In contrast to the British's focus on the German navy and colonies, the French were more practical, focusing on Germany's emerging weapons.

After more than three months, before the Christmas holidays, French intelligence officers finally handed over to the French Supreme Defence Council at the Elysée Palace a lengthy piece of information about the German Black Hawk Legion, especially on the new rifles.

The opening chapter of the intelligence elaborates on the two-month follow-up report of the Black Hawk Regiment in Hamburg by a number of French intelligence officers as a third party, especially the follow-up report on the rifle shooting training of the Black Hawk Regiment.

First of all, this new German rifle from a small factory with an infamous reputation made a very deep impression on the French intelligence officers in terms of the frequency of firing, and the French intelligence officers hiding around the camp of the Black Hawk Regiment had repeatedly recorded the record of up to 30 shots per minute from the new German rifle with the sound of gunfire.

Second, forced by the strict German defenses, French intelligence officers, in a limited number of sightings, submitted two diametrically opposed reports, one of which stated that the muzzle of the new German rifle appeared with a thick white smoke, which was as effective as black powder.

Another report swears that the new rifles of the Germans do not have any smoke.

Finally, several French intelligence officers recorded the terrible range of the new German rifle, close to 1000 yards, which is quite a terrifying range for the 300 to 600 yards of firing range that is common for black powder rifles.

In addition to the rifle report in the first part, the second part is a report on the firing training of German artillery.

Compared to rifle reports, the number of pages of artillery reports is much thinner, compared to the rifle extensive live-fire training, artillery training is less often live-fired, compared to the tall appearance of the French artillery, the Germans artillery is significantly smaller and protected by armored towers, and the artillery has much less preparation time than traditional artillery.

The only recorded sighting of live fire from German artillery so far shows that the rate of fire of this artillery is equally impressive.

The only thing that could relieve the French generals present in the artillery report was that the German artillery still emitted thick white smoke when it fired, which was certainly black powder propellant.

The last part mentions the composition and structure of the Black Hawk Legion, thanks to the detailed recruitment notice of the Black Hawk Legion, it has been confirmed that 12 battalions constitute the number of the Black Hawk Legion's 2 infantry regiments and 1 cavalry regiment, each battalion is about 1,000 people, and the combat force is 12,000 people.

In addition to the corps headquarters, there was a large supply force of more than 3,000 men, including a 1,400-man military engineering battalion, a 200-man bakery company, a 50-man slaughterhouse platoon, a 20-man postal squad, a transport management unit consisting of an 800-man animal transport company and a 200-man repair company, a 400-man field ambulance company equipped with horses, and an 80-man field hospital.

The biggest difference from the traditional Prussian elite division was that the Black Hawk Regiment lacked a divisional heavy artillery regiment consisting of 4 battalions.

Although there was a lack of a heavy artillery regiment, according to the observation and intelligence collected by French intelligence officers, the German infantry and cavalry regiments were not short of supporting firepower, and in addition to the aforementioned German rapid-fire artillery assigned to regimental units, the Germans also purchased a batch of six-barreled Gatling machine guns from the United States, which were also assigned to company-level units.

Unlike the way the French put Gatling guns on gun carriages, the Germans placed Gatling guns on a special four-wheeled carriage pulled by four horses, and the Germans gave this weapon a very figurative name, machine gun carts.

After seeing that the generals present read this information one after another, the convener of the Supreme Defense Council, French Prime Minister Frésine, said, "Generals, this information in your hands, I need to emphasize that this is a great achievement of the Second Bureau of the State Council (Deuxième Bureau) after sacrificing many outstanding French people, under extremely difficult circumstances. ”

"Generals, if you have any questions now, please feel free to ask." After Fresine's briefing, he motioned for the floor to take the floor.

"This is indeed a detailed report, and what the Germans are doing is clearly recorded, but I still have to be frank to say frankly, Your Excellency, there are too many contradictions in this information." The Chief of Staff of the French Army, Marie-Joseph-François de Miribelle, said as he kept flipping through the report.

