“Steady!” “Wait until they’re close before firing!” “Don’t stop the artillery fire, blast them with everything you’ve got!” Crown Prince Wilhelm did not stay safely in the rear command post to watch the battle; instead, he personally went to the front lines to boost morale.
He knew that the German Army’s morale and spirit were at an all-time low.
Although his steadfastness had stabilized some of the morale, the only way to get the soldiers fully engaged in the fight was for him to brave the danger and command from the front lines himself!
“Good heavens, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is here!” “Your Highness, it’s too dangerous here, please go back!” Wilhelm’s arrival caused a stir on the front lines; some of the lower and middle-ranking officers and soldiers were so worried that they wanted to grab his legs and carry him back.
But Wilhelm refused them with stern righteousness: “If we lose this battle, we will all be slaves to a conquered nation.
What talk of princes or royal highness is there then?
On the battlefield, there is no Crown Prince, only the most loyal soldiers of the German Empire.
Today, I stand with you, fighting the enemy together, defending our motherland!” Under the influence of his innate orator skill, Wilhelm’s righteous speech moved the soldiers on the front lines deeply!
“His Royal Highness is with us!
Brothers, charge!
Swear to protect our motherland, protect the Crown Prince!” “You American devils, come if you have the guts!
Before I fall, I’ll be sure to kill enough of you American dogs to make it worth my while!” His appearance achieved the expected effect; the soldiers currently in battle discovered that the Crown Prince had actually come to the front line, and each one of them roared with excitement.
If not for Wilhelm stopping them, their high morale would have driven them to rush out of the trenches and launch a counter-charge against the enemy!
Wilhelm was not against a counter-charge, but it was not the time yet.
Rushing out now, amidst the enemy’s dense firepower, would be no different from suicide.
The forces under his command were limited, consisting of only 4 armies, 34 divisions, totaling 730,000 troops.
Opposite them, the Americans alone had an army of 1.2 million, with hundreds of thousands of French Army and British Army troops lurking nearby, ready to join the battle at any moment.
Trading attrition with the enemy was not cost-effective for him.
He had to inflict maximum damage on the enemy with minimal cost to deter them!
The high-spirited German Army repelled the first wave of the American offensive in less than an hour.
After leaving behind a field full of corpses, the remaining American soldiers scrambled and fled back to their own positions in a sorry state.
Because the engagement was so brief and the retreat so hurried, a large number of wounded American soldiers were abandoned on the battlefield, screaming and wailing.
The American soldiers who were lucky enough to escape and return, upon hearing the screams of their comrades on the battlefield, dared not come out to rescue them and could only huddle in their trenches, trembling with their heads in their hands!
“Quick, quickly retreat to the second line of defense and the bunkers, the enemy’s shelling is about to begin!” With no time to clear the battlefield, seeing the enemy retreat like a receding tide, Wilhelm hurriedly ordered the soldiers to withdraw to a safe distance.
Although the second line of defense was not necessarily completely safe, the enemy’s main focus was still on the first line; hiding in the second line could avoid most of the shelling, minimizing their own casualties.
Of course, this had its drawbacks: when the enemy launched an attack, they had to rush back to the first line of defense to hold it in the shortest possible time.
Otherwise, it would be equivalent to handing over the undefended first line of defense to the enemy.
Once the enemy took the first line of defense, they could immediately use it as a springboard to continue attacking the German Army’s depth defenses.
If the German Army wanted to take it back, they would have to pay the same heavy casualties as the Americans did earlier!
Upon hearing the order, the well-trained German Army soldiers moved quickly, not only withdrawing all personnel but also taking along all the weapons, ammunition, wounded, and supplies they could carry.
What could not be taken was hidden in the excavated underground tunnels, where a small number of suicide squads were also hidden.
Their task was to emerge immediately after the enemy’s shelling ended and counterattack, holding on until the main force of friendly troops arrived.
If the position was unfortunately lost, they would act as internal support, coordinating with friendly forces to launch a counterattack and retake the lost ground.
No sooner had the German Army withdrawn than the Americans’ second round of shelling arrived.
Perhaps because the casualties from the first attack were so high, the angry Americans vented their frustration by bombarding the German Army’s positions for a full five hours before stopping.
“This is completely different from the intelligence, damn it!” “The enemy’s morale is clearly very high.
Why did the intelligence report say the enemy’s morale was low and their hearts were scattered?” “Tanks, I need tanks to clear the path, to break through those damn minefields and barbed wire!” Seeing the American troops retreating in defeat through his binoculars, Lieutenant General Liggett, commander of the First Army, was furious.
The situation on the battlefield was completely different from the scene he had imagined.
He had envisioned a great victory, but in reality, he was left with a rout.
Although the statistics were not yet in, the American casualties from that last offensive were likely no less than 10,000, and perhaps even more!
However, he did not take responsibility for the failure himself, but instead shifted the blame onto the intelligence department, believing that the false intelligence they provided caused him to lose the battle, without ever considering whether it was a problem with his own command!
The Americans were roaring, and the British Army and French Army military observers watching from the side also frowned.
The enemy’s performance today was indeed very abnormal, as if they were a completely different army compared to their previous state.
Not to mention the Americans having doubts, even they couldn’t help but suspect that the news coming from Germany was fake.
Could it be that the Kaiser hadn’t fled, and this was just a smokescreen to lure them into a trap?
But regardless, the force ratio between the two sides was 1.2 million to 700,000; the advantage was with them!
Although 10,000 casualties were significant, it couldn’t stop the Americans from continuing the offensive; after all, they had already suffered 150,000 casualties before this!
Giving up now, when the German Army actually surrendered, they would have achieved nothing and, having been beaten to a pulp by the German Army, would become the laughingstock of the Allied Powers!
So they had to continue the attack, but this time, the Americans were going to deploy tanks!
Since tanks were invented by the British and used for the first time in the Battle of the Somme.
Countries around the world recognized the immense value of this revolutionary weapon and began to develop their own tanks.
The American Army was naturally no exception, but they started relatively late, lacked sufficient technical accumulation, and did not have the capability for independent development.
They could only choose to cooperate with Allied Powers allies like France and Britain.
At present, the number of tanks developed and produced by the American Army itself was not large, with fewer than 20 Mark VIII tanks built in cooperation with the British.
The remaining 160 tanks were all bought or borrowed from the French, mainly the Renault FT-17.
Although compared to the kings of land warfare in World War II, the tanks of World War I were very weak—not only light in tonnage and weak in firepower, but also with poor defensive capabilities, capable only of resisting machine gun and rifle bullets, and struggling against artillery shells.
But on the battlefield of World War I, tanks were still a massive killing weapon; the appearance of over a hundred tanks was enough to change the battlefield!