Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 223 The Third Imperial Audience

"What? His Majesty summoned me for such a trivial matter? I am truly terrified... It's just a paper; I wrote it casually just to graduate smoothly."

Lelouch was unusually flustered after hearing the purpose of Emperor William's summons.

He had already been summoned by the emperor twice before, and this was the third time. He wasn't usually too nervous, but the reason given today was truly unexpected.

The Emperor chuckled disbelievingly, "Written offhand? Fine, even if it was just something you wrote offhand, you still haven't answered another question: You've been in Wilhelmshaven for three days just to attend the battleship's commissioning ceremony? Was it Hipper who invited you?"

Lelouch: "I had contact with General Hipper several times before due to joint naval and army operations. However, my participation in this commissioning ceremony is more of an order from my superior—His Highness Rupprecht, the commander of the 6th Army, asked me to come and see it on his behalf if I had time, since the battleship 'Barria' is named after his kingdom."

Of course, as a frontline commander, I am one of the few who have directly faced enemy armored forces, and I have considerable experience in using some new weapons. I also took this opportunity during the meeting to discuss some feedback with the technical leaders of suppliers like Krupp and DWM.

The emperor then remembered this matter, which is completely understandable and reasonable.

Since he was representing the Barea royal family, the matter of interfering with weapons development was just a casual topic of conversation, and the emperor didn't bother to think about whether he was overstepping his authority.

As for Lelouch and his associates secretly opening large iron mines and steel mills on the Eastern Front, and secretly acquiring shares in new ironworks from Krupp, the emperor had no clue about these matters to investigate for the time being.

During wartime, the spoils of war from the front lines are often difficult to ascertain.

Emperor William steered the conversation back to the main topic, pressing for details about the thesis: "In the introduction to your thesis, you wrote that as more and more countries become governed by civilian politics, the unpredictability of war will increase. Therefore, a qualified general staff should, in peacetime, formulate operational plans against all neighboring countries and hypothetical enemies, regardless of personal relationships or current diplomatic relations."

This pleases me greatly. If, in July 1914, the General Staff had been able to produce an operational plan specifically targeting Lusha, and simultaneously a contingency plan to hold the western front with minimal forces as a precaution, the nation would not be in this predicament today!

Lelouch then realized which argument the emperor had been moved by, and he readily agreed and offered a more detailed explanation.

The emperor raised his hand and said, "These don't need explanation. But I want to know, you say these views are not your original ideas, but rather a retrogression, and that this is the true inheritance of the essence of the ideas of Chief of Staff Clausewitz and Helmut Moltke. Do you have any evidence for saying this? Your paper is not finished yet. I want to see detailed arguments, not empty slogans."

Emperor William suddenly became serious, because he genuinely wanted to verify:
Is Lelouch a sycophant who uttered such words to curry favor with his superiors, then groundlessly invoked ancient wisdom? Or does this reasoning truly align with the wisdom of our ancestors?

If Lelouch cannot find any real evidence, then it means he is a sycophant.

The current situation is somewhat like when Ouyang Xiu asked Su Shi, "Where did you get the story of 'Gao Yao killing Yao three times and pardoning him three times' that you wrote in your exam paper?" Su Shi replied that he was just making assumptions based on his own experience.

However, the two are not entirely the same.

Su Shi's answer was considered to be quick-witted because his viewpoint was neither for his own benefit nor to curry favor with his superiors.

Lelouch, however, lacked such quick wit, because what he said was exactly what Emperor William wanted to hear.

Fortunately, Lelouch was not just talking nonsense. He immediately spoke confidently and eloquently: "The great Clausewitz said that 'war is a continuation of politics.' Since it is a continuation of politics, in peacetime the military should, of course, make impartial plans for fighting against all neighboring countries and hypothetical enemies."

Therefore, this is the true inheritance of Clausewitz's thought, while Schlieffen's act of arbitrarily deciding who the hypothetical enemy was and who wasn't is detrimental to the country. What right did a mere soldier have to speculate about who the hypothetical enemy was? That's a right reserved for politicians! His own judgment was a form of military interference in politics.

Lelouch also knew that the Emperor had admired Schlieffen, at least during peacetime, when the Emperor was slowly preparing for war with Buffalo as the hypothetical enemy. This was because Schlieffen's hypothetical enemy was the same as the Emperor's.

However, the Sarajevo incident that occurred later was an unpredictable black swan event. The evolution of diplomacy led to the fact that the real enemy was different from the initial hypothetical enemy, which caused chaos and disaster.

