Chapter 744: Blocking the News
Everything has its own development. For example, Robert Lansing used the current German army to imagine the German army four years ago. This is definitely something that slave owners cannot agree with. If everyone thinks so, then it can be traced directly back to the world's first great empire, the ancient Persian Empire.
It was useless no matter how beautifully the wars were fought before. Whether you die standing or kneeling, it is the same for the dead. Dying is easy, but surviving is the difficult thing.
"Since last year, Black Gold has helped France transport Vietnamese soldiers to the battlefield, with a total of more than 100,000 soldiers. In French Africa, a lot of cannon fodder has also been transported via the Atlantic route. As for the British, they have the largest fleet in the world, so I don't need to worry about this. I heard that the British fleet is also ready to help the United States of Brazil." Sheffield flicked the ash from his cigarette. "It's not a difficult task. The United States of Brazil only has 60,000 soldiers in total, and they can be transported in a month."
It cannot be blamed on the slave owners for looking down on Brazil. It is a fact that Brazil has an army of 60,000. This is not only true in Europe, but even in Asia it would not be among the top five. Not counting the Ottoman Empire which has already joined the war, the army of the United Brazilian Republic is probably at the same level as Thailand. If placed in China, it would not even be considered a big warlord, but only a small warlord.
The Kaiser Offensive had indeed made the British and French forces on the Western Front dizzy, but that didn't mean anything. Since 1917, strikes in Germany had been going on for hundreds of times, with more than a million people participating. Although Sheffield had tried its best to help Germany make up for its agricultural shortcomings before the war, it was only a stopgap measure, and the grain reserves could only support a year of high-intensity warfare.
Germany is now holding back its last bit of strength. Once its offensive is thwarted, all that remains is to wait for despair to arise within Germany and for people to no longer support continuing the war.
"With our support, the balance of war has completely tilted. If we don't join the war, the Central Powers and the Allied Powers can still fight." Sheffield's legs bounced, as if expressing his master's joy. "It's no longer an era where a country's fate can be determined by a single battle. That era has passed since the Battle of Waterloo."
In fact, Sheffield asked Secretary of State Robert Lansing to meet with him not because he wanted to provide guidance to the Democratic government, but because Robert Lansing and the current President Wilson were not in tune with each other in some aspects. It could be said that they had different personalities or different ideas. In short, Robert Lansing himself was very opposed to President Wilson's Fourteen Points.
Although President Wilson looked like a scholar, he was actually a very strong person in private. This was also the reason why Sheffield rarely met with the president after Wilson became president. Anything was done through the president's son-in-law, the Secretary of the Treasury. Facing a president with a strong style, the slave owner kept changing his attitude. This was also his true entry into adulthood, and he realized the essence of the relationship between monopoly capitalists and politicians.
Now is a time of war, and Sheffield still wants to maintain a better relationship between the Secretary of State and the President and try to mend the rift between them. Because since joining the war, the federal government's war budget has soared from 3% to 17%. Although it cannot be compared with the 40 to 50% ratio of the two major camps, a large part of this money has fallen into the hands of the United Company, especially after the expeditionary force was formed.
When a large-scale war really breaks out, the army is the real money-devouring behemoth. Even Britain's war expenditure, the military expenditure spent by the British Expeditionary Force, far exceeds that of the world's number one British Royal Navy.
"Our president attaches great importance to authority, but this is not a big problem." Sheffield tried to mediate the relationship between the two Democratic giants in his position as a member of the Democratic National Committee.
Although there are many successful people from the citizen class in the United States, there are more cases where the father is a hero and the son is a hero. The daughter of President Benjamin Harrison's Secretary of State was the wife of Robert Lansing. Now there are two nephews, John Foster Dulles, who was the Secretary of State decades later, and his brother Allen Dulles, who was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
In the future, if the major banana republics in Central America show any disrespect to the United States because of the emergence of the Soviet Union, they may need the help of these two brothers.
"In fact, we are negotiating with the Italian government now, and the results are very good." Robert Lansing suddenly spoke mysteriously, and it was obvious that this was a big event that was currently underway.
"There are still 300,000 Italian troops on the Western Front. Can the Italians make up their minds?" Sheffield was a little surprised when he heard this, but it was not surprising when he thought about it carefully. With the strength of the Kingdom of Italy, it was already considered to be loyal to its duty to be able to perform like this in the world war. It was not surprising that it was the first to back down.
If you were the first to withdraw from the war as a member of the Allies, you might be able to get good conditions and avoid paying a huge price, or get relatively favorable conditions.
