[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: 25328↑ (Can be exchanged for supplies and equipment)]
The moment the Americans were driven back, Wilhelm pulled up his system interface to check his military merit points.
He nearly choked.
Thanks to the Yanks’ sheer stubbornness and that massive push they’d thrown at him, the Germans had just farmed a mountain of points.
In those two waves of attacks alone, the Germans had wiped out over 22,000 American soldiers.
And there were still plenty of badly wounded GIs out on the battlefield who hadn’t kicked the bucket yet. As they succumbed to their injuries, the merit points on Wilhelm’s system panel just kept climbing.
25,000 points. More than enough to pull off the operation he had in mind.
If he wanted to maximize his gains on this night raid, he had to equip his men with the best night-fighting gear out there: night vision devices!
Night vision tech had first been developed and fielded by the Germans during WWII.
In the later stages of the war, some German tanks—like the Panther and King Tiger—were fitted with infrared night vision sights and detectors, letting them spot and engage enemies under the cover of darkness.
Elite tank crews kitted out with this gear had racked up some seriously impressive kill counts in night battles. But unfortunately, by that point in the war, the Third Reich was getting pummeled by round-the-clock Allied strategic bombing, and its industrial output had gone straight into the toilet.
On top of that, manpower and supplies were running on fumes. The Germans never got the chance to mass-produce and issue this equipment to their troops. Instead, it was the Americans who ended up picking up the ball, running with it, and turning it into one of their signature weapons.
Thinking about all this, Wilhelm didn’t hesitate for a second. He opened the system store and scrolled through the massive inventory until he found exactly what he was looking for.
One glance at the price tag told him the system’s military night vision devices were going for anywhere between 3 to 10 points each.
Karl—whose past life memories included being a hardcore military buff—knew the score.
A proper military-grade night vision unit would run you about 30,000 to 100,000 bucks. In other words, one military merit point was worth roughly 10,000 RMB.
25,000 points gave him the purchasing power of about 250 million RMB.
That was a ridiculous amount of money for any one person. But for an entire nation? It was barely a drop in the bucket.
So he had to keep racking up kills and farming those points!
It was a damn shame the war was about to end. He had no clue how he was supposed to grind merit points once the ceasefire kicked in.
Whatever. He’d cross that bridge when he got to it. Wilhelm wasn’t about to let that problem kill his vibe. He pulled the trigger on an order: 8,000 night vision devices.
It wasn’t a huge number—nowhere near enough to equip the entire German front. But he didn’t need to send everyone out anyway. Too many men would just blow his cover and tip off the enemy.
For this op, Wilhelm was only deploying his absolute best: the Stormtroopers. These WWI-era "special forces" were built for exactly this kind of high-stakes raid.
Sporadic fighting dragged on for a few more hours. It wasn’t until nightfall, when neither side could see shit, that both armies finally stood down and the shooting died down.
The Americans, who’d taken a brutal beating, were hunkered down in their trenches licking their wounds.
The Germans, meanwhile, were hauling ammo, reinforcing their defenses, and using the cover of darkness to send men out into no-man’s-land to scavenge for abandoned enemy supplies and ammo.
Soon as the Germans made their move, the Americans sent out their own salvage crews to recover their wounded.
When the two sides ran into each other out in the open, they both played dumb, pretended not to see one another, and went about their business. Neither side opened fire.
But beneath that calm surface, the current was running fast and dirty.
In a spot the Americans couldn’t see, an elite, heavily armed German force was locked, loaded, and ready to rock.
The night raid was set for the second half of the night—they’d hit the enemy once they’d let their guard down!
Wilhelm inspected the elite unit and personally handed out the brand-new night vision devices.
"This is the latest piece of kit developed by the Imperial Royal Academy of Sciences. With this, you’ll have the eyes of a night hawk in the dark. You’ll spot the enemy and wipe them out before they even know what hit them!"
Hearing the Crown Prince’s words, the soldiers accepted the devices with a sense of sacred reverence. They cradled them in their hands like they were made of glass, terrified of breaking them.
More than a few silently swore they’d give up their own lives before letting a single scratch touch this gear. This was a gift from His Highness himself!
"Remember: no piece of equipment—no matter how precious—is worth more than your life. I want every single one of you to come back in one piece. I’ll be here waiting for your triumphant return!"
The soldiers snapped to attention, clicked their heels, and threw a perfectly synchronized salute to the Crown Prince they respected above all others.
...
Meanwhile, over at the American lines, General Pershing’s face was looking uglier by the second as the reports poured in from the front.
After the first day of fighting, the Americans had only managed to push forward less than 300 meters along a 25-kilometer front.
They’d captured a few weakly defended outposts, sure, but the rest of their offensive had gone absolutely nowhere. Worse still, the tank units they’d pinned all their hopes on had been decimated—over 80 tanks knocked out or damaged, nearly half of everything the Americans had!
But even with such pathetic gains, their casualties were through the roof!
On top of the heavy losses in their tank corps, the American infantry who’d gone over the top had taken a beating too. 40,000 men! That was the butcher’s bill for just one day.
It didn’t quite stack up to the monstrous losses the Brits had taken at the Somme, but for the Americans, this was hands down the bloodiest day they’d seen since joining the Great War.
And the First Army—the unit Pershing had been babying like it was made of gold—had gotten hit the hardest. Thanks to Liggett’s piss-poor command, they’d lost damn near 30,000 men. Several of their elite divisions had been chewed up and spit out.
When Pershing read the frontline reports, he was speechless with shock.
Weren’t they told the Germans were falling apart and had no fight left in them?
Then why the hell were the Krauts in front of them still fighting like demons, dishing out casualties like it was going out of style?
"Get me the Supreme Command of the Entente on the Western Front! They told us the Germans were about to surrender! Is this what surrender looks like?!"
Pershing was absolutely livid. If it weren’t for the intel from his allies claiming the Germans were on their last legs, he never would’ve thrown this many men into the meat grinder.
But now that the fighting had started, it was clear as day: things were nothing like they’d been led to believe.
In that moment, Pershing felt like a total sucker. He’d been played.
He was dead certain the Brits and French had dug this hole for him on purpose!
When the American telegram landed on his desk, Marshal Foch, Supreme Commander of the Entente armies on the Western Front, was just as confused as Pershing.
According to his own intel, the Kaiser had indeed abdicated, and Hindenburg—the German C-in-C on the Western Front—had issued a pullback order to the frontline troops on the morning of the 9th.
The intel wasn’t wrong. So what the hell was going on with the Germans facing the Americans?
He decided to send Hindenburg a telegram himself and demand some answers.