Chapter 296: Thinking about danger in good times

The German side seems to be unaware of the fact that China's call for replies did not mention Germany's request for command of the Chinese army. In subsequent calls, this was repeatedly asked. Without exception, the telegrams returned to the past turned a blind eye to this issue. On the contrary, in the subsequent consultation telegram of the General Staff on the battlefield situation, it was clear that the war proposal was made to Germany, that is, to achieve a landmark victory in France at all costs, and it would be best to conquer the capital Paris. Only in this way can the soldiers participating in the war and allies in Europe give new confidence. If this goal cannot be achieved, then all the results of the previous stage will be meaningless.

After several repetitions, the Germans seemed to understand why China did not directly mention the command of Chinese troops in Germany. Then they took action. On the afternoon of March 9, the Berlin Army Department invited the main military and political chiefs of the two Chinese divisions to announce to them that the German Empire would requisition their troops, and took out a telegram to show that Beijing had agreed to Germany's request. Although the division commanders and educational commanders of the two divisions raised objections, they believed that they had no right to hand over the troops to the Germans without receiving the order from at least the Beijing Army Department, and they also suspected that the telegram was fabricated by the German side.

But they were soon arrested by Germany for the charge of disrespect for the German Empire. The German side immediately controlled the command of the two divisions by German instructors and distributed the forged telegrams to 15,000 officers and soldiers. The four division-level military and political commanders were handed over to the Chinese Embassy in Germany. After a simple communication, the German side agreed to the suggestion of Colonel Zhang Zuolin, the Chinese military counselor in Germany, and Zhang Zuolin served as the temporary liaison officer. Before making a formal and normal reaction on the Chinese side, they explained the issue of the command of the two Chinese divisions to Beijing with the German Army Department. In return, all military and political chief officers of the two Chinese divisions must be released immediately and assumed the command of the troops. Before China and Germany reached a formal resolution agreement on this issue, the German side could have this 15,000 troops. However, the German side must ensure that the two Chinese divisions are not allowed to undertake the main attack and defensive tasks.

At the same time, the Embassy in Germany also formally submitted a formal letter of protest to the German government and military, and denounced the unreasonable actions of Germany that had violated the dignity of the Chinese Empire and an offense to the royal authority of the Chinese Empire. Although the two sides have reached a preliminary solution on this, the Chinese Empire reserves the right to further respond more intensely.

Then, Zhang Zuolin represented Beijing to go to the Chinese military camp where the German eagle flag and the Chinese Empire dragon flag had been raised in parallel on the outskirts of the eastern suburbs of Berlin, and did a pacification work for some of the officers and soldiers who responded fiercely.

For Zhang, this was an opportunity. Since he made military contributions to His Majesty the Emperor and entered the Imperial Army University on the eve of the change of the country's name, his career has not been very smooth, and there has been no effective channel for relations among the top leaders of the military. He believes that this is also the reason why he has been a colonel for more than five years. He finally got a little relationship with Prince Gong Zaiying, and then he was transferred to Germany to be a counselor.

After the chaos in Europe, he was not as scared as others. On the contrary, he always believed that only in troubled times could his personal value be revealed. Therefore, he was waiting for the opportunity, and even used ways to find a way to transfer back to the domestic combat troops, even if he went to Central Asia to fight under his former senior Wang Shizhen. However, he did not expect that the opportunity would appear beside him.

Due to the war, only a temporary diplomatic group of more than ten people was retained in the embassy in Berlin. As the only Chinese embassy who stayed in Berlin after the war in Europe and the temporary highest military diplomatic leader with the highest official rank, Zhang Zuolin was helpless to make this decision at the moment, and sent a telegram to the country for consultation. There was always no specific handling opinion in the country. However, Wu Tingfang, Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent him a telegram to ask him not to fall into the prestige of the country and not to have any requirements on the dignity of the royal dignity. The Army Department, General Staff and even the Forbidden City Book Office Department did not even respond.

He had a very sensitive sense of smell and quickly made this decision. All the reactions were currently only the decision of the Berlin diplomatic agency. Zhang Zuolin still doesn't know how Beijing will handle the incident of foreign hijacking the Royal Army, but he instinctively believed that what he did this time might be the right path.