Although a little embarrassed, the two also discussed post-war issues, which was also where Robert Lansing and Wilson disagreed. But when it came to the issue of Germany, the two were very unanimous in their opinions. Germany should not be weakened excessively. Not only did the politicians and his monopoly capitalists agree on this point, but even the slave owners knew that the British would think so too.
It's still the old routine of continental balance of power, except that the British want to contain post-war France, while the United States wants to contain both Britain and France at the same time. There is always a mountain to climb, and the war hasn't even ended yet, but things have already started to get dirty.
The real American power intimidated the inflated American power through a combination of verbal and military threats, fed back the good news to London and Paris, and guaranteed to transport 50,000 soldiers to Europe every month. However, Britain and France did not know that the soldiers for the first four months would be black soldiers. As for the principle of the next batch of soldiers, it was not based on letting the Yankees die first.
You have to know that the transportation network, economy and population of the United States are all in the hands of the North. With these basic conditions objectively in place, it is very normal to mobilize places with higher efficiency first. Therefore, sending soldiers who are easy to concentrate to the battlefield first is a very reasonable choice.
After the Yankees were mobilized, the Dixies would be mobilized, but Sheffield estimated that the war would be over by then. The German Kaiser Offensive would last only six months to a year, and this was already based on the maximum estimate. In fact, the Kaiser Offensive in history started in March and ended in July, which was only four months.
Sheffield's estimate was correct. This time the Emperor's Offensive was indeed more fierce than in history. In the first month of the offensive, it was almost a reappearance of the scene of the German army's rapid advance in 1914.
The fierceness of the offensive launched by the German army surprised the British and French forces. This did not look like a tired army that had been fighting for four years. With the help of the Austro-Hungarian, Italian and Bulgarian corps, the Allied forces with the German army as the core launched a fierce attack, which almost made the Allied camp unable to withstand.
At such a dangerous moment, the anxious British and French forces almost ignored gentlemanliness and romance, and exposed their true imperialist nature. The French command immediately ordered the organization of a supervision team and sent colonial troops from all over the country to the battlefield.
"Once the North African and Vietnamese Corps retreat behind the supervision line, they will be killed without mercy." Similar orders were immediately passed to the French troops, and almost at the same time the British Expeditionary Force also issued a similar order, pushing 300,000 Indian Corps to the front line, and the British mainland troops supervised the battle behind the Indian Corps.
The German army began to focus on Flanders as a breakthrough point. In the past, the German army designed the George Plan, intending to take over the southern Ypres area. However, during this operation, the German army comprehensively upgraded this plan because all combat plans had only one purpose - to drive the British out of the war.
The Sixth Army quickly broke through the defenses of the British and Portuguese armies. With the assistance of the Fourth Army, the Messier Ridge was captured by the Germans and Ypres also fell. The Germans were close to the railway hub of Hazebrouck. If this fell, the British would face a catastrophe.
The German army's actions made the British Expeditionary Force feel like they were facing a formidable enemy. On the one hand, it sent reinforcements, and on the other hand, it sent the Canadian Corps, which was currently the best performing among the colonial troops, into the battlefield in the hope of withstanding the German offensive.
On another battlefield, the French situation was better. France was mainly facing attacks from the Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian and Italian Corps on the southern front. Because the German army group on the southern front was taking a short rest, and without the Allied forces that the Germans were mediating, some problems arose.
What comforted Britain and France in April was that an American expeditionary force had arrived at the battlefield one after another, and the first ship of the Brazilian expeditionary force had also arrived, which injected a shot in the arm for the Allied Powers who were struggling to resist the German attack.
"The weather seems to be a little unusual this spring. Many soldiers in the army are sick?" A French general in his sixties in the French headquarters said to Marshal Pétain, who was already the commander-in-chief of the French Army. "Marshal, your lung disease during the Battle of Verdun is very serious. You must pay attention to it."
"No, the weather this year is not abnormal." Marshal Pétain frowned and said, "How many soldiers are sick on the battlefield?" Pétain was already over 60 years old and was extremely sensitive to the weather. How could he not feel the abnormal weather? After thinking for a while, he asked, "How many soldiers are sick?"
"From the report, it's a lot, even affecting the combat effectiveness of some troops." The general nodded.
"The German attack is still going on. We must block the news and prohibit the spread of similar news." Marshal Pétain thought for a moment and gave the order decisively, "Otherwise the Germans will definitely attack us."
(End of this chapter)
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