Chapter 57： New Schlieffen Project

The Crown Prince and Puleshan went back after seeing Ludendorff off, and there are still a lot of jobs waiting for them.

Ludendorff has been on the train for almost two days and finally arrived in Berlin. Looking at the familiar and unfamiliar place outside the window, Ludendorff also felt melancholy. When he got into the car, a young military officer in his twenties walked in front of him to salute. "Colonel Ludendorff, I am Second Lieutenant Mandrill of the General Staff, and I am ordered to come to meet you."

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Ludendorff walked out of the station with Lieutenant Mandrill after he finished speaking. The second lieutenant pointed to the Type T car parked on the side of the road and said. "Let's go by car."

Lieutenant Mandrill told Ludendorff after putting his luggage. "Colonel, I will arrange for you to stay here first. Tomorrow morning, the Chief of Staff, His Excellency Mao Qi, will meet you to learn about the Romanian army.

At the German General Staff Headquarters the next day, Ludendorff stood in front of the Chief of General Staff Little Mochi and reported on his work. "Colonel Ludendorff, you are an adviser in the Romanian army. Can you comment on its military situation?"

"The good chief of the general staff, when I first arrived in Romania, its military personnel were bloated, the high-level officers were corrupted, the lower-level officers had poor tactical understanding, and many of them had low levels of education, and they couldn't even recognize military orders. Morale at the soldier level is pretty good, but the training volume is insufficient, resulting in poor overall combat effectiveness of the army. We can fight with one division, and the two Romanian divisions before the reorganization."

After Ludendorff introduced the complete situation of the Romanian army before the compilation, he paused and continued.

“In Romania’s reorganization, we increased the amount of training for soldiers. Lower-ranking officers were mainly re-learned at the Bucharest Military Academy, and senior officers were also retrained. After three years of reorganization, they now have our nine-tier organization in the military. Degree. The equipment is no worse than ours. Generally speaking, the army that has been trained now can compete with us one-on-one at the division level. I personally think that their current large-scale reorganization of the army has the idea of ​​war."

Even though Ludendorff and Edel are friends and will not be influenced by their feelings, they still talked about what they saw to the Chief of Staff.

General Mochi, who heard Ludendorff's account, was also thinking about Romania's plans. From a German perspective, I certainly hope that Romania can join the war against Russia in the future. It’s just that Romania has not been fully pulled into the chariot, and an elite army is placed on the front line of Russia’s Bessarabia, which is also a kind of protection for East Prussia and Austria-Hungary.

Now Romania’s plans, Little Mochi guessed one thing. The only people he could think about in Romania were Serbia and Bulgaria. Considering the dispute between Romania and Bulgaria over the Dobrogea region, Little Mochi had his own answer.

"Thank you very much for your analysis of the Romanian army, Colonel Ludendorff." Little Mochi said to Ludendorff.

"It is an honor for every German to serve the empire." Facing the chief of staff's gratitude, Ludendorff leaned on his legs and answered without hesitation.

"This time you return to China, I plan to put you in the second division of the General Staff. What do you think?"

"I have no problem at all. I am honored to be able to work under the chief of the general staff." Facing Xiao Moqi's question, how could Ludendorff refuse, and the second division of the general staff is in charge of the marching work, which is also more suitable. His appetite.

Xiao Maoqi was very satisfied with Ludendorff, he had read the information before. He also had a deep understanding of Ludendorff's ability to work in Romania.

"You just come back and take a one-week rest to see if your family is coming to work." Little Moqi still gave Ludendorff a vacation very empathetic.

Ludendorff left the General Staff after receiving a vacation approved by Xiao Moqi, and drove to the retired Schlieffen's house. Under the leadership of the housekeeper, he met Schlieffen who was revising his plan.

General Schlieffen, who was studying his plan attentively, stood up and walked to Ludendorff at the prompt of the butler. "It's Ludendorff who is here. I haven't seen you for a long time. How about doing it in Romania."

"Thank your Excellency General for your concern for me. I have a good time in Romania. Now the Chief of the General Staff General Mochi has transferred me to the second division as the chief of the second division. I can help you continue to complete the plan." Ludendorff introduced to General Schlieffen. Own status quo.

"Alright, all kinds of new things are appearing now, which affect this plan. I am too old and have no energy, Ludendorff, you can help me, I am very grateful to you." Schlieffen said thankful words to his former subordinates.

"You are polite general."

Ludendorff told Schlieffen that the changes he saw in the Romanian army focused on the Romanian fast mobile division. Schlieffen thought about it when he heard that this division equipped with 800 cars could achieve twice the maneuverability of an ordinary division without relying on railways. "This is a new trend. The advantage brought about by being twice as fast as others will allow the military to have more choices, but the government will have a headache in terms of military expenditure."

"Yes, I calculated in Romania that if in order to improve the logistics, each division would need at least 300 more cars to be effective. This is not a small expense and it can only improve the logistics. Plus personnel training and daily road maintenance. Situation and so on. Generally speaking, automobile transportation can only be a supplement to train transportation Ludendorff is talking about the results of his own calculations.

This is also the limitation of science and technology in this era. After Edel produced Dongfeng trucks, the main force of transportation was still trains. Nowadays, a train can transport nearly 1,000 tons, and a truck can only transport 1.5 tons. It takes more than 600 trucks to achieve the capacity of a train. Cost is a big problem.

"The truck is still much better than the carriage. It can supplement the distance between the train and the army, but the cost is not a small sum."

Schlieffen sees the problem thoroughly, but now the stock of horses in Germany is very large. Don't say that he is just a retired chief of the general staff, even now Xiao Maoqi is afraid to replace all short-distance transportation with trucks. This involves a lot of problems.

"It is still possible to equip the vanguard with enough trucks for transportation." Schliefen muttered silently. In his plan, the maneuvering speed of the rotating attacking force has always been his most concerned topic. Now that there are better short-distance transportation vehicles than horse-drawn carriages, it is no wonder that he will never forget it.

"Your Excellency, we can actually make a plan first. Whether it can be implemented in the end depends on the decision of the General Staff." Ludendorff told Schlieffen about his plan.

"I really need your help this time, Ludendorff."

Finally, with the joint efforts of Schlieffen and Ludendorff, a more reasonable ‘Schlieffen Plan’ came out. There are no changes to the troops in this plan, but the large-scale use of trucks in the detour troops on the western front. According to the new plan, the detour troops are equipped with different trucks according to different positions. The maximum number of pointed troops is 600 per division. The following troops also have at least 300 trucks in possession. According to the new plan, the entire 53 divisions of the roundabout troops are equipped with 23,000 trucks.