Chapter 735 The Emperor Swings His Sword
The initial and ultimate goal was to avoid bloodshed as much as possible, which included avoiding land battles as much as possible, and especially avoiding wasting the blood of the nation's soldiers in trench warfare.
The idea of several people at this dinner was to get through this world war. And for the Allies, this was not an unacceptable fact. The reason why the Allies wanted the United States to join the war was not because of the strength of the expeditionary force. On the contrary, Britain and France never had much expectation for the combat effectiveness of the American expeditionary force.
Compared with the combat capability of the American Expeditionary Force, what the Allied Powers hoped most was that this country that was making money hiding away would add its industrial capacity to the entire Allied Powers camp and slowly wear down the Germans.
Sheffield remembered that historically, Britain and France thought so, and were even prepared to end the war until 1920, until Germany was exhausted and died, and then declare the victory of the Allies.
I can't control other countries, so can't I make a difference in my country's participation in the war? In front of the Minister of Finance, the Minister of War and the Undersecretary of the Navy, Sheffield speculated about the Allied camp with the greatest malice.
And pointed out that it was France and Russia, not the British, that were exhausted in the Allied camp. It is true that after the Battle of the Somme, it would be disrespectful to the British to say that they were just slacking off. But compared with the almost life-and-death battle between France and Russia, the British can only say that they have just started to get serious.
The British Empire has indeed shed more blood than in history, but it is still within its tolerance. The slave owners found that they still underestimated the colony of British India. The current trend of the war has proved how correct the British were in protecting and managing British India for a hundred years. The British Empire will never surrender before the last drop of Indian blood is shed. It is completely a matter of willingness to fight and to suffer. The Indians exchanged the status of a dominion for participating in the war.
For the Treasury, Sheffield's reasoning for such a smart entry into the war was that Britain and France would be weakened, which would ensure the safety of the United States' loans. Sheffield could also explain this to the New England bankers. After all, Morgan urged the war just to make a statement, not to let the United States replace British India.
To Secretary of War Newton, Sheffield explained even more clearly that the central idea was that the friendly forces were surrounded and could not move. The Secretary of War fully agreed with this central idea.
On the issue of the navy, Franklin Roosevelt himself knew the essence of the navy, and with the strength of the British Royal Navy, it was impossible for the Union Navy to participate in the war and become a weaker force against a stronger one. Therefore, according to the most intense naval battle scenario, the United States would not suffer huge losses like in the ground war.
"If you look at the number of tanks in service in the British army, you will understand that I am not lying when I say that Britain still retains its strength." Sheffield used tank data to support his statement.
In the autumn of 1917, the British Expeditionary Force was equipped with 2,000 tanks, ten times that of its allied country France and ten times that of Germany. Even if all the participating countries in the world were put together, they would not have as many tanks as the British Expeditionary Force alone.
Historically, after Germany finally defeated the Russian Empire on the Eastern Front and turned around to launch the Imperial Offensive on the Western Front, the British Expeditionary Force had 3,300 tanks in service, which shows the huge spare capacity of Britain.
Starting from 1917, Britain on the Western Front was no longer a supporting force as it had been in the first two years of the war, but instead took on the main offensive role like the French. After all, if they just slacked off, the French would really not be able to hold on.
"Yes, numbers don't lie." Secretary of War Newton looked at Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo and said that he agreed with Sheffield's statement. Just placing two thousand tanks there would be a huge deterrent force. Then he said, "Can we make enough tanks for the expeditionary force?"
When Sheffield heard about the new order, he suddenly stopped being sleepy and asked, "Do we want to have something similar to the British ones, or do we need to redesign them? As the largest tractor manufacturer in the country, United Company certainly has the technical reserves and has manufactured prototypes of tanks."
The so-called prototype is a test product similar to the German Type 1 tank. As long as the national order arrives, Sheffield can assemble it immediately, because the parts of this tank have already been manufactured. He even thought that if the Civil War breaks out again one day, it can be used to arm the Union Army.
It now seems that there is almost no hope for another Civil War, and it can be directly used to serve the American Expeditionary Force.
"Of course we have to have something similar to the British, and we can also learn the British's advanced technology." Newton Jr. chose a tank similar to the British tank, rather than the light tanks in Sheffield's reserve.
The slave owner was not disappointed. As long as the country could give him money, he didn't care about the argument. Was it better to have an iron tortoise like the British one or a test piece with spare parts reserves?
