Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 637 Unequal War
The first to engage in combat with the American forces were a combined British and Canadian force.

This army consisted of only a few hundred men, and their main objective was to survey the situation along the northeastern border of the United States in order to prepare for a subsequent large-scale offensive.

Surprisingly, the United States seems to have made no defensive preparations in the border region. The northeastern United States has many important cities, the most famous being New York and Boston.

A little further south, there are also the US capital, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, all within the northeastern United States.

Even if we only consider New York State and the land to its north, there are nearly 20 million people here, which should theoretically be a key area for the U.S. military to station and defend.

In reality, apart from a few border posts, there are almost no troops stationed along the border between the United States and Canada.

This mixed force of several hundred British and Canadian soldiers penetrated nearly ten kilometers into Maine before being discovered by the local state police.

Although the British and Canadian forces quickly killed the Maine police, the gunfire alerted the Americans, who eventually discovered the location of the British and Canadian forces.

The British initially thought it would be a tough battle, believing that the American troops, having discovered the enemy in time, would quickly assemble and drive them out of American territory.

However, after waiting for a long time, no trace of the US military was found. After some more investigation, it was discovered that the US border posts seemed to have been deserted.

What is going on here?

The British and Canadians, who were very puzzled by this, even thought it was an American trap to lure them in and then annihilate them.

But a trap always needs someone to set it up, right? After scouting the surrounding area and finding no trace of American troops, the British and Canadian troops realized that there were indeed no troops on the American border.

So the question is, where exactly did the US military go?
In fact, this is related to US President Wilson. In order to push the United States to join the World War, President Wilson promised the American people various benefits for military service, which led to the rapid expansion of the US military to over a million men.

But the war ended quickly, and the United States not only gained nothing, but also played the role of the defeated party in the Anglo-American War.

The massive war expenditures and reparations left the U.S. government utterly unable to pay soldiers' pensions and severance pay.

Even the salaries of most soldiers were withheld, and this money was not paid to them until several years after they were discharged from the military, by which time the dollar had already depreciated to some extent.

Without a doubt, those receiving salaries are all white. People of color would never receive salaries paid by the U.S. government; their families might not even know whether they were killed in action or captured, and the U.S. government would never pay ransoms for these prisoners.

In this respect, President Wilson did not act ethically.

This has led to great dissatisfaction among the US military with the president and government. Since the end of World War II, a large number of veterans have staged protests, demanding that the government pay them compensation and demobilization fees, and that they receive their full salaries for their service.

The veterans' march escalated, eventually affecting active-duty military personnel. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. military has been reduced to tens of thousands of troops.

These tens of thousands of people are distributed along the northern and southern borders of the United States. In reality, the number of U.S. troops in each border state is very limited, with only about a thousand people in each state.

These troops already lacked fighting spirit, and upon learning that a coalition of international forces was about to launch a large-scale invasion of the United States, the troops on the US border demanded to withdraw inland and refused to fight against the international coalition.

It would be easy to get them to fight against the international coalition; all that's needed is to send enough reinforcements to the front lines and give them enough courage to fight the enemy.

The reinforcements referred to here are quite clear: they are the veterans who were discharged after the World War II.

Active-duty U.S. soldiers are not only thinking about themselves, but also about these other people. They also fear that after their discharge or death in battle, they will not receive the compensation they are entitled to.

If the U.S. government wants to assemble a sufficient number of troops, it must pay all soldiers who were discharged after the war their full salaries and compensation, and then re-enlist them.

Otherwise, the frontline troops would not accept a militia that was just put together haphazardly. If the US government wanted to fool the frontline troops, the frontline troops would naturally fool the US government in return.

The question is, does the US government really have the capacity to pay all the laid-off veterans their full salaries and severance pay?

The answer is, of course, no. Leaving aside the pensions and compensation for soldiers killed or wounded, the salaries and demobilization pay for all veterans alone would be enough to bankrupt the U.S. treasury.

Don't forget that a few years ago, the United States provided interest-free loans to member states of the World Federation, a large portion of which came from the US government itself, which is one of the reasons for the US's financial difficulties.

Another reason is the US government's disaster relief spending during the flu season.

