While Qin Zhiyuan was leading the Foreign Legion digging trenches in the Sype River, the leaders of the Allied Powers were holding meetings in Paris.
The first meeting lasted four days. The focus of the conflict was on the front lines that Britain and France were responsible for. Pétain asked the British not to concentrate their troops in Flanders, which was now a swamp and it was impossible for the Germans to move from Flanders.
Landes launched an attack. Pétain believed that the British army's formation should be extended southward, at least to Nuyongwa, so that the French army might have 10 more divisions in reserve.
The British expressed dissatisfaction with Pétain's proposal. They opposed arranging the Foreign Legion led by Qin Zhiyuan in Reims, because it had become a sad place for the Germans and it was unlikely that the Germans would launch an attack in Reims.
The British believed that the French should place the Foreign Legion at the junction of the British and French armies.
What the British and the French say is reasonable, but they are all from their own perspective and have no overall view of the situation.
Foch tried to mediate, but to no avail because Foch had no jurisdiction over the British army.
The meeting was spent every day in quarrels. Not only did no resolutions come out during the four days, but it actually aroused more problems.
The trouble comes from the Americans.
During this meeting, U.S. President Wilson proposed fourteen basic principles for international relations.
In some articles, Wilson called for the restoration of Belgium's independence, the return of Alsace and Lorraine occupied by the Germans to France, and the return of the territories in Italy occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
These provisions sound good, at least Belgium, France and Italy agree.
But at the same time, Wilson's fourteen basic principles also included opinions on national autonomy.
Wilson proposed: All peoples should publicly sign a public covenant of self-determination.
As we all know, before the world war, almost all allies and agreements around the world were born in secret. Except for the countries involved, no one knows whether two countries have signed a secret agreement and what the specific provisions are.
To a certain extent, this will cause misjudgments in some countries, such as Italy. If they knew the relationship between the British and Belgium and the relationship between France and Belgium, Italy would not necessarily choose Germany at the beginning of the war.
In that case, the Germans, who feel they are alone, may not necessarily launch a world war, and perhaps the start of the world war will be greatly delayed.
The public signing of the Open Covenant has been recognized by many countries, but only some countries have made some mild comments, such as Japan.
The Japanese have reason to object. During the World War, with the help of the European powers who were busy with the world war and had no time to go east, Japan had passed a series of secret agreements to gain as much benefit from China as possible. If these secret agreements were made public, the Japanese would
There is a question mark as to whether the benefits can be guaranteed.
After all, compared to the whole world, the 400 million people in the Republic of China were too many, and no one wanted to be squeezed out of the Republic of China market.
The last step is national self-determination, which has aroused strong opposition from almost all countries in the world.
The so-called national self-determination is an enlarged version of the open-door policy advocated by Americans.
The situation in the United States is similar to that of the Germans. They are obsessed with developing the economy and improving productivity. However, when the products they produce are enough for domestic consumption and they need to find external markets, they find that the world has been divided up and their products have no market.
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You must know that at this time, the colonial system in the world was determined by Britain and France. In order to better control the colonies, Britain and France promoted a single colonial economy. Then all the materials needed by the colonies needed to be allocated by the suzerain country, which gave the suzerain country dumping
Opportunities for domestic industrial products.
The national self-determination proposed by Wilson is tantamount to letting the colonial people decide their own destiny. This is absolutely unacceptable to the British and French. They even publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with the United States because of this, because although the American troops have arrived in Paris, they have not yet arrived in Paris.
It has not participated in the war so far, and Americans do not have enough say.
At least, the United States does not have as much say as Wilson thought.
As a member of a vested interest group, Qin Zhiyuan also expressed a clear-cut opposition to national self-determination.
The immigration layout of the Chinese has not yet been completed, and Qin Zhiyuan does not want to support national self-determination yet.
What's more, from France's standpoint, Qin Zhiyuan should also be consistent with the French government.
More importantly, Qin Zhiyuan cannot make the French wary of Corsica just because of Wilson's boldness.
Wilson was indeed very bold. Before he published these fourteen points, he hardly communicated with anyone. Even Raymond Pengale and Lloyd George were unaware of this behavior. This behavior was similar to the abandonment of Karl I last year.
There is no difference between the behavior of William II and France in negotiating a separate peace.
Well, these two are indeed good enough.
While Paris was quarreling, Berlin was also quarreling.
The negotiations between the Germans and the Russians have reached the execution stage. The Russians' withdrawal from the world war is irreversible. The only thing that needs to be bargained for is the conditions under which the Germans will allow the Russians to withdraw from the war.
