The world of 1916, the Chinese Civil War and the war between China and Japan, as well as the subsequent purge of the People's Party, caused nearly a million casualties in East Asia. At the western end of the World Island, the war in Europe also continued to be brutal and bloody.

At the beginning of the year, Chen Ke tried his best to send 700 German soldiers back to Germany with the help of an American consortium. The American consortium that helped the People's Party asked the representatives of the People's Party a question, "Is it useful to send 700 people back to Germany?" ”

The representative of the People's Party replied: "We also want to establish relations with Germany after the war, and there will always be a few left after the arrival of 700 people." Perhaps some of these survivors would be willing to help the People's Party get to know the leading figures of the German post-war era. ”

Running relationships are not unique to China, they are the same in all countries in the world, but in different forms. German soldiers have a relatively high social status, and it is indeed beneficial to have the help of officers. The seizure of German prisoners in China is riskier and more rewarding if it succeeds than paying a certain price to prepare future connections. The United States also investigated the situation of these German servicemen and found no special mission for the German soldiers. After all, the distance between China and Germany makes cooperation between the two countries extremely impossible. In the end, the American consortium decided to help.

This would have been a trivial matter, but there were many German immigrants in the United States, and it was not uncommon for descendants of Germans to return to Germany to fight in World War I. So the Americans don't think much about it at all.

In the summer of the Battle of Verdun, when the tactics of the German front were very different from the previous campaign patterns in both directions, the Americans did not take these subtle changes at all the same thing as the actions of the People's Party.

At the beginning of 1916, the German Imperial High Command decided to shift its strategic focus westward, and the German Chief of the General Staff Falkingham targeted the attack on Verdun, a famous fortress in France. Verdun was the salient of the British and French fronts, and it was like a sharp tooth sticking out, posing a serious threat to the German flank deep into northern France, where Germany and France fought many times, but the Germans failed to capture the fortress. If the Germans can capture Verdun in one fell swoop, it will definitely deal a heavy blow to the morale of the French army. At the same time, the occupation of Verdun also opened the passage for the German army to Paris, and if Paris was occupied, France would be destroyed, and the remaining British and Russian armies would not have anything to fear.

However, in World War I, the Western Front in Europe amassed an artillery cluster and a continuous line of trenches unprecedented in human history. Neither the Entente nor the Central Powers lacked firepower, or even troops. What they lacked was the mobility and methods to break through the enemy's defenses.

The Battle of Verdun lasted from February to June 1916, and almost every inch of the land was bombarded by artillery fire, and almost every inch of land was tried or successfully dug by people. The difficult advance of the German army paid a heavy price. On June 22, the Germans used poison gas warfare on a large scale for the first time in human history. The gas warfare had a certain effect, easily pushing the front several kilometers, which was a great success on the battlefield of the terrible trench warfare meat grinder, but failed to achieve a breakthrough in the true sense of the word.

In the other direction, a German division spontaneously adopted a completely new breakthrough tactic. The German infantry divisions did not adopt the usual tactic of covering with artillery fire and then charging with infantry. This time the shelling changed from a fierce all-covering fire to a continuous fire attack. This kind of attack is very dangerous, not to say that it is a threat to the enemy, but the European theater during World War I brought together the world's largest artillery group, and continuous shelling can easily reveal one's position, so that the artillery positions are shelled by enemy artillery.

The purpose of the continuous German artillery bombardment was to disrupt the communications and command of the enemy's defensive lines. The real highlight was the tactics of this division, they did not attack in a horizontal formation, and the whole division was divided into three assault directions. The commandos at the front are mainly small battle groups, armed with light machine guns, mortars, flamethrowers, grenade launchers and grenades, to find the enemy's weak points and make breakthroughs. After the breakthrough, the assault forces continued to advance, the targets included the artillery positions of the enemy, the command headquarters, the meeting points of the lines of communication. The remnants of the enemy forces on the offensive route were cleared by the follow-up units. On June 22, half a day after the offensive began, they advanced 8 kilometers at an astonishing speed.

In order to contain the fierce attack of the German army, the French found that the situation was irretrievable, and even ignored the remnants of the French army on the position, and fired more than 100,000 shells at the attacking German division within two hours. Of course, the Germans did not want to give up the 8-kilometer breakthrough, and although no one expected such progress before the battle began, and the follow-up artillery was not well prepared, the Germans also did their best to mobilize fire and fire heavily at the French artillery positions. In one day, on this breakthrough, which is three kilometers wide and eight kilometers long, both sides consumed a total of millions of shells.

More than 80% of the German divisions that carried out the breakthrough suffered casualties, and 90% of these casualties were caused by shelling. In the end, the division was withdrawn to the rear for reorganization, and the Battle of Verdun continued to be fought as it was historically.

The change came three months later, when the Battle of the Somme was at its most difficult.

In June 1916, in order to relieve the pressure of the French army at the Battle of Verdun, the Anglo-French forces jointly launched the Battle of the Somme. On July 1, 1916, the British created the "singing and crying" second cargo operation in the history of human warfare. From June 24, the British and French troops carried out seven days of artillery preparation, and at 7:30 a.m. on July 1, the infantry launched an attack with artillery support. The main direction of the British and French attacks was broken, but the attacking troops on the left flank of the British army lined up in a phalanx, the officers' riding boots and caps were polished, and the bayonets of the infantry flashed cold. They lined up in a horizontal line, and to the musical accompaniment of a military band, charged the German trenches in a phalanx.

