Chapter 42 Cars and Petroleum
PS: Sorry for being late for half an hour! However, shamelessly asking for support here!
The troops and horses have not moved, the grain and grass go first. From ancient times to the present, any war is a contest of strength between the two sides. Without a strong backing guarantee, without continuous supply of materials arriving on the battlefield, even the strongest military force will suffer a disastrous defeat due to inadequate supplies.
Zhao Kuo, who was all talk and no action, had his supply lines cut off by the Qin general Bai Qi. His army of 450,000 men went hungry for 46 days and were too weak to fight, ultimately leading to their complete annihilation. The Qin dynasty continued to strengthen itself internally, developing great power that eventually led to its unification of the country.
At the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao launched a surprise attack on Yuan Shao's grain depot at Wuchao, cutting off some of his supplies and throwing his army into chaos. Despite being outnumbered, Cao Cao's forces pursued and defeated Yuan Shao's army, which retreated in disarray. Later, Cao Cao stabilized his dominance by developing food production.
The Huang Chao rebellion swept across the Tang Dynasty, spanning over a dozen provinces in southern and northern China, occupying the world's largest city, Chang'an. However, due to neglect of its own strength development and failure to establish a stable rear base, it abandoned one city after another. The once-mighty army of 600,000 eventually ran out of food and supplies, leading to the rebellion's defeat.
So, in ancient times, the so-called "invincible generals" were actually invincible because they never allowed their opponents to have the ability to fight. Their most beloved works were nothing more than starving the enemy to death. Of course, when it came to the era of hot weapons, wars continued and perhaps the art of war itself had undergone some changes. However, logistics and supplies still affected the progress and outcome of wars. Napoleon forgot about the winter in Russia, and ultimately lost the entire France.
Of course, the material supplies needed for ancient warfare were simple, such as bows and arrows, knives and guns, grain and fodder, horses, etc. As long as there was enough regional security to develop agriculture and animal husbandry with peace of mind, it was easy to possess great strength. But now that the era has progressed to today, war is no longer a test of whether logistics can meet the needs of soldiers for weapons, food, clothing, medicine, and other daily necessities. The consumption of things is more diverse and miscellaneous, and the smoky battlefield requires not only various types of ammunition and multi-caliber artillery but also various construction materials and daily consumables.
Taking the ongoing World War I as an example, the main battlefield is on the European continent. The warring parties are mainly artillery combined with infantry, and the type of attack and defense warfare is single. When neither side can do anything about the other, trench warfare becomes the only choice. From this, the wooden stakes that make up the isolation zone and the barbed wire, the reinforced concrete that builds each firepower point, the construction tools that dig trenches, and the successful transportation of these construction materials and combat materials to the front line for consumption, but the increasingly cruel stalemate war has changed from month to month. This puts forward higher requirements for the logistical transport capacity of both sides.
"Britain is an old industrial power, even if it didn't quite keep up with the world's development pace in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, a dying camel is still larger than a horse. Alongside France, which was similarly robust, the Allies had the wherewithal to counter the Central Powers led by the German Empire, and the evenly matched strength of both sides would inevitably lead to a brutal war, gradually brewing into the greatest tragedy in human history."
When the news of the outbreak of World War spread across the globe, Zhang Yu-sheng also made a brief comment on this matter. In fact, without his analysis, anyone who understands these two major groups can infer the stalemate and tragedy of this war.
Militarily, the two major groups are evenly matched, and their respective industrial production capacities are also strong enough. The logistical supply capacity between the war front line and the rear production has become a key factor in determining the war endurance of both sides.
The advent of the train allowed for the massive material demands of industrial mass production to be met, and the development of social productive forces no longer had to worry about being held back. Internal combustion engine-powered ships have undisputed high-speed performance, compared to coal-fired ships with long replenishment cycles, large reserves, and severe consumption speeds that are out of proportion. The combat capability and endurance of oil-powered warships far surpass those of coal-fired warships. More importantly, the widespread use of petroleum has given birth to another type of transportation tool for people - automobiles.
