Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 518 Trump Card
The outbreak of the Battle of the Somme signified only one thing: the war between the Allied and Central Powers had entered its final countdown.

The casualties suffered by the Allied Powers in the Battle of the Somme demonstrate that the French were determined to pay any price to reclaim all German-occupied territory in a short period of time.

Despite the heavy casualties suffered a week before the Battle of the Somme, neither France nor the other Allied nations showed any sign of backing down.

Even Spain paid a heavy price in the Battle of the Somme. In addition to the massive shipments of artillery shells and bullets being transported to the French front, the Spanish army suffered tens of thousands of casualties in the week leading up to the Battle of the Somme.

While the Allied Powers suffered heavy casualties, the Central Powers also suffered enormous losses.

Here we must emphasize the British army. Britain sent two army groups to help Germany defend the Western Front. The British thought it was just a simple defensive task, but they didn't expect to encounter the Allied offensive at the Somme.

After a week of attrition, the British army of 70 had less than 60 troops left to continue fighting, and it seemed that the army would be completely wiped out in a month and a half.

The brutality of the Western Front shocked the British government, but as a member of the Allied powers, they could not remain indifferent to the crisis on the Western Front.

With the idea that the Battle of the Somme was paramount, the British government mobilized its entire population and planned to send 30 troops to the Western Front within a week and 80 troops within a month.

Both Britain and Germany had only one thought at this point: to continue the stalemate with the Allied Powers.

Since the Allies were on the defensive on the Western Front, they naturally had the advantage of terrain, and their casualties were much lower than those of the Entente Powers.

If this continues, although the Central Powers will also suffer heavy losses, the Allied Powers will suffer even more.

The fact that Britain and Germany were continuously reinforcing their troops on the Western Front could not be kept secret from the Allied powers.

This is not the time to weigh casualties. Retreat will not win the war. Only by going all out at all costs can we hope to achieve final victory.

The French government shared this view. Moreover, the Battle of the Somme was itself aimed at recovering French territory, and with Spain and Italy already sending large numbers of troops to support France, the French government naturally had no grounds for objection.

The French government has further intensified its mobilization efforts, expecting to support 50 troops to the front lines within a month and 100 million troops within three months.

Spain and Italy have also pledged to send 30 troops to the front lines within a month and 50 troops within three months, respectively.

The continuous mobilization and troop reinforcements by various countries have attracted worldwide attention, and countries that are paying close attention to the Battle of the Somme are speculating about who will ultimately win the battle.

Although the Battle of the Somme had become the focus of attention for all of Europe and even the world, in Eastern Europe, Russia and Austria-Hungary, these two unfortunate countries, did not have much interest in the development of the Battle of the Somme at this time.

The Russian army's performance on the front lines has been quite poor, but this is not the only bad news for the Russian government. There is even worse news: public discontent with the army's prolonged ineffectiveness, coupled with anger towards the government.

As the war has progressed, prices in Russia have ballooned to an irrecoverable level.

The prices of all kinds of grains have increased several times over. An ordinary Russian worker's hard-earned income after a day's work is not even enough to buy food for his whole family.

To keep the whole family from going hungry, a household needs at least two able-bodied people, and even then, it's only barely enough to keep them from going hungry.

Besides food, the prices of various daily necessities, industrial products, medical supplies, and so on have also generally increased by several times to more than ten times.

Most Russian workers haven't bought clothes in a long time, because the price of a single outfit could cost them half a month's or even a month's wages.

The reason is simple: Russia's domestic light industry was already in a poor state. Coupled with the devastation of the war on the Russian economy, Russia's light industrial system almost completely collapsed.

If the Russian government hadn't increased its investment in heavy and military industries, these industries would likely have collapsed along with light industry.

Modern Russia is like an old horse in its twilight years; no one knows when this once-galloping steed will suddenly collapse.

In fact, the rise in prices of various commodities was not fatal for Russia. What was truly fatal was that the prices of coal and firewood, on which Russians depended for survival, were also rising continuously due to the war.

As is well known, most parts of Russia experience extremely cold winters. Although Russians are generally more resistant to the cold, they still need coal and firewood for heating and cooking.

Winter hasn't arrived yet, so even if coal and timber prices are a bit high, it won't have a significant impact on Russians.

Once winter arrives, the demand for coal and timber across Russia will increase dramatically, at which point the extremely high prices of coal and timber will become fully apparent.

Once people no longer have enough coal and wood for heating and cooking, it is tantamount to cutting off the Russians' hope of survival.

This would be a devastating blow to Russia, and if the Russian government cannot handle this crisis, it could very well lead to nationwide unrest even more severe than it did a few years ago.