Subsequent domestic telegrams also confirmed his judgment. Both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Army generated electricity to indicate that Zhang Zuolin handled this situation in a general way. He was instructed to maintain this position and ensure the overall security of the Chinese army in Germany.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Empire in Beijing also responded quickly and held a small press conference on the same day. The reporters attending the press conference were all reporters from various overseas media stationed in Beijing, most of whom were from the Allied countries.

In the head of the Royal Diplomatic Consultative House, Prince Gong Zaiying announced a formal statement with a serious face. The statement severely accused the German side of arbitrarily depriving the Royal Army of the command of the troops stationed in Germany and seriously offended the dignity of the Chinese Empire and the royal family. The statement required the German side to immediately make effective compensation actions, immediately stop illegal control of the Chinese army, and immediately apologize to the officers and soldiers of the two divisions who were violated, and arrange ships to send them back to their country as soon as possible. Germany must make an effective and affirmative reply within eight hours, otherwise all serious consequences caused by this will be borne by the German Empire.

In the uproar of the reporters, they had no way of imagined that China and Germany, which had always been ambiguous and had recently concluded a royal marriage, had such a serious diplomatic conflict in the short term, and there was a tendency to evolve in a worse direction. A reporter immediately asked Zaiying whether this incident and this statement would have a disastrous impact on the relationship between China and Germany, and would have any damage to the marriage of His Highness Puying, the second son of the emperor, Princess Yi, and Prince Victoria of the German Empire.

Zai Ying's answer is very simple. Sino-German relations have indeed reached a critical point. If the German Empire continues to do whatever hurts the feelings of the people of the two countries, then the breakdown of Sino-German relations will be ahead of time. Only by strictly following the requirements of China and trying our best to make up for the adverse effects of this incident can Germany continue to gain the friendship of the Chinese Empire. As for the marriage of His Highness Prince Yi, his identity as a royal minister and uncle of the party involved, it is not advisable to make too many comments.

Since talking about this, Zai Ying seemed to have come to talk about sex and continued to announce another important decision, that is, the marriage of the eldest son of the emperor, Prince Ding Puhua, has been determined by the royal family. According to the ancestral teachings of the marriage between the ancestors of Manchuria and Mongolia, Prince Ding of the emperor will first marry the daughter of Wuyunyinggetu of Gongsang Nolbu, Prince Kalaqinzhasak of Mongolia, and will go to Kulun to hire him in the near future.

After saying this, although some reporters had many problems with Sino-Russia relations because of mentioning Mongolian affairs, Zaiying quickly announced the end of the press conference. Then he left without giving these reporters any chance to ask questions.

The evil between Sino-German relations and the Mongolian affairs that influence Sino-Russia relations seem to be presided over by Prince Ding Puhua, who has always been modest and restrained, which seems to have a layer of uncertainty on the future of this giant country in the East.

In just a few days, Germany's east-west front battles had reached a critical moment. On the Western Front, the British and French Allied Forces, which had completed strategic defense, deployed the defense line they believed to be very effective between Paris and Verdun. General Galin, who was urgently recalled from the Ivory Coast vacation, was also given command power, and together with General Xiafei, took on the burden of commanding the British and French Allied Forces to defend Paris. The Fourth Fifth Army and the British Expeditionary Force took on the front defense.

The German formation, which had already shown a rash tendency, had a dissonance. Their vanguard, the First and Second Army, was eager to catch up with the retreating Fifth French Army at that time. The huge formation of these two troops with more than 300,000 troops had deviated from the original main attack direction and landed in the area east of Paris, and was separated from its follow-up troops. The Cluke Army, the front, had already encountered logistical supply difficulties.

This also gave the British and French coalition an excellent opportunity to regain the reputation that France was gradually losing. General Gallieni, the commander of the Paris Garrison, saw the opportunity to attack the German flanks. He was busy negotiating with Xia Fei and using the newly formed Sixth Army to attack the Cluke Army, which was rushing in front and was completely exposed to the French.

After the French government and some personnel began to move to Bordeaux in the rear, the French preparedness was completed. The only remaining task was to organize an effective attack force and persuade Commander Xiafei to launch an attack. If the 300,000 German army troops could not be eaten, once the Germans were awakened and attacked westward, the coalition defensive forces, which were inferior to the German attacking army, would have no way to defend Paris except for fighting the last person with the German army.

