Perhaps the story of saving GIs can be regarded as a national attention in peacetime, but in the third year of World War I, where thousands of young people are killed every day, it is already a common thing, and if it were not for the hundreds of Chinese soldiers who crossed dozens of kilometers to capture the flag, the life and death of such a soldier would not have paid attention at all. Although the incident was not reported for the safety of the villagers of Bertlan, the legendary experience of the Juque battle group still surprised the Allies. And the Germans, for their part, had to re-evaluate the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army.

After this battle, the most obvious consequences were three consequences: first, the Yuansi finally had his own position in the Allied Command, and the ability to come and go freely in the midst of the army was not something that the British and French generals, who were accustomed to fighting conventional operations, dared to imagine, and no one planned to treat these Chinese soldiers as the Indian A-3 who was entangled in the trenches and broke up the trenches, and the independent command of the expeditionary force was truly confirmed; The second is that the Germans began to seriously study those tactics and weapons imported from China before the war, light * gas is easy to use, this has been verified, mustard gas is also good, or a by-product of civilian products, not to mention the effect of the cost of a big advantage, what else is Louis morale, the effect of sand * forest is leveraged, that is, the price is too expensive. And this time the Chinese's wheeled armored parade made the Germans brainstormed, encountering such troops, ordinary infantry can not bear, large and small artillery fire can not catch up, unless the other party itself sends to the door, otherwise there is really no good way to restrain it, the cottage is not a Chinese patent, the Germans also honestly and unceremoniously welded a group of transport vehicles on steel plates, mounted machine guns and rapid-fire guns, although not comparable to real wheeled armor, but it is still quite useful to chase the dead and chase north, and the rear compartment space is large, With a squad of soldiers running around the world, the French probably didn't have many good ways to catch them; Third, the fear of sending troops to Europe within the Wehrmacht has been swept away. In fact, before the European Air Force went on the road, there was this fear of the great powers, but it was the Qing Dynasty in front of him who was too cowardly, so that the older generation of soldiers could not straighten their waists. The Air Force has fought brilliantly, but China's superiority in aviation is obvious, so the Air Force's achievements have not relieved the worries in the army, but the first battle of the expeditionary force has finally given all walks of life in the country the confidence to speak hard, and the next round of battles has also become a gilded avenue for everyone in the army to strive for.

With this 48-hour quick victory, the Germans carefully planned a tactical assault for half a year, coupled with the news that the Germans began to transform the cottage wheeled armor, the Anglo-French alliance was a numb claw, and the old general Xia Fei ran to the Elysee Palace every day to pinch President Poincarre's neck to ask for armored vehicles, and also named Chinese-made wheeled armor, as if without this kind of magic weapon, France would be wiped out.

Just when the heads of the French logistics department were forced to almost commit suicide, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suddenly came with good news: Dr. Lu Zhengxiang, the Chinese Foreign Minister who was visiting London, heard of the plight of the French allies and urgently asked for instructions from the country, and with the accommodation of Wu Daguan, the arms of the expeditionary force that were originally going to be equipped with the second batch of rotational battles were first allocated to the French army, including 120 wheeled armored fighting vehicles and 80 wheeled armored transport vehicles. 2,000 water-cooled heavy machine guns imitating Makqin, 400 60-caliber mortars, and 120 12.7-mm twin-mounted anti-aircraft machine guns actually said to be prepared for the second batch of expeditionary forces of less than two divisions, and if such a huge batch of arms were handed over to British colonial soldiers, a regiment armed with 100,000 men would be enough. But this is not the time to calculate with the Chinese profiteers, France and Britain together, or swallow all this batch of arms, although the caliber of the bullets is inconsistent, but if you equip a troop, you can barely make do, and the 20 base ammunition on the Chinese cargo ship is enough to top for a while, and it is not a big deal to use the share of Gengzi compensation to reduce a part, and it will not cost much.

The reason why the French were so anxious to get the goods, in addition to the eye-catching performance of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, was that they were planning an offensive that they thought would decide the outcome of the war on the Western Front, and the secret weapon that the British allies came up with was the Mark 1, which was called a water tank, and the French did not want only the British tanks to shine on the Western Front. Of course, this reason was still not explained to the Yuanji, in fact, even the planned Battle of the Somme was kept by the French and British from the Chinese Expeditionary Force, but in the face of advanced listening instruments and Wu Zongzuo's predictive ability, this is no secret.

Originally, the battle was part of the Allied general strategic offensive plan of 1916, but after the Chinese expeditionary force quickly thwarted the German attempt to approach the canal, the situation of the Allies was much better than in the original history. The contents of the battle plan were as follows: under the unified command of General Foch, the 6th Army of General Fayole of France and the 4th Army of General Rawlinson of Great Britain were responsible for breaking through the defensive positions of the 2nd Army of General von 61 Belo of Germany in the area of Fukokur and Ebitene (40 km); and used cavalry corps to open a breakthrough to Peronne and Mauborges, which were under the responsibility of the French army, and Babom, Cambrai, which were under the responsibility of the British army. The British and French forces had 32 infantry divisions and 6 cavalry divisions, 2,189 artillery pieces, 1,160 mortars, and about 300 aircraft; The German 2nd Army had 8 infantry divisions, 672 artillery pieces, 300 mortars and 114 aircraft. The German defense consisted of 3 positions, with a total depth of 7~8 kilometers.

