On the morning of October 4, 1914, the German army and navy forces assembled on the east bank of the River Oise launched a second attack on the French line along the river. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 In just one hour, the German army's 20 train guns, 126 light and heavy howitzers, and 320 field guns poured more than 2,000 tons of high-explosive shells on the French forward positions and deep areas, and the fierce shelling turned the west bank of the Oise River into a scorched earth, and even the air became unbearable.

Taking advantage of the chemical smoke obscuring the view of the French defenders, 8,000 elite German advance commandos, supported by 21 Hubert-13 naval tanks, resolutely rushed to the French positions on the opposite bank. The oncoming bullets and machine shells threatened the lives of these German soldiers at all times, but none of them flinched. In the course of the battle, the naval tanks that had been rushing to the front were constantly damaged or broke down, and the German infantry following behind did not stop because of this, but strode forward calmly and bravely.

The open river beach was not the most dangerous area of the battlefield, and before reaching the French trenches, the German infantry had to cross the barbed wire belts on the riverbank, cross the water-filled trenches behind the riverbank, and face machine-gun fire points that had escaped shelling. Since it was difficult for ordinary guns to destroy the French machine-gun bunkers, the infantry had to brave the enemy's close-range fire until they were close enough to throw grenades into the French trenches before they could use wooden-handled grenades to repair the French in the trenches. When the French defensive firepower had weakened considerably, they rushed forward with their bayonets. In this way, batch after batch of German soldiers fell on this difficult offensive road, and the rest of the men continued to go forward until they broke into the French trenches.

The German army and navy fought valiantly on the front line of the Oise River, but they did not know that their rear road was threatened by British troops. On the same morning, the German 32nd Infantry Division under the command of General Sigmund encountered a fierce counterattack by the British expeditionary force on the outskirts of Abwey, and a fierce battle ensued. During the battle, the British shallow-water gunboats in the Somme River once again came into full swing, and their long-range and powerful medium naval guns made the German field artillery almost defenseless. The Germans quickly called in army and naval aviation, but the bombs dropped by the planes could hardly hit the smaller, shallow gunboats with protective armor, and dozens of German planes worked hard for a long time to force only two British gunboats out of the battle.

Under the condition that the artillery was suppressed, the German infantry relied on the improvised positions built in the field to stubbornly resist the onslaught of the British infantry cavalry, and the British army used small boats to transport the infantry up the river and directly threatened the flank of the German 32nd Infantry Division. General Sigmund knew that he was invincible, and after obtaining General Crouc's consent, he quickly led his troops to retreat to Berneville, and Crook hurriedly mobilized reserves to defend the Fréwang-Durand-Amiens line, but the British troops who came across the sea were obviously only interested in Amiens. They continued upstream along the Somme and soon reached Pikini, just ten kilometres from Amiens.

During the First Battle of Amiens, the German Marines captured Pikini from the French, and then used it as an outpost in the north of Amiens, building a relatively complete fortification, which was garrisoned by three naval infantry battalions belonging to the German 1st Naval Brigade, with a combat strength of nearly 2,000 men. During the attack on Amiens, the 1st Marine Brigade, which was the first to go on the offensive, was basically disabled, and after a small half a month of replenishment and recuperation, the number of soldiers had been roughly replenished, but the large losses of officers, non-commissioned officers and veterans made the actual combat effectiveness of the troops much inferior to before, and the British troops they faced were not the old expeditionary force that had been fighting continuously in France and was physically and mentally exhausted, but was composed of the British 6th Infantry Division, the 7th Infantry Division, the 3rd Cavalry Brigade and the 2nd Marine Brigade that had set foot on French soil for the first time, with a total strength of more than 46,000 troops. On the big chessboard of the Western Front, this can only be regarded as a small force, but they are well-armed and well-equipped, retain the enthusiasm to participate in the war for the first time, are fearless, and dare to fight.

The British Army was the smallest of the countries involved in the World War, so much so that when people talked about the number of German, French, Russian, and Austrian land troops and light and heavy weapons, Britain was described as nothing more than "a small, well-trained, well-disciplined professional army". At the beginning of the war, the British Army was organized into 7 divisions, with a total strength of nearly 130,000 people, which was only equivalent to half of the main army of the German army, they lacked land heavy artillery like the French, and the performance of its field guns was not as outstanding as the French M1897, and the advantage in weaponry was mainly the Enfield rifles in the hands of the infantry, in addition, the British army was equipped with Vickers-Mark I heavy machine guns The proportion of heavy machine guns was higher than that of the French army equipped with Hatch Chase and the German army equipped with MG08. This meant that in a head-on confrontation with the same number of infantry, the British army had a slight advantage over the German army at technical level.