Xiao Moltke, who was in the Berlin Supreme Command, was even more suspicious that the war on the Western Front was a planned action by the British and French coalition forces to lure the enemy. The number of prisoners reported by the troops seemed too abnormal. The size of nearly two million people on both sides of the offensive and defense was once again won a lot of victories. The number of prisoners of war, which was more than 10,000, seemed unconvincing. After receiving Beijing's advice to them to capture Paris as soon as possible to obtain phased results, Xiao Moltke decided to order the front-line troops to stop advancing and fully engage in preparation for the Paris attack war. The reconnaissance results in the front also supported his decision. More than one million British and French troops were densely surrounded by Paris, which was the real main force. At the same time, he also ordered the troops on the French-German border to make a certain attack posture to support the supply preparation and material hoarding of front-line troops.

In the East, their situation also improved. The signs of great defeats that would appear in the armies of all countries around the world did not appear in the Eighth Army in East Prussia. Although the great defeat of tens of thousands of people had an impact on morale, the German Army, which had always been strict in military discipline, was not affected too much by the repulsion of the 17th Army. The entire Eighth Army was retreating and reorganizing the defense line in an orderly manner.

The Russian First Army, which they had been worried about, would take advantage of the situation to cover up the pursuit, did not happen. The Russians seemed to be satisfied with repelling the attacks of the Germans. They rested on site for two days and reported the results of the battle layer by layer, hoping to boost the morale of the attacking troops. Taking advantage of this favorable situation, they began to prepare for the next victory. After waiting for two days, General Kampf decided not to wait for the meeting of the Second Army, commanded by General Samsonov, who had always looked down upon, but planned to win the next victory alone. With his troops fully rested, he began to order his troops to advance to another important German stronghold, Konisburg.

The reason why General Kampf's eyes, his colleagues would be a fool, is that the two fought several times during the service of the Far East Legion because of their different performances in the war against the Chinese. Samsonov, who was the commander of the Cossack Cavalry Division, refused his request for the Chinese to attack the defense line of Chukuboxing, who asked the other side to reinforce his troops to defend. Since Chukuboxing's fall, the two have formed an irresolvable deep hatred. Although their commander, His Excellency Rilinsky, knew about this holiday, had no choice but to take on such an important military task.

From this perspective, both Germany and Russia made stupid mistakes at the beginning of the war. The reason why General Pritwitz, the former commander of Germany, was able to obtain this position was that the dirty jokes he told were particularly happy to Emperor William II. This was also an important reason why the German army suffered failure at the beginning. In the face of the enemy's superior forces, the stupid Pritwitz chose to divide his troops and defend separately.

However, perhaps when both families make mistakes, the party that fails first will benefit because they get the opportunity to correct the mistakes first. The rise of General Hindenburg and the promotion of a lower-class commander without Feng's name are the important reasons for the strategic turning point of the German army.

General Kampf's move was very correct from his perspective, but since he had not completed the docking situation between the two armies, he drove away the troops, which gave the Eighth Army, which had just replaced the supreme commander, the German army had an opportunity to escape the joint strike, and the main force of the German army used a stronghold to exchange for its own survival opportunity.

After General Hindenburg learned about the movements of the Russian First Army from the clearly coded telegram of the Russian army, he decisively ordered the troops to stop retreating and sent two divisions to the target of the Russian First Army, Koenigsburg, which caused the Russian army to have the illusion that the German army still focused its strategic focus on the defense system of each fortress. He and his chief of staff, Ludendolf, used the remaining less than 100,000 people of the Eighth Army to attack the Russian Second Army, which had not achieved major results, and had not achieved major results. The enemy's forces were between 130,000 and 140,000. Such a ratio of troops was considered a gift from God compared to the worst case where the Eighth Army faced the total strength of the Russian First and Second Army, which had reached 300,000,000, which was the worst case for the Eighth Army to face the total strength of the Russian First and Second Army, which had not achieved major results.