But Lelouch was not intimidated by the Emperor. Even though he knew that the two of them had the same idea about the enemy back then, he still pointed out the key point: even if they were the same, it wouldn't work! As a soldier, even if his speculations were the same as the Emperor's, it would still be a form of interference in politics!
This accusation was firmly pinned on him; Lelouch was determined to completely discredit Schlieffen, that opportunist hoping to curry favor with the emperor. This point was unavoidable; Lelouch would write it this way in his future dissertation—it was already decided. Therefore, even if the emperor asked him directly now, he would have to answer in this way.

If you are considerate of the emperor's face now and speak softly, but insist on your stance when writing your thesis later, you will be more likely to be seen as two-faced.

But by confronting him directly, even if it puts the emperor in an awkward position temporarily, the emperor will still see him as a principled and upright official. Even if he is not popular, at least he is honest and incorruptible.

Emperor Wilhelm was indeed somewhat taken aback by what was said, but he couldn't refute it when it came to reason. In particular, for the first time in many years, someone told him that Schlieffen's behavior of "doing whatever the emperor told him to do" was actually interference in politics, which gave the emperor a sense of relief in shirking responsibility.

Yes, as a minister, if the emperor asks you to do something and you do it well, that's certainly correct. But what if the emperor didn't ask you to do something, but it's within your authority? Does that mean you can refuse to do it? The emperor doesn't know everything. In this specific area, the minister in charge is the primary person responsible. Shouldn't you know what things the emperor didn't assign that are still important?
To only diligently perform the tasks assigned by the emperor, and to shirk responsibility for anything else—isn't that interference in politics, laziness, inaction, or selective action?

With a barrage of accusations leveled against him, Schlieffen's reputation in the emperor's eyes worsened after his death.

Seeing that the Emperor, though looking displeased, was indeed reflecting on his actions, Lelouch pressed his advantage, promoting the merits of Helmut Moltke, the former Chief of the General Staff:

"When Marshal Helmut Moltke was in charge of the General Staff, there was a plan that suggested the Western Front was shorter and that the future warfare would involve increased firepower density, making it more advantageous for the defenders. The Eastern Front, on the other hand, was longer and better suited for mobile encirclement and annihilation warfare. Although Roosevelt's territory was too vast to conquer directly, even Napoleon couldn't do it, by eliminating the enemy's manpower through a series of mobile and annihilation battles, it might be possible to use the pressure within Roosevelt to force them to cease hostilities on relatively acceptable terms."

What we are doing on the Eastern Front today is actually a further development of the idea that Marshal Helmut Moltke had. However, today we have discovered more leverage than the old marshal had back then to force the enemy to sue for peace or collapse. In the old marshal's time, no one could have imagined that the ordinary people of Lushad would be so dissatisfied with the Tsar, with internal strife brewing. But now we have this opportunity, and we can more easily force them to sue for peace by allowing the Tsar to concentrate his forces on internal problems.

Therefore, every point I made was merely a genuine absorption and improvement upon the wisdom of the ancients, without any originality whatsoever, and is truly nothing to be praised for.

This last sentence was purely a show of humility, and also an expression of his attitude, indicating that Lelouch was not pandering to the emperor; he was simply pursuing what he believed to be objective truth.

Emperor Wilhelm's relationship with Helmut Moltke was not good. When Wilhelm ascended the throne in 1888, he deposed Moltke and forced him into retirement. Moltke did not actually die until 91, which was three years after he was retired.

The emperor was dissatisfied with Moltke's "defend in the west and attack in the east" strategy and felt that Schlieffen's "attack in the west and defend in the east" strategy was more effective. For the past ten years, he had been preparing for the west attack and east defense strategy. However, when the war finally broke out, things were not as expected, and all the preparations made over the years were in the wrong direction.

Emperor Wilhelm's impression of Helmut Moltke changed slightly after Lelouch's vehement and direct argument.

Of course, Lelouch wasn't saying all this to vindicate an ancient person who had been dead for 25 years; this was just his first step.

Once his name is restored, he, Marshal Goltz, and even Duke Rupprecht can be subtly presented as the "legitimate successors to the great first Chief of Staff, Marshal Moltke's thought."

Previously, there was no such faction in the General Staff because Moltke was nominally respected, but his doctrines were not truly implemented. Schlieffen always considered himself Moltke's successor, but in reality, he was just using Moltke's banner to follow his own path.

