The sound of German artillery made de Gaulle raise his head. ()
He put down the diary and pencil in his hand, tried his best to move his sore arms, propped himself up, stretched his neck and looked outside, and found that the German army was using artillery fire to clear the trenches that the French army had just evacuated.
"Fortunately, I ran fast." De Gaulle murmured to himself. The German army's perfunctory offensive yesterday made De Gaulle realize that the German army would definitely make a big move, so he ordered the troops to withdraw from the original defense line overnight. Now his decision
Apparently it saved the lives of countless French soldiers.
But no one had time to thank him. At this time, the reserve position where they were located was full of French soldiers who had slept to death. Even the surging German artillery fire could not disturb their sleep.
De Gaulle sat back in the trench. At this time, an artillery shell somehow landed at the back of their trench, and the sand and gravel kicked up smeared De Gaulle's face.
While de Gaulle was wiping his face with his sleeve, a young soldier sitting next to him spoke: "Sir, can we win this war?"
"We can win." De Gaulle replied very firmly, "As long as there is one Frenchman who does not give up, we will not be defeated."
The soldier didn't answer. De Gaulle glanced at him and sighed inwardly.
In most cases, morale cannot be accumulated by just a few words from the commander. Maintaining morale is a complex art. No commander in the world can confidently say that he has mastered the method of controlling the morale of his troops.
The trick. However, it is obvious that troops that continuously win battles will have high morale and are constantly driven out of their positions. Troops that are chased by the enemy will have morale ahead of the enemy even if the casualty rate is lower than that of the enemy.
collapse.
The French army on the west side of the front is now in such a situation.
They continued to resist, retreat, and then organized resistance again. Although they successfully slowed down the German advance, they also paid a high price.
De Gaulle knew that if nothing happened on the battlefield, it would only be a matter of time before Lanrezac's Army was defeated.
De Gaulle shook his head and waved away the ominous thoughts in his mind. He picked up his diary again, spread it out, and wrote down his thoughts on it with a pencil: "After these days, I finally realized that in this world, courage is forever.
Can't beat artillery fire."
On the east side of the front, the battle took on a different state.
After a day's rest and the support of the troops mobilized by Ludendorff, the Germans continued to advance towards the French fortress line with the Verdun Fortress as the core, while the French army opposite them was at Foch.
Under his command, he devoted his forces to resist the German attack, and at the same time tried to launch attacks on both sides of the German breakthrough to counter-encircle the German troops embedded in the French front.
The result of the fierce fighting was that both sides were losing troops at an alarming rate, with tens of thousands of casualties on both sides every day. Bodies were piled all over the fields.
Although they suffered huge casualties, the Germans were still advancing towards the fortress line behind the French army. Finally, Foch ordered the attack to be suspended. The French army began to fully switch to the defensive.
The French army gave up those positions that had become prominent due to the German breakthrough and contracted the defensive circle. At the same time, Foch's engineering troops began to race against time to reinforce super fortresses such as Verdun, Tulle, and Epinal.
In the past half century, the French's fear of the Germans' growing military power was perfectly reflected in these four super fortresses. Before the offensive theory fully occupied the brains of the French military's top brass, these fortresses were regarded by the French as a victory.
The key to the Germans.
Now, they were valued again, and Foch was determined to use these fortresses to hold off the German offensive.
In fact, Foch's judgment was wrong again at this time. She believed that since the force on the Eastern Front was so strong, the German troops on the Western Front would not be as strong as Lanrezac and the British reported. She did not expect it at all.
In order to allow Crown Prince Wilhelm to have enough troops to launch an attack, Ludendorff took the risk of abandoning all the positions in the easternmost section of the front close to Switzerland.
On this not-so-short front, Ludendorff only left three cavalry divisions to serve as warnings and situation reports. As long as a French commander got hot, he might discover that the German defense line ahead was basically nothing.
A piece of cheese will collapse when touched.
Ludendorff was an adventurer. In the last time and space, he and Lieutenant Colonel Max Hoffman, another German tactician, worked out a plan for the Battle of Tannenberg. This plan was to bet that Leinenkamp's First Army would not
to rescue Samsonov's Second Army, because the German military officer had personally seen the two Russian commanders fighting in public during the Russo-Japanese War. Therefore, Ludendorff took the risk of leaving only one cavalry unit.
Following the movements of the Russian First Army, all forces were concentrated on the side of the Second Army and carried out an excellent encirclement battle.
In the last time and space, Ludendorff established his influence in the German army with the victory of Tannenberg, and finally obtained the position of Chief of the German General Staff as a non-Junker noble.
In this time and space, Ludendorff repeated his old tricks, and Foch stepped into the hole dug by Ludendorff without hesitation.
Foch should indeed choose to attack, but the attack point should be further east, so that the French army could march straight in. After crossing the German army's cheese-like defense line, the entire Germany would be exposed to their bayonets.
