Southern Mexico, Tierra Blanca.

The city has long been known for its abundant silver mines, which are minted enough to mint millions of silver coins each year, but by the twenties of the twentieth century, the Mexican silver dollar had gradually withdrawn from circulation, and the Euromark landed in the North American country with the arrival of a large number of German merchants and investors. In order to facilitate and stabilize the circulation of money, the Mexican revolutionary government simply announced its new currency, the Peso, was freely convertible to the Euromark at a ratio of 1 to 4, and the silver was melted into silver bars and deposited in the Mexican government's treasury, and a considerable part of it was used to purchase valuable equipment and supplies from the German government.

As early as the second half of the 19th century, the railroad was connected to the Tierla Blanca, which at that time was invested by the Americans and only connected the silver mines to Veracruz. Over time, Mexico's first north-south railway also extended its branch lines, and in 1922, the German-funded Berlin Railway and Gustav Railway met here, and Tierra Blanca became an important railway hub in southern Mexico, with more than 100 trains passing through here every day.

July 5, 1924, fine. Before the sun crept into the sky, everything was still the same in Tierra Blanca, but just after lunch, a military train full of goods slowly stopped next to the wide platform, and the station staff who had just received urgent instructions from their superiors hurriedly filled the train with water and coal, and provided drinking water for the soldiers who were responsible for escorting the train. While the staff was still busy, a second military train from the same direction also entered the station and stopped, also carrying a large number of supplies covered with canvas, and in just a few minutes, the third and fourth columns also appeared on the tracks outside the station.

At this time, the staff of the station were a little too busy, but fortunately, the station master quickly found the people who were originally on the night shift after receiving the order, and the situation was slightly better, but the military trains were one after another, and most of the staff did not even have time to catch their breath and had to go to the new military train at the station.

This continued from noon until late at night. Someone briefly counted that there were nearly 200 military trains passing through this station within a dozen hours, most of which were carrying goods, and from midnight onwards, the military trains coming from the south were full of German ** people. When the train stopped temporarily, a staff member glanced inside curiously, only to see the soldiers in the seats holding weapons and luggage racks full of bags.

San Luis Potosí, in the central highlands of Mexico, is also a city known for its mining industry. It produces metallic minerals such as gold, silver, and lead, and has a well-developed metallurgical industry, and is also a railway hub in central Mexico. After 1921, the Mexican government set aside a large area of land south of the city of San Luis Poto as a military base for the defense of important mineral fields and railway centers, and the residents of more than a dozen nearby villages were relocated. After nearly two years of construction, a large modern air base covering an area of more than 100 hectares was completed, with three runways more than 3,500 meters long and 60 meters wide as the main body, supplemented by eight spare small runways distributed on the east and west sides of the base. The entire base has 320 shed hangars and 240 bunker hangars, which can accommodate up to five air wings, and there are ugly antiaircraft artillery companies deployed around it. It is surrounded by trenches, barbed wire and checkpoints. It was arguably the largest air base ever built since the establishment of the Mexican Revolutionary Government, but it was funded and used by German troops.

In normal times, there are usually only a dozen or twenty planes on both sides of the runway outside the hangar. But on the afternoon of July 5, six squadrons of 150 fighters were parked on both sides of the runway alone, and these planes were constantly taking off and landing, as if to do a warm-up before the game.

On both sides of Runway 2, more than 100 staggeringly large single-winged four-engine bombers were not particularly neatly laid out in the sun, and the crew members were busy pushing heavy bombs from the ammunition depot to their bellies with small carts, and then hoisting these round aerial bombs into the belly of the bombers one by one, and it seemed that this kind of bombs of two or three hundred kilograms could be loaded with more than a dozen bombs in one plane. In an enclosed cabin located in the upper part of the nose, the pilots are adjusting their instruments. Nearly 20 meters in length, the aircraft has a translucent machine gun turret at the lower bow, on the back, and on the back of the belly, and through the tempered glass, the machine gunners can be seen inspecting and wiping their twin machine guns. And the bullets strung with metal chains looked shiny.

