In the fog of difficult directions, Lieutenant Colonel Ottezig wore a peaked hat and helmet wrapped in canvas, carried a short sword at his waist, and carried Luger 08 in one hand, walking in the same battle formation as the personnel directly under the battalion headquarters. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoThe smoke formed by the mixture of artificial chemical smoke and battlefield gunpowder is like a winter morning fog, obscuring the vision, but it cannot block the transmission of sound, and the fierce gunfire sounds near and far, which makes people can't help but have a nervous sense that danger is around them.

The Germans had been attacking the eastern batteries of the Verdun fortress for a long time, and the smoke grenades they had initially fired had long since failed, and the field artillery had to refill a batch every ten minutes, so the smoke was unevenly distributed on the battlefield. Some soldiers could see the attacking echelon in the front row and then the front row, while others could only see their comrades within a few meters of them, and during the attack, Lieutenant Colonel Ottzig could only see half of his own battalion most of the time, and the soldiers of the friendly and neighboring units could not even see half a shadow. As we got closer to the target, the real thing to worry about was the enemy's blocking fire—if the attacking force had unfortunately been in the concentration of French artillery, Hugh had said that his reinforced infantry battalion, the entire force of the 22nd Division would have been bombarded to pieces within a quarter of an hour.

In this noisy battlefield, the strange silence in front of the fog seemed so eerie. The officers and men belonging to the 22nd Prussian Infantry Division of the German army walked cautiously and steadily, most of them had stiff facial expressions, some people kept swallowing saliva, and the palms of the hands that clenched their rifles were already dripping with sweat.

Da Da Da ...... Da Da Da ......

A coherent burst of machine-gun sounds, bullets whizzed over the heads of the German officers and men, followed by the command to "charge" from the front, urgent, restless, disturbing. Seeing their companions running forward, the soldiers rushed forward without thinking, and in order to keep the existing offensive formation intact, the officers had no choice but to shout the slogan of the charge. In this way, one attack wave after another of the German army automatically switched to the rhythm of the charge, and everyone moved forward bravely, not to be left behind. After rushing up a gentle slope, the German officers and soldiers found that people around them began to be knocked down by oncoming bullets, and a large number of fallen people wearing gray military uniforms appeared on the way forward, and the breath of death instantly became extremely strong.

The crisp sound of machine guns continued, and a short screech struck again. The violent explosion shook the people in a daze, and the German soldiers wearing pointed hats and helmets fell one after another. Compared with the dense formation adopted by the French army during the attack, the casualty rate of the German echelon array in the face of artillery fire was significantly reduced, but the battle scene at this time was still shocking, many German soldiers fell before they could speak, and even severed limbs and stumps flew in the air. After a burst of artillery fire, the ground was littered with the unrecognizable dead, and the wails of the wounded were incessant...... If it weren't for the smoke obscuring the vision, the German soldiers might not have had the courage to continue rushing forward!

A few shells, and in a blink of an eye, half a company of officers and men of the infantry ceased to exist. Seeing such a scene, Lieutenant Colonel Ottzig's eyes widened with rage and his teeth clenched, his belief in defeating the enemy had not diminished in the slightest, but his worries were increasing - the offensive echelon in the front row must not go astray in this fog!

After continuing to advance for a hundred meters, the smoke that lingered in front of him actually dispersed, and the earth-gray outer wall of the fortress suddenly came into view. It bears a very similar profile to the fort forts taken by the Germans earlier, with a high stone wall that appears very strong, and a hand-dug trench with new earth piled up on the edge of the trench. There is no bridge through the trench or the gate to enter the fortress, but the French flag fluttering on the wall and the powerful shells fired from the inside of the fortress confirm its hostile affiliation.

With the goal in sight and the shouts of "attack" everywhere, Ottzig's plan was to try new infantry tactics in the battle, and the battlefield environment at the moment was surprisingly complex, and the pace of the army's attack seemed to be beyond anyone's control.

After a brief hesitation, Ottzig ordered his troops to "crawl on standby" and ordered his lieutenants to find ways to convey this order to every company to which the battalion belonged.

In the fog, the guns were so dense that even the battle column where the battalion headquarters was located failed to carry out Ottzig's orders thoroughly - dozens of soldiers on the right flank did not receive orders in time, and did not realize that their companions had suddenly stopped advancing, they continued to move forward, and soon broke away from the column, thus losing contact.

Despite such episodes, Ottzig was determined to persevere.

The soldiers around him lay down one after another, waiting for the next command in a shooting position, but the lieutenant colonel battalion commander touched the ground on one knee and showed the commander's arrogance and fearlessness in a squatting position. He vaguely saw that the waves of attack ahead were advancing stubbornly under the enemy's bullets, and after paying a heavy price, the German officers and men finally approached the trench. The first few echelons carried ladders and planks to build improvised bridges over the trenches, but only a small number of German soldiers managed to cross the trenches in the face of French gunfire, and most of them entered the trenches to avoid enemy guns.

