The war was indeed coming to an end, and in the spring of the eighth year of Shenmu, when the first green sprouted from the mud, the craters, and the trenches, the Allied troops never seemed so energetic. With the material support of the expanding Sino-Japanese ocean-going fleet and the American fleet, almost all the soldiers who have not moved in the past six months have a tendency to gain weight; On the other side, although the Germans still held the line in the glory of the emperor, the small raids from time to time throughout the long winter exposed the embarrassment and hardship of the Germans - the Germans did not attack to occupy land, they only wanted to forcibly take supplies from the soldiers of the Allies.

"The Germans are going to be finished!" This was something that all the soldiers were muttering, but they and the officers, while optimistic, did not dare to act rashly, because the Panzer Division was still waiting to be equipped. The Chinese Jackal and Wolf Tanks are desirable for all armies, but unfortunately the Chinese do not have enough production capacity, only 4,000 units per year - this is achieved by cutting some tractor production; What can really be supplied on a large scale is the three-ton Ford tank, which can be produced by this little guy up to three thousand units per month, but this tank is too small and has no artillery.

The real value of the Allies is the 1A heavy tank manufactured by the Mediterranean shipyard, which was finalized in 1917 because it avoided competing for resources with Renault light tanks, so it has been hidden by the government, but after Paris was occupied by the Germans, this battle no longer existed. The plan advocated by Luscher to make a hundred heavy tanks for 50 million francs was not only adopted, but also enlarged to 200 million francs and 600 vehicles.

Facing a monster that is more than eight meters long, nearly three meters wide, and weighs nearly forty tons, especially in the face of the monster's front armor thirty-five millimeters thick and the 105mm Schneider short howitzer arranged on the turret, anyone will have the idea of invincibility, this is no longer the concept of a combat vehicle. This is almost a Land Cruiser.

As one of the founders of the armored forces, Wang Shiqian, who had just been promoted to lieutenant general, visited the newly formed heavy armored units in France at the invitation of Major General Etienne, a major general of the French armored corps. This man's name is Barton.

"We also conceived this line of thinking, but ......," Wang Shiqian said regretfully, "the General Logistics Department has canceled such a plan considering that China is manufacturing large-scale merchant ships and steel is limited." The largest tank, as you call a tank, is only sixteen tons, and at this weight, the frontal armor of the tank is only 20mm. This was only against the K-type armor-piercing shells of the Germans, not against anti-tank guns, not even 37mm guns. ”

With the roar of the engine, the cruiser-like heavy tank in front of him advanced on the uneven surface, because it had an engine of more than two hundred horsepower, so the speed was not slower than that of other British and French tanks, and thanks to its extra-long body and large Renault-like induction wheels, its obstacle crossing ability was completely higher than that of the British Mark VIII. In this regard, Lieutenant General Wang Shiqian had to admit that such a heavy tank would be a nightmare for the Germans.

"We will spearhead with four hundred 1A tanks. Launch a deadly counterattack against the Germans. Colonel Fuller's eyes drifted over the Chinese's lieutenant general's epaulettes before moving his gaze to his face. Your Excellency, I would like you to serve as an advisor to this attack, if you do not object to it. ”

The Chinese had already completed the greatest mission they could have accomplished on the Lorraine plateau, and because of the Verdun fortress, they did not have the possibility of launching a counteroffensive. Especially strategic, capable of decisive offensives. Now everyone feels that it will be up to the American military when the war ends.

"Of course, how could I object to it, this is also a kind of learning." Wang Shiqian's modest way. For an officer obsessed with armored warfare, as long as it is an armored attack, no matter what way or what weapon. All of them intrigued him.

"See, gentlemen, I don't think the Chinese are secretly supporting the Germans, as some people suspect." After Wang Shiqian's farewell, Major General Etienna looked at the conspiracy theory mongers, the British, and his henchmen, the Americans.

"They didn't want the Germans to win the war, but they wanted it to last as long as possible." The British corrected that this was not a rumor he had spread, but intelligence that MI6 had heard from inside Germany and had transmitted to Britain.

"Then let's defeat the German son of a bitch earlier!" Lieutenant Colonel Patton, an American, was not interested in conspiracy theories, and he thought it would be better to discuss the attack earlier, even if not earlier, if not sooner.

"Yes, Lieutenant Colonel, we'll do it." Colonel Fuller looked at the eager Americans with a smile on his face.

After the occupation of Paris, the whole of Paris was a huge salient, and although the British retreated to Rouen on the Seine under the German offensive, the whole of Paris was still deeply wedged in the Allied lines. In the counteroffensive plan, breaking through the German defense line from the east and west of Paris and shaking the entire salient has become the consensus of the Allied General Staff, and the sharpest assault weapon is naturally the French heavy chariot -- since the German army used the chariot to surprise and occupy Paris last year, the Allied forces have decided that the future war will be an armored war, so when the heavy chariot is in place, the offensive will be launched.

