"German cavalry!"

At the headquarters of the French 3rd Army in Schelle, the officers suddenly heard such a shout from the window, at first they thought it was another German spy ghost, and they wanted to deal with it calmly, but the fierce gunfire from a distance made them quickly become calm, and then the enemy situation was confirmed: a German cavalry unit of three or four hundred men attacked from the north, and they quickly broke through the interception of the French guards, and now they are rushing towards it with great momentum!

Hearing this bad news, the officers of the command hurriedly arranged for the evacuation of Gallieni, but the Parisian military governor flatly refused. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 InfoThe 65-year-old Galieni pulled his shiny Lebel revolver from his holster and led the command out of the shelter to join the ordinary infantrymen in battle. Perhaps in the eyes of his colleagues, Gallieni's move disregarded the overall situation, is a hero's irrational move, and Gallerini knows very well that the Battle of the Marne also hurt the German army of labor, they hurriedly attacked Paris, the picture is the new defeat of the French army, the army is unstable, the deployment is not strict, in fact, the German army is also the end of the crossbow, only relying on the discipline of the German soldiers and the numerical superiority of heavy artillery to fight two seemingly devastating victories in a row, at this extremely critical moment, the two sides are no longer fighting the overall strength, but a confrontation of will and determination. Whoever can hold out until the last moment will be able to win this battle and even this war.

What could be more motivating than for generals to lead the way in their soldiers?

Rubble towns and cities made it easy for riflemen to find ideal firing positions in the ruins, while cavalry units struggled to exert their might in such places. As a result, the German cavalry continued their one-and-go maneuver, sweeping wide roads and open fields, avoiding town centers where resistance was strong, and attacking exposed French officers and soldiers along the way.

At the most thrilling moment, a group of German cavalry was seventy or eighty meters away from the position of the headquarters of the French 3rd Army, and they seemed to notice the brightly colored red hats of the French generals, so they brandished their swords and rushed over, but the guards of the headquarters and the surrounding French infantry resisted desperately, and bravely and stubbornly repelled the attack of these German cavalry.

After the battle, the surviving French officers and soldiers were surprised to find that the guards stationed on the north side of the small city of Chelesy were almost completely annihilated, and the dead were basically cut to death by the enemy cavalry, leaving shocking remnants at the scene of the battle. The harsh reality once again proved that in the absence of artillery, machine guns and barbed wire, it was difficult for infantry with a clear numerical advantage to fight the enemy cavalry, which also meant that the Germans had a chance to turn the world upside down behind the French lines!

Nowadays, the defensive line built with the villages and towns of Ville-Parisi as the battle base is the forefront of the French army's defense of Paris, and the latter line of defense is located in the suburbs of Paris from Bobigny to Montreuil and the forest of Vincennes, the two lines are separated by seven or eight kilometers. The immediate crisis was temporarily lifted, but communication with the 4th Corps was completely cut off, and the officers of the 3rd Army headquarters became a swarm of ants on a hot pot, they did not know the situation at the front, nor did they know how many German cavalry had broken through the defensive line. At this time, Gallieni showed the composure of a commander-in-chief, and he ordered the headquarters of the 3rd Army to send a company of cavalry to Villeparisi to find out what was going on there, and then made a telephone call to the air command in the rear, asking them to immediately dispatch a third of their combat aircraft to launch an aerial search of the eastern suburbs of Paris, with the goal of infiltrating the German cavalry units that had entered the French defense area.

It was not difficult to find the whereabouts of the German cavalry on the borders of Greater Paris, and how to deal with them was the real problem facing Gallerien and his army. Fighting cavalry against cavalry was probably the best the French could think of right now.

After more than 50 days of a series of battles, the well-trained French cavalry unit lost more than half, so in the hands of Xia Fei, they were almost no longer used for large-scale cluster attacks in the later period, but were dispersed to carry out auxiliary combat tasks such as reconnaissance, raids, alerts, patrols, etc. Of the 53 French divisions that retreated to Paris, only 4 were cavalry divisions, and the number of cavalry that could be put into operation was close to 20,000, which was not a small number, but the entire defense line of Grand Paris included more than 1,500 square kilometers of defense area, and only a dozen cavalry could be deployed per square kilometer. Before the Battle of Paris began, Gallieni had only one cavalry division reserved for the Paris City Defense Command for maneuvering, and the rest of the cavalry was deployed in battalion and company units to various defense areas.

After the German 5th and 6th Army Corps launched an attack on Meo, Gallieni consciously strengthened the defenses east of Paris, and the cavalry units listed as battle reserves were increased to one and a half divisions, including 1 cuirassier regiment, 1 dragoon regiment, and 2 horse pursuit regiments. Cuirassiers regiments are traditional heavy cavalry units, while the latter two cavalry regiments are only called differently, they are both light cavalry units, and the soldiers receive combat training mainly to fight on horseback, which is equivalent to rapid infantry that maneuveres with the help of horses.