Steam trains have a large transportation volume, but the speed is slow and nothing can be done without leaving the railway line. Cars, on the other hand, have the advantages of strong mobility and considerable carrying capacity, especially when the battlefield undergoes great changes. The strong mobility of cars quickly made them the main force in logistics transportation, and almost all countries used large groups of cars to provide logistical supplies for their front-line troops.
However, the car is a mechanical device powered by fuel oil. Although it also has certain requirements for cooling water, lubricants, spare parts, etc., what affects its normal functioning is still fuel oil. Without fuel oil, cars cannot move at all, and naturally, they cannot provide continuous logistics support to frontline troops.
After the end of World War I, a memoir by a certain French general recorded a passage that clearly and concisely summarized the changes in logistics before and after the war, which in turn brought about tremendous changes in the way wars were fought.
"When the war began, our army had very few trucks. It was not that automobile salesmen failed to persuade logistics officers, but rather the entire French army showed no interest in trucks, while many generals purchased large numbers of cars, which were all expensive sedans. The entire army had fewer than two hundred trucks and fewer than one hundred tractors, and the artillery still used animal-drawn cannons, with soldiers' shoulders used to transport ammunition. Perhaps this was because trucks were too expensive and having a large number of them would have been a heavy burden on France, which had no war to fight. Alternatively, it may have been because the transportation of trucks was extremely fuel-intensive, and the army's limited funds could not afford such a money pit..."
Later, we soon fell into a passive position after the war began, and our generals were busy dispatching troops to block the enemy's crazy attack, but our soldiers were human beings, not machines. Simply relying on railways, we could not quickly mobilize soldiers to their positions, more importantly, logistics supply was seriously lagging behind the needs of the war, artillery could not fire freely, and soldiers did not have enough food and ammunition to consume. War, for the first time, made me feel like a nightmare...
"In fact, as for cars, many people in the military know the great benefits they bring, but the deeply entrenched military system is as difficult to shake up as the stubborn hierarchy of a class society. If it weren't for the urgent need for transportation supplies on the front lines, we wouldn't have discovered that there were actually not many civilian trucks available for mobilization in all of France, while our enemies had tens of thousands of various types of trucks. Their soldiers quickly arrived at the battlefield by train and truck, artillery was also towed by trucks, and ammunition was transported by trucks. The mobility was several times that of ours, let alone the combat capability..."
"The war has already shown signs of failure, and even the most stubborn military system must consider whether it can still be so arrogant as a prisoner in the future. To avoid defeat, to avoid the war going to the end that we are extremely unwilling to see, when the whole of France is facing life and death, the appearance of Verdun makes everyone begin to value cars, which is indeed an invaluable decision..."
"The Verdun that was to be the death of France was as deadly as a seven-inch shell, and the generals at the front were yelling for men and supplies, completely forgetting their previous courtesy. Thus it was that the noble Frenchmen went searching everywhere for Chinese merchants, but most of the goods were being sent to our enemy's allied countries, leaving very little for the Allies. It wasn't until then that the generals realized that neglecting automobiles was like neglecting machine guns, and when their soldiers were riddled with bullets, they knew it was time to add some new equipment to the troops. Similarly, just as Verdun was about to fall, they realized how important cars with great power were. But machine guns always had merchants waiting for customers, while cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, who could wait patiently for the generals' favor?"
"History will not abandon a strong France, and of course the glory and danger of France cannot forget its important ally - the United States. Through negotiations with the American YMCA group, France finally got the life-saving trucks, when large trucks arrived at the port of Paris, when car after car delivered supplies to Verdun, the shadow of defeat finally no longer shrouded the brilliant sky of France..."
Just as the general wrote in his memoirs, war had already driven people crazy. When the British Empire launched the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916, it sent off the last rays of the glory of the German Empire's Navy on June 1st.
