Beginning at dawn on 9 February, German troops began to withdraw from the salient. In accordance with the "Albrech" plan named after the vicious gnomes in the saga of the Nibelon heroes, a well-organized plan of destruction begins. The Germans abandoned the area they had fought so hard for, determined to leave it in ruins.

Not a single building remained. Thousands of farmhouses and houses have been demolished, fruit trees have been cut down, bridges and railway stations have been blown up, and reservoirs and wells have been poisoned. When all the troops retreated to the Hindenburg Line, the earth was scorched with the rigidity and discipline of the Germans. This very strong defensive position stretched from the south of Arras to the undulating hills overlooking the Aisne, where the French reserve army group was stationed.

Here the German line bent westward along the ridge known as Sherman-de-Dam. It was a natural tactical stronghold, and the delivery of supplies would not be seen by the Entente. In the history of warfare, there was no previous defensive system more impregnable than the Hindenburg Line, and in particular, General Nevelle, who commanded the Allied forces, had no clue how to use air superiority.

The night of the village disappeared into flames, the first proof of the abandonment of their salient by the Germans. While the command palace at the front suggested an immediate assault on the weakened line, Nivel learned of the enemy's retreat. But Nivelle and his aides dismissed the reports as seditious. The French General Staff issued an order prohibiting the spread of such "rumors of disobedience". Because if Nivel had admitted the reality of the enemy's voluntary retreat, he would have to write off the complex strategy that had developed over the past few months. For Neville, who was immersed in his perfect plan, it was tantamount to admitting defeat, so the allusion to the cover-up was once again played out in faraway France.

The German troops, who retreated in a phased and organized manner, began to retreat at midnight every day. By 4 a.m., most of the soldiers had abandoned their trench lines, leaving behind a small squad of machine-gun sentinels to strafe any advancing troops. At dawn, the sentinels also withdrew. By 19 March, the salient was empty of German troops, and the retreat had been completed without loss.

When the French troops entered the charred salient, the land around them was uninhabitable and dangerous. There are traps everywhere. Before soldiers and equipment could advance, destroyed roads and bridges had to be rebuilt. Hungry civilians need food and shelter. There were more rats than people on the ground, devouring dead horses and other livestock killed by the Germans. The ubiquitous severed palm mines are another fruit of Sino-German military cooperation, but this time it is the turn of China's allies in the Entente.

The reconquest of the salient at a very small cost made Nivel win the cheers of his countrymen, and the French people did not know that if 10,000 pigs were allowed to enter, the reconquest would not be diminished, and perhaps the casualties would be much smaller. At various rallies and social gatherings, civilians congratulated each other on the country's good fortune to have such a brilliant strategist as commander-in-chief. However, the front-line soldiers felt the opposite, and their march was not like a victory. Nivel could not find a salient to strike, and declared that the battle would go as planned, but that the main direction of attack would be Sherman de Damm, at the southern end of the Hindenburg Line.

Nivell decided that the withdrawal was a trivial matter, and that a few tactical modifications would be all that was needed. At the same time, he will have another problem on the domestic front. Prime Minister Briand's government was replaced on March 19 by the government of an eighty-year-old politician, Alexander 61 Ribaud. Ribo distinguished the appointment of Paul 61 Palleve as Minister of the Army, a very different from his predecessor.

When Panlewe first arrived at the ministry, he met with Nivel to learn about his plans. After a brief pleasantries, the outright Pellewe bluntly declared that if he had been a minister at the time of Chafy's dismissal, he would have chosen Pétain as commander-in-chief. Then he moved on to military issues. He told Nivelle that he was disturbed by the fact that he had learned that his battle plan included the exact date of the attack, April 16, and that he was talking about it in the salons, cafés, and other places throughout Paris.

The minister insisted that, in addition to the possibility that the enemy would know the details and exact dates, this plan had of course been canceled with the withdrawal of German troops. Moreover, Tsar Nicholas had abdicated on March 15, leaving Russia ready for peace, thus freeing many German divisions to support the Western Front. When Nivel was sure that there would only be a slight change in the offensive, Pan Lewe blinked in surprise, and he really couldn't understand what the veteran was planning to do.

Because the salient no longer exists, Nivel explained, French artillery and troops would go to the German front line to open gaps and then fan out behind the bewildered enemy to destroy their trench systems. The French losses would have been insignificant, Nivel continued, since the Hindenburg line could not withstand the hammering of the French siege artillery.

"I'm not worried about the numbers, the more the numbers, the bigger the win," Nivel said. Pan Lewe was bewildered. When Nevelle announced his plan, it sounded like a repetition of the wisdom of Xia Fei's two years of disaster on the Western Front.

