In late July, Qin Zhiyuan led his army to the Tadenuwa area, preparing to launch an attack on Reims.
At this time, Reims could not be called a city, at most it was just a small town.
Behind Reims was Bremont, who was Nievelle's target in the spring offensive.
Nivelle's plan at that time was to start from Prouvé and attack along the Aisne River towards the Avnicourt-Algicourt area, thereby completing the outflanking of the German troops in the Bremont area, and then annihilating the German troops in this area.
Nivele is a representative of a person whose ambition is as high as the sky and whose destiny is as thin as paper. His plan failed because of Ludendorff's new defense system, and Qin Zhiyuan was overturned.
Relatively speaking, Qin Zhiyuan's plan is more realistic.
Qin Zhiyuan just wanted to defeat the German army, regain some of the lost ground, and give an explanation to the Ministry of War and Paris. He did not have the extravagant hope of swallowing up the entire German 18th Army. In that case, he might be strangled to death.
Taizu once taught us that strategically we must despise the enemy and tactically we must pay attention to the enemy.
Therefore, Qin Zhiyuan made as thorough a tactical preparation as possible.
At this time, the reinforcements of the French artillery division were already in place. One of the two division commanders was Demps Gale, an old acquaintance of Qin Zhiyuan in the Capi area, and the other was Colvin, Foch's former staff officer.
Foch was still a little worried about Qin Zhiyuan. In order to check for gaps and addendums, Foch sent his chief of staff Maxime Weigan to lead the staff of the 17th Army.
The 17th Group Army is a unified organization of all the troops in the Ferenta de Noir area. This is only a temporary organization and will be disbanded after this battle. Currently, Qin Zhiyuan is the commander of the 17th Group Army.
Starting from July 10th, convoys came from Paris almost every day, delivering various supplies to the 17th Army, including artillery shells, bullets, canned wine, drinks, vegetables, meat, etc. The supply level was almost as high as needed.
How many.
Now, the French have finally shown their strength. Even though the world war has been going on for three years, the French still have sufficient supplies. The supply may be insufficient for ordinary people, but the French have never been stingy when it comes to the army.
Recently, the weather has been beautiful and it has been sunny every day. The preparations have been carried out very quickly without any interruption due to weather conditions.
In the Tadenoy area, four front-line divisions have been prepared, namely the 1st Division of the Foreign Legion led by Liu Zizheng and the 4th Division led by Ruan Juncai, as well as the newly formed 21st and 23rd Divisions of the French Army.
Distributed on the five-kilometer starting position from Bulles to Kurma.
After the infantry positions were the artillery positions of the three divisions. When all the artillery was gathered together, Qin Zhiyuan was surprised to find that he had thousands of artillery pieces at his disposal.
Including the self-propelled artillery of the tank division and the divisional artillery regiments of each infantry division, Qin Zhiyuan has 1,100 artillery pieces in his hands, including 407 artillery pieces with a caliber of 105 mm or above.
The artillery position is set up in the Bliny area, about six kilometers away from the German defense line in Reims and about 13 kilometers away from Reims. For those large-caliber artillery, from the German forward position to Reims, they are within their strike range.
Inside.
Two supply centers have been built in Salsi and Shao Miqi behind Blini, and there are about 40,000 Indian and Annan laborers ready to deliver ammunition to the front line.
In Romney, about two kilometers behind Tadenua, a large field hospital is under construction. Mao Shiba leads 150 military doctors who have received field first aid training and is ready. Working with the military doctors are about 800 nurses.
More than half of the nurses and military doctors are Chinese.
Maxime Weygand had rich combat experience. He graduated from the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in 1887 and began to follow Foch in 1913. From the 20th Army to the 9th Army and then to the Northern Army Group, Maxim has always been Foch's
Chief of Staff Xu.
After Foch became the commander-in-chief of the French army, Maxime Weygand became a member of the Supreme Military Council. When the Ministry of War decided that Qin Zhiyuan would take the lead and launch the Reims Offensive, Foch asked Maxime to escort Qin Zhiyuan.
As an old friend of Foch, Maxim admired Qin Zhiyuan very much. He also attended the engagement ceremony between Qin Zhiyuan and Julie. He understood that Foch valued Qin Zhiyuan, so he did not give any advice on Qin Zhiyuan's arrangements.
Speak only when you need to speak.
Shouldn’t tank troops be placed on the front line?
After seeing Qin Zhiyuan's arrangement, Maxim raised his own questions.
It cannot be placed on the front line. Tank troops can only play their greatest role during assaults. It is not suitable to use tank troops in the trial stage at the beginning of the battle. Only in the attack stage can the combat effectiveness of tank troops be maximized. Qin Zhiyuan did not hesitate.
Guidance.
This description seems a bit exaggerated, but when it comes to the use of tank troops, Qin Zhiyuan is qualified to guide everyone in this era.
In the Third Battle of Ypres in late July, General Hubert Gough of the British Fifth Army used 52 tanks in the attack. The result was very regrettable. 22 tanks broke down in the mud of Flanders.
In the pit, 19 vehicles were destroyed by German artillery fire.
Compared with the Battle of the Somme, the British did not seem to have made any progress in the use of tanks.
So when will the bombardment begin? Maxim's greatest advantage is that he is never self-righteous. In front of Qin Zhiyuan, almost all French generals are not qualified to be self-righteous.
In other words, all the generals of the entire Allied Powers are not qualified to be self-righteous in front of Qin Zhiyuan.
Soldiers, performance is the last word
Wait a few more days, maybe tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. Qin Zhiyuan is not impatient. Instead of rushing to attack before he is ready, Qin Zhiyuan would rather delay the attack.
There are only so many Chinese soldiers now. Qin Zhiyuan does not want to waste any life. If possible, Qin Zhiyuan does not want anyone to suffer bad luck, although this is not realistic.
War Department telegram. A young staff officer came to report.
No need to read it, just leave it there. Qin Zhiyuan doesn’t want to hear it.
You don't need to listen to know that Lyotai must be asking about the launch time of the attack. During this period, Lyotai was under great pressure, and telegrams urging Qin Zhiyuan to attack came one after another.
Yes, the general and the staff officer looked helpless. They put the telegram on Qin Zhiyuan's desk and turned away. There was already a small stack of telegrams there.
Maxim shook his head speechlessly and went over to pick up the telegram and read it.
Qin, you should see, your hen plan has been completed. Maxim surprise.
After finishing the work, Qin Zhiyuan was even more surprised and quickly stepped forward to receive the telegram.
The hen plan is ready to launch an attack. It is clearly written on the bulletin board.
Praise Lord Pierre, order the artillery troops to open fire, we can kill all directions. Qin Zhiyuan made up his mind.