There are also hundreds of planes parked next to Runway 3, but their models are not so uniform, there are about 50 single-wing and single-engine Vulture 4 attack planes, nearly 20 single-wing and three-seat long-range reconnaissance planes, and about 50 single-wing and double-engine medium bombers.

Those who come to visit will inevitably doubt their eyes and think about what kind of important day it is.

The same can be seen not only in San Luis Potosí, but also at the military airfields in Simenez, Madeira, Keno, Paredon, and Linares in northern Mexico, although the airports closer to the U.S.-Mexico border are medium-sized and have far fewer warplanes stationed in San Luis Potosí. For example, at the Simenez military airfield, which is more than 200 kilometers from the border, there is only one squadron of Mexican fighters, one squadron of German fighters, one squadron of German attack planes, and more than 80 planes of some reconnaissance planes coming out to bask in the sun. The soldiers of the anti-aircraft artillery company also took advantage of this opportunity to make good use of their 77-mm anti-aircraft guns, 20-mm machine guns, and quadruple anti-aircraft machine guns.

Whenever a US reconnaissance plane crossed the line, as usual, several fighters would rise into the air to intercept it, but this time, the interception intensity of German and Mexican fighters was greatly strengthened than in the past. In the vicinity of Madeira, a stubborn US reconnaissance plane was shot down by German fighters, and because this situation occurred from time to time in the border area, the two sides did not escalate the situation, but after summing up the reconnaissance reports of various reconnaissance plane units, the leaders of the US War Department finally felt a little bad and hurriedly reported this information to the White House.

"What? The Germans were ready to start a war? How is this possible! ”

President Warren Harding, who was wearing sportswear and sweating on golf, shook his head again and again after listening to the report of the Army Intelligence Department, not to mention that there was no previous call-up indicating that the Germans were preparing to launch an attack this summer, even after sending troops to Guatemala, the Germans stationed in North America were only 400,000, although the strength should not be underestimated, but such a force seemed to be a little too thin for attacking the United States.

"But they're making big moves at various airports on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border area, and I think those planes are probably used to attack us!" The intelligence officer at the War Department explained.

"They were probably just going to hold a drill! Stumped that they are going to crush us with planes? If that's the case, it's definitely the biggest joke I've ever heard! Warren Harding continued to strike the ball.

"But there is information that German troops are massing into northern Mexico!"

"That's right!" Warren Harding swung it out and set up an awning with his right hand to look out in the direction where the white ball had fallen. Then he pulled his golf club and reached out to pat the dedicated intelligence officer, "It's just a drill!" There is no need to make the whole American panic, as long as the Japanese are dealt with, as long as our Pacific Fleet is withdrawn and returned to the homeland, the Germans will never dare to openly start a war! ”

The young army intelligence officer had nothing to say, unaware that the U.S. Navy's submarines were fighting the escort ships of the German convoy, an event that the president had ignored and had finally dragged the United States into the abyss of war after just two days.

On the ocean more than a thousand nautical miles from Washington. The fierce battle was still going on, but the main attacking side still had a huge anti-submarine force of 2 escort aircraft carriers and 33 destroyers, and 1 battle cruiser, 2 heavy cruisers and 7 light cruisers were also watching the battle on the sea not far away. Not long ago, the only British submarine that broke into the convoy sank a merchant ship with a torpedo, which was the only fighter plane of the British and American submarine formation so far, but soon it was also sunk by the German destroyers who rushed in, and at the beginning of the British and American submarines have so far 4 sunk to the bottom, 2 damaged and surfaced, and the remaining 26 submarines can only desperately avoid German depth charges in the water, 9 of which are seriously damaged. Coupled with the fact that it has been in the water for more than two hours, almost every submarine is facing the double whammy of running out of batteries and running out of air. Seeing that the distance is forced to float for a shorter and shorter time. But the captains who fought separately couldn't come up with a way to deal with it.

