"Your Excellency Marshal, I do not know why you, on behalf of the Army, supported His Majesty the Kaiser's strategic plan for the South Asian subcontinent, which is far from the ground up as it is to aim at France, which is thousands of miles away, as it is for the Army. In my opinion, the German Army's greatest enemy was France, not a colony in Asia. Ludendorff asked bluntly.

"France shares a border with Germany, and it has a strong army, it has a strong industry, and it is a feud with us, and we have no reason to let them go, and likewise France will not shake hands with us. What's more, France was the last bastion of the Entente in Europe, am I right? Moltke looked at his confidant without the slightest dissatisfaction, but calmly recounted a fact.

"Well, then, now tell me, who of you is sure that France will be destroyed? Or who can destroy France, with the full support of Britain and the United States? With the help of Huaxia, we fought with the French for 5 years and lost millions of troops on the Western Front. Has France fallen? We do everything we can...... Massive infantry, tough long-range artillery, armored assaults, bombardment by the air force and even poison gas. But the result? The French were no less than us in terms of the courage of the soldiers, the United States alone was more than ours and Austria-Hungary in terms of industry, and the Entente could mobilize the population of the colonies in terms of population. Our advantage is nothing more than a strategic and tactical advantage. But the Entente is not stupid, we have used all the tactics, and in the future, there will be no more tricks, do you want to fight to the death with the Entente in Europe for another 5 years? And then everyone continues to stand still? Can't get any benefits after consuming a lot of manpower and material resources? Moltke asked rhetorically..........

Moltke's reasoning is very simple, that is, even if France poses the greatest threat to Germany, then the direction of strategic expansion in the next step must not choose France. Because then it would be tantamount to another large-scale war with the Entente. The war was brutal, and not just for the Entente. The same was true for the Allies, who, if based on the loss of simple population and material, came out with a collapsed Russia. Germany suffered the greatest losses of all the belligerent countries! The huge casualties caused by the war also cast a psychological shadow on the Germans. If it were not for the defeat of Russia, and the eventual peace talks with the Entente. As the head of the German Army, Moltke Jr. clearly understood how lucky this victory was, "Without the support of China, we would have held out in 1918 at most, and then we would have been forced to surrender because of lack of resources," Moltke Jr. once said at a meeting of the army's top brass.

And judging by the analysis of Moltke Jr. and Mackensen, among others, even after a period of recovery in Germany. If France is fought again, it will also be difficult to win, first of all, the first problem is that there are few allies, and Italy tends to defend itself on the naval issue. Then it is even more unlikely to offend France, Spain and Turkey on land? Forget about these two countries, only Germany and Austria can really participate in the war against France, if they fight again, not only Britain will fully support it, but also the United States will not start to watch from the wall like last time.........

Why did the United States accept the Naval Arms Limitation Treaty? In addition to not wanting to engage in a futile arms race. The main reason was that the Americans realized the weakness of their army. According to Pan Xing's words, the U.S. Army is perfect and cannot match the U.S. industry and strength. In the First World War, the United States could not even provide enough weapons to arm its own army! And the United States, realizing this, began to vigorously rebuild the army, and they copied a lot of mature things from France to arm themselves. At the same time, it also began to develop new equipment and expand the number of soldiers. "We need to maintain at least 1 million army units in peacetime in order to deal with a possible war in Europe. Among them, the construction of armored forces and artillery will be the top priority! "After the war, President Wilson's speech garnered broad support in Congress. …。

Naturally, the actions of the Americans could not escape the eyes of the Germans, so the Germans had to take into account the situation of the United States' large-scale assistance to France when formulating their army strategy in the future. Then the Germans sadly discovered that if the war in Europe resumed, there would be no problem for the German-Austrian coalition to protect itself, but it would be a little difficult to defeat France. The final result is most likely a remake of World War 1 ..........

There was still a lot of opposition to the ideas of Moltke Jr. and others in the army, especially the front-line commanders led by Rudolph, who believed that the French tactics were crude and clumsy. Germany could well rely on tactical superiority to defeat its opponents in a short period of time. And assert that if the main German forces had concentrated superior forces at the beginning to blitzkrieg France. France may well not be able to hold out. It was even believed that the strategy developed by the German War Ministry to go east and then west was completely wrong, giving France time to mobilize.

Well, if you look at it from an objective point of view. Will Ludendorff's idea be realized in future wars? The Chinese Army has also studied ...... The conclusion is unlikely. Especially Xu Jie, this open-hanging traverser does not think that Germany can succeed in blitzing France again in this plane. Because the conditions for blitzkrieg against France no longer exist in this plane.

