In the evening, Foch called and chatted with Qin Zhiyuan.
Foch did not talk about the ongoing war, but only chatted with Qin Zhiyuan about Girardine and Napoleon.
Girardine and Qin Zhiyuan returned to Paris together. Qin Zhiyuan was going to the front. Originally, Girardine could only stay at the Black Swan Castle, but Anne liked Girardine very much and let Girardine live at Foch's house.
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Qin Zhiyuan knew that Foch was trying to relieve his pressure.
Although Foch said he was kind to Qin Zhiyuan, he actually cared about Qin Zhiyuan more than anyone else.
When the general is away, the emperor's orders will be ignored. There may be a similar proverb in France. Foch will not tell Qin Zhiyuan, but since he has chosen Qin Zhiyuan, Foch will give Qin Zhiyuan full trust.
Qin Zhiyuan could feel Foch's kindness, but relatively speaking, Lyautey was not so friendly.
Perhaps Lyautey's pressure was too great. Lyautey asked Qin Zhiyuan to open the situation as soon as possible. Even if he could not achieve a great victory like the Battle of Ferenta de Noy, he would at least drive the German 18th Army out of Reims.
Region, regain a piece of land, and give an explanation to the parliament.
This was a scam that Qin Zhiyuan could not let go, so the two newly-organized French military divisions were assigned to the 17th Army and became Qin Zhiyuan's direct troops.
That night, Qin Zhiyuan came to Ernest and Pierre to discuss how to use these two new French military divisions.
Although Ernest has a German name, Ernest himself is British.
Ernest was a supporter of the Knights Templar. He served in the British Royal Army ten years ago and served as a lieutenant colonel. After retiring, he became a hermit in a monastery in Belgium.
Ernest now commands a force of 1,600 men. These people are all fanatical Crusaders. They dream of returning to Jerusalem one day and restoring the glory of the Crusaders.
Jerusalem has been occupied by the Turks for 400 years.
After the start of the world war, the British organized an expeditionary force of 150,000 people. Under the leadership of Commander-in-Chief Allenby, they fought fiercely near Gaza and Beersheba with 170,000 Turks led by Germal and Falkenhayn serving as advisors.
, there is currently no winner or loser.
Although Ernest and the others were fanatical, they did not lose their reason. They knew that Qin Zhiyuan and North Africa were now on different battlefields. Qin Zhiyuan had to end the war here before he could take care of North Africa. Therefore, although they had resentment in their hearts, they never slacked off.
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Your Excellency, Grand Commander, I salute you. Ernest pays utmost respect to Qin Zhiyuan.
Sit down, we have two new editors, and I need someone to lead them. Qin Zhiyuan is not too polite. In fact, Qin Zhiyuan has always been wary of religious fanatics.
They had officers. Ernest made no comment.
What they need is not an officer, but a spiritual leader. Qin Zhiyuan pointed out the core of the problem. What the current French army needs is faith: You know the current situation of the army, let alone the newly formed army. If there is no one to lead them, they will
It will be a piece of loose sand.
The large-scale mutiny seems to have subsided by now, but in fact many French troops have not yet restored their combat effectiveness, especially their cohesion, which has been exhausted in the mutiny a while ago and will take more time to regroup.
Faith is what the fanatics of the Knights Templar lack most. They don't even need to say more, they just need to set an example by practicing it.
Okay, Grand Commander, if you insist. Ernest agrees with Qin Zhiyuan's arrangement. They have been waiting for the Eastern Expedition for hundreds of years and have enough patience.
These two new divisions have not arrived yet, and it will probably take at least half a month for them to arrive on the battlefield, so Qin Zhiyuan can only rely on the existing troops for now.
Early the next morning, the fighting started again.
As usual, the battle begins with an artillery bombardment.
Last night, Qin Zhiyuan issued a combat order to Zhou Hongguang, the commander of the bomber unit. Today, the bomber unit must be prepared, and they may be dispatched at any time.
Zhou Hongguang was the former worker representative at the Renault factory, and the other one was Zhang Tianyun. Zhou Hongguang had always been very interested in aircraft. When Qin Zhiyuan formed a bomber unit, Zhou Hongguang recommended himself and passed Qin Zhiyuan's assessment.
In fact, there are no complicated tactics in air combat in this era, and even two-plane formations have not yet appeared. The outcome of an air combat depends entirely on the pilot's proficiency with the aircraft. Qin Zhiyuan just briefly assessed Zhou Hongguang's driving skills.
Appoint Zhou Hongguang as commander of the bomber force.
The power of the 1,000 artillery salvoes was astonishing. There were more than 400 large-caliber artillery pieces. They were placed on six artillery positions, each responsible for different areas, and bombarded the German positions indiscriminately.
The first round was high-explosive bombs, the second round was gas bombs, and the third round was shrapnel bombs.
Just proceed in this order.
In order to better command the troops in combat, Qin Zhiyuan took a command vehicle and headed to the Obili area, which was less than three kilometers away from the German defense line. Qin Zhiyuan could have a clearer grasp of the offensive and defensive situation.
In fact, in yesterday's fire attack, the defense facilities of the German frontline positions were basically destroyed. When they retreated to Ankang, they used a lot of explosives and blew up many underground tunnels on the frontline battlefield. As for whether there were any Germans inside.
