I Became a Tycoon During World War I - Chapter 127

Chapter 127: As Easy as Turning a Hand

The balloon once again ascended slowly. Airplanes circled in the dull gray sky, resembling dragonflies—both enemy and friendly aircraft alike.

The battlefield below resembled a giant chessboard. The no man's land in the center was the dividing line, with pawns stationed along the defensive lines on either side. Behind them were command posts, artillery, and sentries, all arrayed in preparation for an impending clash.

King Albert I gazed at the balloons and airplanes rising from the German side with some puzzlement. He asked, "The Germans are well aware that Charles has mounted machine guns on planes. Isn’t launching balloons essentially courting disaster?"

"The Germans have no choice," General Charles explained. "In weather like this, only at the altitude of the balloons can they see the muzzle flashes of cannons several kilometers away. To counter French artillery, they must accept the potential danger."

"But how can they defend themselves?" King Albert I asked incredulously. "This is nothing short of suicide!"

Charles replied gravely, "When infantry charges enemy trenches, it’s also suicide, yet they still charge. This is war!"

King Albert I fell silent. Despite being among the soldiers, he realized he still understood only a fraction of the realities of war.

...

However, General Cross did not see it as suicide.

He had deployed eight Maxim machine guns around each balloon. If an enemy plane approached, it would immediately be subjected to a barrage of gunfire from the ground.

The artillery positions were no exception. Cross had encircled them with Maxim machine guns as well.

Cross even instructed his pilots, "If your plane is pursued by enemy aircraft, immediately fly toward a balloon or the artillery positions."

The machine guns, Cross believed, would solve the problem for the pilots—just as Foch had suggested.

...

In the Paris Defense Command, Charles received a telegraph detailing the enemy’s new deployments.

The intelligence came from reconnaissance aircraft attached to the artillery regiment. Since German airplanes lacked machine guns, French reconnaissance aircraft could confidently approach German positions and observe everything.

The sight of these reconnaissance planes sent German pilots into a nervous frenzy, causing them to scatter, fearing that the planes might be armed with machine guns.

Colonel Fernand positioned several mock machine guns around the balloons and artillery positions, then looked toward Charles with a hint of worry.

At this time, airplanes had a top speed of only about 100 kilometers per hour. With no self-sealing fuel tanks or armored undersides, they were highly vulnerable to ground-based machine guns.

Despite these concerns, Charles gave the order for the First Squadron to attack.

...

Once again, brutal combat unfolded over Ypres. This time, however, neither side opened fire with their artillery. Instead, a large number of German infantry launched an assault across the muddy terrain toward the Belgian defensive line.

French artillery units awaited their orders. Gallieni's directive was clear: no firing without explicit command—even if the enemy advanced right in front of them.

This left Major General Thierry, the artillery commander, perplexed. Wasn’t this essentially handing the artillery over to the enemy?

He nervously looked up at the balloon observers, who signaled with flags that the enemy had entered the range of the artillery.

Deep down, Thierry knew that General Gallieni might be right.

Since the French 75mm field gun had been equipped with a hydraulic recoil system, allowing it to fire 30 shells per minute, German artillery had abandoned any attempts to match its rate of fire. Instead, they focused on increasing range and firepower.

The German howitzers, now capable of firing four rounds per minute, had a range of 12 kilometers and used 105mm shells. These shells didn’t need to hit their targets directly; a single detonation nearby could annihilate an entire artillery crew.

Thierry understood that if he ordered his guns to open fire, German 105mm shells would immediately rain down and obliterate their positions. Yet, how could they do nothing, paralyzed by the fear of enemy bombardment?

Thierry braced himself for the artillery’s grim fate.

Suddenly, the sound of engines filled the sky. Turning, Thierry saw rows of Avro planes heading straight for the German positions. Uniform in design and flying in tight formation, they presented an imposing sight.

"Another attack like yesterday’s?" Thierry muttered to himself.

His reconnaissance team had already relayed the enemy’s defensive arrangements to General Gallieni. Around the balloons and artillery positions, the Germans had deployed Maxim machine guns like hedgehog spines. Any aerial assault, even if successful, would come at a heavy cost.

...

In the air, Carter thought differently. He gestured lightly to both sides, commanding his squadron to climb higher.

"Fools," Carter muttered, "they still don’t understand that airplanes belong in the sky."

He felt a twinge of embarrassment. When he first heard that the Germans had surrounded their balloons with machine guns, he’d had the same reaction as everyone else, frantically asking over the phone, "What should we do? Charge through the gunfire and destroy them?"

Charles’s voice on the line had carried a note of surprise. "Do you really need to?"

Carter had paused, then exclaimed, "Oh!" The solution was so simple—it was as easy as turning a hand.

"Maintain altitude!" The squadron climbed to about 1,500 meters. Carter gestured, giving the order to attack freely.

Without radios, the squadron dispersed after breaking formation, leaving individual pilots to execute their attacks as they saw fit.

...

From the ground, General Cross observed the approaching Avro planes through his binoculars, puzzled. At that altitude, their rockets couldn’t possibly hit the balloons, could they?

Suddenly, the realization struck him. Dropping his binoculars, he shouted, "Lower the balloons! Lower them immediately!"

But it was already too late.

Several Avros arced gracefully in the sky, diving almost vertically toward the balloons from above. As they neared, they launched their rockets with a whistling sound.

"Boom!"

One balloon erupted into a fireball, incinerated before the eyes of the German troops. The ground gunners failed to fire a single shot, utterly failing to protect the balloons.

Everyone had expected the enemy planes to approach from the sides, as they always had, to destroy the balloons. No one had anticipated that the top of the balloons would be a massive blind spot—a dead zone beyond the range of the machine guns.

"Boom! Boom!"

One balloon after another exploded and vanished in plumes of black smoke.

Almost simultaneously, the French 75mm cannons roared to life.

Four artillery regiments, equipped with over a hundred guns, unleashed a torrent of shells at a rate of 15 rounds per minute, raining destruction on the German infantry charging toward the trenches.

General Cross’s face turned ashen. He realized now that everything—the attack, the balloons, the artillery—had been meticulously planned by the enemy.

And it wasn’t over. Two Avros fired rockets at the German artillery positions from afar. The rockets didn’t explode but released thick plumes of smoke, soon engulfing the German artillery positions in a foggy haze...

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