The battle of Pikini began at 4 p.m. on 4 October, the British advance was much faster than the German defenders expected, the heavy shelling of the British shallow water gunboats caught the German officers and men off guard, and the well-trained British cavalry and infantry launched a charge, which soon opened a gap in the German line, and the dense machine-gun fire that made the French suffer was unable to withstand the rapid attack of the British army this time. The battle lasted just over an hour, and the German front completely collapsed, with only about 400 men from the three German naval infantry battalions evacuated and the rest either killed or taken prisoner by the British.

The rapid fall of Pickini shocked the German army, and the main force of the 1st Marine Brigade originally stationed in Amiens had been transferred to the front line of the Oise River, and the 3rd Marine Brigade and some army units had just been removed from the front line to take over, and the defenders of the city were only in their early 6,000s. Despite the complete and well-fortified fortifications here, seeing the momentum of the British army's capture of Pikini, Brigadier General William Grientz, commander of the 3rd Marine Brigade, did not dare to make a mistake and hurriedly asked the headquarters of the 1st Marine Division for help.

When the report for help from Amiens was sent to Huttier and Natsuki, the German army and navy had already broken through the French defense line of the Oise River, and the follow-up troops were constantly crossing the Oise, but the French defenders did not retreat on all fronts, they obviously knew that the current situation in the main battlefield east of Paris was very delicate, and if the German troops in front of them were allowed to drive straight in, the consequences could be catastrophic, so they fought extremely stubbornly in the battle, and many positions were lost after the last soldier was killed. Under these circumstances, the German troops crossing the Oise had to spend a lot of time clearing up the remnants of the enemy, and it was not realistic to send a large number of troops from the Oise battlefield back to Amiens. Natsuki then spoke to General Crook's staff on the phone, and learned that the 1st Army had urgently sent three additional infantry regiments from Dulang to Amiens, but they were afraid that they would not be able to draw more reinforcements in the short term. Crook told Natsuki that he had reported to Moltke Jr.'s General Staff about the landing of a large number of British troops in Abwehr, and hoped that the General Staff would be able to mobilize reinforcements from Bülow's 2nd Army, and Moltke Jr. agreed to the request, but Bülow's best divisions had been sent to Prince William, and it was unknown whether he would be able to send enough reinforcements in time. However, Kluke felt that as long as the defenders of Amiens held out for three days, the situation on the battlefield should improve greatly.

Natsuki agrees with Crook that the key question at the moment is whether Amiens can hold on. The loss of this important stronghold could lead to a series of causal relationships that threatened to bury the German position on the Western Front. Therefore, after consulting with Huttier, Natsuki decided to go to Amiens himself to help Brigadier General Grientz fight this defensive battle against the strong.

It was impossible for the naval units that had already been engaged in the battle to be withdrawn, so Natsuki transferred two battalions from the reserves of the 1st Marine Division, along with all the train guns, back to Amiens via the railway line, and before leaving, Natsuki also gave an order to the naval aviation units to have their planes fully equipped to attack the British troops attacking Amiens.

With the historical experience of World War II, the fierce air raids were enough to break up the offensive of the enemy's ground forces, but it was not Messerschmitt and Stuka who were soaring in the blue sky at the moment, but early aircraft with simple structure and low technical content.

After the Battle of Amiens, the land-based aviation units sent by the German Navy to participate in the war were both lost and replenished, and in order to shorten the distance from the front line, they had moved from Dulang to the western suburbs of Amiens, and now have a total of 8 two-seat reconnaissance aircraft, 21 attack aircraft, and 8 long-range bombers. This was the largest deployment of aviation by the German Navy outside the territory of the German Navy since the outbreak of the war, but not everyone understood the military value of aviation forces. The total cost of these 37 aircraft exceeded 8 million marks, which is equivalent to the cost of building a Gloudenz-class cruiser, and in the past month, the "Glaudenz" that accompanied the "Blücher" into the Atlantic Ocean has sunk a total of 11 Allied ships, including a cruise ship transporting troops from Canada to the British mainland, and the disaster directly caused the drowning of more than 600 Canadian soldiers. The bombing campaign launched by the German aviation forces against Paris was far from achieving the desired results, and the French army and civilians continued to resist the German ground offensive with astonishing will. Therefore, at the recent 1915-1916 military budget conference, many people proposed to reduce the expansion of naval aviation and use the saved funds to build more surface ships.

As the route was not disturbed by the French army, Natsuki arrived in the western suburbs of Amiens with a military train carrying naval guns shortly after nightfall. Knowing that the British had launched a tentative offensive on the northern outskirts of Amiens, he ordered the 20 train guns to be deployed on the spot, preparing for a long-range artillery attack on the British attacking troops more than ten kilometers away.

(End of chapter)