In war-torn Russia, if unrest were to break out, the country would be utterly incapable of quelling the rebellion. The only option would be to abandon the war on the front lines, but war is not so easily abandoned.

Carlo's agreement to the French invasion of the Somme stemmed from his perception of Russia's crisis. It's no exaggeration to say that Russia was on the verge of collapse at that time.

Just like an elderly person in their twilight years, they may very well pass away quietly in the coming winter.

If the Allied Powers had achieved some success on the Western Front before the Russian Revolution, then even if the revolution occurred in Russia, its impact on the overall war would not have been so significant.

If there hadn't been much activity on the Western Front before the Russian Revolution, Russia's withdrawal might have had a significant impact on the war.

On August 26, 1914, the eighth day of the Battle of the Somme, the Spanish army, which was in charge of the main attack, finally broke through the first line of German defense.

This victory was not solely due to the Spanish army; the groundwork laid by the French and Italian armies beforehand was also crucial.

After breaking through the first German line of defense, the Spanish army immediately captured the entire line and continued to launch a fierce attack on the second line of defense.

Under the relentless onslaught of the Spanish, French, and Italian armies, it took several more days to finally breach the second line of defense, which was defended by some German troops and even more British troops.

At this point, more than ten days had passed since the start of the Battle of the Somme. Although the Allied forces had broken through two lines of German defense, they had only advanced the front line by about 3 kilometers.

Britain and Germany also reinforced their third line of defense and deployed more troops to defend it.

Seeing that their offensive had made little progress, Spain finally decided to deploy tanks to give the Allied forces on the Somme a boost.

Of course, deploying tanks also takes time. Unlike transporting troops, transporting tanks is not that simple.

There are actually only three ways to transport tanks from Spain to France.

The first method was to transport the tanks by sea to the port, then by large transport ships to the port in France, and finally to the battlefield.

With this back and forth, it would take at least a week for the tanks to reach the western front.

The second method is to drive the tanks directly to the battlefield. However, considering that tanks are not very fast and have a high rate of breakdowns after prolonged use, this would take longer than shipping.

The third method is transportation by train. Although train transportation saves time, the tanks are too large, requiring modifications to existing train carriages to allow them to be loaded onto the train.

Moreover, if a large number of tanks are being transported, the train needs to make several trips, which also takes a long time.

Although sea transport might have been the most efficient method, given that the Somme River leads to the English Channel, Spain's large-scale transport of tanks could attract British attention. To be on the safe side, Spain ultimately opted to transport the tanks by train, which only meant a longer journey.

After deciding to deploy tanks to the battlefield, Spain did not hide it from its allies.

On August 30, the Spanish government formally notified the French and Italian governments that Spain was about to use secret weapons and hoped that the French and Italian troops could hold out for ten days.

While it's unclear what Spain is up to, having a secret weapon is certainly better than not having one.

In any case, the offensive would continue regardless, and the French government had no objection to this, and was also curious about what Spain's so-called secret weapon was.

As for Italy, of course, they wouldn't have any objections. The Italian government was more than happy that France and Spain would take on greater responsibility and not assign too many offensive tasks to the Italian army.

On the one hand, the Italian army performed poorly in the war; on the other hand, the Italian government was quite distressed by the casualty figures reported by the army.

Italy had the smallest population among the world's eight great powers. As of early 1914, the Italian government's population statistics showed only 3700 million.

Since the outbreak of the war, the Italian government has mobilized more than 200 million troops, which shows just how serious the Italian government is about the war.

The enormous casualties on the Western Front were a major blow to the Italian government. They desperately wanted Spain to unleash its so-called secret weapon to end the war quickly, so they could reap more spoils with fewer casualties.

To maintain a high degree of secrecy, the news of Spain's impending deployment of secret weapons was only revealed to its two allies, France and Italy, who were fighting together on the Somme.

Spain did not disclose information about Russia and other Allied countries, likely to prevent Russia from leaking information to Germany.

Faced with the formidable third line of defense jointly built by Germany and Britain, the French and Italian armies, tasked with the main offensive, could only resort to their old, cumbersome methods: continuous artillery bombardment to destroy as many of the British and German fortifications as possible.

That's what the first and second lines of defense did before, and it proved to be very effective.

Although the third line of defense was far stronger than the first and second lines, even the strongest lines of defense could not withstand large-scale and very frequent artillery bombardment.

After several days of bombing, the French army finally launched an offensive, while the Italian army was tasked with providing flank cover.

The main offensive task was undertaken by the French Sixth Army, whose mission was to launch a major assault on the 20-kilometer defensive line from Maricourt to Epictein toward Bapomme.