Far from the German destroyer, a dark submarine suddenly appeared, and the crew rushed to the deck. They were ready to use torpedoes and deck guns to fight the other side in a final battle to the death, but the two long-awaited German torpedo planes did not give them this opportunity, they quickly descended to a height of less than 20 meters above the water, adjusted the direction of their flight, and dropped torpedoes more than 500 yards on the starboard side of the submarine, and the two small and delicate torpedoes gurgled towards the target, leaving only 25 seconds for the submarine to evade! Don't look at the submarine in the sea, but the speed and agility when sailing on the sea surface are not at all comparable to half of the warships, and the hull of more than 60 meters is too ostentatious at this time.

As time passed, more and more submarines were forced to surface in desperation, and some of them chose to flee in the opposite direction. Some had to fight with the roaring German fighters, and even more unfortunately, when they floated, they fell directly under the guns of German destroyers.

The battle continued until 5 p.m., when the sea finally calmed down. Although there was no suspense in the final stage of the battle, the battle scene was shocking, and the officers and men of several British submarines chose to break jade, and although they were all sunk one by one in the end, they sank and damaged one German destroyer with torpedoes and deck guns, and also drew a heroic end to the battle.

The sunset sea is filled with oil, broken wood and all kinds of debris, and the people who have fallen into the water are still struggling. Some were the officers and men of the sunken German destroyer, and many more were the submariners who had escaped. There were also four submarines floating helplessly on the surface of the sea, with white flags flying on them, and the officers and men looked at the approaching German destroyers with dejected eyes.

1 Bayonet-class destroyer sank.1 German merchant ship with a displacement of 13,000 tons sank, 55 German officers and crew lost their lives, and a squadron of Dornier DD-type long-range bombers sank to the bottom of the sea. In return for these costs, the Germans captured 152 submariners and four submarines, 106 of whom were U.S. Navy officers and sailors, and it is no longer meaningful how many submarines were sunk, killed, and narrowly escaped.

When the news of the war reached Berlin, the Kaiser and the generals of the Supreme High Command were all gearing up, and several newspapers and periodicals, including the Berlin Evening News, immediately carried the news and recounted at great length the course of the battle and the fact of the capture of American sailors. Under the propaganda of public opinion, the streets and alleys were filled with voices to teach Americans a lesson, and some Berlin citizens spontaneously went to the city hall and the Reichstag to petition and demand that the government severely punish the United States.

At the same time, the White House also got the disappointing news that only 6 of the 32 submarines that sortie escaped, 4 of which were American submarines, that is, 10 American submarines were sunk or captured, and the loss of more than 300 American officers and soldiers reached 100. In the evening of the same day, the German ambassador to Washington forwarded to the United States Government a diplomatic document with extremely harsh wording, strongly condemning the shameful violation of the laws of war by the United States Government.

After an overnight period of urgent deliberations, the US Government decided to shift the blame to the commander of the submarine force of the Admiralty, saying that he had sent the submarine force to Canada to participate in the attack of the British without the permission of the Admiralty and the Government, and that the innocent commander was immediately removed from his post and investigated, and the US Government formally apologized to the German Government on 6 July.

On 6 July, however, the German government was surprisingly calm, but a fierce anti-American wave was set off in the entire German mainland; under the deliberate arrangement of the authorities, people everywhere staged huge anti-American demonstrations, many American shops were smashed, and even the US embassy and consulates in Germany were stoned by the agitated German people, and the German police were basically in a state of inaction and watch.

At 10 a.m. on July 7, the Kaiser delivered a speech at the Reichstag, asking parliamentarians and citizens to fight together for the dignity and honor of Germany. Encouraged by the Kaiser's impassioned speeches, the parliamentarians rejected partisanship and invariably supported the Kaiser's war decision, and the scene of August 1914 was repeated.

At 5 p.m. Berlin time, Germany officially declared war on the United States.