1920: America's Great War-eARC Read Online Free

Princeton. Or at least that’s what a lot of people believe. Like him or not, and I don’t know many military men who do, he’s the people’s choice and will be re-elected. Warren Harding doesn’t stand a chance after all the news about his private life came out.”
    “Hell,” Patton said, “Wilson might even be dead by the time of the election or before the inauguration. We know he’s exhausted and they say he has a cold, maybe even the flu, but nobody’s seen him in a couple of weeks. I’ve heard rumors he’s had a stroke. Some president we’re gonna have.”
    Connor stood up and walked to where a map of the Southwestern Division of the United States and another one of Mexico were pinned.
    “Gentlemen, militarily, who is responsible for the mess we are in? Is it Germany for starting the war of 1914–1915?”
    Martel sometimes felt inadequate in these discussions, but, hell, he was among friends. “No sir, I blame the French.”
    Connor grinned. “Go on.”
    “Sir, the French had every opportunity to stop the Germans at the Marne. We now know that they’d been informed that the German armies had lost touch with each other. Reports from pilots proved that. The French commander in Paris, Gallieni, knew that the German flank was hanging and begged permission to attack it, and that might have stopped the Germans in their tracks. But the French commander, Joffre, didn’t believe the intelligence. He was too traditional and fossilized to believe he’d been handed such an opportunity.”
    The rest, they all knew, was history. The French had been crushed at the Marne, and then retreated south in what quickly became a rout. Paris fell and the French soon capitulated. The British Army, some three hundred thousand strong, was caught by an overwhelming German force while trying to reach a Mediterranean port where the Royal Navy could evacuate them. Almost to a man, the British Army had surrendered.
    The war of 1914 had ended just before Christmas in an overwhelming German victory and a catastrophic defeat for France, England, and, to a lesser extent, Imperial Russia. Some fighting in peripheral areas lingered into 1915, but the war was effectively over. Woodrow Wilson had gained further fame as a peacemaker by brokering the Treaty of Princeton which was signed a year later in Princeton, New Jersey.
    “And if the French had won at the Marne, what would have happened?” Ike posed to the group. “It probably would have resulted in a bloody and drawn-out stalemate.”
    Martel agreed. “Still better for the French and British than a catastrophic defeat.”
    “Hell, they would have dug in and the two sides might still be fighting,” Patton said.
    Connor smiled. “Would we have been dragged in?”
    Ike answered. “Not with Wilson in the White House. He’s the same person who said it wasn’t important when the Germans, following the peace, basically took over Mexico. He said it wasn’t important enough for us to fight over.” He turned to Martel and grinned. “And that is why Luke keeps visiting Mexico. Remind me, what did you find the last time?”
    Martel flushed slightly. It had been six months since the last time and the wild escape that finished it. “I located six German divisions within fifty miles of the border, and evidence of another eight more in the area by reading unit insignias on officers in Mexico City.”
    Martel had spent several weeks posing as a fertilizer salesman from Canada before the Germans became suspicious and chased him across the Rio Grande. Patton and Ike had both joked that selling bullshit was something Luke handled very well.
    They glanced at the map of Mexico which sported a number of colored pins. The green ones showed the last known locations of German units, and the red ones, the Mexican Army. The information had changed little in the last few months. Word had come from Washington that no more forays like Martel’s would be tolerated. Too provocative to the Mexicans,