I Became a Plutocrat in World War I: Starting with Saving France

General Winter bid a hasty farewell to Shire and then went to visit Xia Fei.

Everything seemed reasonable. Britain needed a "remarkable" victory on the Western Front, primarily held by the French Army, so naturally, Winter had to seek out the French Commander-in-Chief, Xia Fei.

As Shire anticipated, when General Winter met with Xia Fei and explained his purpose, Xia Fei immediately felt a sense of destiny favoring him.

While Shire was fighting with his troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula, Xia Fei had already equipped his First Specialized Artillery Division with "Saint Chamond M21" tanks and conducted training.

(Above is the "Saint Chamond M21," an attempt by Schneider in the light tank direction, with two mobility modes; wheels can retract and use tracks. This was posted earlier, but reposted due to the long interval)

This was a mixed unit of improved "Saint Chamond" and "Saint Chamond M21" tanks, with Major General Kristen as the division commander.

The key was that this division used Shire's tactics, and the "Saint Chamond M21" even had a variant equipped with 37MM artillery.

Major General Kristen had discreetly reminded Xia Fei: "General, even if we achieve victory on the battlefield using Shire's tactics and his tank artillery, it doesn't mean we have defeated Shire."

But Xia Fei responded, "The key is the tanks, Kristen! They are completely different from the 'Shire A1.' Their speed is much faster than Shire's tanks. They might be the future of tanks!"

By "fast," Xia Fei meant the road maneuvering speed of the "Saint Chamond M21" when using tires, which reached 28 kilometers per hour, significantly faster than the 15 kilometers per hour maximum speed of the "Shire A1."

However, its maneuvering speed was only 6 kilometers per hour when using tracks.

Xia Fei completely overlooked this shortcoming, explaining it like this:

"During combat, we don't need very high speed; 6 kilometers per hour is sufficient, any faster and the infantry wouldn't be able to keep up."

"When maneuverability is needed, it can go on the road at 28 kilometers per hour."

"More importantly, we also have a combination of heavy and light tanks; it's simply perfect!"

Major General Kristen vaguely felt something was wrong. He had studied the battle where the "Shire A1" defeated the German "A7V" tank and believed that tanks also needed mobility during combat.

As for the combination of heavy and light tanks, it would only count if the heavy "Saint Chamond" could reach the enemy's front.

Nevertheless, Major General Kristen said nothing. He knew it would be useless to speak up; the tanks had already been equipped with the troops, and all he could do was try his best to lead them to victory.

What Xia Fei didn't realize was that the Germans' tanks were no longer the A7V he imagined. The "First Specialized Artillery Division" he had trained was just cannon fodder used by Shire to probe the German Army's new equipment.

...

On Shire's side, he could roughly guess the Germans' new aircraft.

At this time, the German Army's "Fokker E" series fighters should have already come out. Historically, their emergence led to the "Fokker Scourge", during which the Allies had almost no fighters to match them.

(Above is the German Fokker E series monoplane fighter, which successfully test-flew in 1914. It was a sports stunt aircraft, model M5K. The German Army urgently modified it into a military fighter and mounted machine guns for battle. The well-known Fokker triplane is from the DR series, which the German Army equipped around 1917)

However, Shire knew this was far from enough. He couldn't recall the specifics of the Fokker E series, such as its maximum speed, the number of machine guns, maneuvers, etc.

As for what the Germans' new tanks would be, Shire had no idea, since Germany hadn't put any other tanks into combat after the A7V.

Therefore, Shire needed to employ some tactics to have Xia Fei and Schneider explore the way, so that his true trump card could be effectively utilized.

But what Shire didn't expect was that Xia Fei would roundaboutly try to get Shire's combat plan from him.

On this day, Shire, as usual, was sorting through intelligence at the command headquarters when the phone on his desk rang.

Shire found it odd. The phone hadn't rung for a long time; usually, matters were first directed to the communication room and then handed to headquarters by a staff officer, not directly contacting Shire himself.

On the other end of the line came Fuxu's voice: "Are you busy, Brigadier?"

"No, not busy, General," Shire replied, secretly wondering if Fuxu wanted to discuss the "attack theory."

Fuxu made a sound of acknowledgment and said:

"I have been repeatedly thinking about your tactical theories recently and have suddenly become interested in your tanks."

"I am curious, if you were to command a campaign, I mean to break through the enemy lines, how would you do it?"

Fuxu spoke very implicitly, and indeed, he had previously discussed tactical theories with Shire, so it seemed like there was no problem.

However, Shire immediately thought of General Winter's remark about needing to achieve a "remarkable victory" on the Western Front.

Afterward, General Winter went to find Xia Fei.

Now Fuxu was immediately probing the combat plan—could it be such a coincidence?

More likely, the person who really wanted to ask this question was Xia Fei.

Shire thought he was probably right.

Xia Fei and Fuxu did not know that General Winter had already approached Shire before them, and Shire knew everything.

It was somewhat ironic, a boomerang hitting back on Shire.

Feigning ignorance, Shire considered for a while and decided to give a practical and feasible plan. After all, to lure out the Germans' "secret weapon," Xia Fei had to not be so incompetent as to make them disregard him.

"I think we should first find a flat, open, hard ground," Shire said.

"Hard ground?" Fuxu asked, having no such concept at the time.

"Yes," Shire explained, "For example, the muddy terrain of Ypres is obviously unsuitable for tank maneuvers. Without environmental support, even the most advanced tactics and equipment cannot be effective. At the very least, it should be suitable for tank maneuvers."

"Makes sense," Fuxu agreed.

"Secondly," Shire continued, "tanks should be concentrated to break through and penetrate the enemy lines; this is the only way to achieve a swift breakthrough."

Fuxu murmured in understanding. If spread out and pushed forward evenly, the combat power per unit area would be dispersed, potentially leading to a prolonged battle against enemy defenses.

"Lastly," Shire added, "we should avoid overly dense or prolonged artillery preparation before the battle."

Fuxu fell silent on the other end of the phone, as they were planning to do just that.

After a long pause, Fuxu asked, "Why? Why not?"

"Because this would be telling the enemy where our tanks would break through, General," Shire replied. "The enemy would then gather a large number of artillery pieces for defense, and once they do, no tank would be able to break through."

Fuxu had a sudden realization. If the enemy had enough artillery to cover the no-man's land in front of the trenches, even the most maneuverable tanks would be torn apart under the barrage of shells.