Right when Hindenburg arrived at the front, General John J. Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces, also showed up at the headquarters of the U.S. First Army.
General Pershing glanced at Lieutenant General Liggett and spoke coldly:
"Talk. What the hell happened on the front lines?"
He couldn’t wrap his head around it. How did a sure-win battle turn into this disaster?
Not only did the Americans fail to take the German positions, but the enemy pushed them back three to four miles. And U.S. casualties? Nearly a hundred thousand men!
Hell, even if you let the Germans chase a hundred thousand pigs for three days straight, they wouldn’t catch ’em all.
But this idiot Liggett managed to throw away a hundred thousand elite American soldiers in a single day.
If looks could kill, Liggett would’ve been dead a hundred times over.
"Yes, sir!"
His subordinates laid out the situation on the front and the events of the previous day’s fighting—especially the night raid by the Germans—in detail for General Pershing.
After hearing it all, Pershing’s face got even darker.
"Pigs. Every damn one of you is a pig."
"A few hundred thousand men, broken by eight thousand enemies. Even your artillery positions got blown to hell. What the hell were you doing?"
Every officer in the room dropped their heads, none of them daring to meet Pershing’s eyes.
Honestly, even they were shocked when they found out how few Germans had actually attacked them. And they’d been there.
They’d fought wars their whole lives. Never seen anything like this.
Last night, the Germans moved like they had cheats turned on. Like the darkness meant nothing to them.
The Americans couldn’t even spot the enemy before they got shot.
On top of that, the Germans were loaded with automatic weapons. Their firepower was insane.
Eight thousand men somehow put out the energy of eighty thousand.
In the pitch black, the Americans had no clue how many Germans were out there. All they knew was that enemies seemed to be everywhere.
They scared themselves into thinking the position was lost. So they ran.
And they didn’t just run. They spread rumors everywhere.
Some said the Germans had eighty thousand men. Others claimed a hundred thousand. One guy went even crazier and said the entire German army showed up—seven hundred thousand strong.
These fake reports screwed up the Americans’ judgment big time. They missed the window to counterattack, which gave the Germans plenty of time to expand their gains.
It wasn’t until morning, when they interrogated captured German prisoners, that they learned the Germans had only sent eight thousand men at first. Only after seeing how well it went did they commit their main force.
Pershing was furious, but he wasn’t there to yell at people. He was there to clean up the mess.
This operation was supposed to show the whole world America’s military muscle.
Instead, the show flopped. What was supposed to impress everyone just embarrassed them.
By now, the U.S. Army was the laughingstock of the entire Entente. Their allies—the French and the British—were secretly cracking jokes behind their backs.
Getting mocked by the French and British? Fine, whatever. But even the Italians—the guys known for being total pushovers—were laughing at them.
That, the Americans could not take.
If they didn’t save face now, nobody would ever respect them again.
And the best way to save face was to beat the German unit in front of them and take their positions.
"From now on, the Second Army will handle the offensive. I’m taking direct command!"
The First Army had already taken heavy losses in earlier battles. Yesterday’s two fights just crippled them further.
Pershing figured they weren’t fit for combat anymore. Time to rotate them to the rear for rest.
Back home, the U.S. was still shipping troops and equipment to Europe nonstop. The First Army’s losses could be replaced within a month.
What really stung, though, was that the casualties were mostly veterans who’d fought in multiple battles. The replacements coming in were green rookies with zero combat experience.
Swap them out like that, and the First Army’s combat effectiveness was gonna take a serious hit.
The U.S. military was already short on combat experience. Losing this many vets hurt way worse than the numbers on paper suggested.
Every time he thought about it, he wanted to strangle Liggett.
While Pershing was blowing his stack, over on the German side, Hindenburg couldn’t hide the grin spreading across his face after reading the battle report.
"Your Highness, that was one hell of a fight. You’ve dealt a serious blow to the Entente’s arrogance. This gives us a much better hand at the negotiating table."
Truth was, Hindenburg was a monarchist too. But he had bigger ambitions and wasn’t as die-hard as Ludendorff.
Still, since the Junker aristocracy stood behind him, the two of them had common interests at this moment.
"So, how far along are these negotiations anyway?"
Wilhelm asked curiously. He knew that Germany and the Entente had already started secret talks about an armistice months ago. By now, they should be close to a deal. Otherwise, Hindenburg wouldn’t have ordered the German troops on the front to pull back.
"Uh... we were pretty much done before. But now, after you won this battle, we’re probably gonna have to renegotiate."
Hindenburg grimaced. He could already imagine how furious the Entente would be when they sat back down at the table.
"The Empire can give Alsace and Lorraine back to the French. We can pull out of Belgium too. But no more land concessions. That’s my bottom line."
Even though Crown Prince Wilhelm wasn’t Emperor yet, he was already giving orders like one.
And the key thing? Hindenburg didn’t argue. Almost like he’d already accepted it.
He was smart enough to know that after this battle, the Crown Prince was gonna have massive prestige inside the Empire.
If the German throne survived after the war, Wilhelm was guaranteed to be the next Kaiser.
Hell, even if old Kaiser Wilhelm II came running back from the Netherlands, he probably couldn’t take the crown back from his son.
No point picking a fight with the future Emperor. That wouldn’t do him any favors.
Still, the conditions Wilhelm laid out made Hindenburg sweat internally.
Compared to what the Entente was demanding, Wilhelm’s offer was way too small. There’s no way they’d accept—especially the French.
The French had gotten hammered in the Franco-Prussian War. They were dead set on tearing Germany apart and crushing its ability to fight back, so it could never threaten France again.
Giving up just Alsace and Lorraine obviously wasn’t gonna satisfy them. The French were gonna ask for way more.
As for the British, they were real nervous about the German navy. Most of their demands were about limiting Germany’s naval development.
That part, Hindenburg figured, was negotiable. Like a lot of the military big shots, he’d been against Wilhelm II’s naval arms race with Britain from the start.
The Empire poured billions into building the High Seas Fleet, and it did almost nothing useful during the whole war. Billions of marks down the drain.
If they’d saved that money and put it into the army instead...
Maybe they could’ve crushed the Russians sooner. Then, before their allies collapsed and the Americans joined the war, swung west and steamrolled the Entente.
If that had happened, it’d be the British and the French begging for mercy at the negotiating table right now.