In that case, the battlefield will become a centrally symmetrical mirror image, which will definitely evolve into the strangest scene in the history of war.
But Foch didn't do that.
She used to crazily advocate attack, but now she blindly emphasizes defense.
Perhaps, her previous experience of losing to the German ace goddess had planted the seeds of fear in her heart.
Little Moltke sat in the new headquarters, looking sullenly at Falkenhayn and Ludendorff, who were not giving in to each other.
Marshal Hindenburg, who served as an advisor, sat leisurely across from Moltke. The old man's calm and calm look made Moltke think that he might have fallen asleep.
The German army's successive victories forced Moltke and Falkenhayn to move the German general staff forward twice. Originally, they were far away in Berlin and planned to direct troop operations hundreds of miles away like Conrad. But they could.
Soon the Germans discovered that their communication level was not enough for the command to grasp the situation on the battlefield at such a long distance, so they moved to Coblenz, but Kluck's advance was too rapid, so they had to move to Koblenz again.
Luxembourg.
This is actually a very dangerous move. Although the German army has retained quite strong troops here in order to protect the railway hub in Luxembourg, it is still a very courageous move to place the General Staff so close to the front line.
.You must know that there is only the Ardennes Forest between them and the French army. If any reckless general in the French army becomes ruthless, the highest command organ of the German army will be in danger.
Moltke and Falkenhayn did this, on the one hand, so that they could accurately grasp the battlefield situation at any time, and on the other hand, they wanted to ensure their control over the battle situation. They were worried that their generals' "on-the-spot performance" would disrupt the situation.
deployment of the entire campaign.
However, it is said that a wise man will always make mistakes. What Moltke and Falkenhayn were worried about still happened, and it happened during their second move of the headquarters.
Ludendorff took advantage of the command vacuum left by the relocation of the German General Staff and issued mobilization orders to the troops on the German left flank.
This made Falkenhayn very angry.
Falkenhayn was a typical Junker aristocrat. He was completely different from Ludendorff, who was born in the middle class.
Falkenhayn was born in a moderately wealthy Junker estate in East Prussia. His family's genealogy can be traced back to the twelfth century, when his ancestors were members of the Teutonic Knights. In the era of Frederick the Great, France
King Han's family also produced a general. It was this background that allowed him to gain the appreciation of the Hohenzollern family not long after he served as the head of Kaiser Wilhelm's bodyguard, and he rose to great heights.
Falkenhayn's appearance is completely consistent with his background: tall, powerful, and arrogant. There are many differences between him and Ludendorff, who was born in the market and grew up to become a major general through talent and personal struggle.
, the confrontation between these two people is simply destined. In a sense, the contradiction between these two senior officers is precisely the relationship between the emerging civil class in the country and the traditional Prussian Junkers after Germany entered the imperialist stage.
The epitome of the conflicts between nobles - this view is applicable both in the last time and space and in this time and space.
Moltke had noticed this a long time ago and tried to get the Kaiser to transfer Ludendorff away.
However, the respected Marshal Hindenburg appreciated Ludendorff's talent.
Without Hindenburg's support, I am afraid that even Ludendorff would not have dared to go so far as to issue an order to continue the offensive on the left wing.
Little Moltke bets that if Hindenburg had not been present at this time, the scene would definitely be more than this rigid.
"Your Excellency, Minister of War," Ludendorff said, "we must use most of the total reserves for the offensive on the Eastern Front. They have suffered heavy casualties and cannot continue the offensive without reinforcements."
"Nonsense!" Falkenhayn immediately retorted sharply, "The task of the Eastern Front is only to contain the main force of the French army, as long as the French army is at war at any time! Of course, they had the opportunity to completely encircle and annihilate the French army, but
Our order to lure the enemy deeper has not been carried out! Investing the general reserves now is just a futile waste of the lives of German soldiers! Tell William and Ruprecht to use the existing troops to maintain the offensive, or let the French think that we are going to
Keep attacking! They did a great job before, so I’m sure they’ll do a great job next!”
"If we don't attack!" Ludendorff raised his voice, "If we don't continue to invest troops to maintain or even speed up the current attack speed, once the French army retreats behind their fortresses, they will get the opportunity to reorganize their defense line, and then they
We can use a small number of troops to defend those strong fortresses and turn the main force to the west! By then, let alone Paris, we won’t even be able to cross the Marne River!”
"That's enough!" Little Moltke finally spoke. Since Schlieffen's plan was progressing smoothly at this time, Little Moltke's reputation within the German army also soared. No one could ignore his words. "What you said makes sense, so I decided,
Divide the reserve force equally, give half to Kluck and Bülow, and send the other half to the Eastern Front to support Prince William. That’s enough, don’t discuss this issue again in the future!”
Therefore, although the motivations were different, Moltke in this time and space magnificently made almost the same mistake as in the previous time and space. (To be continued...)