Lelouch's point is that Schlieffen did not truly inherit Moltke's mantle; he is a heretic, and Lelouch is the rightful heir.

In Chinese political terms, Lelouch's actions would be called "inheritance".

After hearing this, Emperor William, recalling the twists and turns of the past two years, couldn't help but feel quite emotional:
"Who could have imagined that a vast empire of nearly 200 million people could become unstable due to the annihilation of its frontline troops? Back then, when Napoleon inflicted such a crushing defeat on the people of Lusa, the common people of Lusa did not rise up against their Tsar."

Emperor Wilhelm had clearly seen the biggest difference between the past and the present: the patience of the common people of Lussa during the Napoleonic era to endure the Tsar’s exorbitant taxes and incompetent and haphazard commands was vastly different from that of the common people of Lussa today.

If William had realized this ten or eight years earlier, he might not have considered Boufair and Fay as his hypothetical enemies, and thought that Boufair and Fay were relatively easier to bully.

At that moment, William felt genuine and deep remorse.

This greatly underestimates the people's potential for resistance. Whenever Rousseau is mentioned, it is compared to the nation's determination to resist external conquest during the Napoleonic era.

In response to the emperor's remark, Lelouch aptly added his own opinion:
"Your Majesty, you are indeed wrong on this point, but our entire Western world has underestimated the power of the people in the past. Even when Napoleon was just rising to power, the European countries underestimated the Franks too much."

Because in Europe, there is a historical lack of examples and lessons learned from popular uprisings to overthrow dynasties; most countries perished due to foreign invasion. If we look more at Eastern history, we'll see that bottom-up dynastic changes are quite common.

For a very long time, Easterners dominated their known world. Except for a few dynasties in the later period that were destroyed by nomadic invasions from the south, for most of the two thousand years, they perished through bottom-up dynastic changes.

Lacking experience and lessons in this regard, we easily overlook the power of the people. Your words just now reminded me of an ancient Eastern sage named Zhuge Liang, who gave a classic discourse on how the weak can reclaim the world, known as the "Longzhong Plan"...

"...I believe the two most essential points of the Longzhong Plan are: first, to secure one's own base of influence, and then to manage it well, maintaining friendly relations with other states externally and improving internal governance. The second point is that one should wait for a change in the world before launching a northward expedition in different directions."

The real core is to "wait for the world to change". When the weak face the strong, they may not be able to develop by development alone. If they are too eager to succeed, they will often suffer greater losses and their years of accumulation will be in vain.

However, the side that is internally stable, or the side that holds the legitimacy, or the side that holds the moral high ground, can wait. In Zhuge Liang's era, if his ruler hadn't been impatient, or blinded by hatred, purely rationally speaking, he could have waited for the opportunity presented by two internal usurps and dynastic changes by a powerful enemy.

If we can maintain stability, develop ourselves well in normal times, and take advantage of the fact that there is no change of government within our own ranks while the enemy takes advantage of the chaos every time there is a change of government to take a big bite out of us, then in the long run there is still hope.

The Imperial General Staff made this very mistake when calculating the enemy's strength: they never took into account the risk of internal pressures leading to regime change, always thinking of relying solely on defeating and conquering the enemy on the battlefield.

If we can apply the same thinking as the "Longzhong Plan" to deal with Lusa, without seeking quick results, and just focus on doing our own job well in normal times, then when the world changes and chaos erupts within the enemy's ranks, we can seize a large piece of flesh every time Lusa causes trouble, while ensuring that we ourselves do not fall into chaos. Only then will we have a chance!
But all of this is predicated on the premise that we do not act rashly. If we overburden the people and conscript too many soldiers, and the people suffer from hunger and cold, then the enemy will change internally, and we must also respect the laws of nature.

The ancient Chinese military treatise *The Art of War* states, "Those skilled in warfare first make themselves invincible, then await the enemy's vulnerability. Invincibility lies in oneself, vulnerability in the enemy." This is also a strategy of waiting for a change in the world situation. If you cannot defeat the enemy, you must first ensure your own stability and prevent chaos, then wait for the enemy to fall into disarray. Ignoring these two issues will inevitably come at a price.

Emperor William was completely bewildered by Lelouch's argument about the fusion of East and West, and couldn't understand many of the translated technical terms for a moment.

But his intuition told him that what Lelouch was talking about seemed pretty powerful.

The empire had seriously underestimated the power of the people within its borders.

(End of this chapter)