If people take care of it, as long as the tunnel facilities are destroyed, the purpose will be achieved.
It took the Germans four full months to build these tunnels, and it only took the Chinese about 40 minutes to destroy them. It was indeed easier to destroy than to create.
With each violent explosion, orange-red flames and black smoke rose into the sky, accompanied by large sections of barbed wire made of earth and wooden piles, and the broken limbs of the Germans.
Bodies that had been buried underground were blown out again, and soldiers who were originally defending their positions were buried.
The August sun was high in the sky, and even the fresh corpses were already highly decomposed, and more corpses were left with nothing but bones.
If you don't wear a gas mask, there is no way to launch a charge. Smoke can kill people.
This time, Xu Sheng's regiment and Fu Lehe's regiment were responsible for the attack. Both regiments were infantry regiments under Greif, and they were also supplemented by an Annan infantry regiment.
The mission of Xu Sheng Regiment and Fu Lehe Regiment is to set up sniper positions on the spot after capturing the German forward positions. Therefore, the troops carry a large number of steel structure fortifications to quickly set up positions. At the same time, tank troops will accompany the attack. These tanks will
It will become a defensive fulcrum on the defensive position.
The mission of the Annan Infantry Regiment is to assist in defense. To put it bluntly, it helps the Xu Sheng Regiment and Fu Lehe Regiment, helping build positions, transport ammunition, transfer the wounded, etc.
Bastian directly took out a division, the 32nd Division with the strongest combat effectiveness in his own hands, and prepared for continuous attacks.
According to yesterday's battle deployment, after conquering the enemy's forward position, Xu Sheng's regiment and Fu Lehe's regiment will set up defensive positions on the spot, and Bastian's troops will continue to attack the German second line of defense.
Even if the progress goes smoothly, Bastian's troops can only move forward one kilometer at most, which is exactly half the distance traveled by the 185th Regiment and the 192nd Regiment yesterday.
At this position, if the Germans launch a counterattack, they will not achieve much results. If they do not launch a counterattack, the Germans will have to retreat after the attacking troops have deployed their defenses.
Qin Zhiyuan must fight steadily and press forward step by step. Anyway, Lyautey's operational requirement is to capture Reims, and the Germans' forward position is only about five kilometers away from Reims. As long as they advance like this steadily, in three days at most, the Germans will either
Withdraw from Reims, or you can only choose to fight Qin Zhiyuan to death.
Ludendorff's tactics were indeed unique, but no tactic was a panacea. The Germans' mistake was that they wanted to use one set of tactics to deal with all situations.
How is this possible? If measures cannot be adapted to local conditions, then no matter how good the tactics are, they will become a thing of the past.
It is not so easy to formulate a set of tactics. In the early 20th century when information was relatively closed, those who could formulate a set of tactics and implement them were all military masters of the time, such as Maoqi, Falkenhan, and Lu
Dendorff.
Speaking of Falkenhayn, after he was dismissed as the Chief of the German General Staff, he first commanded the German Seventh Army to defeat the Romanian army, and then occupied the entire territory of Romania. Now he is commanding the Ottoman Empire's army to defend Palestine, and during this period he has successfully
implemented a plan to deport the Jews.
Look, even though Falkenhayn played a bit cowardly against the French, when facing Romanians and the British in North Africa, Falkenhayn's performance was still remarkable. This also fully illustrates the French army's performance.
combat effectiveness during the First World War.
For now, as long as Qin Zhiyuan finds the weaknesses of flexible tactics and formulates corresponding tactics based on the weaknesses, what awaits the Germans will only be failure.
Regardless of whether the opponent is Admiral Hutier or Admiral Ludendorff.
The bombardment did not last long, because there were no targets worthy of attack on the German forward positions. It looked like a wasteland that had just been reclaimed and had not yet been leveled. It could no longer be seen as it was before, leaving only mountains and plains.
craters and corpses.
So the infantry launched an attack.
With almost no obstruction, the infantry under the cover of tanks arrived in front of the German anti-tank trenches.
After several drills, the soldiers were already familiar with anti-tank trenches. Three or four soldiers jumped into the trench, used steel drills to make holes in the trench walls, and then inserted a certain amount of explosives. There was only a loud noise, and the Germans
The painstakingly dug anti-tank trenches turned into two small earth slopes.
Just don't take it too easy.
After capturing the German forward positions, the 32nd Division did not rush to attack, but set up simple defensive positions to cover Xu Sheng's regiment and Fu Lehe's regiment in setting up defensive positions.
Compared with the 32nd Division's position, Xu Sheng's position was much more complicated.
Because there are a large number of steel structure bunkers, each bunker was quickly set up. Due to repeated artillery fire, the soil on the surface has been extremely loose. Sandbags for reinforcement were quickly accumulated, and two layers of sandbags were thickly wrapped outside the bunker.
.Then we have to connect the steel structures, set up anti-gun holes and headquarters; finally we have to set up traffic trenches, allocate defense areas for tank troops, etc.
In less than two hours, a well-equipped, solid and durable defensive position was completed.
The steel structure has made great contributions. Without this thing, it would have taken Xu Sheng and his two regiments to work for at least a week if they wanted to build such a position.