"For example, the blacked-out A-coded intelligence officer observed on October 11 was different from the next two weeks, and the observation on November 20 was the same as on October 11."

"What's worse is that on the same day, multiple intelligence agents witnessed a different situation."

"The Germans kept a close watch over the Black Hawks, and the camp was located on a delta high ground in the upper reaches of the Labell River in Hamburg, and the Germans cut down the forest in the direction of the land, erected a high fence, and patrolled the vicinity of the camp with police dogs, and in the town closest to the training camp, it was also covered with plainclothes from the German police and the Ministry of the Interior."

"Any stranger who approaches there will be carefully examined, and the people in the second game have to hike nearly 20 kilometers each time, through the dense forest, before they can quietly watch from a distance, it can be said that every observation is an adventure of life, and many intelligence officers who have been in business for many years are lost in this place." Prime Minister Fresine explained.

"I have a deep respect for the unsung heroes of France, but I would like to stress that there are so many contradictions in the report that it is impossible to judge what weapons the Germans used." General Miribel shook his head, "I even think it could be a smoke bomb spread by the Germans." ”

Hearing General Miribele's judgment, General Leopold Davout, Chief of the General Staff of the French National Defense, raised his head and asked him, "Fran, is there any evidence?" ”

"Evidence, no, I'm more judgment-based." General Miribel glanced at the president, chancellor, war minister, and other military and political dignitaries present at the meeting, "Don't you think that the appearance of new weapons by the Germans is too unusual?" ”

"First of all, it does not conform to the process of purchasing weapons from the Germans, according to the procurement tradition of the German military, the military must at least set up a special committee to take care of this matter, but the Germans do not."

"At least the Army's Military Intelligence Service, which has been following the movements of the German military, has never received information on the establishment of a new commission by the German Army, so could it be that the Second Directorate and the Military Statistics and Reconnaissance Department of the War Ministry have recorded this?"

The French Minister of War, Henri François-Xavier-Graceley, shook his head, stating that the intelligence organizations under the Ministry of War had never obtained this information, and Fresiné shook his head as he looked at the past intelligence records of the Second Bureau.

"Secondly, it is not in keeping with the German tradition of purchasing weapons, the Germans have always preferred to adopt the Mauser brothers' designs, and the army's military intelligence has never received any news of the new rifle design in the Mauser brothers' design room."

"This Hermann-Karl company." General Miribel glanced down at the report in his hand, "It has never appeared in the directory of German arms manufacturers that we are concerned about before, according to this investigation report, this is a small factory that has only been established for half a year, and has never had any experience in weapon design, and now it is actually highly sought after by the German army, and there are too many doubts in it." ”

"General Miribele, there is no need for any threshold to design weapons now, as long as someone who likes mechanical design, even if he is a dentist, he can design killing tools." Prime Minister Fresiné, clearly disagreeing with the Chief of Staff of the Army.

"Of course, Your Excellency, I'm not questioning whether this HK company has the design capability, I'm questioning the fact that it will be able to be procured by the German army in less than six months." General Miribele did not directly refute Prime Minister Fresine's words, but instead put it in a different way.

"Judging from the many years of experience of the Army's Military Intelligence in monitoring the German army, any kind of weapon to enter the German army's sequence must go through at least 24 months of process approval and weapon testing, but this rifle was completely absent, and it just came out overnight, which is not in line with the rigorous character of the Prussians."

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"Finally, it is not in line with the German way of producing weapons, generally speaking, whenever the Germans confirm the standard rifle of the army, it is generally a number of arsenals to start production together, except for the Royal Arsenal of Ludwig, such as Ludwig-Lowy, Henell Arms Company, etc., will start production at the same time, but we do not see this phenomenon, the new rifle of the Germans is only limited to the HK company."