The Italian Third Army was tasked with providing cover on the left flank, and would reinforce the French Sixth Army if necessary.

The Spanish army was tasked with supporting the assault, which was carried out by the reorganized Second Army from both banks of the Somme River north of Rosiel toward Perona.

The impact on the third line of defense was extremely large-scale, and the ferocity of the fighting was the greatest of the Somme campaigns.

The Allied forces deployed as many as three armies, totaling over a million troops, while the Central Powers defended with two armies, totaling nearly 70 men.

Surprisingly, the French troops responsible for the main assault achieved little success, while the Spanish troops who provided support achieved better results.

The Spanish army captured two important German defensive positions, Balle and Biache, forcing the Germans to continue reinforcing the front lines.

In the direction of the French army's offensive, the cumbersome regulations governing assaults in various regions limited the initiative of each unit, resulting in an overall slow advance for the French army.

Although there was some progress, the German army had ample time to reinforce the front lines, and with the help of the British army, the advance of the French army was severely restricted.

In the week or so that followed, apart from the Spanish army continuing to advance several kilometers, the Allied forces did not achieve any operational objectives.

The series of setbacks in battle led to some doubts within the French army about the abilities of Chief of the General Staff Joffre. It was only the certain victories achieved by the Spanish army that embellished the Allied final results; otherwise, Joffre might have lost his position during the war, just like the German Chief of the General Staff, Moltke the Younger.

At this moment, French Chief of the General Staff Joffre was in a state of considerable panic.

He was the one who proposed the Battle of the Somme, and now that the battle has not made much progress, he naturally bears the greatest responsibility.

Now, perhaps all that remains of hope is Spain's so-called trump card. But how much help this so-called trump card can actually provide on the front lines is something that Joffre, as the French Chief of the General Staff, has no idea.

There was no other way but to pray.

Thanks to the cooperation of the French side, Spain was able to transport tanks relatively quickly.

Originally expected to take 15 days to transport more than 300 tanks to the front lines, the task was ultimately completed in just 12 days.

Perhaps out of curiosity, French Chief of the General Staff Joffre personally went to the front lines and saw what Spain was supposed to be holding up.

When Joffre saw the tanks with their deep, dark cannon muzzles, he was shocked.

He never expected Spain to have such a trump card, let alone that such a huge thing could run at such an astonishing speed.

"This is amazing! These are simply works of art by God!" Xiafei looked at the tanks in front of him and couldn't wait to see how they performed on the battlefield.

"Mr. Daniel, when will such a behemoth be able to go to the battlefield? I can't wait to see how this behemoth performs. I believe it will be a deadly weapon on the battlefield and will change the course of war!" Xiafei said excitedly.

After seeing these massive vehicles with his own eyes, Joffre not only believed that the Somme campaign would make even greater progress, but he also believed that the Allied Powers could win the war quickly with these behemoths.

As to just how powerful Spain was, possessing such formidable weaponry, that was no longer Joffre's concern. After all, if the Battle of the Somme hadn't progressed, Joffre would have to resign from his position as Chief of the French General Staff.

Is it still necessary for Joffre, having lost his position, to consider the future of France?
"Once these tanks complete their final inspections and refueling, they will be ready for the battlefield tomorrow," Daniel, the commander of the temporarily reorganized tank unit, replied with a smile.

This is not only the first public appearance of Spanish tanks, but also a great opportunity for the Spanish tank force.

If Daniel can achieve excellent results in this appearance, he will not only become the de facto commander of a tank division, but his rank will also be promoted from colonel to general.

This is during wartime, when military rank promotions are extremely rapid. In peacetime, being promoted by one rank is already quite good, but in wartime, being promoted several ranks in quick succession is very common.

As long as you have military merits, not only military rank, but also noble titles and land are all within your grasp.

Hearing Daniel's answer, Xiafei nodded in satisfaction.

He looked at the tank with great interest, already harboring the idea of ​​purchasing tanks from Spain.

However, Jaffe still has some concerns. If these large vehicles perform poorly on the battlefield, Jaffe's procurement efforts will become a joke.

Since these behemoths are going to the battlefield tomorrow anyway, we might as well see how they perform. If they really become a major weapon on the battlefield, then it won't be too late to discuss purchasing tanks with the Spanish side tomorrow.

If these big guys don't perform well on the battlefield, then there's no need to procure them.

For Joffre, he only hoped for the former scenario to occur. The power of the tanks would highlight the power of Spain, but only powerful tanks could change the status quo of the Battle of the Somme and save Joffre's military career.

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(End of this chapter)