Chapter 225： Verdun

While Romania is busy with a large number of new lives born, the breath of early spring in France has also arrived. Here the German army was preparing to fight the French army in a battle to get France out of the war with one blow.

The German army's strategy in 1915 was a great success. On the Eastern Front, Russia was repelled to Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. Now Russia has no threat to the eastern German territory. Serbia, which has always resisted the Austro-Hungarian army on the southern front, was also completely occupied this year and even brought a new member to the Allied Powers. As for the Ottoman Turkey, it also repelled the Allied attack with the help of the German advisory group. Therefore, in 1915, the Allied powers were completely dominant.

Although the Allies are at a disadvantage in the army against the Allies, it is another scene in terms of naval vessels. Allied naval ships were suppressed in the North Sea and the Adriatic Sea by the fleets of Britain, France, Italy and other countries. Although the Allied navy relied on excellent generals to harass the transportation lines of the Allied nations on the ocean, it was quickly wiped out.

Now the German army is focusing its energy on France, and the biggest pusher is General Fakingham, the chief of the general staff. He became Prussian Minister of War in 1913. On September 14, 1914, the German army was frustrated in the first Battle of the Marne, and the Schlieffen plan failed. Falkingham took over as the chief of the German General Staff and planned the "Advance to the Sea" operation in order to seize the northern port of France and cut off the direct contact between Britain and France. However, he failed in the first Battle of Cambrai and failed to achieve his full success.

He advocated that Germany should focus its strategy on the Western Front, which conflicted with the Eastern Front strategy of Generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. However, because of his role as Chief of Staff, he forcibly passed the Battle of Verdun in 1916.

According to General Falkingham’s plan, he chose to attract the main force of the French army in Verdun, and by annihilating the main force of the French army, he allowed the French government to surrender. To this end, he also made a bewildering deployment.

At the beginning of January 1916, Falkingham quietly assembled troops to attack Verdun. At the same time, Germany blatantly increased its troops to Chambeni, making a gesture of launching an offensive in Chambeni. The French commander-in-chief Xia Fei really got fooled. Since the Germans were unable to conquer Verdun in 1914 and shifted the direction of the offensive, the French believed that the fortress of Verdun was outdated, and Chaffee stopped strengthening the fortress in 1915.

At this time, the movement of the German army towards Chambény made Xiafei extremely vigilant. He believed that the German army would attack Chambény and then march into Paris from here. The Germans are continuing to quietly gather forces in the direction of Verdun.

As the signs of gathering became more apparent and exposed, the British and French forces finally figured out the true intentions of the German forces.

Verdun is the northeastern gateway of Paris and the support point of the entire French army. Once there is a loss, the capital Paris will directly face the German attack. Now Xia Fei panicked and quickly ordered an increase in troops to Verdun. Fortunately, due to poor weather conditions, the German offensive was postponed, which provided time for France to mobilize reinforcements. France mobilized two divisions into the area.

On the first day, the German army began to attack Verdun. The army receiving the offensive mission is the 5th Army under the command of German Crown Prince William (Jurisdiction over 7 armies, 18 divisions, more than 1,200 artillery, about 170 aircraft, and a total of more than 210,000 people.)

The 7th, 18th, and 3rd Corps (6 and a half divisions, 879 artillery, 202 mortars) carried out major assaults on the 15-kilometer-wide front from Kongsangwa to Orne River, and the 5th Corps covered its left flank. The 15th Army carried out an auxiliary assault 6 kilometers south of the Orne River, and the 6th Army took a containment operation on the west bank of the Meuse River. In the direction of the main thrust, the German infantry has twice as many infantry as the French infantry, and the artillery has 3.5 times more than the French infantry. In order to achieve the suddenness of the battle, the Germans carried out a series of feints on the Western Front in January of the same year.

In fact, as the commander-in-chief of France, Chaffee had the opportunity to react in the first place, but because of one of his own bad habits, the defenders of Verdun were even more critical. Xiafei should not be disturbed when she sleeps. He believes that a commander needs enough sleep to have the energy to deal with the ever-changing battlefield situation. So when the battle broke out on the night, the French commander-in-chief Xia Fei was asleep, and the messenger who sent the war report waited dryly all night.

Until the next morning, Xia Fei, who was yawning, knew that Verdun was already in a hurry.

Such a slow response and the consequences were also very serious. In less than four days, the German army completely broke through the Verdun position, and more than 13,000 French troops were reduced to prisoners of war. On February 25th, nine German soldiers without firing a gun easily boarded the Mont Fortress, the northern support point of Verdun. The fortress of Verdun, a strategically important fortress, was about to collapse. Not far away, Paris became anxious, and even the French government was preparing to move again. According to the description of the newspaper at the time, it said: "It is exactly the same as before the last defeat (French-Prussian War)."

But the real consequences are bound to be even worse: if Germany goes one step further and smoothly controls Verdun’s main highlands, France will either watch Verdun fall and the gates of Paris open, or throw the elite troops into it, like a tiger Exterminated by Germany!

At this time Xiafei made the most correct choice. He placed a new commander for Verdun, a major general named Petain.

Petain, a poor child from a single-parent peasant family, was angrily joined the army when he was fifteen years old because of the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Since then, he has become a stubborn temper among French officers: he always speaks directly, and he loves to sing the opposite of his boss. At the age of 58, on the eve of the outbreak of World War I, he finally stumbled to the rank of colonel. Petain himself laughed at himself at that time: I can still get the colonel's pension, so I can thank God.

However, the sudden arrival of the First World War made Petain finally show his talents. After the war, he repeatedly made feats and became a major general. When Verdun was in a mess, he was decisively transferred to fill the hole by his boss. After seeing the terrible battle on the front line of Verdun, Petain, who was suffering from acute pneumonia, immediately fell with a black eye. After waking up from the rescue, he forcedly issued the first combat order: draw a line on the existing position. On the supervising front, the French army, no matter the soldier or officer, who wants to retreat from this line, will be shot by machine gun!

And Petain’s next order shocked the officers’ jaws: a two-day event must be used to organize a rescue team to quickly widen the only simple road in Verdun that was not blocked by German artillery. From now on, this highway can pass a truck every fourteen seconds, supplying a steady stream of blood to the Verdun front!

Here I want to say that in the transportation of personnel and materials for France there is a fleet of transportation companies from Le Havre. Of its 58 Dongfeng trucks in the process of transfusion for Verdun, 27 of them were damaged due to various reasons. After the battle, its boss Le Havre was awarded the Legion of Honor (commander level) by the French government. The few civilians who received medals of this level,

After 190,000 reinforcements and 25,000 tons of materials finally arrived at Verdun in the first time, Petain's cross-fire tactics began to shine, and he faced the powerful German army. By April, Petain, who had never retreated, even hit the Grand Canal: a French shell accidentally hit the German secret ammunition depot in the Spankul Forest, and 450,000 German large-caliber heavy artillery shells were dumped. All the ashes exploded in an instant. The forty-two caliber artillery bombing that the German army was best at, all martial arts were abolished.

The Germans planned a successful "bloodletting" battle, which was tossed into a fierce tug of war by the tough Petain. Petain, who made a remarkable achievement, was promoted to the commander of the Front Army in May, while the French and German armies of Verdun continued to increase their troops and fought cruelly around the position of Verdun. The division and brigade-level formed units are almost all fired back and forth with a few artillery fires.

The **** battle lasted until December. The French army finally turned to the offensive. The German army hurriedly abandoned the Verdun position. In the end, the French army lost 650,000, but the German army also paid 450,000 casualties. The German army The ten most elite divisions on the Western Front even lost all of them.