"The above situation is very abnormal and does not conform to the common sense of the Germans." General Miribel concluded.

"However, the intelligence officers of the Second Directorate clearly recorded in their reports that they had repeatedly seen the Germans with no smoke from the muzzles of their new rifles." Fresine tapped the report on the table with his index finger, alerting everyone, especially General Miribele.

"Yes, there is a record of that, but there is also a record of white smoke shooting." Holding up the same report, General Miribel reminded his colleagues present, "And many times." ”

"Two rifles?" President Grevy, who has always cherished words in front of his subordinates, asked.

"Your Excellency, the chance, frankly, is almost zero." General Dawu, Chief of the French General Staff of Defense, replied, "Two rifles mean a mess of supplies for the Germans, and now there are almost no rifles that can be used universally, and preparing two different bullets and rifles will drive the logistics department of the troops crazy." ”

"In addition, two different rifles can cause confusion in training, after all, soldiers are trained and operated differently."

"This kind of confusion in supplies, in increasing the logistical burden, and in making training difficult, in my experience with the Germans, especially the Prussians, they will not do this, Your Excellency." General Davout concluded.

"But how can you explain the fact that the intelligence officer mentioned that the new rifle has a range of more than 1,000 yards?" Flacey asked reluctantly.

"There are several explanations." General Miribel excused himself, "First, the Germans really have a new rifle, second, the rifle has a strong charge, increasing the black powder charge, which can reach this range, and third, it does not exist at all, and deliberately acts for us to see." ”

General Miribele's new point of view immediately warmed up the atmosphere in the conference room, and various opinions began to be expressed, some for and against, and some more wait-and-see.

President Grevi tapped the table with the pen in his hand, and after quieting everyone down, he motioned for General Miribel to elaborate on his novel ideas.

"In the first case, I won't comment much on it until I actually get the sample, and in the second case, all the generals here know that the current breech-loading rifled guns can be fired at 1000 yards as long as the caliber and propellant are increased."

"I would like to dwell on the third scenario, the deception of the German army." General Miribel raised the index finger of his right hand and emphasized.

"Militarily, the Germans are accustomed to using deception to cover up their true goals, which the generals here have experienced, so will the Germans still deceive this time?"

"First of all, the recruitment plan of the Germans is full of strange smells, when the Germans are short of recruits, and need to take the advertisements for recruiting soldiers to England, France, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, etc., these countries are published?"

"If, this is a new rifle for the Germans, and yet it is used by so many foreigners, then what is the point of such strict secrecy measures taken by the Germans at the Black Hawk Corps station?" General Miribel raised the first question.

"Secondly, General Davout has just explained in detail that the distribution of multiple rifles by a unit will cause all kinds of problems, the Black Hawk Legion is going to Chile in South America to fight, generals, from the perspective of the strength composition of the Black Hawk Legion, they emphasize mobility, and the troops that have always emphasized mobility should be equipped with a variety of rifles, such a complex logistical problem, as the commander of Marshal Mandolfil, the older and more confused he becomes?"

"In fact, we all know how cunning Mandolfil is!"

"In the end, we all saw that the German military top brass was calling for a new rifle, but the German government would...", General Miribelle glanced at the president and chancellor, and after making a gesture of retracting, "is it in Prussian tradition to put all the money into the economy and not to change the rifle at all?" ”

"What was the purpose of the Germans' deception?" President Grevi asked.

"Disrupt our military deployments, Your Excellency." War Secretary Graceley made his own judgment, "Since the beginning of this year, many of our military plans have been postponed or cancelled, and the subsequent intelligence analysis shows that all of them have been hostile actions against the Republic controlled by the Germans. ”

"This is an important moment for the Germans to intervene in Chile, and I have reason to suspect that this is a deceptive operation by the Germans in order to undermine our support for Peru and Bolivia."

"The intention is to put our limited military spending into arms competition with the Germans, so that the Republic will not have the funds to support its South American friends."