However, when the British observer heard the American officer’s bragging, he barely lifted an eyelid and scoffed,
"General, if artillery alone could wipe out the enemy, there wouldn’t be a single soul left alive on the Western Front.
Over the past four years, both sides have dumped over a billion shells into this mud. That averages out to at least a hundred shells per man—enough to kill every soldier dozens of times over.
And yet, as you can see, the enemy is still very much alive and kicking. If you want to actually destroy them, you still need boots on the ground. The question is, how good are your boys?"
The British weren’t the only ones who looked down on the Americans’ fighting ability—the French felt exactly the same.
And the reason was obvious: the Americans were stepping right into the same traps the British had fallen into years ago.
When the Great War first kicked off, the British Army was woefully unprepared for a global slugfest, and its land forces were tiny.
To cope with the brutal fighting on the Western Front, the British were forced into a desperate domestic mobilization, drafting massive numbers of fresh troops.
Even though a few veterans and seasoned commanders remained from the Boer War, the newly formed British units performed absolutely miserably on the battlefield.
The Germans treated them like a soft target, and the French looked down on them too.
Then came the Somme.
During that campaign, the British pulled off one spectacularly stupid move: even though the Germans had Maxim machine guns dug in across the front, the Brits insisted on fighting like it was the Napoleonic era, lining their men up in dense formations and sending them marching toward the German lines.
In a single day, British casualties exceeded 60,000!
The German gun barrels were smoking from all the firing, but they couldn’t stop the British from practically committing suicide!
It was only after being tempered by blood and fire that the British Army slowly matured, eventually replacing the French as the Germans’ number one threat.
But the Americans clearly hadn’t gone through that same metamorphosis yet.
Sure, their army was massive, but the British had zero faith in these inexperienced rookies.
The American officers, however, didn’t give a damn about what the British observer said.
They just assumed the Brits were jealous of the huge victory they were about to score and were talking sour grapes.
As soon as the artillery stopped, the Americans immediately launched a massive assault on the German positions.
At their commanders’ orders, countless GIs crawled out of their trenches, rifles in hand, letting out incoherent whoops and shouts—as if trying to psych themselves up—and charged toward the German lines.
Seeing the attack kick off, the British, French, and Italian observers who had come to watch the show all raised their binoculars and peered out from their high vantage point.
The smoke from the earlier American bombardment still hung heavy in the air, drifting in thick clouds that occasionally obscured their view.
But through the haze, the German positions looked deathly silent.
Aside from the Americans’ shouting, the battlefield was eerily quiet.
"Something’s not right," the seasoned French observer muttered, lowering his binoculars, his expression grim.
"What do you mean?"
The Italian observer beside him asked in a slightly ingratiating tone, hunching his shoulders.
"It’s too quiet."
The British observer added, lowering his binoculars as well, his face just as serious.
Having fought the Germans for years, they knew their tactics inside and out.
Normally, as soon as American infantry left their trenches and stepped into the open, German artillery should have opened fire to break up the attack formation.
Then, once the Americans closed to within 500 meters, German mortars and heavy machine guns would join the fray, inflicting maximum casualties at that range.
(During the late stages of WWI, opposing trenches were often as far as 1,000 meters apart. In the early stages, they were so close that a strong man could literally toss a grenade into the enemy’s trench. As tanks and snipers became more prevalent, the distance between lines was forced to increase.)
On a battlefield littered with mines, barbed wire, and other obstacles, soldiers couldn’t charge very fast.
This meant they were exposed to enemy fire for a long time, and most attacking casualties happened during this phase.
The firepower density of WWI was absolutely insane; during major battles, a single kilometer of front could have over 50 artillery pieces and 100 machine guns.
Without tank cover, flesh and blood alone couldn’t withstand that kind of devastating barrage.
The vast majority of soldiers never even made it to the enemy trenches before being cut down by machine gun fire and shells.
Even if they got close, they’d be stopped by barbed wire and underground bunkers, then mowed down by rifles and machine guns from the trenches.
And even if the attackers paid a bloody price to capture a trench, they’d immediately face fierce counterattacks.
A single stretch of trench or a piece of ground would often change hands multiple times, costing thousands or even tens of thousands of lives to secure.
That was the horror of WWI: without effective breakthrough methods, neither side could break through the other’s defenses, forcing them into grueling trench warfare, where men were ground up in one futile offensive after another planned by the general staff.
But the Germans opposite them had just shattered that norm!
"Could the Germans have bugged out?"
Someone wondered aloud.
Rumor had it that the Kaiser himself had fled; hearing that, it was only natural for frontline troops to lose morale and abandon their positions.
The attacking Americans seemed to think the same way.
"The bastards ran! Come on, boys, pick up the pace! Let’s catch those German sons of bitches!"
A commanding officer roared, ordering his men to speed up.
The American soldiers, who had been terrified of the battlefield’s brutality just moments before, now had their morale boosted.
Thinking the enemy was fleeing, they quickened their stride, rifles at the ready, and charged toward the German lines with wild shouts.
500 meters!
300 meters!
200 meters!
The German positions were getting closer and closer, yet there was still no sign of the enemy.
At this point, even the observers from various nations watching from the rear started to believe the Germans had actually retreated.
But in the next second—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Massive explosions erupted across the battlefield like rolling thunder.
Shells rained down from the sky, crashing into the American ranks and blowing one group of soldiers after another to bits.
RAT-TAT-TAT!
The heavy machine guns joined the chorus, mowing down the advancing Americans like a scythe cutting through wheat.
And in that same instant, German soldiers hidden in trenches and bunkers popped up, rifles and submachine guns blazing, unleashing a storm of lead at the enemy closing in on their lines.
In the blink of an eye, the battlefield erupted in a cacophony of gunfire and explosions, like a frenzied symphony of war.
The charging American soldiers dropped like wheat before a storm, falling in waves, never to rise again.
Flames and blood mist filled the air, and the ground was littered with mangled limbs and twitching bodies of the freshly dead.
The British observer watching from the rear felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
This scene reminded him all too vividly of the horrors of the Somme.
Right here, right now, was exactly like back then!