"Pass! Pass! ”

On the relatively flat grass or dirt ground, many men in gray pants and big leather boots chased small leather balls, and many people stood or sat around the field to admire and comment on those vigorous figures.

The ball drew a beautiful arc in the air, and the blonde-haired, nimble guy who had just shouted the pass rushed towards the ball, and a beautiful chest stop stopped the ball off the sideline, causing a hearty laugh around him.

"Oh! It's old, it's not good! The man stood near the sideline with his head crossed, muttering, and another man who looked about his age ran past him with a bright face.

"Your Royal Highness! It looks like I'm out of shape today! ”

It turned out that the guy who stopped the ball out of bounds just now was our Chentian, and in the face of such a professional evaluation of the passer, he shouted with an unhappy face: "Olge, it's not that you guy passed the ball well!" ”

As Chentian's long-time classmate and friend, Olg didn't care about his boss's displeasure at all, but continued to run towards the opponent's goal.

In this meadow, many people are strolling leisurely, but it is no wonder that these are the middle and high-ranking officers of the legion, and participating in this kind of movement has almost killed them, and it is extremely inconsistent with their aristocratic demeanor to let them sweat profusely and run all over the field.

When Chen Tian was depressed, the opponent's sideline ball was thrown directly at his feet, and the person who threw the ball was still standing on the sideline with a gentlemanly smile.

"Thank you, Colonel Bruns!" Chen Tian began to run forward with the ball, and the ball was so big that both players had to twist their bodies to dodge to both sides. For their gentlemanly style of play, Chen Tian felt very depressed at first, he could almost take the ball from the back court and go straight to the frontcourt, unless the opponent really couldn't avoid blocking the ball, no one would stop him. Fortunately, after spending countless saliva and energy, these old-fashioned Germans finally understood what kind of team sport football is, and everyone began to cooperate and pass the ball to each other, but the atmosphere of friendship and mutual assistance was still retained on the sports field.

After Chentian brought football into the boring life of the barracks, the soldiers of the East Prussian Regiment gradually accepted and liked this new sport. Even in the midst of fierce battles, officers and soldiers did not forget to find an open space to practice their skills.

After gently rubbing the ball into the simple goal, Chen Tian raised the index finger of his right hand, but when the opposing player also came up to high-five and celebrate, he still felt very awkward.

After scoring today's 11th goal, Chen Tian slowly walked out of the sideline, took the wet towel handed over by the adjutant and covered his face, feeling so comfortable!

"Your Royal Highness, report on the battle on the Western Front!"

Chen Tian took the towel away, and a familiar face came into view.

"Oh! It's Colonel Hoffman, you're a rarity here! Chen Tian smiled and took the telegram from Hoffman's hand, although most of the officers and men of the regiment had accepted this movement, but a group of middle and senior officers represented by François, Plitt and Hoffman still refused to take off their coats and go to the court anyway.

"What? Verdun victory! ”

Chen Tian stared at the words on the telegram with wide eyes, Verdun, a place that would have become synonymous with "meat grinder", was captured by the 5th Army and the Guards armored forces led by the German crown prince in just one day.

Verdun is a French town with just over 10,000 inhabitants, and it is a military and largest fortress in northeastern France, guarded by five massive fortress complexes. It is mostly hilly and forest areas below 400 meters above sea level, the terrain is high in the south and low in the north, and the Maas Hill and Mountain Range is in the northwest to northeast trend, and the semi-ring is on the north, northeast and east sides of Verdun. The Maas River, which originates in France and the Franco-Swiss border Alps, flows through Verdun from south to north, dividing Verdun from the hills and mountains into east and west. The Maas River runs north through Belgium, joins the Rhine in the Netherlands, and flows into the North Sea from Rotterdam. In Verdun, along the river valley there is a north-south railway that runs through the city, to the French town of Sedan in the north, to Saint-Miel in the south, and an east-west railway to Metz, Germany, to the east and to Convrain, to the west. For Germany, Verdun was close to Germany's main railway, and if the French advanced through this point, it would pose a serious threat to Germany; Politically and strategically important for France, it is also the northeastern entrance to Paris and is known as the "Key to Paris". If Verdun were to be captured, it would not only destroy the French defense system and open the door to Paris and the main living forces of the French army, but would also deal a heavy blow to the morale of the French military and civilians.

From mid-September, Prince's 5th Army began preparations for the assault on Verdun. Because the fortress of Verdun is built on a hill and overlooks the upper reaches of the Maas River, the forts are lined up, and the fortifications are complex and strong, condescending, easy to defend and difficult to attack. The fortress had more than 4,000 artillery pieces, nearly 2,000 of which were large-caliber fixed guns, and a garrison of about 100,000 people, and the French army also built simple field defensive positions around the fortress.

The German troops attacking Verdun included more than 200,000 soldiers of the 5th Army and 70,000 Panzer Corps, and before the start of the battle, Prince also asked for a large number of heavy siege howitzers from Moltke Jr., so that more than 1,500 artillery pieces were transported to the Verdun front, of which more than 600 were heavy artillery, and half of the aviation forces of the Western Front were also drawn to prepare for the attack.

Before the ground forces of the two sides made contact, German planes were already busy, and more than 300 planes of various types were dispatched in turn to carry out offensive battles. They first dropped a large number of leaflets on the French positions, and then began to bomb and strafe all day long, and even the huge airship troops began to attack, and the bombs caused limited damage to the French batteries and fortresses, but the tense and panicked atmosphere swept over Verdun like a gust of wind, skimming the hearts of every French officer and soldier.