The general plan was this: Provin, east of Paris, and Sezanne, forty kilometers to the west, would be the chosen offensive for the allied forces, and the same offensive would be launched from Dele to Giverny on the Seine to the east of Paris. There were 600,000 American troops and more than 100,000 British and French troops who had been holding the line in either of these two places, and on each flank were two hundred French 1A heavy tanks, six hundred Mark tanks, and three-ton Ford tanks whose numbers even the Americans themselves could not fully determine.

The offensive was first started by more than 3,000 cannons, and at the same time, more than 2,000 Sparter and Newport fighters began to compete with the German planes on the opposite side for air supremacy, at this time the Allied aircraft engine power was more than 200 horsepower, while the main German aircraft Fokker D7 engine was only 185 horsepower, although the German army had better pilots, but relying on the superiority of weapons and numbers, the Allied flying army began a devastating blow to the weakening German flying troops.

Although the armored forces have not yet assaulted, they can see the battle of planes in the sky in the distance. Lieutenant General Wang Shiqian suddenly felt that the war would be over in a few months, and this thought was even more deeply ingrained in him when the first two hundred steel monsters charged after the shelling was over.

The offensive was spectacular from the side of the Allies, but the Germans who were withstanding it were in a nightmare, even though the Anti-Tank 77 was still effective against heavy tanks. But they couldn't withstand the attack of such a large number of enemy vehicles. When an IA heavy tank is destroyed, more vehicles, especially the Ford that are fast and indistinguishable from a matchbox from a distance, are almost all over the battlefield. If the 77 Gun could be turned into a machine gun, it might be able to resist, but the 77 Gun can only fire a single shot, and when it hits an enemy vehicle, its gap will be quickly filled by other vehicles. Like a flood, the chariot frenzy soon flooded the German front trenches, which broke through the second defensive zone before stopping for a short rest.

The telegrams of the urgency of the front were pierced all the way to the High Command, but at the moment there was a simultaneous attack on the Entente. The Germans had only one choice but to help one side, but neither side would help to hold Paris, and the loss of Paris at this time would be a heavy blow to the morale of the German army. With Paris not to be lost, the Germans had to fight a war of attrition with the Allies, although this was always something Ludendorff tried to avoid, as he was planning an offensive at this time, and the forces of the offensive could never be used on defense.

The Entente attacked with all their might, and Germany resisted desperately. However, the defense line still collapsed. At the request of Germany, at the request of the former Chief of the General Staff of Austria-Hungary, Field Marshal Conrad. The Austro-Hungarian Army launched the Battle of Puff on 15 April in an attempt to relieve the pressure on the Germans and turn the Allies' attention to southern Europe, but by this time the Austro-Hungarian Empire had long been exhausted, and the long winter had exhausted all hopes, and the soldiers fled to enemy positions before the offensive had even begun, and this attack was not only frustrated but also lost 300,000 men, most of whom had surrendered deliberately.

In the face of such a fragile Austro-Hungarian Army. The Italians took advantage of the situation to launch a counter-offensive, which they were meant to cooperate with the Paris offensive.

On 25 April, the Italian Army, led by the elite British Army, launched an all-out offensive with 100 chariots, and although the Austro-Hungarian Army on the opposite side had 1.3 million men, the army had long since become a rabble. Only 300,000 Austrian troops out of 1.3 million were still fighting, and the Czechs, Slovaks, and Yugoslavs all gave up resistance, so the defense line collapsed and the Italian army was left uninhabited.

The Austro-Hungarian Army collapsed so quickly, beyond everyone's expectations, that the German army, which was deeply involved in the Paris Offensive at this time, was simply unable to draw more forces to the rescue, and this was not just the collapse of the defenders in one direction, but the total collapse of the entire Austro-Hungarian Army. Even if the German army had enough time to go to the rescue, the troops to be sent would not be less than 500,000 troops, but at this time, under the strong attack of the Entente powers, the German army could not draw so many troops to support Austria-Hungary, especially after learning about the war situation in southern Europe, the Allied forces spared no room to draw all reserves to join the offensive sequence.

German rescue was hopeless, and on April 29, Austria-Hungary sent a delegation led by General Webb to the front to negotiate a truce with Italy. Under the threat of the Italians, the Austro-Hungarian delegation signed the armistice agreement at five o'clock in the afternoon on May 2. On the same day, Bulgaria announced its surrender, and on May 5, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Karl announced his abdication.

