Turning Point - Sekigahara: Toyotomi's Global Expansion and its Consequences

Phase 29 - Great War (6)

After the Russian Revolution, the disadvantage of the Entente persisted.

Italy had suffered a disastrous defeat in the Battle of Caporetto from October to November 1917, due to the penetration breakthrough of the new German mountain troops' tactics. The defeat was nothing short of a complete collapse. The Italian army finally managed to stop near Venice but had lost a significant amount of territory. It was said that if Germany had been so inclined, they could have occupied most of northern Italy as part of the Alliance. However, for Germany at the time, it was sufficient to conduct experiments with new tactics, help Austria in crisis, and defeat the Italians.

On the main Western Front, from April 1917, both France and Britain launched offensives, but they ended in failure. In particular, the failure of the French offensive had a strategic impact.

Within two weeks of the start of the offensive, known as the Battle of the Aisne, the complete failure of the offensive became obvious to all, and it was a blow to the French, whose morale had already been shattered by the repeated losses in the war of attrition.

There were reports of uprisings within the French army, with some sources suggesting that up to 68 divisions at their maximum strength were involved in demanding a halt to the war. Some of this information reached the German military by chance. At first, the German military assumed that the unusual movements of the French army might be a prelude to a new offensive, so they sent numerous reconnaissance aircraft into the sky, despite the risk. What they discovered were soldiers who showed no intention of fighting and even groups heading toward Paris.

Upon confirming the French soldiers' mutiny, the German military leadership immediately decided to launch an offensive.

At that time, the German military had not made preparations beyond their normal counterattacks, but they began attacking key points within the French army believed to be involved in the rebellion. Faced with the sudden German offensive, French soldiers frequently abandoned the front lines without putting up a fight, and within just one week, the German army advanced more than 50 kilometers. The reason the German army didn't advance further was simply that their supplies ran out.

At this point, Marshal Pétain and others worked to boost the morale of the French army and its soldiers, but the French army had suffered significant losses.

Key positions like Lannes and Compiègne were somehow held, but the Germans had advanced as far as the Marne River, and a part of the front had to be pulled back to prevent the British army on the north side from being exposed to the enemy.

The British army then initiated the Battle of Cambrai to compensate for the semi-ineffective retreat of the French army, attempting to break through with a large deployment of tanks. However, due to a lack of preparation and a counterattack by the German army, the result was ultimately fruitless. Nonetheless, the British army's attack was not in vain; it imposed significant exhaustion on the German army, preventing them from attacking the French and making it impossible to launch an offensive against the chaotic Russia on the Eastern Front.

The Western Front was a battlefield where, in most cases, only casualties continued to accumulate, resulting in situations like the one described above.

. . .

In the Indian Ocean, an event that the Entente had feared finally occurred in the autumn of 1917.

The Japanese military had finally gathered a large fleet near Ceylon, and there was information indicating that they were planning a large-scale amphibious operation somewhere.

What was the Japanese military's objective? This was a matter of concern primarily to Britain itself rather than the Entente.

There were various possibilities, such as a simultaneous landing in different parts of India, a limited landing in specific locations in India, a direct invasion of the mouth of the Red Sea, an attack on Socotra Island in the Red Sea, or even the Persian Gulf.