Before heading to the Eastern Front, Hindenburg and Rudendolf had no acquaintance with each other, and had never met each other. When they arrived at the Eastern Front, the situation there was still deteriorating. With the arrival of the Russian 2nd Army, the German army's disadvantage in military strength became more and more obvious. The 8th Corps built trenches to defend themselves, trying to stop the Russian attack, but the Russian team was not as unbearable as the rumors. The Russo-Japanese War ten years ago taught them a lot of lessons, making their current tactical strategies much smarter than the French. In order to break the situation, they had a lot of lessons.

In the German field position, the Russian soldiers were ambushing the positions for a night, crawling forward for another hundred yards before dawn. After the attack signal was issued, they took the last six hundred yards through three charges. The German machine gun fired, and they fell to the ground and then rushed up again and again. This was how they moved up and down again. When the Russian infantry in white tops waved their bright bayonets and rushed over like a wave, the Germans crawled out of the trench, dropped their machine guns and fled.

In the next two days, the Russian army's offensive momentum slowed down due to logistics supply issues. With the efforts of the commanders of the corps rather than the new commander of the army and the chief of staff, the German army on the Eastern Front stabilized the position of the two corpses drawn by Moltke from the Western Front were also on the way, and the situation finally improved. At this time, the German army accidentally intercepted the telegrams of the Russian army's relevant troops and combat deployment, and found that the two Russian armies were disconnected from each other and ignored them from the beginning and end. So Ludendolf quickly issued an offensive order, determined to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and reverse the situation on the Eastern Front in one fell swoop.

In the last few days of August, the German and Russian armies launched a fierce battle on the rich land of East Prussia. On the front more than 70 kilometers wide, both sides invested hundreds of thousands of soldiers and thousands of artillery pieces. At the beginning of the battle, both sides tried to defeat their opponents with attack. Although there were still some problems with the deployment, mobilization and contact of the German team, the Russians had even worse problems in this regard. The German army was afraid that they would gain the upper hand with the support of heavy artillery. Their cavalry, infantry, and horses dragged heavy field artillery through villages and forests, crossed the lake area and fields, and advanced, and continued to advance.

The German offensive soon received results. At first, it was the 6th Corps, then the 13th Corps, and the 1st Corps. One main force after another of the Russian army was defeated. The soldiers retreated in panic, and more and more people surrendered to the German army. Teams were captured by prisoners behind and even blocked the German army's advance team. The entire Russian army's front was in chaos. The field commanders did not know where their subordinates were. The vehicles of the staff members were speeding around, and the command line was either unable to receive the command line, or it was too late. In this way, the Russian 2nd Army was defeated by the 8th Corps, which was not superior in numbers. More than 120,000 were killed, captured and missing people, and more than 400 Russian artillery and thousands of horses were seized.

Although the German team won the Battle of East Prussia, the situation on the Eastern Front was still very unfavorable to the Allies. The victory of the German army could not make up for the heavy losses of the allies. At the same time as the Battle of East Prussia was ongoing, the Austro-Hungarian Empire attacked Russian Poland with two armies, but was defeated by the Russian army. By September 1, the 3rd Army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had collapsed, and the 1st and 4th Army had been cut off and the situation was in danger. If these elite main forces were lost, the Austro-Hungarian Empire would be unable to resist the Russian offensive. The Russian army could have advanced straight into the Galicia and the Hungarian plains, forcing the Austro-Hungarian Empire to withdraw from the war.

In this way, William II is already considering providing strong military aid to his incompetent allies, including the chariot troops, to help them resist the attack of the Russian team. Xia Shu was thinking in his mind.

Seeing that Xia Shu had not responded for a long time, William II had to come up with his own ideas: "The combat quality of the naval chariot troops is impeccable. In order to facilitate command and dispatch, the Army hopes to establish its own chariot troops as soon as possible. The plan is to form 20 chariot squadrons first."

Imitating the German tank troops during World War II, Xia Shu organized the Navy's tank test brigade into four chariot squadrons, and the full squadron should be equipped with 22 chariots. According to calculations, it would take 440 chariots to form 20 squadrons, and at a production rate of 20 chariots per month, it would take nearly two years to supply all the garrisons.

Before Xia Shu could speak, Crown Prince William said: "With these 20 chariot squadrons, we can easily sweep across any European country, and no one dares to accuse Germany anymore."

If the German team had already owned 440 tanks when the war broke out, even if they were all lightweight "Hubert 13", the commemorative celebration of the day was held in Paris. With Germany's industrial strength, it was completely feasible to build a large number of light tracked tanks before 1914. The first reason why Xia Shu did not let this happen was that technology was confidentiality.

The gap in comprehensive national strength lies there. If the arms race is fought, the allies will definitely not be able to defeat the Allies.

