Prologue
French Marshall Ferdinand Foch said of the Treaty of Versailles "This is not Peace. It is an armistice for 20 years". He would prove accurate, off by only 2 months. The failure of the Entente to secure a permanent peace rests on how they left Germany, while for they may have been battered and bruised, not knocked out. The addition of full blame for the war, reparations that totaled in the billions of marks, and the stripping of thousands of square miles of German colonies and European territories. These conditions and more, such as hyper inflation and unemployment, made for a breeding ground for demagogues, and one such, a Austrian veteran, would become one of the infamous dictators of all time: Adolf Hitler.
So what if the allies had pushed for total victory? Marshall Foch and General Pershing were for such measure, two key Allied military personnel. If they wanted, I'm sure a push for such a measure could be done. They needed to show Germany that they where done, and that would require the Tricolor, Union Jack, and Stars and Stripes flying over every major German city, from Aachen to Koingsburg, from Kiel to Munich. So how could that possibly happen? This is why I love alternate history....
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The Versailles, October 28th, 1918
Ferdinand Foch's motor car drove quickly down the road in the crisp autumn morning. Foch felt surprisingly cheerful. The war, while it may have been going on for 4 long years by now, seemed close to the end. Every day his reports told him of victories, and advances deeper ad deeper into German occupied territory. But he still had a nagging feeling something wasn't right. They just won't give up, Foch thought. We keep pushing and pushing, yet it seems the Germans still wont admit they lost!
Foch came out of his thoughts just as his car drove up to his entrance at the Versailles. Funny how it went from a hunting cabin to this! he thought with a chuckle. A guard walked up and opened his side door for him. Foch stepped out and walked to the door. Two more guard saluted as he entered. He shot back a fine salute. He walked into the building, and then through the path he had gotten all to familiar with. Down a staircase, take a left, then a right, then straight forward. He opened the door into the operations room. Inside he found his staff hard at work tracking the movement of the armies of the Entente.
His officers all stood to attention and saluted. He returned the gesture, and then, as if nothing had happened, the staff went back to work. Foch went immediately to his private office off of the main room. His office was still roomy. On his desk he found the usually reports, but at the bottom he found something interesting. A envelope addressed to him. He looked in the corner. Addressed from American Expeditionary Force Headquarters.
He carefully opened the envelope. Inside he found a piece of normal US Army stationary. He looked to the bottom. Signed John J. Pershing. He frowned. Pershing was a great commander, but not good at the intricate nature of the diplomacy needed to run a force of 20 different nations. Might as well see what he wants, thought Foch. Probably a request to drive straight to Berlin! He looked down and started reading, but felt like he ran into a jumble of incoherent letters. Damn, he thought, he wrote me in English, you would think he would have the respect to try and use French! He started reading again, carefully. His eye brows arched up every so often as he read. If he worried about what Pershing wanted before, now he was happy. He had found someone with the same nagging he had.