On March 10, all the main forces of the Hindenburg Army began to advance at full speed to the Uzda-U area where the main force of the Russian Second Army led by General Samsonov. Due to the capture of fighter jets, the attack plan after arriving at the destination area was formulated by two genius generals on the march. Since the enemy's troops are more than our own, considering the comparison of the quality of the troops and combat capabilities of the two sides, in order to more effectively kill and damage the enemy's live forces, they formulated a bold middle feint attack and double-teamed effective combat plan. The middle road only invested the attacking forces of two divisions to attract the enemy's main force, while the large force quickly penetrated the two wings, and caught the enemy off guard before the strategic intention was exposed, and strived to kill the enemy's live forces on a large scale, and beat the enemy's live forces to be beaten and afraid.

Although the strategic situation of the German army was once unfavorable and the initial battle failed, as long as the battle was fought well, it is very likely that the two Russian armies would be left in East Prussia, and the huge gap in the strength comparison between the two sides was greatly reduced. With the arrival of reinforcements in Berlin and the threat China was about to create for the Russians in the Far East, the entire Eastern Front combat can open up a good situation, which can not only effectively attack the Russian army's desire to attack, but also form strategic support for the Austrian Royal Army in the south at an appropriate time.

Within five months from the beginning of the full-scale war, the situation seemed very beneficial to the Allied forces. Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire was unfavorable at sea, on land, together with Bulgaria, they conquered the Serbs who had been unruly for a long time. Their next goal was to resist the attacks of the Russians on the direction of the Russian-Austrian border on land, the Southern Legion, leaving a little force to cooperate with the Bulgarians to defend against the attacks of Greece and other countries, all of them were invested in the Romanian conquest war, and met with the Northern Legion on the Russian-Austrian border. By that time, Germany should have already settled the Western Front and could draw some of the main forces back to the Eastern Front. After the German-Austrian coalition directly launched an invasion against Russia, the next thing went smoothly.

In the war on the Russian-Austrian border, the Austrians did not suffer any losses. Although on the surface, the Russian Empire was still a behemoth, the Austrians had been red-eyed since the moment the Crown Prince Ferdinand died in Sarajevo. They had no reason to be afraid of a second-rate country like Russia strategically. Moreover, in tactical terms, due to the Russians' conservative defensive strategy at that time, in the border areas between Germany and Austria, the Russians deliberately left a large number of forests, swamps and shrubs in the border areas between Germany and Austria to avoid these two unfriendly countries being able to quickly attack Russia's hinterland. But now it seems that such a strategy is beneficial to the Austrians who focus their strategic focus on the Balkans. They can reduce a lot of defensive pressure on the Russian-Austrian border.

Turkey, which had not been actually involved in a large-scale war, took advantage of the Russian Empire's shrinking power in Central Asia to take advantage of the opportunity to expand their control in the Armenian region and restart the massacre of the Armenians. In the north, their army also entered their former territory, reoccupied part of Thracian, and formed a connection with the allied Bulgaria in the north. Their next step was to consolidate the existing achievements, then seize the opportunity to develop in the Black Sea region of Central Asia, and then see if there was any chance to reclaim some of the islands stolen by Italy and Greece at sea.

Even the German Empire, which faces two-line battles, does not seem to have any major problems at present. Although there are still some hidden worries on the successive victory on the Western Front, the overall situation is still good, not small but big. The five armies of one million troops, coupled with the tactical breakthroughs that the French-German border may make at any time, will soon form devastating oppression on Paris. Although there are a little troubles on the Eastern Front, the situation is not so bad as to be worrying from the report of the frontline commander. So, overall, the Allies have gained a lot in the past five months.

The Allies have not taken any big advantage. Except for the shameless Italians who took advantage of the chaos to make some small profits in the Alps, the rest of the countries are facing failure or are about to face failure.

This also confirms the judgment of the German General Staff before the war. From the perspective of military and military strategic perspectives, the Allied Group has many advantages. The Allied Group has concentrated troops and fast mobilization speed, strong large-scale transport capabilities, and the individual quality and soldier equipment are also greater than that of the Allied Group. Once the war begins, the Allied Group will definitely make effective progress in the military.

The only weakness is in terms of economy and environment. The Allies Group is in the siege of Allies, and its economic strength is not as good as that of its opponents. The Allies Group, led by the United Kingdom, can easily obtain material supplements from the periphery, but the Allies Group consumes a little bit. The resources they control are far from being as good as the Allies. If the Allies Group cannot quickly include the entire Europe into its own scope and end the first phase of the war, then the only way out is to break the British blockade at sea.
Chapter completed!