As a monopoly capitalist, Sheffield's personal conscience made him not correct the Secretary of War's wrong ideas. This was all requested by the federal government. If they found that the route was wrong and needed to change the equipment, wouldn't they still look for the slave owners? They could also make money from the next procurement contract.
After this dinner, Sheffield had revised the United States' plan to join the war, and delayed the official landing in Europe as much as possible. Finally, he sighed, "In fact, we should all thank the Germans. If Germany and Britain had not gone to war, we would be the ones facing the British attack today."
"No way, we won't fight with the British." McAdoo said with some disbelief, "We are all one nation, we won't go to the point of killing each other."
"It seems that the relationship between Germans and British is not that far away. Many people in Germany believe that British are part of the Germanic people, but of course British do not think so." Sheffield put the cut steak into his mouth with a fork, chewed the juicy meat and said vaguely, "If our country had the status of Britain, we would make the same choice."
Just think about the Cuban Missile Crisis and the attitude of the United States after it learned the number of Soviet nuclear bombs, and you will understand that if it can exchange serious injuries for the annihilation of the enemy, the United States will decide to make the exchange. As long as the top domestic forces are preserved, there will be plenty of leeks willing to become American citizens after the war.
The British dared to face two world wars launched by Germany. How naive it is to think that the United States will definitely choose war to contain its opponents just because of the emergence of nuclear bombs.
What if after the First World War in this time and space, Germany was no longer able to start a second war, and even the Soviet Union restrained itself from liberating all mankind? Then it would be Britain and the United States' turn to go to war. If the British could hand over world hegemony, the relationship between Britain and the United States would be thicker than blood. If they did not hand over, they would be heretics more hateful than pagans.
Sheffield didn't even need to say this vaccination. He remembered that before World War II, the federal government's War Department had a plan to go to war with Britain, called the Red Plan.
The reason for making plans to go to war with Britain was that the United States felt that Britain was deliberately suppressing itself in order to maintain its world hegemony. It was assumed that the British would do anything to maintain their world hegemony, so the United States had to be prepared to strike first.
"It's raining!" After sending several distinguished guests out of the manor, Sheffield realized that the good weather had changed suddenly. He asked the head of the bodyguards to arrange cars for several important political figures to escort them away.
Just three days later, Sheffield received a $2 million contract to purchase tanks. He whispered to himself, "No matter how small a fly is, it's still meat. The added value of tanks is still too low."
On the United States side, when Sheffield was using the last time to go through the procedures, the fighting on the Eastern Front in Europe began again. Risking the danger of being attacked by the British and French forces on the Western Front, the German Chief of General Staff Falkenhayn mobilized a large army from the Western Front to arrive at the Eastern Front. Prior to this, the commander of the Russian Southwestern Front, Brusilov, had already launched a preemptive attack.
The offensive plan formulated by Falkenhayn was divided into three routes. The German army would focus on the northern line to threaten the Russian capital Petrograd, while providing support to the Austro-Hungarian army on the southern line.
Before this, Brusilov's offensive had to be stopped. The lack of support from the imperial Russian logistics to the front line had been fully exposed. After almost a week of fighting, the Eighth Army showed signs of fatigue, and the time for counterattack finally arrived.
The Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army took action before the Germans. To their surprise, the Russian Eighth Army, which had seemed very powerful, retreated at the first blow. The Austro-Hungarian army immediately deployed more troops.
Ludendorff, who had received a large number of fresh troops on the northern front, learned of the great progress of the Austro-Hungarian army. He modified the offensive plan of the Chief of the General Staff and sent an army group to form a central front. This offensive resulted in a situation where the 2.3 million German-Austrian coalition forces launched an all-out offensive from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
Ludendorff sent the revised plan to the participating troops, named the battle plan "Emperor Swings the Sword", and wrote in the telegram, "All participating troops, for the emperor, for the empire!"
In view of the success of their allies, the German troops accelerated their advance. The 1st and 2nd Guards Divisions showed strong combat effectiveness and broke through the Russian defenses in front of them, which in turn affected the entire Southwestern Front. On the second day of the counterattack, the Russian army tore a 40-kilometer-wide gap on the battlefield, and the German and Austro-Hungarian troops continued to pour in.
"For the emperor, for the empire!" On the hundreds of kilometers of the battle front, the shouts of German soldiers rang out one after another amid the roar of more than 5,000 cannons. Three armies, including the Russian Eighth Army, were defeated one after another. From Estonia to Ukraine, the land of Imperial Russia was occupied at an alarming speed.
(End of this chapter)
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