"Artillery first, please!"

William looked proudly at his chief of staff, who was already in a cold sweat on his head, and he believed that with his strong intervention and strong execution methods, this battle would definitely go according to his plan.

"Your Excellency, my Chief of Staff, you know that the time has come when this matter has to be resolved, and we must attack. You must know that the capture of those front-line officers has completely lost the suddenness of the battle, and we must attack immediately, so please do not hesitate any longer! ”

But what he didn't say was that the phrase "artillery first, please" was enough to make the chief of staff hesitate, knowing that the French "thousands" of attacking troops were now mixed with the retreating German soldiers.

Who knows, Prince William, who already thinks he has mastered the situation at the front, does not even listen to the advice of his chief of staff, which does not reflect the iron-blooded spirit of the soldiers.

"Artillerymen first, first of all, we use our large-caliber artillery to cover fire at their positions, I think this will make those French cowards immediately think of retreating!"

The chief of staff found that the prince was looking at him as if he were looking at a French officer, and the cold eyes seemed to force him to surrender immediately.

"An hour or ...... Still is...... No, half an hour, let's assume that they have withdrawn to the line of initiation of their attack, and we will shell there for another hour. We will then use the three main infantry divisions to make a quick assault, flank their assault forces, cut off their retreat, and then ...... My chief of staff, sir, and then the only mobile force of the French army in the Verdun direction will fall into our pockets! By then......"

As he spoke, the look on Prince William's face finally recovered from the blow he had started. There was no coldness in his eyes, there was a hint of joy, as if he had already obtained the victory that was easy to win in his eyes.

At the moment, the real situation at the front is like this.

In the eyes of a large number of captured or surviving German soldiers, the French soldiers hurried and carefully burned their wounded chariots.

At the same time, they did not take in prisoners at all, except for the officers, and the German soldiers were simply confiscated with weapons, which were now burned into a pile of black garbage in the flames of the flamethrower's fuel oil.

After the disarmed soldiers were dismissed on the spot, they did not know where to go. In his horrified gaze, the French chariots, which were unknowingly good, were turning their heads and retreating.

This was a relief to the surviving German soldiers, who sat down on the floor one by one in frustration, intending to catch their breath. Without the leadership of the officer, they took out the cigarettes left by the French soldiers who searched them from their pockets, intending to relax and calm their fears.

At this time, at 10 o'clock in the morning of February 3, 1916, when the fog had completely cleared, and the weather was still overcast but the clouds were clearly thin, some terrible sounds reached their ears and rang their ear drums.

The air trembled as the main artillery group fired, followed by the piercing screech of a large number of shells flying through the air. If in previous attacks, German soldiers would have been delighted to hear such a voice, and then today......

The dense artillery fire was clearly aimed at those of them who had just been tortured by the French tanks.

The veterans' faces were pale one by one, and according to the large and small shells of different calibers and powers in the air, they were just experiencing the fire attack of the French army.

Before the cigarette butts that had just been lit had time to smoke, the cigarettes fell to the ground one by one in the hands that were released. The messy legs in the boots began to run messily up the position.

Heart-rending cries rang out among the disarmed German soldiers, but heavy artillery fire drowned out their shouts.

As the body fell, the artillery fire extended!

In order to ensure the success of the assault in the Verdun area, the Germans concentrated 1,200 artillery pieces of various calibers and 202 mortars in this direction, and now they are carrying out the task of opening the way for the infantry to attack later.

(The first release of this book) does not laugh at group A: 35761481; Email: [email protected].

The Hunter Regiment, which carried out the "short assault", after completing its mission, left the positions of the German side in a fast-moving tank, and was out of the range of German artillery fire in time.

As a result of the time they had gained, the Algiers Infantry Regiment, which had been beaten to pieces by the German shelling, broke away from contact with the Germans and withdrew to its own positions.

As a result of their escape, the enraged German Crown Prince immediately mobilized the Brandenburg Third Army, the most elite of the entire Fifth Army, to launch a formal attack on the French.

With Prince William's order, in order to attack Verdun, a large number of each cannon was concentrated, including 420 mm siege guns, 130 mm rapid-fire guns, and 542 mine-throwers and other high-power artillery fire were placed on the front line of the attack, pouring hundreds of thousands of shells of various calibers on the French army in Verdun.

The strength of the French troops in the Verdun direction was twice as small as the German infantry, and the difference in artillery was 3.5 times.

The French 3rd Army was responsible for the defense of the area, with 11 divisions and more than 630 artillery pieces, under the command of General F. Eldun, of which 5 divisions defended the area north of Verdun, 3 divisions defended the area east and southeast of Verdun, and the other 3 divisions were deployed as reserves in the area south of Verdun on the west bank of the Meuse, and H.P. Pétain was appointed commander of the Verdun front by General Chauffy.

If you look at it from the point of view of the old style of warfare, then the strength of the French army is not worth mentioning at all, and it is difficult to withstand the attack of the elite German Fifth Army.

But this was actually an attempt at a new type of warfare, and 500 of the latest "Benlei" attack planes were now deployed at the airfield behind Verdun, ready to do their best to resist the German attack.

In addition, there was the 1st Assault Cavalry Division, which was completely completely new for the French army, and their task was to extinguish even the slightest breach made by the Germans on any front.

Originally, this method of arranging the French army, which tended to be modern warfare, was impeccable. However, Prince William's temporary change of time for the start of the war immediately put the French army at a disadvantage.

The great air battle just now caused considerable losses to the fighters on the French side, and it was difficult to effectively escort the Benlei attack planes, so they could not immediately attack the German heavy artillery positions.

At the same time, the eight-hour artillery attack, which began at about one o'clock in the afternoon, delayed the first wave of the German infantry attack until 9 o'clock in the evening.

At night, the French army completely lost some of the superiority they occupied in weapons, and it was actually the superiority in the air, which was almost not reflected in the slightest.

For this reason, whether it was the French 1st Assault Cavalry Division or General Xia Fei of the French High Command, they almost stayed awake all night. Almost everyone was sure that it was going to be a particularly ferocious and brutal, extraordinary night.