Chapter 18: Collapse

Glenn was a little incoherent with excitement, but the officers who were also carried away by anger only heard the word attack in their ears. They rushed to their respective troops. The staff officers also lost their usual calmness and sanity, picked up the telephones one after another, and began to issue orders.

The troops were quickly assembled. The officers roared wildly at the front of the line, telling the soldiers about the humiliating scene in front of the position. The blood of the soldiers was aroused, and one by one they were filled with righteous indignation, vowing to make the despicable and shameless Germans pay.

The troops entered the starting position, and the tanks drove to the edge of the woods, and when Glenn gave the order, they were ready to launch the heaviest attack on the Germans.

Glenn, on the other hand, had now recovered from the rage he had seen earlier, and he felt a little undecided. As soon as Glenn calmed down, he began to regret that he had given the order to attack the whole army in a hurry, but it was impossible to revoke the order, and he was now in a difficult situation. What the Germans had done in front of the position made it obvious to them that it was a trap aimed at completely angering the British. However, if the order to attack is withdrawn now, the morale that has been boosted will suddenly fall to the lowest point again, and the enraged soldiers will not understand their intentions and may begin to distrust themselves. The officers also hold a grudge against themselves because they prevent them from avenging their honor. Glenn looked at the German position and thought about what to do.

"Colonel, the team has entered the offensive position, please give the order." An officer stepped forward and urged.

Glenn finally made up his mind, and now he can't revoke the order no matter what, so he simply let the soldiers start attacking with a bloody courage, maybe they can get unexpected results. Perhaps the Germans were bluffing, and they wanted to think that they had set a trap, when in fact they were only doing something from outside. If such a general charge could not take down the Germans, then he would have even more reason to retreat. So Glenn finally nodded and issued the order to attack. Then Glenn turned around, turned his back to the battlefield and closed his eyes, silently praying for the success of the battle, waiting for the result.

In an instant, the entire British ** team broke out with a shocking shout, and slowly pressed towards the German position with overwhelming momentum.

Xu Jun held the binoculars and looked at the British soldiers walking towards his position with firm steps, and couldn't help but show a look of anger. The commander of the opposing side was either an idiot or a madman, and he would let nearly 3,000 people from two regiments attack this position at the same time, which is only 700 meters long. The ranks could not disperse, they were all lined up in a dense formation, which was simply sending the soldiers to their deaths. He doesn't seem to have learned the lesson of the last time, and this time the coordination of tanks and infantry seems to be more chaotic. The tanks and infantry were mixed together, and the whole formation was like a plate of unmixed salad, mixed with the noise and slowly pressed over. However, the other party has finally learned to be obedient, and the first few British soldiers are wearing gas masks, and it seems that they have finally learned their pepper smoke bombs.

"Using smoke bombs is a ploy that you can't force to come up with, and now it's no longer your turn to use that kind of thing, and there's something more exciting waiting for you. Don't blame me, this is war! Xu Jun was ruthless and nodded to Muller on the side.

"Let's go!"

"Yes! Checkmate. Mueller replied loudly, then picked up the phone and said, "The general orders." Begin! ”

With a shrill howl, the first round of shells fell on the British crowd. Immediately, flesh and blood flew everywhere, and corpses were everywhere. But the British soldiers were not intimidated by this burst of shelling, they only spread out a little formation, erupted into a wilder roar, and began to charge with all their strength towards the German position. Tanks also on one side with 12. The 7-mm machine guns strafed the German positions, increasing their horsepower and advancing at full speed.

At this time, a group of soldiers on the German position climbed out of the trench in the rain of bullets, ran to the pile of armored car wreckage next to the hillside, and began to push the wreckage of the armored car with great effort. One soldier was shot and fell, and several more soldiers rushed up. As the wreckage of those armored vehicles was removed, the 88-mm anti-aircraft gun positions hidden behind were exposed. With a wave of the artillery commander's hand, the 88-mm anti-aircraft guns began to fire rapidly at the British tank group. With the muffled sound of the six flag-18s, the 60-millimeter-thick frontal armor of the British Matilda tank was torn apart and pierced like paper. In an instant, more than a dozen of these 6,000 pounds worth of fires were lit in the field.

