[Name: Lin Feng (Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst)] [Identity: Crown Prince of the German Empire (Defunct)] [Age: 21 (36) years old] [Skill: Born Orator (Your speeches possess powerful infectiousness and demagoguery, easily guiding the audience’s emotions in the direction you desire)] [Military Merit: 3328 ↑ (Exchanges available for supplies and equipment)] After arranging the combat plans, Lin Feng made an excuse that he needed rest, dismissed the people around him, and quietly checked his system panel.
As a time-traveler, he naturally came with a cheat.
Otherwise, given the current situation, as a crown prince of a fallen country, he would likely only be able to flee to the Netherlands for refuge just like in history.
The system Lin Feng acquired was called the Military Merit System, which allowed him to earn military merit points by killing enemies and leading troops to achieve victory in battles and campaigns.
The acquired military merit points could be used to unlock the system mall, exchanging them for personal skills, weapons and equipment, and various supplies.
The reason he so easily persuaded his subordinates to defy superior orders and hold their ground with him just now relied on the speech skill he had previously exchanged for 10,000 military merit points.
After witnessing the power of the system, Lin Feng became extremely eager to acquire military merit points.
Currently, the most convenient way to obtain military merit points was killing enemies on the battlefield, where every enemy killed granted 1 military merit point.
Therefore, whether out of consideration for building his own reputation or earning military merit points, he could not let the troops retreat so easily.
If he didn’t squeeze the soft persimmon that was the US military a few more times, where would he go to farm military merit points once the war ended?
Counting the 10,000 military merit points he spent earlier, from the time he traveled into this body until now, he had obtained a total of over 13,000 military merit points.
Counting fully, only three days had passed since he time-traveled over, yet the German Army under his command had already killed over 13,000 Allied Powers soldiers.
The Western Front meat grinder truly lived up to its name!
But in Lin Feng’s view, this speed was still too slow.
If it followed the original history, the German Army would surrender to the Allied Powers in a few days.
Even with his interference slightly delaying the German Army’s surrender time, the German Army could not hold out for long.
At this moment, the German Empire had already fallen, and the frontline German Army had lost its rear base that provided them with weapons, ammunition, and various supplies.
Coupled with domestic worker riots and soldier uprisings sweeping across the country, it also left the frontline soldiers deeply worried, fearing that their relatives and children at home would be affected.
Under this internal and external predicament, the German Army could only hold out for a month at most.
Therefore, his task was to strive to farm enough military merit points within this month to lay the foundation for a comeback after the war!
…
In history, the reason the Americans were eventually able to break through the Hindenburg Line was because the German Army saw that defeat was imminent, did not want to continue pointless resistance, and voluntarily yielded their positions, allowing the Americans to pick up a victory.
But in this space-time, Crown Prince Wilhelm not only did not order a retreat, but instead rubbed his hands, vowing to give the Americans a head-on blow.
Completely unprepared for this, the Americans were still fantasizing about utilizing the German Army’s chaos to secure a great victory.
“General Liggett, I am handing the United States’ most elite First Army over to you.
Your mission is to rout the German Army on the right bank of the Meuse River, capture the Sedan Fortress, cut off the German Army’s Sedan-Mézières railway hub, and open a pathway for the next step of advancing into mainland Germany!” Facing General Pershing’s arrangements, the newly promoted Lieutenant General Henry Liggett was full of confidence.
The opposing German Army had only half their troop strength, and the commander was a good-for-nothing like Crown Prince Wilhelm who had no real ability and climbed to a high position entirely relying on his status as a crown prince.
Coupled with the Allied Powers’ morale soaring like a rainbow at this moment, while the German Army’s morale was depressed, under the blessing of numerous favorable factors, he didn’t know how this battle could be lost?
How could anyone lose with such an overwhelming advantage?
“So rest assured, victory is guaranteed!” General Liggett was already fantasizing about how to elegantly show off his military achievements when facing interviews from journalists of various countries after capturing the Sedan Fortress.
Seeing Pershing hand the main attack mission and the most elite First Army over to Liggett, General Robert Lee Bullard, who was promoted to lieutenant general at the same time as him, instantly became displeased.
“General, Sir, our army has previously undertaken defensive work, but right now the German Army’s collapse is imminent, and I see no further need for defense.
It would be better to also liberate our army and throw it into the offensive.
This can not only cover the First Army’s flanks, but also provide an opportunity to expand the battle results and add bargaining chips for future postwar negotiations!” After a brief thought, Pershing agreed to Lieutenant General Bullard’s request.
Having reached the final stage of the war, it was expected that the exhausted German Army could not stir up any major waves.
Committing two armies at once and doubling the scale of the campaign would not only achieve greater battle results, but also deter the British and French, telling them that the United States also possessed the capability to organize large-scale army operations on a scale of one million people!
Lest they always look down on the US military and despise America as an emerging country.
The world pattern during World War I was completely different from that of World War II.
Although America’s industrial strength had surpassed the British Empire more than a decade ago, in terms of comprehensive strength, the British Empire at this time was still superior.
Not to mention anything else, just take the British Empire’s Royal Navy as an example.
The Royal Navy at this time could take on two US navies; it was genuinely number one in the world, leading by a generational gap.
Therefore, the mindset of the Americans at this time was not to pursue hegemony, but to demonstrate strength to old-established powers like Britain and France, wanting to come to the table and get a share of the pie.
Against this background, the Americans were more like fighting a battle for international observation and prestige.
It was a pity, however, that the opposing German Army had no intention of cooperating with the Americans’ performance.
After the battle commenced, the Americans threw in 2,700 artillery pieces and over 800 airplanes in one breath, bombarding the German Army’s positions wildly for a full three hours.
Under the Americans’ wild bombardment, the barbed wire in front of the German Army’s positions was blown to pieces, the woods were burned down, the trenches were filled in, and even some small hills were razed to the ground.
Looking at the German Army’s positions completely shrouded in smoke and devoid of almost any vitality, the US military officers proudly showed off to the British and French military observers who had come to watch the battle: “How does this firepower intensity compare to the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme?” The Battle of Verdun was the most famous and cruelest battle in World War I, where both sides amassed over 2 million troops, engaged in fierce battles on a narrow battlefield for nearly a year, and suffered nearly 1 million casualties.
Yet in this unprecedentedly scaled battle, the artillery pieces of both sides combined totaled less than 2,000.
But at this moment, just a single army of the US military deployed over 2,700 artillery pieces.
Solely in terms of firepower intensity, they were truly unprecedented.