"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 a strategic point of view, as well as for the Army, it is far better to aim at the South Asian subcontinent, which is thousands of miles away, than to aim at France, which is close at hand. 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, you, who 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 exhausted all the means, a large number of infantry, powerful 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 simple. That is, even if France poses the greatest threat to Germany, then the direction of the next strategic expansion must not choose France. Because then it would be tantamount to another large-scale war with the Entente, and the war would be cruel. This was true not only for the Entente, but also for the Central Powers, if it were based on the simple loss of population and material, out of the collapsed Russia, Germany was the most lost of all the belligerent countries! The huge casualties caused by the war also cast a psychological shadow on the Germans. Had it not been for Russia's defeat and the eventual peace talks with the Entente, Germany would still have followed in the footsteps of history. As a member of the head of the German Army, Moltke Jr. clearly realized how lucky this victory was, "without the support of China. At best, we will insist on 1918, and then we will be 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 you hit France again. It is also difficult to win, first of all, the first problem is that there are fewer allies, Italy tends to defend itself in naval matters, so it is even less likely 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, and if they fight again, not only Britain will fully support it. In the same way, the United States will not start watching from the sidelines, as it did 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 were aware of 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 cannot even provide enough weapons to arm its own army! Realizing this, the United States began to vigorously rebuild its army, and they copied a lot of mature things from France to arm themselves, and at the same time began to develop new equipment and expand the number of troops. "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 replica 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, and that Germany could rely on tactical superiority to defeat its opponents in a short time. And asserted that if the main German forces had concentrated their superior forces to blitz France at the beginning, France would most likely not have been 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.

So if from an objective point of view, will Ludendorff's idea be able to be realized in a future war? The Chinese Army has also studied it and has come to the conclusion that it is unlikely. Especially Xu Jie, this open-hanging traverser does not think that Germany can succeed in blitzing France again in this plane. Because there are no more conditions for a blitzkrieg attack on France on 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 TROOPS, 1 MILLION RESERVES, 11,200 ANTI-TANK GUNS, 4,624 MORTARS, NEARLY 3,000 75MM CANNONS, 4,845 105MM HOWITZERS, 2,049 150MM HOWITZERS, 410 150MM 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 ARE SIGNIFICANTLY LESS THAN THOSE OF THE GERMAN ARMY IN TERMS OF QUANTITY, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, IN TERMS OF FIELD ARTILLERY AS LONG-RANGE SUPPORT, THE 75MM GUNS EQUIPPED WITH A LARGE NUMBER OF FRENCH GUNS ARE FAR INFERIOR TO THE GERMAN 105MM HOWITZERS. 3100 tanks.

Of course, some people will say that the light algorithm is not right, and the British should also be counted. Well, well, let's look at the British family, when Britain was at war. The mainland has no more than 9 regular divisions and 16 divisions of local forces. 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, the artillery is inferior to Germany, and if you look at the hardware performance of tanks, Britain and France actually have an advantage, after all, most of Germany's tanks are No. 1 and No. 2.

And then let's look at the Air Force. At the beginning of World War 2, the British Air Force had 78 groups with a total of 1,456 aircraft. France had 3,335 aircraft, while the Luftwaffe had 4,093. 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 105MM 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 the more backward strategies and tactics, for example, the French Air Force actually has a lot of them scattered 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. Take into account the performance disadvantages. It was no problem for the Luftwaffe to fight Britain and France at this time.

That is, in history, when the 2 wars were just beginning. In fact, Germany already has the ability to suppress two, if this is the case, the German army may win more laboriously, but France has 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 by March 40 it was 40, light tanks increased from 90 to 130, 47MM anti-tank guns increased from 70 to 151, aircraft increased from 285 (August) to 301 (February) and Germany, although Germany also did not have full strength, but the situation was much better than France, Germany in addition to making up for the original tank damage, 680 tanks were added, and the army added 1,368 artillery pieces of caliber 75 and 75 mm, as well as 1,630 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's strength is stronger than in history, and it seems that there is an opportunity, but the key 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 a qiē ability to protect itself, and the blitzkrieg method that Germany relied on in World War 2 has 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 must know that in history, Germany concentrated 3,824 aircraft in the northeast direction, while Britain and France only had a total of 3,791 aircraft in this direction, and this is still considered 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......)