Chapter 547: For the Sake of Peace Talks
The rain grew heavier, tinged faintly with red, drumming against the tanks' armor with dull, metallic thuds.
Inside the assault trench, the First Special Artillery Division stood at full readiness.
Christine, wrapped in a raincoat, sat in the open rear compartment of an armored reconnaissance vehicle. In front and behind him, rows of Char A1 tanks sat with engines running, prepared for the advance.
Beside him, his aide craned his neck to look out over the trench walls. The German forces were already engaged in close combat with the charging French infantry.
"General," the aide turned back with a puzzled look, "this isn't how we trained. Aren't we supposed to lead the charge, not stay back here?"
Christine let out a long sigh. He didn't know how to answer.
Perhaps cavalry should indeed follow behind infantry. When both sides were locked in melee, cavalry could sweep in from the flanks and attack the rear, sowing chaos and collapse.
But these weren't cavalry. These were tanks.
If tanks followed behind the infantry, what use was their armor?
As Christine furrowed his brow, a shrill whistle suddenly pierced the air, followed by a loud order from the front-line commander: "Advance! First Special Artillery Division, advance!"
Christine echoed the command, "Advance!"
With a loud roar, the lead tank surged forward, climbing the slope out of the trench. The rest followed in a long line, engine noise rising to a thunderous din.
A young officer popped his head from a turret, shouting encouragement: "Let's show the Krauts what real power looks like! Kill them all!"
Christine, however, felt no confidence.
It wasn't that he was being negative—he simply knew Nivelle's plan wasn't going to work.
Cavalry might survive a deep push into enemy territory for days by pillaging supplies from civilians or captured enemy stores.
But tanks weren't cavalry. They needed gasoline—something that couldn't simply be "foraged" from civilians or German depots.
Without a follow-up plan, even a successful breach by the First Special Artillery Division would be unsustainable. They wouldn't survive even a single day.
His vehicle rumbled up the battlefield slope, and Christine was stunned by what he saw.
Shells continued to rain down on the enemy positions as wave after wave of French infantry charged directly into the barrage.
But the Germans had already adapted. They braved the shelling to set up machine guns at the front of their lines, mowing down the French as they emerged from the fog and smoke.
Artillery had little effect on these machine guns. The crews were well protected behind sandbagged parapets, dugouts reinforced with logs, stone, and packed earth—small bunkers that could only be destroyed with direct hits, which were rare.
In fact, the artillery was causing more harm than help: the smoke concealed German positions, and shrapnel and flying debris from their own shells prevented French infantry from getting close.
Soldiers fell by the dozens. Yet the French kept charging forward, climbing over the fallen bodies of their comrades.
No man's land, already littered with decaying corpses, was now being layered with fresh dead. The dark red of old blood mixed with the bright crimson of new wounds, blending with the rain to stain the battlefield like a river of blood.
Still, they charged. Still, they fell.
The terrain became more difficult with every corpse. Some soldiers had to crawl forward using both hands and feet just to move across the tangled mess of twisted bodies.
Christine raised his binoculars and quickly surveyed the chaos, then said flatly, "We can't follow the original plan."
"But General," his aide protested, "the plan came from the Supreme Commander."
Disobeying the plan would be disobeying orders.
Christine hesitated for a moment.
The infantry clearly wasn't going to break through the German line. If they proceeded with the planned flanking maneuver under these conditions, the tanks would be going in alone—and wouldn't be coming back.
But if they coordinated with the infantry instead, there might still be a chance.
Decision made, Christine barked, "Send the order—cancel the flanking maneuver. Support the infantry attack with full force!"
"Yes, General." The aide immediately used signal flags and the radio to relay the order.
Christine's judgment proved correct.
Tanks advanced from both flanks, suppressing German machine guns with close-range fire and using their armored hulls to shield the infantry from bullets and shrapnel. This finally allowed the French troops to reach the German trenches and engage in hand-to-hand combat.
Through this shared hardship, a strong camaraderie formed between the infantry and the "special artillery" (i.e., armored troops). They advanced together, and by nightfall, they had pushed the front line forward by a full kilometer.
Nivelle was overjoyed when he received the news. He immediately sent a telegram to Paris:
"After a hard-fought battle, our forces achieved a decisive victory at the Somme. In just one day, we seized two trench lines and advanced one kilometer!"
Then he rushed to spread the news to every newspaper.
But the government, the members of parliament, and even the press remained cautious. Instead of announcing the news immediately, they all began contacting Nivelle to ask one question:
"What were the casualties?"
Everyone understood the likely cost of this so-called "victory."
Nivelle, uneasy but unable to lie due to his past history of falsifying reports, finally replied truthfully after some hesitation:
"We suffered over 40,000 casualties."
The entire room was shocked.
"Over 40,000 casualties in one day? That's double what Charles's troops suffer."
"Charles pushed the front forward 13 kilometers at Namur with just a few hundred losses. He never even called it a great victory, yet Nivelle is calling this a decisive win?"
"How are we supposed to report this 'victory'? Pretend the losses didn't happen?"
…
Foch's response was especially scathing:
"I cannot call this a 'victory.' A kilometer gained for the cost of 40,000 men? At this rate, by the time we reach the German border, every French soldier will be dead."
Pétain stood with him:
"And then, the Germans can proudly point a gun at our heads. And we—who will be left to fight back for France?"
Nivelle had not expected this backlash.
As he fumed in frustration, something even more devastating came.
Kaiser Wilhelm II made a statement in the Berliner Tageblatt:
"Without a doubt, the Entente is on the path to failure. It is time to end this meaningless war. Germany is ready to negotiate peace."
Germany was now offering peace?
And doing so with the confidence of a victor?
Especially after Charles's victory at Namur?
It was clear: it was Nivelle's disaster at the Somme that had given Germany the courage to propose negotiations.
(Note: Germany's offer for peace negotiations did happen historically in 1916, when both sides were exhausted and Germany still held the upper hand. The attempt was ultimately sabotaged by U.S. financial interests.)
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