[Name: Karl (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor August Ernst)]
[Identity: Crown Prince of the German Second Empire (Empire Collapsed)]
[Age: 21 (36)]
[Skill: Natural Orator (Your speeches possess immense charisma and persuasiveness, allowing you to effortlessly steer your audience’s emotions in whatever direction you desire.)]
[Military Merit: 3328↑ (Can be exchanged for supplies and equipment)]
After finalizing the battle plans, Karl dismissed his entourage under the pretense of needing rest. Alone at last, he discreetly pulled up his system interface.
As a transmigrator, of course he had a golden finger—a unique system.
Otherwise, given the current situation, he’d be just like his historical counterpart: fleeing to the Netherlands to seek refuge after the fall of the empire.
The system Karl had awakened was called the Military Merit System. He could earn military merit points by killing enemy troops and leading his forces to victory in battles and campaigns. These points could then be spent in the system’s store to redeem personal skills, weapons, equipment, and various supplies.
The reason he had so easily convinced his subordinates to disobey high command and hold their ground with him was all thanks to the Orator skill—which he had purchased earlier for 10,000 merit points.
Having witnessed the sheer power of the system, Karl’s thirst for military merit had grown ravenous.
Right now, the quickest way to farm those points was simple: kill enemy soldiers on the battlefield. Every enemy taken down earned him 1 point.
So, whether it was to build his own reputation or to grind for merit, there was no way in hell he was pulling his troops back so easily.
If he didn’t squeeze the Americans—the softest target around—for all they were worth, where else was he supposed to farm merit once the war ended?
Including the 10,000 points he’d already spent, Karl had racked up over 13,000 military merit points since transmigrating into this body.
And all of that was earned in just three days. His German troops had already cut down more than 13,000 Entente soldiers in that short span.
The Western Front meat grinder truly lived up to its name!
But even so, Karl still thought the pace was too slow.
According to the original history, the Germans would surrender to the Entente in just a few days.
Even with his interference stalling the inevitable for a short while, the German army couldn’t hold out much longer.
The Second Empire had already collapsed. The frontline troops no longer had a home base to supply them with ammunition and provisions.
On top of that, worker uprisings and soldier mutinies were sweeping across the homeland, leaving the men at the front sick with worry for their families back home.
Trapped between a rock and a hard place, the Germans could hold on for at most one month.
His mission, therefore, was to farm enough military merit within that single month to lay the groundwork for his comeback after the war!
...
Historically, the Americans had only managed to break through the Hindenburg Line because the Germans, seeing the writing on the wall, had chosen not to waste more lives and voluntarily gave up their positions—handing the Americans an unearned victory.
But in this timeline, Crown Prince Wilhelm had no intention of retreating. Instead, he was rolling up his sleeves, ready to give the Americans a brutal beating.
Completely unprepared for this, the Americans were still daydreaming about exploiting the German chaos to seize a glorious victory.
"General Liggett, I’m placing the Republic’s finest—the First Army—under your command. Your mission is to crush the German forces on the right bank of the Meuse River, capture the fortress of Sedan, sever the Sedan-Mézières railway hub, and blast open the gateway for our advance into Germany itself!"
Facing General Pershing’s orders, the newly promoted Major General Hunter Liggett was brimming with confidence.
The German forces opposite him numbered barely half of his own. Their commander was that Crown Prince Wilhelm—a useless pretty boy who’d only risen to his position because of his royal blood.
On top of that, Entente morale was sky-high while German morale was in the gutter. With all these advantages stacked in his favor, Liggett couldn’t possibly imagine losing this fight.
How do you lose when you’ve got the enemy on the ropes?
So, relax. This one was in the bag!
General Liggett was already fantasizing about how he’d gracefully show off his battle honors to the press once Sedan fell.
When Liggett walked away with both the primary assault mission and the elite First Army, Major General Robert Lee Bullard—promoted to the same rank at the same time—immediately got pissed.
"General, our troops have been stuck on defensive duty up until now. But with the Germans on the verge of collapse, there’s clearly no need to keep defending. Why not free up my men for the offensive? We can cover the First Army’s flank and potentially expand the gains—strengthening our hand at the postwar bargaining table!"
Pershing mulled it over briefly and then approved Bullard’s request.
The war was in its final stage. There was no way the Germans—a spent force—could pull off any surprises at this point.
Throwing in two field armies at once and doubling the scale of the offensive would not only deliver a bigger win, but also send a clear message to the British and French: the Americans were more than capable of commanding a massive, million-man force!
That would shut them up and stop them from looking down on the United States as some upstart nation.
The world order during World War I was nothing like it was in World War II.
Although America’s industrial might had already surpassed that of the British Empire over a decade ago, the Brits still held the edge in overall comprehensive power.
Just look at the Royal Navy.
At this point, the Royal Navy could take on two US Navies without breaking a sweat. They were, without question, the undisputed number one in the world—in a league of their own.
So the Americans weren’t exactly chasing global hegemony just yet. Their goal was to flex their muscles to the old European powers and earn a seat at the table.
In that sense, the Americans were treating this like a showcase battle—a matter of international prestige.
Too bad the Germans across the way had no intention of playing along.
When the fighting kicked off, the Americans committed a staggering 2,700 artillery pieces and over 800 aircraft, pounding the German positions non-stop for a full three hours.
Under this relentless bombardment, the barbed wire entanglements in front of the German lines were shredded, forests were set ablaze, trenches were flattened, and even some of the smaller hills were leveled entirely.
Watching the German positions—now completely shrouded in smoke and seemingly devoid of all life—American officers smugly turned to the British and French military observers who had come to watch the show.
"How does this firepower stack up against Verdun? Or the Somme?"
The Battle of Verdun was the most infamous and bloodiest battle of the Great War. Both sides had thrown over 2 million men into a narrow killing field, fighting for nearly a year and suffering nearly a million casualties combined.
Yet throughout that colossal battle, the two sides had fielded fewer than 2,000 artillery pieces in total.
Now, a single American army had brought more than 2,700 guns to bear.
When it came to sheer firepower, they were truly in a league of their own.