Feeling that disaster was imminent, Palleway began to scrutinize Nivel's plans. He allowed rumors of his intentions to spread. Commanders of all sides immediately raised many doubts with him. Panleway heard from them that the entire strategy of Nivel needed to be revised as a result of the German withdrawal from the salient. The minister was told again and again that the imminent fall of Russia would put many powerful German divisions to reinforce the already heavily fortified Hindenburg Line. However, Neville, who insisted on going his own way, still put into practice his plan that even the maid of the beer hall in Munich could talk about, and there was no choice but to defeat the Allied army on the Western Front except for the Chinese expeditionary force.

As time was running out, Panleway decided to dissuade Nevel as much as possible, and invited him to a banquet at the War Headquarters on April 3. Other guests included Prime Minister Ribeau and Andrea 61 Maginot Colonial Minister. Bellaway wittily explained to Nivel all the facts that were not in favor of his plans, emphasizing the great benefits of waiting for the United States to enter the war.

Nivelle repeated his decision to attack. Germany retreated on its own initiative because of lack of strength, and only minor changes were needed to make some changes to the French plan, and any contrary view was the product of ignorance. Nivelle once again assured his audience that this massive offensive would end the big battle in a matter of weeks.

Minister Panlewe took Nivel's hand and said, "General, if the result of your attack is simply to return our vast territory and all that it contains, the government and the country will consider it a great victory and will thank you greatly. Nevelle smiled back: "That's nothing, it's just a small tactical victory." The 1,200,000 soldiers, 5,000 cannons, and 500,000 horses that I have gathered on the Aisne are not for such a small success. This game doesn't count. ”

But the German defense system was now combat-ready, based on a completely new strategy. The traditional series of trenches, a mile or more deep, have been replaced by thousands of concrete pillboxes riddled with machine guns. An attack on any machine-gun bunker will incur fire from the surrounding machine-gun bunkers. Behind the machine-gun bunkers, there was a complex setting of thousands of underground shelters, in addition to natural caverns, which would cover the troops during heavy bombardment. When barrage fire stops, the defenders will rush forward to repel any French units that may have crossed the machine-gun pillboxes. The so-called "elastic defense" of the German army was designed to quickly and thoroughly thwart the campaign launched by Nivel.

Nivelle is responsible for another serious setback. His original plan assumed that his forty-four French divisions would be vastly superior to the enemy's nine. However, the Germans had drawn enough troops from Russia and other fronts to assemble forty-three full divisions and deploy along the Hindenburg Line. When Nivel was told of the new ratio, he ignored it, believing it irrelevant.

On April 15, on the eve of the offensive, darkness fell, the cold, windswept rain began to turn to sleet, and the temperature dropped rapidly. The soldiers walked with difficulty to their positions, the mud ankle-deep, their shirts soaked from the rain, and slowly exhausted their energy. Arriving at their attack position, they huddled together under the heavy rain and snow while the company commander read out Nivel's order for the day: "The time has come!" Courage and faith! Long live France! ”

During the all-night barrage fire of French artillery, hundreds of thousands of troops moved forward. Despite the freezing rain, the soldiers felt a new strength, and people were in awe of the tremendous show of force. Earlier that day, the blue uniforms on both sides stretched to the horizon without exaggeration. Morale has never been so high since August 1914.

Before dawn, when the whistle of the assault sounded, the troops climbed the ladder inside the trench to "climb to the top of the trench". The reserve battalion advanced next to each other, counting on the slaughter of the enemy. But as they marched through the mud and splashed water, they began to feel very disappointed. Despite the sheer number of French artillery, they could not bombard all enemy areas. The barbed wire fences in Germany were hung with cow bells, and when French soldiers tripped over the barbed wire in the dark, the bells jingled to bells.

Where the French shells blew up the barbed wire, the Germans lit yellow flames on the spot. Under the fire, the attacking troops were knocked out by artillery and machine-gun fire. Based on Mangrang's calculations, the Xu Jin barrage shot faster than the soldiers were able to advance. Without the cover of artillery fire, the French soldiers paid a great price.

Unable to bypass the tactical positions of the defense and attack the German positions in the rear, the French soldiers fell into mud-filled craters. Exploding shells and machine-gun bullets came at them. By 7 a.m., Nivell's schedule was a mess. The French battalions were scheduled to enter the offensive trenches every fifteen minutes. As the troops faltered and crawled back, those who were in the trenches behind them could not advance, and those who followed fell on top of them in a heap.

In their headquarters, the members of the General Staff did not understand the desperate situation they had found themselves in, and thought that some nasty machine-gun bunkers were causing delays, but these bunkers would soon be dumb. Manjean gave another order to move forward. His Sixth Army, which was sent to carry out a frontal offensive, was ordered to "...... Do not allow the enemy to establish a continuous machine-gun line. You must take advantage of the gap, through the strongholds of resistance".