The French dug the trench deep and wide, so that the soldiers deployed above the fort could condescendingly shoot the German soldiers trapped in the trench from the bunker, or throw grenades and other explosives inside, and the machine gunners were deployed in the lower part of the fort, preventing the Germans from climbing over the trench through the firing holes in the outer wall. In this way, thousands of German officers and soldiers fell into this big trap and struggled helplessly.

Ottziger suddenly felt that he had made the right and important decision.

The two attacking waves that followed closely behind were also the troops under the command of Ottzig, they quickly caught up, and then, like trucks with sudden brakes, barely stopped when they reached the position of the horizontal column where the battalion headquarters was located, and the troops could not retreat in place, so they had to lie on their stomachs tightly, and the troops further behind could hardly pass here without stepping on their companions, so they stopped advancing and prostrate on standby.

Ottzig single-handedly changed the pace of the attack of several regiments, but this was still a trench and a high wall away from success.

A few minutes later, the officer who had been sent to the front to give the order turned back. Thanks to their efforts, about half of the troops at the front received and carried out the combat order of "crawling and standby".

Seeing that the German troops in front of them were either blocked by French artillery fire and fell down to shoot, or had entered the trench in search of an opportunity to attack, Ortezig decisively ordered the front army to carry out cover fire, and personally led the battalion headquarters and the following two companies to advance - the soldiers no longer charged forward with their heads held high, but spread out their formations, released their bonds, and alternated while evading the enemy's artillery fire.

During the advance, soldiers fell almost at every moment, and Ottzig did not waver. After patient tactical deployment, his troops gradually approached a position two or three hundred meters away from the trench. Under the influence of battlefield smoke, the French gunners were unable to accurately target the German personnel at this distance, and the artillery deployed in the fort had ample ammunition reserves, but their shrapnel bombardment was greatly reduced to the enemy infantry crawling on the ground.

Under the command of Ottezig, the front company advanced fifty meters in a skirmish formation, and behind them, the whole battalion provided cover with machine-gun and rifle fire.

Some of the French defenders in the fort noticed the orderly advance of the German troops, and turned their fire to suppress the trenches, but to their great surprise, the German soldiers did not charge as straight as their companions, they distanced themselves from each other, and a shuttle of machine gun bullets used to hit only one or two people, and when they quickly lay down, the machine guns were less effective. At this time, a group of German soldiers in the back pushed forward in the same way, and then decisively prostrate and fired......

Aware of the threat posed by the Ottzig battalion and the subsequent German troops, the French troops guarding the fortress began to use more firepower for frontal interception, and the dense gunfire and artillery fire greatly slowed down the advance of these German soldiers, but this change also gave the German troops trapped in the trench a precious respite, and the officers who attacked with the team adjusted their tactics in time, so that the soldiers used the trench as a position to shoot at the French firing point, covering a small number of soldiers with explosives bags to climb out of the trench and reach the base of the fortress wall. In addition, multiple explosive packs were concentrated and blasted.

After many failures, a group of German soldiers finally managed to pile up more than a dozen explosives packets in one place.

There was a loud bang, and a breach appeared in the south wall of the fortress in the northwest corner of the eastern fort of the Verdun fortress that could be used for cars to enter and exit.

The morale of the German officers and men who were pinned down in the trench was so high that they could not wait to climb out of the trench and try to enter the fortress through this breach, but the French machine guns deployed on this side quickly concentrated their firepower, and in the roar of Hatch Cash, the German soldiers fell in rows, and the unstoppable offensive momentum was stopped!

At the critical moment, the light artillery company of the divisional artillery battalion, which was responsible for supporting the attack, came up. Although their 37mm guns were not enough to penetrate the outer walls of the French fortress, they could attack the French infantry bunkers above the fort from beyond the range of the French artillery's shrapnel grenades, suppressing the French machine-gun fire and covering the attacking troops as best they could.

After several minutes of heavy firefighting, the guns of the French troops on the south side of the fortress "converged" the previous edge, but the German troops who climbed out of the trench were also completely damaged by this time, and only a few dozen people rushed into the fortress, and it was difficult to ensure victory with such strength alone. In this thrilling battle, Ottzig's battalion also suffered heavy casualties, and at this critical juncture, he continued to calmly direct his troops into the attack. The first two companies entered the trench, but no longer alone, they concentrated along the trench towards the breach in the outer wall of the fortress, and the follow-up troops followed in turn, covering their comrades with close-range fire, and it was at this time that many French soldiers who shot through the shooting holes were wounded and killed by bullets or splashing debris.

Seeing that the defenders were weakened, the two regiments of infantry following behind the Ottzig battalion could no longer hold on, and as soon as the officers gave the order to attack, the soldiers charged in orderly formation, and as a result, more than 2,000 casualties were inflicted under the heavy bombardment of French shrapnel grenades.

(End of chapter)