In mid-February, Ludendorff proposed at the second Kaiser's Secret Council meeting that not only Estonia, Finland, and Ukraine should be separated from Russia, but Germany should continue to advance eastward and directly overthrow the Bolshevik regime.
William II was even more radical. He proposed that the land that originally belonged to the Romanov dynasty should be divided into four parts: Russian mainland Ukraine, Siberia, which had lost part of its territory, and the Southeastern Commonwealth.
Perhaps William II wanted to divide Russia so that Russia would not look so big.
But William II probably didn't realize that even if Russia is divided into four parts, each Russia still looks much larger than Germany.
Regarding the whims of Wilhelm II and Ludendorff, the newly promoted major general present at the meeting, perhaps the smartest general in Germany, Max Hoffmann, Foreign Minister Kuhlmann, and Prime Minister Hertling were not only unable to resist, but even complained.
In March, the Brest-Litovsk peace agreement was signed. Trotsky, who was the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs at the time, did not attend the signing ceremony because this so-called peace agreement was a humiliation to Russia and would not achieve peace at all.
The agreement stipulates that Russia renounces Courland, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus.
These places were not directly ceded to Germany, but were ruled by Germany's puppet regimes.
According to the provisions of the Treaty, Russia lost 55 million people, which was equivalent to one-third of the population of the original Russian Empire, hundreds of thousands of square miles of land, one-third of its railways and farmland, and half of its industry.
At the same time, Russia also agreed to immediately disband the remaining soldiers.
The Russian delegation rejected the agreement, even though the agreement would be implemented even if they did not sign, they refused to sign or even read the text of the contract.
They know very well what it means to them once they sign this agreement. Needless to say, there is no need to talk about their political future. If they dare to sign, they may face trial when they return.
Wilhelm II and Ludendorff indeed went too far. They abandoned the excellent traditions that had been handed down from the Bismarck era. If the Russians knew that the current Germans were so greedy, they would fight to the end.
Bismarck once defeated the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 19th century, but Bismarck did not plunder any territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in order not to create more resentment in the already humiliated Austro-Hungarian Empire.
As of now, this contract cannot be said to be more beneficial to anyone.
Russia did lose a large area of territory, but at the same time, Russia was finally freed from the world war, and they could focus all their energy on eliminating domestic opposition parties and developing their own strength.
For the Germans, those seemingly vast territories cannot produce any benefits. Instead, they occupy Germany's already tight funds and troops because of the need to maintain political power.
For example, in Ukraine, there are 400,000 German soldiers and 250,000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers stationed here. They do nothing but consume 30 trains of supplies every day.
All regions combined involved a total of 1.5 million German troops.
The Germans finally obtained the colonies they dreamed of, but it was of no use anymore because Germany could not produce any supplies domestically. They could not even guarantee the needs of their own people, let alone dump them on the colonies.
A fact that cannot be ignored is that through this war, the above-mentioned regions were finally separated from Russia. It seems that countries such as Ukraine should be grateful to the Germans, because it was Germany that forced Russia to give up its direct rule over them.
Due to the losses in last year's battle, the Germans had certain difficulties in deploying their troops. Ludendorff originally planned to launch an offensive in mid-March, but it was not until the end of March that all the troops were deployed.
In early March, Ludendorff's headquarters was still in Belgium. In mid-March, Ludendorff's headquarters had moved to France. At the same time, on March 20, with the artillery units deployed in place, the German army
Changed Telegram password.
It seemed that the Germans were ready for war, but in fact the infantry units were not yet in place at this time, and Ludendorff had to continue to wait.
On March 25, Haig's intelligence department provided him with the latest intelligence. In this report, the intelligence department wrote: There are many obvious signs that the enemy will attack the front lines of the Third Army and the Fifth Army.
The goal is to cut through the Cambrai salient position and draw out all our reserves.
This intelligence was correct, but because Lloyd George had just replaced Haig's head of intelligence, Haig was unwilling to believe it.
So Haig sent out a reconnaissance plane and concluded that the Germans had no signs of massing troops in Cambrai and Bapome.
From the sky, it is true that the German troops cannot be seen moving, because the Germans chose to march at night in order to expose their combat targets.
Just when Haig came to the conclusion, 47 German divisions were gathering in the direction of Cambrai. It would only take a few days for them to move into place.
As for Reims specifically, the German troops opposite Qin Zhiyuan showed no signs of large-scale mobilization. This may indicate that Reims is not the direction of the German attack, but no one can be sure.
After all, there are nearly 400,000 Germans across from Qin Zhiyuan.
To be continued.
:Thanks to Brother Kisushi for the encouragement of two monthly tickets. Thanks to Brother Chengjiao 110 as the helmsman. Try to code as much as possible today and add more updates.
