The initial assault went even smoother than the Germans had dared hope.
When Wilhelm heard that the Stormtroopers had crushed the defenders and punched through the enemy’s first line of defense in just half an hour, he made up his mind on the spot and ordered more troops forward to press the advantage.
Taking back lost ground was just as good as wiping out enemy troops—either way, it would deliver a massive shock to the Entente on the other side.
If they could push forward another fifteen to twenty kilometers in one go and drive the Americans completely off their positions, every newspaper in the world the next morning would have Crown Prince Wilhelm splashed across the front page.
"Your Highness, isn’t this too risky? What if the Americans are faking weakness to lure us into a trap?"
Chief of Staff Kuhl was the cautious type. He suspected an enemy trap and wanted to talk the Crown Prince out of acting on impulse or throwing too many men into the fight.
But Wilhelm told him not to worry:
"Whether it’s a trap depends on where the front line is. Listen to the gunfire up ahead—it’s still pushing deeper into enemy territory, isn’t it? That means our attack hasn’t hit any real resistance yet. The enemy is still routing!
If they’d actually prepared an ambush, would they really be falling back this far? Our spearhead is practically on top of their artillery positions. Since when does anyone set a trap and throw their precious guns into the bargain?"
As if to prove Wilhelm right, a series of violent, concentrated explosions suddenly rumbled from the front.
"Sounds like we just took out one of their artillery positions!"
The blast was loud enough to carry this far—there was only one explanation: the ammo had cooked off!
Chief of Staff Kuhl didn’t just drop his objections after that. The look in his eyes as he stared at Wilhelm started bordering on worship.
Winning a defensive fight wasn’t that big a deal—trench warfare naturally favored the defender.
Both sides had fought plenty of battles throughout the Great War. Whether it was the Germans or the Entente, trying to crack an enemy line had always come at a horrific cost, and there was no guarantee of success.
So in Kuhl’s eyes and those of the other staff officers in Army Group B, the Crown Prince’s earlier defensive victory had been par for the course. Impressive, sure, but nothing extraordinary.
But an offensive? That was a different story entirely.
Breaking through enemy trenches in a defensive-oriented war of attrition was a hell of an achievement.
And the Germans had been outnumbered to boot. Pulling off an attack and winning while facing longer odds? That was next-level.
That was straight-up genius!
The military wasn’t like any other line of work. Every bad call a commander made could get thousands of men killed.
That was why the army valued competence above all else. Even if you were born into privilege, if you couldn’t deliver, you’d never earn the respect of the men and officers under you.
But if you were a stone-cold winner—if following you meant victory after victory—then even a guy from nothing could win the army’s loyalty.
If Wilhelm’s appointment as commander of Army Group B had come with his title before this, then after this battle, he would truly have the respect and admiration of every soldier and officer in Army Group B!
...
The German night raid was an overwhelming success.
Because the Germans kept up the pursuit, the retreating Americans didn’t dare turn and fight. They could only run for their lives.
The troops in the rear had just been jolted awake, and before they could even figure out what was happening, the fleeing men came stampeding through their lines. Then the Germans showed up right on their heels.
Still groggy and disoriented, they couldn’t put up any kind of organized resistance. Just like the units before them, they took a brutal beating in the German assault.
Some American units tried to counterattack, but between the night-vision gear and the German snipers picking off targets with ruthless precision, those efforts fell apart fast.
With their officers getting picked off one after another, those American units were left leaderless and combat-ineffective, joining the growing stream of fleeing men.
And once they broke, the heavy artillery positions that hadn’t been moved in time were left exposed for the Germans to see.
It was payback time. The Germans had taken more than their share of shelling from those American guns, and plenty of German soldiers had died under that bombardment.
Now that revenge was on the table, there was no way they were letting the artillery crews walk.
One charge was all it took. The gunners, already spooked and panicked, scattered in every direction.
Cannons and shells that hadn’t been evacuated in time littered the ground.
The Germans didn’t hold back. Anything they could carry, they took. What they couldn’t move, they rigged to blow right there on the spot—they’d blow the barrels clean in half just to make sure the guns were useless from here on out!
What Wilhelm and the others had heard back at headquarters was the sound of German soldiers blowing up the enemy’s ammo dumps.
An explosion that massive wasn’t just heard at the rear command post. Every American soldier on the front lines heard it too.
The fireball climbing into the night sky was impossible to miss.
When General Gridley, commander of the First Army, learned that the Germans had overrun his artillery positions, he hit the roof.
The defeat during the day had already made him lose face with General Pershing. And now the enemy had punched through two lines of defense and taken out his guns?
He couldn’t even imagine how he was supposed to explain this to General Pershing or the brass back in Washington once the sun came up!
He’d been hoping this battle would make his name. Instead, he’d just landed himself in the kill zone.
It was a safe bet that after this, even if he didn’t end up in front of a court-martial, he’d almost certainly be demoted for the loss and sidelined for good.
The thought of that terrifying outcome left General Gridley climbing the walls.
He started barking orders at his men, demanding they throw every last available man into the fight no matter the cost. He was determined to take the positions back before sunrise!
If he could drive the enemy out, retake the ground, and wipe out a chunk of the German force while he was at it, maybe he’d have a fighting chance.
But his orders had come way too late. By the time he gave the order to counterattack, German reinforcements had already arrived on the scene.
Without the advantage in numbers, charging into the open with no trenches or bunkers for cover, the Americans became sitting ducks for German machine gunners and artillery once again.
The Germans even turned the Americans’ own freshly captured guns and machine guns against them. Wave after wave of American soldiers went down in the hail of fire without ever laying eyes on the enemy.
Even the German troops couldn’t help but shake their heads at the sight:
"This isn’t a counterattack. This is a suicide mission!"
A few hours later, the sky began to lighten.
After taking horrendous losses, the Americans were forced to halt their offensive.
Because the enemy had counterattacked, the Germans weren’t able to retake all the ground that had been lost earlier. They’d only managed to push forward five to seven kilometers.
But over the course of that night, they’d inflicted close to fifty thousand casualties on the enemy, taken out an artillery position, and destroyed or captured over four hundred guns.
When the first rays of morning sun touched the battlefield, word of the battle spread across the world at lightning speed via telephone and telegraph!