In view of the fact that the other three directions of the Paris line were not of much threat, the German surprise force that had been fought from Amiens all the way to the far outskirts of northern Paris, had been silent for several days after being defeated on the banks of the Oise, and seemed to be gathering strength for a new offensive, Gallieni hastily ordered the 5th Cuirassier Regiment and the 19th Dragoon Regiment to move forward to the vicinity of Bobigny and Montreuil, and to prepare for battle with the German heavy cavalry units.

Shortly after the German cavalry raided Schelle, a reinforcement sent by the French 9th Army to Villeparisi, the 19th Immediately Pursuing Corps, was suddenly blocked by German infantry as it was about to reach Villeparisi, just over a quarter of an hour after the French lost their second-line position.

The French light cavalry, accustomed to dismounting, failed to launch a strong attack on the German flank, but stopped to fire at the German infantry, and after a few minutes, the French cavalry guns and wheeled machine guns joined the battle, and the situation was favorable to the French army for a time, but the good times did not last long, and a large number of German reinforcements arrived quickly, although they did not bring naval tanks and field artillery, but stabilized the situation with the huge advantage in the number of soldiers and machine guns. The experienced German infantry was not in a hurry to launch a counterattack, they dug firing bunkers on the spot, so that the French cavalry on the opposite side lost the opportunity to break through the German flank, and during this period, more than 40,000 infantry of the 10th and 11th Corps of the German 5th Army Corps passed through the breach of the French line in dense formation, and their arrival would greatly support the advance force of the advance force composed of naval tanks and infantry assault groups to advance into the French depth. In accordance with the battle plan drawn up in advance, the light chariot units and infantry knives of the 5th Army Corps had been divided into two lines and rushed towards the two tactical hubs supporting the French line, Livry-Gargaon and Scherer.

"An inch of mountains and rivers, an inch of blood, 100,000 young people and 100,000 troops."

At the forward position of the German army on the banks of the Oise, Natsuki, dressed lightly, quoted this generous sentence with emotion when he observed the opposite bank with the artillery mirror. Four days earlier, the German army and navy combat units had confidently launched an attack across the river, but they were unexpectedly met with an unprecedentedly strong resistance from the French, with more than 6,000 killed and wounded, the blood of the soldiers stained the river beaches red, and young lives fell like summer flowers. Although Natsuki did not witness the tragic battle, he can still imagine the bloody scene of that day through the ruins of the battlefield.

Since the Battle of Verdun, the invincible naval tank unit has never lost half of its vehicles in a single battle, and the machine guns on the French positions have given them a solid beating. Today, a few blackened and twisted wreckage of chariots can still be seen on the opposite bank, and the rest have long been towed away by the French army, becoming the first trophies to fall into the hands of the Allies.

When the Kaiser and Moltke Jr. agreed that the marines should be deployed on the Western Front, the tone was set that the naval forces would act as surprise troops to attack Paris, forcing the French to weaken their deployment on the Marne front, and the final attack on Paris would still be dominated by the army units, and the naval forces would continue to be responsible for feints. Before the Battle of Amiens, Natsuki had envisioned the most optimistic prospect of the battle, in which the French defense in the northeast was in vain, and the Marines were like a needle piercing a balloon, killing the city of Paris at great speed. When Paris is within reach, it will be a dilemma whether to attack the French capital with a military strategy or wait for the army to attack the city based on political strategy. Now, the 5th and 6th Army Corps have gathered hundreds of thousands of horses and thousands of artillery pieces to attack, and the troops have reached the outskirts of Paris, and the invasion of Paris is just around the corner, on the other hand, the vitality of the 1st Marine Division has been greatly damaged, the strength of the troops transferred by the Crucker Army is also limited, and the naval tanks have only been replenished in a small amount, and it is still a big question whether they can break through the French defense line on the Oise River. In the eyes of many officers, waiting for friendly forces to break through the line of Paris before taking a piece of the pie seemed like a wise move to adapt to the situation, but the General Staff ordered the combined army and navy to attack as soon as possible in order to share the resistance of the Crown Prince's corps east of Paris.

When Natsuki returned to the front joint command less than two kilometers from the forward position, the army generals of the 1st Army Corps and the senior officers of the 1st Marine Division still did not agree on the deployment of the offensive. Crouc's subordinates advocated crossing the river on all fronts, leaving the French defenders at the expense of the other, while Hurtier and his staff advocated concentrating forces and focusing on breakthroughs. In addition to these differences of opinion, the question of who commanded whom was also troubling, as the Army General Staff authorized Hurtier to coordinate joint operations, but he was a naval commander with the rank of rear admiral, and in the Kluk unit that arrived at the front, there were two lieutenant generals and a cavalry lieutenant general who were more senior than him.

(End of chapter)