Although the disaster relief efforts are targeted only at white Americans, the amount of funding is still enormous, considering that whites make up the majority of the US population. Even if the US were incredibly wealthy, it couldn't possibly sustain such a massive expenditure. Moreover, the US government is practically penniless; since participating in world wars, it has almost always been operating at a financial loss, with virtually no savings.

It seems that all that can be offered to these veterans now is empty promises. Without seeing any real compensation, the veterans will certainly not be satisfied with the government's approach.

They are even less likely to accept the US government's recruitment, which means that the US government is currently in an embarrassing situation where it has no one to recruit.

As for the practice of rapidly recruiting soldiers from the general population and sending them to the battlefield, the US government is willing to try it, but the American public is not so happy about it.

The U.S. government initiated the recruitment process, but very few Americans signed up. This was partly because the U.S. military's treatment of its citizens was notoriously poor, and partly because most Americans had accepted the international coalition's narrative and were unwilling to participate in a special military operation that shouldn't have happened, especially since it would only last three months.

We could have just survived these three months, so why should we sacrifice our lives for the US government, which has betrayed all of humanity?

Americans, upon reflection, find that they lack the courage to make such a sacrifice, or that the US government is not sufficient to inspire such dedication.

With reinforcements failing to arrive, the frontline troops naturally couldn't just wait idly for the international coalition to arrive.

After all, each border state only has about a thousand troops stationed there, and even a large state like New York with a population of over ten million has less than two thousand troops stationed on its border.

Even a fool could see that the international coalition's offensive could not possibly involve tens of thousands of troops; the offensive on the main battlefield would definitely require at least 100,000 troops.

If they think they can resist the international coalition with only one or two thousand troops in a border state, they might as well withdraw as soon as possible and leave the mess for the US government to deal with.

This is certainly somewhat irresponsible, but since the US government was irresponsible first, the US military has no psychological burden in doing so.

They wouldn't die for the US government for nothing, and they wouldn't actively fight the international coalition until reinforcements arrived.

After the federal troops withdrew, there were only a small number of border police and state police in the border areas.

The number of these people was extremely limited, even less than the number of reconnaissance troops sent by the international coalition.

When reconnaissance troops reported the lack of US troop strength on the border to the international coalition command, the international coalition did not hesitate to launch an attack on the United States.

At this time, the Canadian border had amassed a force of over 100,000 men, mostly from Britain, France, and Spain.

Because of their large numbers, the international coalition launched an attack on the United States from three directions.

The Eastern Route Army, as the main force, consisted of British and French troops, as well as a small number of Spanish troops, and was responsible for advancing southward from Maine to the states of the United States.

The central army, mainly composed of Spanish troops, launched an offensive from upstate New York directly southward, with its target being New York, the most developed city in the United States.

The Western Route Army, mainly composed of Canadian troops, was responsible for harassing U.S. forces on the west coast of the United States, keeping the U.S. government busy dealing with pressure from three directions.

Of these three armies, the most important were the eastern and central armies.

According to the plan of the International Coalition General Command, the Eastern Route Army was responsible for drawing the main force of the US army, while the Central Route Army would find opportunities to directly penetrate into important US cities and cut off the connection between the US and the northeastern states.

If the objective is achieved, the states north of New York will lose their supplies from the American rear, and the Eastern Route Army will be able to quickly conquer the states, thus achieving an initial victory in the special military operation.

Because the enemy was the United States, the International Coalition General Command had a relatively detailed plan for this war.

However, once the battle actually began, the League of Nations realized that such battle preparations were clearly unnecessary.

The international coalition's offensive encountered no substantial resistance from the US military. The small groups of US troops they encountered quickly surrendered, showing no intention of fighting the international coalition to the death.

Conversely, some state police forces in the United States have chosen to fight the international coalition to the bitter end. The problem is that these police officers are extremely poorly equipped; most only have pistols, which are of very limited power.

After several days of continuous fighting, the international coalition forces had advanced the front line by tens of kilometers, and the Spanish army was also one step closer to its target, New York, the largest city in the United States.

　Third update of 3000 words, please vote with monthly tickets!
　　I've successfully completed my daily 10,000-word update this month. I'll be posting two chapters each for the last two days. Please vote with my monthly tickets!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)