Chapter 2 Prologue behind the knife (1)

In mid-October 1918, a train full of wounded soldiers and with revolutionary slogans pasted on both sides of the train slowly passed through Germany and headed for the safe zone on the eastern border of the empire. Among the hundreds of wounded soldiers in the car, many were the wounded who had just been poisoned and blinded in a poison gas battle in Belgium. On the evening of the 13th, the British army bombarded the front of the German army with devastating artillery fire, and then released poison gas.This bombardment was the most violent in a series of relentless blows that the German army has suffered since the war situation took a turn for the worse three months ago.Although the German army was retreating and the front line was bending, it did not collapse.In this battle, the first to bear the brunt was the Bavarian Sixteenth Reserve Infantry Regiment, who hid in the trenches among the mountains and fields, unable to lift their heads.The battlefield has been beaten to pieces, with bomb craters everywhere, and it has become a swamp.Soldiers, all exhausted, huddled in the trenches; British artillery shells exploded around them, tearing the ground apart.On the German front, rumors circulated that many German troops had mutinied, which made them listless and demoralized.The veterans were paralyzed, while the recruits were terrified out of their wits.

Suddenly, a cloud of dust kicked up by the shells, with a pungent taste, poured into the trenches.Someone shouted: "Poison gas!" This was the first time they encountered mustard gas.Some people smell it, it is a fragrance; some people smell it, it is pungent and pungent, but the situation is the same for everyone: it is in the nose.The soldiers hastily put on their gas masks, bent over, and leaned motionless against the earthen wall of the trench.Hours passed.The air inside the gas mask has become turbid.A recruit, unable to hold back, took off his mask in an attempt to inhale fresh air, but what he inhaled was deadly poisonous gas.

"As soon as the poisonous gas entered his throat, he fell on his back, suffocated, foamed at the mouth, grunted, and then died slowly." At dawn, the poisonous gas slowly dissipated, but the shelling resumed.Soldiers tore off their masks and gulped in the morning air. “The air still smells of mustard,” wrote one, “and it smells of gunpowder. But it’s heaven to us.” The lull, however, was brief.It was a cruel, unpredictable way of driving the enemy mad - gasp and smoke filled the air.Those who didn't have time to put on their masks, like the recruits, immediately turned over and fell dead on the ground.All the soldiers who survived were blinded—except one, who still had a little hazy vision.He suggested to everyone that everyone grab each other's tails and let him lead the way to escape.In this way, the soldiers formed a single file and staggered forward, the half-blind leading the blind all the way to the first first-aid station.

Among the soldiers rescued from suffocation was a twenty-nine-year-old corporal named Adolf Hitler. When the train took Hitler eastward, he was still blind and on the verge of total physical and mental breakdown.Like the other victims, his eyes were red and swollen and his face was puffed up like a balloon.The voices of these soldiers were like ghosts, weak and frightening.If a nurse came to take care of them, they often lost their temper and refused. They do not eat or drink, and do not allow people to treat inflamed eyes.It doesn't matter what the doctors say about their sight being restored soon - they've been lied to for far too long.What they need is to lie motionless and moan, to relieve the pain, even if it is relieved by death.

This corporal, wounded and depressed, became the head of the Reich 15 years later. At this time, it is still unclear how far Germany has failed. Four years ago, when the German army launched a powerful offensive for the first time and made it impossible for the Belgian, French and British troops to parry, Hitler's regiment had the first bloody battle in the same area. 80%.For the young Hitler, these losses were not disheartening; on the contrary, they were a testament to the fighting spirit of the German army.In a letter to his landlord in Munich, he wrote: "...I can say with pride that from the first weather my regiment has been heroic - almost all officers were killed and only two sergeants remained in our company. By the sixth day of the battle, only 611 of the 3,600 officers and soldiers of our regiment remained."

In those days, many Germans gleefully thought that this was German heroism.However, as the months passed, the war became a stalemate of positions.The two armies faced each other, with the scorched earth of no man's land in the middle. The conflict occurred only when one side tried to break through the other's defense line. If it advanced for miles or even yards, it would cost millions of casualties.The early optimism slowly faded.Defeatism and disappointment demoralized the soldiers who were hiding in the trenches like rats.At home, hunger and misery spread among the German people as the British blockade cut off supplies of staples.As the war entered its third and fourth years, German thinking shifted from victory to survival.Soldiers often denounced the stupidity of the high command, knowing that it would be useless to fight again.There were also a small number of officers and soldiers who sneered at this defeatist talk, and Hitler was one of them.Despite his repeated acts of bravery, he was still a corporal, but he was not dismayed by being ignored.He used to yell at his fellow soldiers, especially the recruits, for bringing with them "poison from the interior."If someone fought with him, according to one of his comrades-in-arms, "he would throw a tantrum, put his hands in his pockets, pace back and forth, and yell at pessimistic and disappointed people."

Perhaps, the pessimists were wrong after all.With the advent of 1918, the German army, which had been on the defensive for four years, prepared to launch an offensive again. Except for the stalemate on the Western Front, the German army won on all other battlefields.Serbia, Romania, and finally Russia had all succumbed—Russia succumbed to the German onslaught as she had succumbed to the Revolution.A peace treaty with the nascent Soviet regime gave the Germans the vast plains of Ukraine—the breadbasket of Europe.As the enemy on the Eastern Front had collapsed, the German army dispatched more than one million troops from the Eastern Front to France in order to break the deadlock and fight a decisive battle on the Western Front. The "Battle of the Kaiser" - as General Erich Ludendorff, the lowest but key figure in the German high command - was about to begin.

In the spring of that year, the German army launched four powerful offensives, forcing Britain and France to retreat successively.Due to the "possibility of turning their backs", the British army was ordered to fight to the last soldier. On July 15, the decisive battle began near the city of Rheims. Both sides knew that once the battle was fought, the outcome would be decided. "If I succeed at Reims," ​​said Ludendorff, "we will have won the war." Marshal Foch, commander-in-chief of the Allied Forces, agreed.He is reported to have said, "If the Germans succeed in attacking Reims, we will lose the war." The attack failed.Germany has no reserves.The coalition forces not only have American divisions to strengthen their strength, but also weapons and food and salaries continue to flow from the United States.

In the German army, there was a massive increase in deserters.Everywhere there was talk of rebellion and uprising. In early August, the British army launched a surprise attack near Amiens, and the German army collapsed almost without firing a shot.Sometimes Caesar's soldiers surrendered en masse to a single infantryman.Retreating troops often shouted, "Destroyer!" to reinforcements heading to the front. However, the matter did not end there.The Germans retreated, but the positions remained.If there is only one defeatist, there are hundreds who are willing to fulfill their military duties.However, the belief at home is gradually disappearing.There were strikes and radical socialists in the cities were talking about revolution.In the eyes of a die-hard like Hitler, the safe, unmolested rear, with its stragglers, opportunists, evaders, traitors, and people who neither love nor love Germany Dear Jew, you betrayed the front of the battle in the darkest of times.In fact, it was Ludendorff himself who was really frightened, and it was he who urged the civilian government to sign the peace treaty.

Even when it was too late, hard-liners like Hitler believed that victory was not impossible and that there was always a solution if resistance persisted.The front line has not collapsed, the retreat is proceeding in an orderly manner.Failure comes from within, and it is brought about by opportunists, shirkers, and—Jews.