The town is roughly in the middle of the defense line. This unique geographical location enables it to connect with France's north and south defense lines as quickly as possible. In addition, its convenient transportation makes it easy to defend and difficult to attack, so it was chosen as the French General Headquarters.

The headquarters is located in a villa with a garden in the town. It has sufficient food, clean rooms and full living facilities. It even has a swimming pool, but unfortunately it cannot be used in this winter.

Joffre believed that only such an environment would allow him and his headquarters to carry out their work in an orderly manner.

Xiafei has always had the habit of reading newspapers, but he has not even touched one in the past few days.

The newspapers were full of news he didn't want to see:

"The Army doesn't need planes. These tasks can be handed over to the Flying Squadron!"

"Even if the Army needed them, they couldn't guarantee the safety of these reconnaissance aircraft."

"The army's planes only help the Germans gain more results!"

…

"It's ridiculous!" Joffre was dismissive of these discussions. "These bastards don't know what war is! War is about using limited resources to maximize combat effectiveness. Can't they see that our army's aircraft still persist in fighting and playing a role under such difficult conditions? This in itself is a victory!"

Joffre was a master of sophistry.

For months after the victory at the Battle of the Marne, people debated whether Gallieni or Joffre was responsible for saving Paris.

Joffre seemed to have done only one thing: persuading the British Expeditionary Force to join the battle, and everything else, including commanding the troops to fight, was done by Gallieni.

But at this time, Joffre said: "I don't really know, but I know who will be responsible if it is a defeat!"

What this meant was that if the battle was lost, Joffre, as the French commander-in-chief, would be held responsible for it. But now that the battle was won, the credit must of course go to Joffre.

So, he used this weird logic to naturally take away Gallieni's credit.

At this time, he naturally replaced the chaos, simplicity and disorder of the army aircraft with hardship, persistence and greatness.

If Xiafei was smart enough, he should choose to let go at this time.

But he was never a smart man, he even had a nickname "General Dull".

Kanais saw the danger, and he stepped forward and carefully advised:

"General, if it was before, we might have no problem continuing like this, because we have absolute air superiority."

"But now, the Germans have machine gun planes, and the army still only has reconnaissance planes."

"The Germans could easily shoot down all our reconnaissance planes!"

Without thinking, Joffre replied: "Well, why can't we equip these reconnaissance planes with machine guns? They should fight the Germans!"

Kanais was stunned. He was in charge of commanding Charles' flying squadron during the Battle of Cape Town and knew something about machine guns and airplanes.

"Yes, General!" Kanais responded.

Then he leaned closer and whispered, "Some reconnaissance planes are not suitable for machine guns. Machine guns are too heavy for them."

These words must not be heard by other staff officers, otherwise in their eyes the commander-in-chief will become a fool who knows nothing about airplanes or air combat but is shouting nonsense.

Then Kanais added: "At present, probably only two-seater aircraft are suitable for conversion into machine gun aircraft, and we have many old reconnaissance aircraft..."

Xiafei said "Hmm" without changing his expression: "Then order a batch of planes and let them fly into the air to protect the safety of the reconnaissance planes."

"Yes, General!" Kanais responded, but did not leave.

Xiafei turned his head and looked at Kanais in confusion.

"General!" Kanais replied: "The most suitable model at present may be the 'Avro', but this model is produced by the Charles factory..."

Xiafei interrupted Kanais bluntly: "Use other models, this matter is your responsibility!"

"Yes, General."

Kanais felt helpless when he left. The formation of the aircraft unit could not avoid Charles anyway. Even if he did not use "Afro", he had to use "Machine Gun Fire Coordinator".

However, Kanais knew that it would be better not to report the matter to Joffre and just do it through government procurement.

At this time, Xiafei was not thinking about how to form an army, how to train, or how to fight the enemy. He thought he had accidentally opened up another idea:

Everyone thought that the army aircraft would be incorporated into Charles' unified command. Why couldn't each army be allowed to develop its own flying squadron independently?

If all seven armies had... No, the two armies commanded by Gallieni should be weakened, and the five armies in his hands should each develop a powerful flying brigade.

By then, what will be the use of the flying squadron in Charles' hands?

Thinking of this, Xiafei felt that he needed to talk to James and let him complete this task.

…

Soon, two arguments emerged in public opinion:

First, we support the incorporation of army fighter jets under the unified command of Charles.

The second is that the army should have its own flying brigade, so that the army can respond better and more quickly, and the army will also be stronger.

Joffre was the representative of the latter. He urgently placed a batch of orders for 200 two-seat "Gaudron" and 100 two-seat "Newport 10", and recruited pilots from the society to form a flying squadron.

When Gallieni saw this information, he just smiled. Xiafei was walking step by step towards Kobdo's trap.

Is it ironic that the French commander-in-chief was deceived by a reporter?

Gallieni held up the telegram and waved it at Charles, who was sitting a few meters away. "Are these two models useful to you?"

Charles knew what model it was and understood what Gallieni meant.

If the situation continues to develop, these planes will eventually fall into Charles' hands. Everything Joffre did was to prepare Charles for the future, but he didn't know it yet.

Gallieni asked this question because he was worried that these planes would be bought but not used, which would be a huge waste for the military.

"Any plane is useful," Charles replied. "If nothing else, they can be used as training planes for pilots. We really need that!"

What Charles valued more were actually the pilots trained for him by Joffre.

But of course, he couldn't seem to have much hope in the pilots trained by Joffre.

"Okay!" Gallieni nodded calmly: "Then let him buy it. From now on, it's up to the Germans!"

In the past, Gallieni might have tried his best to avoid this, as it would have resulted in the loss of innocent pilots' lives.

Now he seemed to understand that these sacrifices were inevitable, and the sooner they were made the smaller the sacrifices would be.

(The picture above shows the two-seat "Gaudron" reconnaissance aircraft, which first flew in 1913)

(The picture above shows a two-seat Newport reconnaissance aircraft, which first flew in late 1914)

(End of this chapter)