There are not many gaps left, and they are all passages for thousands of French people to the afterlife. By noon, rain and snow were falling so densely that both visual communication and aerial observation were impossible. The gunners could not see their advancing troops. The artillery commander, acting on the basis of confused reports, assumed that the soldiers had not yet left the trenches. They brought the barrage back to the starting point and fired tons of shells at the advancing French troops.

This was the first battle in which the French used tanks on a large scale, but most of the 200 tanks were bogged down in the quagmire due to the wrong location and became easy targets for artillery fire. At 2:30 p.m., the Germans counterattacked. By dusk, the French had advanced six hundred yards instead of the six miles planned by Nivel. It was only the bravery of the French troops that prevented the Germans from driving them back further. Even one of the enemies of Crown Prince Wilhelm praised "the personal bravery of the French soldiers."

The brave Senegalese, for the first time, failed their French partners. The icy rain and snow were their fatal wounds. Their frostbitten hands could not hold rifles, and they staggered forward until their officers were killed. Then they turned around and hurried to the rear.

The most tragic of all was the complete collapse of the medical service in France, which had always been inefficient. Preparations were made for 15,000 wounded, but the total number of casualties on the first day was 90,000. A hospital has only four thermometers to feed 3,500 beds. There was a lack of even the most basic medical equipment to care for the wounded, so they had to lie down in the mud. The Chinese angels were unable to save such a large herd of wounded soldiers, pulling alarm ambulances, troop carriers, private cars, pick-up vans, and even the four-wheeled carriages of the monastery transporting wine, transporting the sick from all directions to the Chinese Expeditionary Force's field hospital in Chalon. The six operating rooms are always carrying out more than two surgeries, and in the corridors, in the doctor's office and even in the nurses' station, all the tables have become operating tables, and at the most stressful times, even the nurses who have been in the field for more than two years have become the chief surgeons, with the help of a few local nurses, doing the work of cutting open limbs to find shrapnel and then suture them.

Although there are no accurate statistics on how many wounded soldiers were rescued by Chinese doctors and nurses, there were at least a few soldiers who died on the way to the rear after leaving the Chinese field hospital for 20 days. A total of 1,357 wounded soldiers from various countries were buried in the woods outside the field hospital in Chalon, and a dry 20-cubic-meter cistern became a collection place for amputated limbs.

The furthest Nivel advanced was on 17 April, when his troops captured the fort of Malmeson, a two-and-a-half-mile advance. In fact, it was the withdrawal of German troops from this salient in order to regroup. For the next two weeks, the Germans and the French fought fiercely on almost fixed fronts. Reports of the massacre at Sherman de Damm were wildly exaggerated as they spread among the soldiers. More isolated slogans are heard, "Down with the war!" "Down with the clumsy general!" Troops on leave waved red flags and sang revolutionary songs.

Even the officers began to protest against Nivell's strategy. When Secretary of War Panlewe toured the Aine defense area, his worst suspicions were confirmed. He heard first-hand reports from the officers, who complained: "This is a step backwards. We didn't learn a single thing. We are still sticking to the 1915 tactics. Of course, we will receive herald awards and medals, but we don't care. We would rather throw them on the heads of the leaders. We are not concerned with honour, but with smarter policies that save more lives. ”

In the end, even Nivel had to recognize that his offensive was a catastrophe. In this moment of crisis, the truth about Nivelle is revealed. He sought a scapegoat, suggesting to Panlewe and the other ministers that the rout was Manjean's fault, but his attempts to pass the buck were ruthlessly rejected.

Apparently in a hysterical outburst, Nivel went to the headquarters of General Alfred 61 Mishrer in Dorman, lashed out in the conference room, and screamed at his men in front of the latter's subordinates. But Mishler is not a man who quietly endures scolding. Regardless of his ranks, he attacked his commander-in-chief. He shouted, "You want me to be responsible for your mistakes, and I have never stopped warning you about your mistakes." Do you know what this behavior is called?" He asked. "Hey, that's called cowardice!" Nivel flinched under the words of his men, staggered into his car as if drunk, and drove away.

During the Nivelre offensive, the official French history lists 96,000 casualties, which is highly improbable. French military historian Richard 61 General Tuman, reported that the number of French casualties was 180,000. Tuman served as a front-line officer during the war. He was completely sympathetic to his colleagues and people of the same position, and there was no reason to make up this figure and disgrace them. Others put the losses at more than two hundred thousand, and as for the Germans, they dealt more blows to the enemy than they received, admitting the number of 160,000 casualties.

In the twenty-one month of war, the French army had suffered more than three million casualties. The French troops were generally brave and mentally prepared for the suffering caused by the war, but they would never again be driven to be slaughtered. After all legal means of seeking redress were denied, the troops rebelled, which amounted to almost a mutiny against the front-line troops. For the next two months, the French Army was paralyzed.