There were many countries that joined the Entente, but there were only four Central Powers, and now Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary have surrendered, and only Germany and the Ottomans are still holding on to the east and west, and defeat is only a matter of time. Faced with this situation, German Field Marshal Hindenburg declared that 'the war could no longer be won, and it was difficult to resist the attack of the Allies,' and demanded a dignified truce from the Emperor. Wilhelm II responded by reshuffling the cabinet, appointing Prince Max as the eighth prime minister, and submitting an armistice proposal to US President Wilson, because it was based solely on Wilson's 'Fourteen-Point Program', and at the same time, the new German cabinet also sent an armistice note to Britain, France, and China, hoping that all countries would negotiate an armistice.

By the time the war had progressed, the Allies were no longer ready for a decent armistice, and Germany had been isolated after the Austro-Hungarian surrender, and what they needed was a substantial surrender rather than a decent armistice. The United States, which was not part of the Entente camp, rejected the German proposal to 'accept the Fourteen-Point Program and propose the establishment of a mixed commission to oversee the withdrawal of German troops from France and Belgium,' and he made it clear that 'if the United States must deal with German military chiefs and monarchical dictators, then the United States must demand that Germany surrender, not peace talks.' In other words, Germany can only negotiate peace with disarmament and not with a gun in hand.

Historically, because of the internal turmoil in Germany, after receiving Wilson's reply, although Hindenburg and Ludendorff telegraphed Prince Max, saying, 'Unless a decent peace is achieved, it is not possible. The Germans will fight to the last man and the last bullet', but the opinion of the civilian cabinet prevailed, and Prince Max finally informed Wilson that he accepted his terms, but this time, the German army, which had not suffered much offensive losses, still had some combat strength, and sued for peace only because of the loss of the southern barrier, and contrary to history, Prince Max, under pressure from the military and the emperor, finally rejected Wilson's proposal.

Then face a war with no hope of victory. The Germans finally lost all patience, and the new cabinet at this time was completely a funnel, and soon the news of the emperor's refusal to negotiate a decent peace spread throughout Germany, especially Wilson's words that he "did not want to deal with the county lord and dictator" were considered by the majority of the anti-war people - the only obstacle to peace talks was the monarchy, so the anti-war cries in Germany immediately became the slogan of overthrowing the emperor.

In June, after the Ottomans also announced their surrender, an uprising broke out among the sailors on twelve warships in Wilhelmshaven. The German government, which had been prepared, immediately went to suppress it, and then a situation similar to that of the Russian Revolution appeared. Three of the four infantry companies that went to suppress them fell to the rebels, and the other also said neutrality. Uprising leader Max. Lessisbeech immediately called on the whole German people to overthrow the Kaiser and establish a republic belonging to the people. In order to prevent a similar uprising in the port of Kiel, the High Command immediately ordered the navy to collect the weapons of the Kiel sailors, which then made the sailors who had been preparing the uprising extremely angry, amid the protests of many sailors. The machine guns on the warship were dismantled, and with these weapons, as well as the help of the workers, the sailors quickly captured Kiel.

Revolts broke out in two cities in quick succession, and Germany was even more chaotic, although the Social Democrat Karl Brown. Liebner declared to the public without the permission of the cabinet that 'the Kaiser has abdicated.' The German Socialist Republic has been established', but instead of stabilizing, the situation in the country has become more and more chaotic. In order to avoid a civil war, Prime Minister Prince Max handed over power to the head of the right wing of the Social Democratic Party, Dr. Rich. Albert.

Battles were fought at the front, but riots and uprisings appeared one after another in the rear, and the generals of the Supreme Command were speechless. In their view, the war was declared by Germany first, but the reason for the declaration of war was to seize the weeks of Russia's full mobilization; The choice to start the war in 1914 was also because Russia, with the financial support of France, was building a western railway transportation network, once the transportation network was completed, then the mobilization time of Russia would be greatly shortened, and then Germany would fight on two fronts, which would be simply a mermaid's meat.

In any case, war was inevitable in order to secure the interests of Germany, especially the development of industrial capital. But now, those who strongly supported the war at the beginning were actually opposed to the war, and in the mouths of the Marxists, the war was said to be bloodshed for the vanity of the emperor and the privileges of the nobility, without knowing that it was a battle to break the cocoon of Germany to break through the existing bottleneck. If Germany had the United States, with its Americas, or China, with its population of 400 million, war could have been avoided, but now that Germany is in Central Europe, surrounded by all the great powers, there is no other way but war to defend its existing interests and to expand its industrial scale and sales market once again.