To this end, Xia Shu was under the guise of a tractor factory and was engaged in the research and development of crawler tanks. With Daimler's engine and armored weapons from Friedrich's shipyard, it was not difficult to expand the production scale. Moreover, the long-term testing, training and exercises of the Navy's tank test brigade had laid a practical foundation for the mass formation of the chariot troops. If the assault production was carried out at any cost, 440 tanks could be built in up to 5 months. With two or three months of training, by the fall of 1915, the German steel torrent would be truly unstoppable.

But if that is true, Germany's aircraft production will inevitably be greatly affected.

Because he had the initiative, Xia Shu said calmly: "As His Majesty wished, we will try our best to expand the production scale of war vehicles and supply the army troops with relatively priority. If each squadron is equipped with 10 war vehicles as the backbone force, then 10 squadrons can be formed in the first three months, and the other 10 squadrons will only take two months, and then gradually fill in the gaps in each squadron."

"So, it will take as soon as half a year to form the first batch of combat chariot troops?"

Although William II did not reveal his expected situation in his words, his expression told Xia Shu that this result did not satisfy him very much.

Xia Shu was a little surprised. In theory, the German army had the upper hand on the current situation on the Western Front. As long as France was successfully killed, it was no surprise to turn around and defeat Russia. Why was the German emperor eager to form a powerful steel army?

William II was unwilling to say much, so Xia Shu naturally couldn't ask in person. After the emperor left, he asked Crown William about the situation, and then he realized that Lu Wan's fire pushed Germany to the opposite of secular morality.

Luwan is a city in central Belgium, less than 30 kilometers away from the capital Brussels. The city has a history of more than a thousand years. It flourished in the thirteenth century due to the wool trade. In 1425, the first university in Belgium was established. The library here has 230,000 volumes of books, including 750 medieval manuscripts and more than 1,000 ancient books, which are rare collections in the world.

When Lu Wangang was occupied, everything was very calm. The shops were open, and German soldiers paid for things in a regular manner, and even lined up with ordinary customers in barber shops to get a haircut. However, only one day later, a German soldier was shot in the thigh by a hidden gunman in the city. The situation in the city suddenly became tense. Several Belgian officials were arrested as hostages, and the German team strengthened their guard. Another day later, the German troops on the front were defeated by the Belgian army and the defeated soldiers retreated to Lu Wan. That night, there was a serious shooting in the city. The Germans claimed that Belgian civilians were attacked by them.

The fire was also said that civilians fired on the roof and sent signals to the Belgian army, but the Belgians claimed that the German soldiers were hitting themselves in the dark. After this incident that shocked the world, the special court conducted an adult investigation into the cause of the accident for months, and the German accusation was refuted by Belgium's counterclaim. The question of who beat whom was never finalized. This has nothing to do with the subsequent events, because the Germans burned Luwan not as a punishment for the so-called Belgian misbehavior, but as a deterrent and warning to all their enemies, a gesture of showing Germany's power in front of the world.

The news of Luwan being burned had already spread. The frightened and crying refugees who were driven out told people about the atrocities of the German army setting fires and robbing savagely, constantly arresting people and killing people. On August 27, Richard Harding Davis, an American journalist in Belgium, came to Luwan by military train. The Germans locked him in the carriage. At that time, the fire had already burned to the street opposite the station, so he could see rows of houses burning.

On August 28, Hugh Gibson, the first-class secretary of the US Embassy, ​​accompanied by his colleagues in Sweden and Mexico, went to Luwan to personally inspect the situation. The houses with dark and scattered walls were still burning, the roads were hot, and ashes were everywhere; dead horses were lying everywhere. Many corpses were swollen, obviously dead for many days. All kinds of damaged things, furniture, bottles and torn clothes were thrown into the ashes everywhere. Some soldiers of the 9th German Reserve Corps were drunk, some were nervous, frown, and bloodshot. They ran from one house to another, broke into the door, grabbed valuable things, stuffed their pockets with cigars, and then waved torches.

Luwan's fire became the subject of public protest by the Belgian government, and the US Embassy also made official reports. When the fire was still burning, it had already caused anger and condemnation from the whole world. Foreign newspapers and magazines published a large number of pages of facts witnessed by refugees and reports made by journalists. The New York Tribune listed a prominent title on Davis' report: "The Germans ransacked Luwan; women and priests were shot". Under the subtitle of "Berlin confirmed the terrorist acts in Luwan", a Berlin broadcast statement circulated by the German Embassy in the United States, saying that it was because Belgian civilians ignored the attacks of Xinyi that Luwan was punished by the destruction of the whole city by the Germans who wanted to use this to intimidate the world and induce opponents to surrender, but in the end, many people believed that they had an enemy that they could not reconcile and could not compromise.

Belgium almost evoked the whole world to oppose Germany.

"We have no choice. Only by achieving the final victory can we gain the respect of the whole world." Crown Prince William imitated the tone of the German emperor, "The neutrality of Germany's neighboring countries must be abolished, the untolerable hegemony of Britain in world affairs, dismember Russia, and meet these conditions, the war will end. Even if the war is over, we must remain vigilant and always beware of European countries uniting against Germany like they did when they dealt with Napoleon."
Chapter completed!