The German High Seas Fleet, although inflicting heavy losses on the British Grand Fleet under Admiral Jellicoe, won a tactical victory but was forced to retreat and was closely blockaded in port by the British Navy, unable to move. More importantly, the Allies were finally able to begin a strategic blockade of Germany, preventing neutral countries from continuing to supply Germany with war materials, especially rare metals, heavy trucks, munitions, medicines, etc.
But such a blockade also drove the enemy into even greater madness, and an unrestricted naval war officially opened its curtain. The sea surface of the Atlantic was full of danger at any time. On land battlefield, in order to break through the German defense and let the war enter the mobile warfare that the Allies hoped for, it was more important to alleviate the strong pressure of the German army on the French army in Verdun, so the British and French coalition forces had to take action.
Like the French army defending Verdun, the German army built its strongest defense line in the Somme River area more than 50 kilometers east of Amiens. The defensive line had three lines of positions and a large number of permanent fortifications. There were dense trenches inside the position and heavy iron nets in front of it. The German Second Army stationed here prepared nine main force divisions and four reserve divisions for the 58-kilometer-wide frontline, relying on its strong logistical transportation capabilities, they could quickly receive reinforcements from more troops, so this defensive line was indeed "the strongest".
On June 24, the Anglo-French army carried out a 7-day artillery preparation, estimated to be avenging the blood feud of Verdun. In Verdun, the French army was suppressed by German artillery with almost no resistance, but on the Somme battlefield, the British Empire and France showed their strength in their own way, that is, a super-intensity bombardment lasting seven days and seven nights. The German artillery used a firing rate of 100,000 rounds per hour to ravage the French army at Verdun, while on the Somme battlefield, the Anglo-French army fired an even crazier rate, with nearly 120,000 shells per hour, more magnificent than the cannonball rain at Verdun. Of course, during these seven days and nights, the Allied forces also consumed nearly 20 million rounds of ammunition.
When the Anglo-French army thought they could occupy the three lines of defense in Verdun as easily as the German army, including the French army that had been abused countless times, the two armies still swarmed up in dense formation. As a result, on July 1st, nearly 80,000 people were killed by the German army emerging from the ground with machine guns and artillery. However, the 20 million rounds of ammunition still had their value, and the heavily damaged German army was unable to hold out until the third day. On July 3rd, the British right wing and the French army occupied the second line of defense of the German army.
But the German army took advantage of the interval between the enemy's attacks, relying on its complete underground tunnels and logistical transportation power, to reassemble its forces and strengthen its in-depth defense, and launched bold counterattacks on some sections. The two sides began to contend for the first line of defense, just like at this moment on the Verdun battlefield, the French army was still trying to recapture the three lines of field fortifications with all their might. The bloody battle between the two sides gave birth to more corpses, consumed more materials, and made no progress. Moreover, the Anglo-French coalition forces that initiated the campaign discovered that the Battle of the Somme had not had the slightest impact on the German army in Verdun, but instead got themselves stuck in a big quagmire.
The tactics of the war campaign have not changed in the slightest, but the German army's limited transportation capacity is beginning to encounter bottlenecks in the war. If they cannot properly solve the huge demands of the war, it means that the national war potential of the German Empire has already reached its peak, but at a critical moment, it lost the "support" from outside. If the Anglo-French army launches another initiative like the Somme River, it is estimated that the German Empire can only choose to retreat.
Of course, the reason why the weak and exhausted British and French coalition forces were able to rise rapidly was not only due to the help of pro-war factions such as Britain's Sir Edward Grey, but more importantly, the massive war material transportation lines that originally flowed into Germany had been cut off, and many materials began to slowly flow into the Allied Powers, especially the numerous heavy trucks gradually alleviating the logistical pressure on the British and French coalition forces.