Let's see how the French lost in history. Look at what Germany had before the start of the war in history, the army had 2.7 million front-line army forces, 1 million reserves, 11,200 anti-tank guns, 4,624 mortars, nearly 3,000 75mm cannons, 4,845 howitzers, 2,049 howitzers, 410 cannons. 3,195 tanks, of which 98 were No. 3, 211 were No. 4, and almost all the others were No. 1 and No. 2. As for France, on paper, the front-line strength is a little worse than that of Germany, with an army of only 2.43 million. In terms of artillery, there are 14,428 guns, which in terms of quantity, it is significantly less than that of the German army, and more importantly, in terms of field artillery as long-range support, the 75mm guns that France is equipped with are far inferior to the German howitzers. Tanks 3100 units ..........

Of course, some people will say that the optical algorithm is wrong. The British should also be counted, so well, let's look at the British family, when Britain started the war, the land on its own soil was only 9 regular divisions and 16 local army divisions. 8 infantry brigades. 2 cavalry brigades and 9 armored brigades. In addition, it is impossible for Britain to fully aid France, so the number of troops that can be used by the front-line armies of Britain and France is the same as that of Germany. In terms of the level of army equipment, it is inferior to Germany in terms of artillery. In terms of tanks, if you look at the hardware performance, Britain and France actually have an advantage. After all, most of the German tanks were No. 1 and No. 2.

Then let's look at the Air Force, the British Air Force at the beginning of World War 2, however, had 78 groups with a total of 1456 aircraft, France had 3335 aircraft, and the Luftwaffe had 4093. However, there is a very interesting point in this one, which is that the French have only 110,000 air forces, while the Germans have 370,000 air forces. So why are the planes so similar? And the difference in strength is so big. The reason is simple, Germany still has an anti-aircraft artillery unit of about 100,000 people. This anti-aircraft artillery unit has 1,217 anti-aircraft artillery batteries with 2,600 88mm and medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns and 6,700 20mm and 37mm anti-aircraft guns.

Considering the relatively backward technology of the British and French Air Forces, as well as more backward strategies and tactics, for example, the French Air Force has actually been dispersed to various group armies, and the performance of French fighters is still worse than that of Germany, even if it is more advanced and not mass-produced, the D520 and 109E are at most half a catty. In addition, the British still had to stay at home, and the air force that could be used was not actually superior to Germany. Considering the performance inferiority, it was no problem for the Luftwaffe to fight Britain and France at this time..........

Other words. At the beginning of World War II, Germany actually had the ability to overwhelm two, if only so. The German Army may have had a hard time winning, but the French have once again died. First of all, France was not ready to fight Germany to the death, and it was okay if Germany did not make a move when Germany fought Poland, but what happened if the arms production did not go up? …。

Look at the changes in the military production capacity of France in October 1939 and March 1940, heavy tanks were produced in October '39 and 40 in March '40, light tanks increased from 90 to 130, anti-tank guns increased from 70 to 151, aircraft increased from 285 (August) to 301 (February) and Germany. Although Germany was also not fully developed, the situation was much better than that of France. In addition to compensating for the damage to the original tanks, Germany added 680 tanks. The Army added 1,368 guns of caliber 75 and above 75mm...... As well as 1630 anti-tank guns. The total number of aircraft also increased by 1,500 aircraft.

In other words, the defeat of France was actually very normal, in terms of military strength, Germany was originally superior, coupled with the wrong strategy of Britain and France and the attempt to lead the water to the east, coupled with the poor command system and strategic mistakes, it was actually normal for Germany to defeat France. But now, on this plane, can Germany continue to be brilliant? …。

Germany is stronger than it has historically been, and it seems that there is an opportunity. But the point is that the Entente is also stronger than in history, France will no longer have any appeasement policy, Germany's toughness can only stimulate France to approach all capabilities to protect itself, and the blitzkrieg method that Germany relied on in World War 2 has already been used once in World War 1, even if the French are stupid, they will not be defenseless against the armored clusters that break through from the northeast. Nor will strategy and tactics be as rigid as they have been historically. At the same time, the British will not be funny to the fact that the first-line air force is only about half of the first-line air force of Germany! You know, historically, Germany concentrated 3824 aircraft in the northeast direction. And Britain and France have a total of 3791 aircraft in this direction, and this is still all the aircraft in the British mainland.

More importantly, the Americans said that they would no longer sit idly by and watch the war in Europe, and what was the purpose of the Americans' massive expansion of the army? It's a person who knows very well, and if the U.S. Army and Air Force are fully supportive, how do you let the German Army in this plane fight? At least with the full support of Britain and the United States for France as soon as the war began, it would be difficult for Germany to achieve a decisive victory.

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976 and the book friend hukaikaka for the tip~~~, as well as the book friend Kuaifeng's monthly pass support ~~~. (To be continued).