The rest of the Matilda hesitated to retreat, but once again the infantry blocked their way.

The second and third rounds of heavy artillery shells smashed into the infantry group. Shrapnel, rags, guns, equipment, and severed arms of all kinds flew all over the sky. Every shell frantically harvested the lives of British soldiers in double-digit numbers. But this did not shake the resolve of the British infantrymen, who continued to charge at the German positions with shouts and shouts, despite the shells that exploded around them and the corpses of their brothers flying everywhere. Until suddenly another sound sounded on the battlefield, the whistling sound of an aircraft engine as it dived.

The British soldiers couldn't help but look up. They saw a sight they would never forget. I don't know when the sky over the battlefield was already covered in darkness and oppressive German planes. There was the huge and nimble ju88, and the "Stuka" that made all British soldiers fearful. They circled and lined up in a three-plane formation, and then one after the other began to dive down the battlefield. The terrifying screams of dive bombing simply drowned out the explosions of German shells. As those planes swept by, various aerial bombs of 250 kg to 500 kg fell on the heads of the soldiers like rain.

Exploding fireballs struck the battlefield. The soldiers' minds were finally a little sober. The previous breath of blood had been wiped out by this terrifying bombardment. A sense of powerlessness and despair ensued. Some of the veterans began to prepare to escape. They felt that they would never be able to make it through this terrible line of fire alive, let alone that there were German machine guns and grenades waiting for them behind them. Some of the soldiers, whose spirits had broken down, fell to their knees crying and stretched out their hands to the sky praying that God would save them, before being torn to shreds by the next bomb.

The British officers looked at the German dive bombers whizzing overhead in horror, realizing that they could not win victory now, and if they continued to stay on the battlefield, they would be sending them to death, so they abandoned their soldiers and fled towards the starting position, between honor and survival, they firmly chose the latter.

But this time the Germans did not seem to want to let them go, and artillery fire and bombardment began to extend in the direction of the British positions. With a shout, the German soldiers jumped out of the trenches, rifles with bayonets loaded, and rushed towards the surviving British soldiers. Seeing this scene, the British ** team finally began to collapse on the whole line. The British soldiers threw away their backpacks and rifles, as well as all the baggage on them, and began to flee desperately towards their positions. The wounded soldiers fell to their knees and raised their hands, begging the German soldiers who rushed to their side to mercifully spare themselves, regardless of the fact that they had been gritting their teeth and vowing to kill all the Germans twenty minutes ago.

The German soldiers marched at a devastating pace, and in a moment they crossed the center of the battlefield and rushed into the tank group, which was being pulled behind by the infantry. The Matilda tanks, which could not run fast, had already been frightened by the wanton slaughter of 88mm anti-aircraft guns and the whizzing Stuka, but they were unable to surrender to those things. Now seeing the German soldiers rushing up, the surviving tank crews hurriedly climbed out of their cars and raised their hands towards the German soldiers who were approaching. Among them was their battalion commander, Major Fokos. Today, in order to wash away the shame of yesterday, he specially replaced the commander of this tank with himself. I didn't expect the result of this personal battle to be worse than last time, this time I was captured even with people and cars.

At the time of the collapse of the British army on the front, the rear camp of the 151st Brigade of the British Army was also in chaos. Logisticians and wounded soldiers scramble for seats in trucks. The staff officers were scrambling to deal with the various telegrams and documents at hand, destroying the radio equipment. The troops have been routed, and now no one can care about anyone. Glenn sat in his car and watched the chaos in horror, unable to figure out what he had done wrong. The troops were defeated in a single encounter.

He had a premonition of all this when the first German plane arrived over the battlefield, when he immediately gave the order to the logistics and command to prepare to retreat, but he never expected that the infantry in front of him would collapse so quickly. There wasn't even time for him to pack his bags. With a long sigh, Glenn let the driver start the car and sped in the direction of Arras. He was followed only by his Jingwei Company and a few staff officers' cars. In this way, Glenn left the whole chaotic camp and his poor soldiers far behind him, and threw them at the Germans, who were ferociously pounced;