Chapter 36: Battery No. 1 — Model’s First Battle

After leading his wing to victory in that air battle, Göring got a commendation from Berlin the moment he landed back at base.

Wilhelm III personally sent him a telegram of praise — and promoted him from Captain to Major on the spot.

Even a guy as cool-headed as Göring couldn’t hold back the excitement when he heard the Emperor himself had rewarded him:

"His Majesty really does remember me!"

The truth is, Göring only became an Air Force pilot in the first place thanks to Wilhelm’s help.

Back then, he was just an ordinary Army soldier. But he idolized the Air Force so much that he straight-up violated regulations — instead of reporting back to his Army unit, he snuck off to the Air Force training camp to learn how to fly.

The military brass caught wind of it pretty fast. Göring got arrested by the military police and was about to be court-martialed for desertion.

But Crown Prince Wilhelm — then commanding the 5th Army — happened to hear about the case. He stepped in and vouched for the kid. In the end, Göring not only dodged the punishment — he got a clean transfer into the Imperial Air Corps.

Once he joined the Air Force, Göring fought like a man possessed. He completed mission after mission with outstanding results and got decorated multiple times — including one time when Crown Prince Wilhelm personally pinned the Iron Cross First Class on his chest.

Some nobody art school reject got one of those same medals during World War I and treasured it like it was made of gold — wore it for the rest of his life.

But that kind of medal? Didn’t even rank in Göring’s collection.

Besides the Iron Cross First Class, he also had the Royal Order of the House of Hohenzollern with Swords, and the Karl Friedrich Military Merit Cross from the Grand Duchy of Baden.

And on June 2, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II himself had personally awarded Göring the highest honor a common soldier could earn — the Pour le Mérite!

You can question Göring’s performance in World War II all you want — call him a fraud, a seat-warmer, whatever. But in World War I? His record was untouchable. He was a household-name war hero of the Empire!

After that beating, the Entente didn’t give up. They kept sending fighters and bombers to try to win back air superiority and finish the bombing mission.

But the German Air Force and anti-aircraft units shot them down every single time.

Counting on air power to take Liège Fortress — at least in this era — was looking like a dead end.

But that was fine. The coalition’s reinforcements had arrived on the battlefield.

On January 26th, Marshal Pétain rolled up with 500,000 men and 10 M1914 370mm heavy siege guns.

The moment Pétain showed up, the French troops at the front couldn’t slack off anymore.

Before, they could use "we don’t have heavy guns, can’t crack their batteries" as an excuse to refuse attacking. But now that the siege guns were in place, that excuse didn’t hold water anymore!

"Organize an attack. Let me see the enemy’s firepower deployment!"

Pétain wasn’t about to let these guys off easy. The second he arrived, he shoved them into action.

The French had no choice. They sent out a single battalion to launch a probing attack on the German Battery No. 1.

And who was holding Battery No. 1? None other than Model — the future master of defense — sent to the front by the Emperor himself to get some combat experience.

The moment he saw the enemy only sending that few men, he instantly understood what they were up to.

"Nobody opens fire without my order — especially the 150mm and above heavy guns!"

That one French battalion was nothing but cannon fodder, sent in to probe German firepower strength and map out the exact positions of their guns.

The Germans had plenty of ways to wipe them out. No need to burn their trump cards that cheap.

With Model’s order passed down, the battlefield fell into a weird, dead silence.

The French soldiers, nerves stretched thin, started laying pontoon bridges across the Meuse River, getting ready to cross.

Judging by how reluctant and sluggish they were moving, they looked like they were ready to bolt at any second.

If the Germans opened fire on them, they’d turn around and retreat back to their starting positions immediately — abandoning the whole operation.

But to their disappointment, the Germans didn’t attack.

So the unlucky French soldiers had no choice but to tremble their way across the pontoon bridges and make it to the right bank of the river.

But no sooner had they set foot on shore than they heard a sharp whistling sound from above.

BOOM! BOOM!

A dozen or so artillery shells landed with pinpoint accuracy on the Meuse River behind them — blowing their freshly built pontoon bridges to pieces.

With their escape route suddenly cut off, the French soldiers panicked instantly.

"Stay calm! Take cover wherever you can! Our comrades across the river won’t abandon us!"

A major who looked like the battalion commander stepped up, trying to get the situation under control.

But he barely got one sentence out before he got hit like a bolt of lightning — pitching straight backward onto the ground.

The soldiers nearby rushed over to check on him. Right in the center of his forehead was a single red bullet hole, blood still pumping out of it.

"The major’s dead! Run!"

"There’s a sniper! Don’t move!"

The soldiers, already scared out of their minds, completely fell apart.

Some instinctively turned to run. Others — knowing there was a sniper out there — stayed frozen in the trenches, not daring to move a muscle.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!

Sharp gunfire rang out. Three German bunkers opened up simultaneously, laying down a dense crossfire that mowed down every soldier who tried to turn and run.

As for the French soldiers still hiding in cover and shell craters — their ending wasn’t any better.

The machine guns couldn’t reach them, sure. But the Germans had more than just machine guns.

THUMP!

A low, muffled sound echoed from the distance. The French soldiers crouched in a shell crater didn’t even have time to react before a mortar round slammed right into them.

A massive explosion — three soldiers in that crater, two dead on the spot, one critically wounded!

Enemy mortars!

Some of the veteran soldiers heard that sound and felt their blood run cold.

Never mind the makeshift cover and shell craters on the battlefield — even a carefully dug trench couldn’t guarantee survival against those things.

It’s over. This is really it.

THUMP THUMP THUMP!

More muffled thumps. Mortar shells rained down like hail, picking off the French soldiers in the craters one by one.

On the other side of the river, the coalition soldiers watched with burning rage. Quite a few of them ran up to Marshal Pétain, begging to be sent into the fight.

They couldn’t just sit there and watch their comrades get wiped out!

Even if they couldn’t send troops, they should at least open fire with artillery to cover the retreat!

"No need."

Pétain just gave the battlefield a cold, detached glance and rejected his subordinates’ pleas.

That battalion he’d sent in was basically dead anyway. No point wasting precious shells!

Compared to losing a battalion, what bothered him more was how calm and cunning the enemy commander was.

"Did he see through my plan?"

Whether it was shelling the pontoon bridges earlier, or using machine guns and mortars to finish off the stranded French troops — the enemy never actually revealed their real hand.

All the Germans exposed was some meaningless firepower!

Even if he’d agreed to his subordinates’ request and shelled those German positions into rubble, it wouldn’t have caused any serious damage. It would’ve just tipped off the enemy.

"Interesting."

Pétain’s interest was piqued. The situation had caught him a little off guard.

But it also lit a fire in him.

The enemy had deliberately shot down every French soldier crossing the river right in front of the coalition — all to intimidate them and crush their morale.

But Pétain had spent four or five years crawling through the mud of the Western Front. He’d seen it all. He’d witnessed far worse scenes than this more times than he could count. His will was forged steel by now.

A little setback like this wasn’t going to make him back down:

"Have the railway troops and engineers speed up laying track. Get the Lefort guns into position. Tomorrow — we launch the full assault."