Under the heavy fire of German machine guns and artillery, these British troops were killed in pieces as if they were cutting wheat, and at the end of the day, the British lost 60,000 men.

Of course, the British soon showed themselves to be an industrial power, and there was no second time for such second-hand behavior. And on September 15, 1916, Britain carried out the first tank attack in human history at the Battle of the Somme. These steel behemoths roared, their thick shells withstanding machine-gun bullets and even shells from small-caliber guns on the position. They pressed over barbed wire, crossed trenches, and fired condescendingly at German soldiers with machine guns carried on tanks. It caused great panic among the Germans, who broke through four or five kilometers in one day.

As if in retaliation for the British tank attack, on September 16, 1916, a German corps took up the front from the rear, responsible for a ten-kilometer-wide front, which, unlike the others, received the men of a division that had had to be withdrawn from the rear after suffering heavy losses from Verdun three months earlier. And members of this division held many important positions in this army.

On 27 September 1916, when the Battle of the Somme reached a stalemate, this army launched an attack on the British and French forces in front. Almost identical to the attack three months earlier, the corps took advantage of the darkness to send commandos to lurk in front of the enemy, cut through the barbed wire, and launched a surprise attack before dawn. Instead of pursuing a full-scale breakthrough, they launched fierce attacks on a dozen already identified points of attack.

These soldiers are adept at using light machine guns, flamethrowers, mortars, grenades, and even sapper shovels. The breakthrough was completed in just over an hour. The follow-up units of the German corps immediately followed up the attack in columns and entered the positions of the British and French troops. German artillery shelled Britain and France in the form of barrages. This army did not care about the rear and flanks, and kept attacking forward.

The German forces followed the path opened by this army, and they wiped out the British and French "remnants" in their positions, although the remnants were much larger than the number destroyed in the previous battles. However, these British and French soldiers had been divided and surrounded, and they could only be annihilated one by one when attacked by the Germans, who were far outnumbered by them.

The entire front of the Battle of the Somme was only 50 kilometers wide, and the Germans advanced eight kilometers in one day on a 10-kilometer front, triggering a German counterattack on the entire front. Seeing that the entire front was on the verge of collapse, the British and French artillery shells were intertwined into a net of death fire, and the shelling continued all day. Coupled with the use of tank units to carry out counterattacks, the situation was maintained without further deterioration despite the huge cost of manpower and the consumption of weapons and ammunition.

At the end of the day, the Anglo-French forces were pushed back five kilometers along the entire 50-kilometer-wide front, and the Germans attacked an unprecedented distance of ten kilometers. The Germans also paid a heavy price, and the army in charge of the attack suffered nearly half of the casualties, and was simply disbanded on the spot. Some of the personnel were transferred to other units, and the other part was transferred back to the rear for reorganization.

By the rainy season in November, the Battle of the Somme ended, and the Anglo-French forces lost 960,000 troops, not only did they not capture the Somme, but they were also pushed 8 kilometers in reverse by the Germans. The Germans lost 450,000 men.

The Battle of Verdun continued, and the French had already lost 550,000 men in Verdun and the Germans 340,000. The battle is still raging.

By this time, the Anglo-French forces had reached rock bottom, and it was clear to the ruling classes of both countries that if no new forces entered the war, it was unclear whether the Allies would be able to do so, and that the two countries would exhaust all their forces before they saw victory.

In addition to strongly urging Russia to immediately launch an attack on Germany and relieve German pressure on the Western Front. Britain and France both set their sights on the whole world and tried to find new sources of troops. The first force that has come into the vision of the two countries is the United States, which has always "remained neutral", and the second is the Chinese People's Party, which has been waging war for the liberation of their own country.

The United States was a supplier to the Entente countries and had strong industrial capacity. The latest intelligence from China claims that the Chinese People's Party has now seized the northeast and that the local warlord Zhang Zuolin has fled to Mongolia. A People's Party navy crossed the Qiongzhou Strait and seized the southern Chinese island of Qiongzhou. At this time, the BJP controlled a vast area from the northeast to the South China Sea, with a population of more than 200 million, and an army of millions of troops.

In particular, the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army under the banner of the People's Party, the army in this army has shown a combat effectiveness that far surpasses that of the Japanese army. In terms of combat effectiveness alone, it greatly exceeded the ceiling of cannon fodder troops expected by Britain and France.

Neither the United States nor the People's Party has expressed any intention of joining the Allies, especially the People's Party, which has always stressed its unwillingness to join the Allies even at the critical moment of tearing up their faces with the British.

The British, of course, can understand the BJP's thinking, and in fact they have been facing opposition forces from all over the world for decades trying to seek their own independence. The goals pursued by the BJP are no strangers to the British. At the end of 1916, when the blood of the British Empire had almost been drained, China's acquisition of its own independence and sovereignty was not at all a headache for the British. Even in the sequence of Chinese issues, the more headache for the British is how to get the Chinese People's Party to accept British war bonds. The Chinese People's Party is not only a rival to the British, but also a sizable supplier to the UK.

So Britain and France quickly agreed that the most important diplomatic task at the moment was how to get the United States and the Chinese People's Party to join the Entente and provide troops.

Soon, the British and French envoys in the United States and China received orders from their own countries.