After receiving a letter from the Provisional Government, Chairman of the People's Plenipotentiary Council in Berlin, Dr. Rich. After Albert's telegram, Field Marshal Hindenburg was silent for a long time, he looked at Ludendorff and said: "Is this the end of everything?" ”

"If you look at the Russian Revolution, it's all over." Ludendorff thought of the revolutionaries who had been sent back to Russia the year before last, and he only felt that this was a kind of retribution. "If the war is insisted on, then the revolution will continue in the rear, and then the Bolsheviks in Germany will come to power." Speaking of this, Ludendorff suddenly shook his whole body, and he said, "Maybe there's another way!" ”

The chief of staff, who had always been trusted, actually said that there was a way, and Hindenburg raised his eyelids and looked at him and said, "What way?" ”

"Your Excellency, the method is very, very uncertain," Ludendorff said very cautiously as his excitement was subsiding, "If Germany is also occupied by the Bolsheviks like Russia, the Entente will panic, and we will become the Russian White Army, and counterattack Germany with the support of the Entente!" ”

"It's too dangerous!" Hearing that this was the case, the marshal shook his head heavily, knowing the tragic situation after the Russian Revolution, and completely refused to turn Germany into Russia, "Germany cannot become like Russia......

"Marshal, if we do not do this, then we will immediately announce our dismissal, and Germany will have to accept the unbearable price of peace talks." Ludendorff said earnestly. "Our army is still combat-ready, and even if the Allies can take Berlin, they will have to pay millions of lives. Our Panzer Division is being reorganized and will be able to launch an offensive next month, and Admiral William can lead the Panzer Division to defeat this attack by the Entente......"

As soon as Ludendorff said to Admiral William, a voice sounded impolitely outside the door, "Your Excellency, I have received an urgent telegram from the Panzer Command that Admiral Wilhelm has assassinated ......"

"What ?!!" Hindenburg and Ludendorff's minds were suddenly emptied, and they completely forgot about the discussion, staring at Captain Ippenburg standing outside the door. "Say it again!!" Ludendorff was almost shouting, his face as white as a piece of paper.

"Your Excellency, Admiral William was assassinated by a soldier." Captain Ippenburg said again, "The general was inspecting the panzer division, but ......" took a hard breath before the captain said, "Yes, it's unbelievable." When some soldiers were agitating others to bring down the emperor and end the war, the general immediately reprimanded them angrily, and before the gendarmes could come up, the soldiers suddenly opened fire and then ....... That's what it said on the phone...... Your Excellency, Your Excellency, Your Excellency......"

Before the captain finished speaking, Ludendorff fainted as soon as his eyes were dark, and Hindenburg unconsciously slowly sat back in his chair, he looked at Captain Ippenburg, who was shaking Ludendorff, and said slowly: "He hasn't eaten much for several days, and now he just faints." Go, go and call the medical officer. Also, help me get everyone over, I have something important to announce. ”

The Germans were losing ground, and Ludendorff, who had lost his son and was under the pressure of war, fainted during a speech last month, and his general officer, Captain Ippenburg, was not alarmed, and he called the medical officer and everyone in the High Command as Hindenburg had ordered. Soon, from the operations department to the quartermaster's office, the narrow office was full of people.

Looking at the somewhat restless crowd standing in front of him, Hindenburg said: "Gentlemen, I and the Chief of Staff, General Ludendorff, have decided to resign......"

As soon as Hindenburg said to resign, the officers present were all taken aback, and the deputy chief of the General Staff, Baron Lorraine Hofen, immediately objected: "Marshal, you should not resign at this time, we need you, the soldiers also need you, and Germany needs you......"

"Nope! It was precisely because Germany needed me that I was resigning. Hindenburg's deep voice echoed throughout the office, "There must not be a revolution like the one in Russia in Germany, because such a revolution and the establishment of a government would completely destroy the whole of Germany." The real way to save Germany now was to make peace with the Entente in order to quell the revolution at home. Children, we never fought for His Majesty the Kaiser, we fought for the whole of Germany.

Now I ordered that after the resignation of me and General Ludendorff, the Supreme High Command should be put in charge of Baron Lorrainhoven, with Lieutenant Colonel Wetzel as his deputy. Because there will be a negotiating delegation in the country, it is absolutely not possible to order troops to attack during the period before the signing of the peace treaty! ”

Thinking that both the Russian and Austro-Hungarian armies had finally collapsed because of the attack, Hindenburg changed his previous order: "After I leave, remember that the army can only defend and not attack!" Also, children, the safety of each and every one of you is at stake for the revival of Germany, so it is important to protect yourself during this chaotic time, and Germany will not have another tragedy like that of General Wilhelm! ”

Hindenburg got up and staggered out, and after ten minutes a telegram of his and Ludendorff's resignation was sent to Berlin; An hour later, a telegram was sent to Washington, D.C., in the name of all the German people, stating that Field Marshal Hindenburg and General Ludendorff of the Supreme High Command had resigned and asking US President Wilson to undertake peace in order to achieve peace, and the real negotiations began in earnest. (To be continued......)