When the French army already had nearly 60,000 medium-duty off-road trucks, 40,000 heavy-duty trucks, and nearly 10,000 tractors, while the richer Britain already had nearly 150,000 vehicles of all types, the logistical transportation capacity of the Anglo-French coalition had long reached its peak, fully capable of meeting their needs in the Battle of the Somme to create a seven-day and seven-night artillery preparation miracle. Two hundred million rounds of ammunition, even if each round weighed only one kilogram, would still require nearly 20,000 tons of ammunition to be transported from the rear to the front line. Without a large number of high-quality trucks, it is impossible to achieve such a massive artillery preparation, and the shells they used were not just one kilogram each?
"The war has made soldiers supporting actors, while drivers and cars running on logistics transportation lines have become the main characters that determine the outcome of the war! Apart from the weak influence of human power, we can recognize that: War has evolved into an energy era, and oil has become an absolute strategic material for war..."
When the Anglo-French army sent a much larger oil demand order to their good ally America, the whole of America was plunged into a period of contemplation, especially the very famous "Entrepreneur" magazine in American business circles, which further led to reflections on the importance of oil. Germany can launch a large-scale campaign for oil without hesitation, going out to Romania, mainly considering reorganizing the refining, production and pipeline enterprises that previously belonged to Britain, Holland, France and Romania into a large joint enterprise to provide Germany with a constant supply of oil.
The British campaign in the Dardanelles was aimed at ensuring that Russian oil from Baku could be supplied to Britain and France for use in the war, but the campaign ended in disaster. As a result, the Ottoman Sultan issued an embargo, making it difficult for Russian oil to be transported through the Dardanelles. The Allied armies were in urgent need of oil, and had no choice but to turn to neutral America; otherwise, the daily consumption of over 10,000 barrels of oil at the front would have been enough to render the hard-won strategic advantage of Britain and France useless.
The American press and public opinion discussed the fact that General Foch of the French army urged Prime Minister Clemenceau to make an urgent request to President Woodrow Wilson of the United States. The original words of Prime Minister Clemenceau were: "If we cannot get oil in time, our armies will be paralyzed at once, which will force us to negotiate a peace unfavorable to the Allies!" In other words, oil has become the most critical factor affecting the progress of the war, and military production, logistics transportation, and military deployment have all become past tense. The energy industry, namely the petroleum industry, has become the true decisive factor in the war.
Of course, like the French army, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, also said to the British people: "Under the effective blockade of the Allies, the German Empire will be defeated due to the lack of oil, and the Allies will reach the shore of victory under the rolling oil!"
He dares to say so because on the other side of the Atlantic, in America, there is a man of outstanding ability, whose approval would be enough to satisfy the urgent needs of the French army, for he is none other than John D. Rockefeller, the head of Standard Oil, the largest oil energy company in the world today.
When the logistics transportation capacity was severely tested, the American YMCA came forward to solve the problem for the Allies. Although they had also provided a large number of cars to the Allied countries before, the war had caused great suffering to the Allies. With the completion of the comprehensive blockade, the YMCA's powerful production capacity had become an indispensable logistics pillar for the Allies, slowly tilting the balance of the war in favor of the Allies.
Good times did not last long, when the problem of transportation capacity was solved, but the source of power, oil, became a problem again. At critical moments, it was American companies that stood out again, this time Standard Oil Company, whose strength was sufficient to ensure that the barrels of oil needed for the war were delivered in good quality and quantity to where they should be, and then handed over to the Allies for "generous" use.
It can be said that the First World War has already made the world recognize the power and strength of automobiles, and further recognize the importance and preciousness of petroleum. Whether future wars will still be so is not yet known, but one thing is certain: the world has fully entered the industrial civilization era, because its wars have evolved into energy wars.
Of course, different people have different views. Some will realize that the strength of their own strength is the real key to winning the war, and relying on others will never truly succeed. For a while, they can get help from the bond of interests, but this will not last long; some people also think that war relies on strength, but in their view, war is still for entrepreneurs, people come and go for profit, and the loss of life is still a big fortune for entrepreneurs.
No matter how many different views there are, but one thing remains the same, that is, war has entered another domain, and oil as an important energy source will give war more forms and changes, and of course, it can also bring more wars.
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