This duel, which the two sides had been preparing for for more than five months, began with a week's shelling as the opening remarks, and although the first German position was almost completely destroyed and the second position was partially destroyed, it lost the initiative that the offensive operation should maintain in terms of tactics. If it were the Wehrmacht, they might find an early morning surprise attack and then open artillery to suppress the opponent's firepower in depth, and then take advantage of the opponent's chaos to use the air force to cut off the battlefield, and then overturn the enemy in two or three trenches in one go, and then release a few rapid mobile forces to insert into the opponent's depth, turning the world upside down, while the infantry and artillery of their own side will consolidate the position they occupy first, according to this method of play, not to mention the total annihilation of one of the opponent's group armies, at least they can inflict heavy damage on them, and it will not take many shells to go there, and the casualties will definitely not exceed 10%. It's a pity that this kind of combat has extremely high requirements for the cooperation of infantry, artillery, armored troops, and aviation troops, and there is no prior training and comprehensive communication equipment, as well as a well-trained staff organization, then this kind of integrated combat cannot be fought at all, and Lieutenant General Xiao Mingfeng of the Yuansi Division did not propose to the arrogant rooster and Niu Niu generals at all, anyway, they will not understand, right?

Finally, as in history, the British 4th Army (commanded by General Rawlinson) carried out the main assault in the direction of Babom 25 kilometers from Maricourt to Ebyten, covered by the 7th Army of the British 3rd Army on its left flank; The French 6th Army (commanded by General Fayolle) carried out an auxiliary assault from both banks of the Somme, north of Rossier, in the direction of Peronne. On the same day, the French and British right flanks broke through the first line of German positions (if they could still find the first line of defense from similar terrain on the surface of the moon), but the British left flank was blocked by German trench positions. The British army was really stupid to use a dense formation assault, and was killed and wounded by the powerful fire of the German Maxim machine gun, and the German army, who learned how to build a trench system and crossfire, finally had a place to use, and the British lost nearly 60,000 people in front of this small position, casting the reputation of Maxim as a murderous person and the reputation of a human meat grinder in the Battle of the Somme, but Wu Chenxuan taught the Germans a trench system that few people mentioned, anyway, Wu Zongzuo himself had no intention of asking for patent fees, and the right was to support the Aryan brothers, Who made our Wehrmacht all live Lei Feng!

In the first few days of July, the right flank of the British army and the French army captured the second line of German positions, and the French army once occupied Balle, Biash and other German defensive points. In the days that followed, the advance was slow due to the German commitment to the reserve forces and the serious shortcomings of the British and French forces themselves in terms of breakthrough tactics and command and control (cumbersome regulations for assaults in various areas, limiting the initiative of the troops, etc.). The Germans were no quicker than them, but the side of the defense always made better use of their time. The German command also threw in a new wave of reserve troops, and in order to facilitate command, the 2nd Army was divided into the 1st Army under the command of General Bellow and the 2nd Army under the command of General Galwitz.

In mid-July, the British and French forces advanced only a few kilometers and did not achieve the expected objectives of the operation. From the end of July to mid-August, the British and French forces strengthened their forces to 51 divisions and increased the number of aircraft to 500; The German army increased to 31 divisions and 300 aircraft, and due to the sluggishness and stalemate of the operation, this blitzkrieg unsurprisingly turned into a war of attrition.

Finally the British lost their patience and they decided to turn over their hole cards and their water tank came into play. For the first time, the British army used a new weapon, tanks (a total of 49 tanks, only 18 actually participated in the battle), cooperated with the infantry attack, and advanced 4~5 kilometers. This was the first time in the history of warfare that tanks were used, and it had a psychological shock to the German infantry on the defending side, causing them to abandon their positions and retreat without a fight. However, due to the fact that the technology and equipment of the tank were not yet perfect, and the battle front was wide (18 tanks in 10 km), the operational goal of opening a breakthrough was still not achieved, and the successful use of the tactical level did not lead to the victory of the operation. Although the British army later used tanks twice, it was also not very effective, but the Germans began to learn how to deal with the enemy's behemoth.

On the contrary, it was the wheeled armor imported from China by the French side that once again shone on the battlefield. 200 wheeled armor concentrated in the back of the French Sixth Army, the French specially assigned a regiment of infantry and 300 car drivers to take over the vehicles, under the guidance of the Chinese Expeditionary Force Tai'a Battle Group, they finally learned simple operations and tactics within a week, although China did not give them the car radio, and the tires are also solid rubber tires, compared to the Chinese Expeditionary Force itself equipped with self-inflated bulletproof tires, but it has also met the expectations of the French.

The French at least followed the basic principle of using armored forces, that is, concentration and mobility, and when the Sixth Army was also overshadowed in front of the German Maxim, the assault group composed of 200 Chinese tanks boldly carried out a penetration, breaking into the enemy defense line for 5 kilometers in an hour, and even directly occupied a German ammunition supply point, causing panic among the German troops. However, in the face of the cheating command system of the French army, the generals did not expect that this force of less than 4,000 men would make such an astonishing progress, and did not formulate a subsequent plan of action, but only ordered them to hold the supply point they occupied, and wait for the infantry behind to arrive.

Lieutenant General Xiao Mingfeng, Brigadier General Zhu Yunjie, and other generals were shocked and saddened by this order from the French General Headquarters, and they understood that this would mean that this wheeled armored assault group trained by Chinese soldiers would withstand the fierce counterattack of German artillery fire, and their mobility would not be used at all, and the stubbornness and stupidity of the French would have buried the opportunity to change the battle. Perhaps the general seat is right, the French soldiers at this time did not lack courage and quality, what they really lacked was generals who dared to change.