"Tell the Americans we’ve got a unit still putting up a fight and ignoring the retreat order. Send a telegram down the line and find out which unit it is!"
After receiving Marshal Foch’s angry telegram demanding answers, Hindenburg couldn’t help but frown.
All of Germany’s allies had already surrendered. Soldiers back home were in open revolt, workers were rioting and kicking off a full-blown revolution, and even the Kaiser had abdicated and run for the hills.
At this point, keeping up the fight was completely pointless—it would only rack up more pointless casualties.
Besides, Germany didn’t have any deep-seated grudge against the Americans. Pounding them into the dirt right now would only piss off the Yanks and hand themselves yet another enemy. What the hell was the point?
The telegram went out fast. Army Group A, under Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, fired back immediately: it wasn’t them. They’d already started pulling out of their positions the moment they got the order.
"If it’s not Army Group A, then it’s got to be Crown Prince Wilhelm’s Army Group B."
Ludendorff frowned right along with him.
"Didn’t His Majesty send word to the Crown Prince about the abdication before he bolted?"
When the conversation turned to the Crown Prince, Hindenburg’s expression turned dead serious.
Technically, he was the Supreme Commander of all German forces on the Western Front, with the authority to issue orders to both army groups under his command.
But Crown Prince Wilhelm was royalty. If the guy flat-out refused to follow his orders, there wasn’t a damn thing Hindenburg could do about it.
"I guess this one’s on you. You’ll have to go talk to the Crown Prince yourself. Try to reason with him and convince him to pull his men back."
Ludendorff was a die-hard royalist. Not only did he not oppose what the Crown Prince was doing, he actually approved of it in his heart.
When Wilhelm II had abdicated and fled, Ludendorff had been dead-set against it, and he’d been utterly disappointed. But now, seeing the Crown Prince refuse to cut and run—watching him fight like a real man—Ludendorff felt a surge of pride. He was more than willing to lend the kid a hand.
The German Empire absolutely needed its Kaiser. Without the Emperor, who the hell was going to protect the interests of the Junker nobility like them?
From that perspective, the Crown Prince’s interests were tied directly to theirs!
Hindenburg nodded. He didn’t have a better option.
If it had been some other general or noble, his rank alone would’ve been enough to relieve them of command with a single telegram. But that playbook didn’t work on an Imperial Crown Prince.
The fact that the Crown Prince had the balls to defy Supreme Headquarters—and had successfully convinced over 700,000 officers and men of Army Group B to stay and fight alongside him—proved the man had serious sway with the troops.
Until they got him on board, Army Group B wasn’t going anywhere.
Just as Hindenburg was gearing up to head out to Army Group B, news of the German front-line victory—claiming 40,000 enemy casualties—spread like wildfire back home.
And the man pulling the strings behind the scenes to make sure that news got out? None other than Ludendorff.
"Push the Crown Prince’s name in every report. Make sure every single person in the Empire knows about His Highness’s heroics on the front lines!"
With Ludendorff and the Junker nobles backing him, the news tore across the country at lightning speed.
The public had been on edge—panicking over the Kaiser’s abdication, the bleak front-line situation, and the very real threat of an Entente military occupation. But this news actually managed to calm the mood, even if just a little.
And Crown Prince Wilhelm, who’d led the Germans to a crushing defeat of the Americans, naturally became the talk of the nation.
Western Front, Army Group A Headquarters.
"Now that’s what I’m talking about! Our Crown Prince finally grew a pair!"
After reading the reports, Field Marshal Rupprecht let out a series of three consecutive "good"s.
Honestly, he’d never thought much of Crown Prince Wilhelm, his much younger distant cousin. He’d earned his own field marshal’s baton and the command of Army Group A through pure, hard-earned skill. His royal blood had only ever been a minor boost.
But Wilhelm? The guy had no real military chops to speak of. He’d been handed command of Army Group B purely because of his title.
When it came to actual battlefield command, Rupprecht had always been hands-on, personally planning and directing multiple large-scale operations.
Wilhelm, on the other hand, had virtually zero command ability. The real decision-making for Army Group B had always been handled by the chief of staff and the corps commanders.
But this time, the kid had dared to defy Supreme Headquarters’ retreat order and had led the Germans to a stunning victory. It floored Rupprecht.
He was absolutely certain this operation had been Wilhelm’s call. Hell, even Rupprecht himself wouldn’t have dared to ignore an order from Marshal Hindenburg. The staff officers in Army Group B wouldn’t have had the guts to do it either—not in a million years!
The only man with the stones to make a call like that was Crown Prince Wilhelm!
So the kid wasn’t completely useless after all. When it really counted, he’d stepped up.
When the Kaiser had issued his abdication and fled into exile, Rupprecht—like the other high nobles—had resigned himself to the Empire’s collapse.
With the Kaiser gone, the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia were finished. How could the Kingdom of Bavaria possibly be spared?
If Bavaria got erased from the map, as a member of a defeated royal family, he’d have no choice but to flee overseas, just like Kaiser Wilhelm II.
But now, things had changed.
That single shot fired by the Crown Prince on the Western Front had rekindled Rupprecht’s hope.
"Whether or not the Crown Prince actually fired that shot, Army Group A is backing him up. Pass the word: tell the front-line units to halt the retreat. Get back to your positions and prepare for battle!"
If the Crown Prince wouldn’t abandon his men and run, how could they?
If they pulled out now, they’d be leaving Army Group B’s flank wide open to the enemy!
Deep down, Rupprecht knew full well that the two of them alone probably couldn’t stop the Empire from going down in flames.
But if there was even a one-in-ten-thousand chance, he was willing to roll the dice!
The news of the German victory and the American rout didn’t just spread like wildfire across Germany.
On the Entente side, the story also grabbed the public’s attention in every country.
The French and British, who were already exhausted and numb from the endless war, felt a mix of anger and dread when they heard the news.
They were pissed that the Germans still weren’t surrendering, but they were also terrified that the fighting would flare up all over again.
They’d already braced themselves for the armistice. But now, just when they thought it was over, the war was kicking back up. They’d probably be shipped back to the front lines to be cannon fodder in some trench somewhere.
As for the Americans—the ones who’d just taken a brutal beating—they’d entered the war late and hadn’t suffered the kind of catastrophic losses the Europeans had. They weren’t nearly as war-weary as the Brits and French.
When they heard the Germans had gone back on their word, refusing to surrender and actually daring to fight back, the American public went ballistic. They were ready to teach the Krauts a lesson they’d never forget!