Prince's soldiers began to covertly move from the assembly area to the starting positions of the attack on 23 September, and all tank and armored units arrived at the intended location on 24 September, and the general assault began at 5 a.m. on 25 September 1914. The silent Verdun area suddenly shook, and the artillery groups deployed by the Germans in front of the 15-kilometer-long front opened fire together, and thousands of artillery shells smashed various shells at a rate of 2,000 rounds per minute at the French fortress group, and the explosion was like rolling thunder. The field fortifications built by the French army in the fortified area and the tens of thousands of soldiers in them were wiped out in the first wave of heavy shelling, and the civil bunkers even flew into the sky, and the smoke and fire of the explosion enveloped the entire Verdun area.

Prince's tactic was very simple, to destroy all obstacles in their advance with the heaviest artillery fire before the infantry attacked, so as to overwhelm the French and demoralize them. The German artillery was very well prepared, and the powerful artillery groups carried out intensive artillery fire on individual French targets, cluster targets, trenches, batteries, and all suspicious objects that were regarded as fortifications or targets, according to the division of labor, and did not spare all important targets in the depth of the French defense, and all roads, villages, command posts, and the city of Verdun were massively shelled sequentially in the theater of operations.

The German artillery fire continued for a whole morning, during which German planes and airships also flew over Verdon several times to bomb the area, and the French fortified area became unrecognizable, many batteries were dilapidated, the defense system was devastated, the command at all levels was basically paralyzed, and the communication between the upper and lower and left and right was almost completely interrupted.

At 12 o'clock in the afternoon, the German position erupted in an earth-shattering shout, and countless German soldiers jumped out of the trenches and began to charge.

Observers rode on balloons overlooking the battlefield below, and countless gray dots poured out of the positions like ants, forming many assault teams and plunging into the French fortified area. These dots jumped and moved forward, and in front of these assault troops, the barrage formed by German artillery fire continued to extend in depth. The infantry assault was very hierarchical, and the divisional assault was with two regiments in front and the 3rd regiment as a reserve in the rear. The two regiments of the first line in turn had two battalions as the first echelon, one battalion as the second, and the infantry battalion on a frontage of 400-500 meters, forming three waves of attacks.

The first 1-3 squads of infantry and engineer squads formed a strong strike team, they were fully clothed, carrying small mortars and powerful bombs, and were responsible for breaking obstacles, observing the effects of artillery strikes, and creating favorable offensive conditions for the follow-up troops; Infantry companies and machine-gun squads followed behind the strike squad.

Although the French fortress was severely damaged, the sturdy structure still allowed many French soldiers to survive the heavy shelling, in addition to the fortress artillery constantly firing at the German charging troops, the French machine guns were also stubbornly strafing, and they even organized some death squads to desperately resist the German attack, forcing the German advance to slow down all of a sudden.

At 2:30 p.m., with Prince's order, the roar of countless engines sounded over the starting positions of the German army. Black steel chariots rushed into the French garrison with puffs of smoke, and the second wave of attacking German soldiers jumped out of the trenches and advanced closely behind the cross-painted tanks and armored vehicles.

Although the remaining artillery of the French batteries still controlled the open area in front of the fortified area, they found that their artillery fire could not stop the advancing black spots, and only a few shells could directly hit and explode them, and if the shells exploded next to them, the black spots could shake and stop, but some of them were reactivated soon after.

Soon, German tanks and armored vehicles led a large number of infantry through the open area covered with gray corpses, to the place where the first wave of German attacks was blocked, and the French soldiers, who had been firing wildly with machine guns, were stunned by these steel monsters that they had never seen before, and the monsters did not care about the oncoming machine gun and rifle bullets, they rumbled and roared, and their tracks rattled, and they drove through the muddy craters like walking on the ground, overpowering the barbed wire that had held back countless infantry, and rushed all the way to the French batteries and fortresses. Then, the German infantry, following behind the steel monsters, stormed into the French batteries and fortresses, and gradually drove the French garrison out of the fortress in a chaotic and fierce battle.

Fugues Fort, Dumont Fort...... As the batteries fell, the morale of the French army became lower and lower, while the German soldiers went crazy, everyone was desperately attacking, and in many places the infantry could not even wait for the armored troops to open the way before charging alone. The steep terrain of Verdun limited the advance of German tanks and armored vehicles, but fortunately, the "Stone I" and "Stone II" light tanks were designed with driving ability in mind, and although many tanks were incapacitated by French shrapnel due to weak armor, they were still found on various country roads and hills in the Verdun area. In the evening, German sappers braved artillery fire to erect two pontoon bridges over the Maas, and the first armoured units quickly passed through this last barrier, and the city of Verdun was captured by the Germans later in the day.

The battle continued late at night, the French commander reluctantly announced the abandonment of Verdun, and after blowing up the remaining fortress artillery, the remaining 30,000 French officers and soldiers withdrew in the direction of Paris.

Verdun did not become the legendary super meat grinder, but more than 60,000 French soldiers and 70,000 German soldiers were killed in just one day's battle. The armoured units of the German Royal Guards also suffered heavy losses, 49 of the 400 tanks were damaged in the battle, 122 were damaged by the oscillations and shrapnel caused by the explosion of the shells and their own mechanical problems, another 9 got stuck in the mud, 5 fell into the Maas, 3 got stuck in the woods, and nearly half of the armored vehicles were damaged by French artillery fire during the attack on the forts.

"Colonel Hoffman, announce this to the whole legion! The crown prince's performance this time is really impressive! It's a pity that he lost 1/3 of the infantry and half of the armored troops in this battle, and I'm afraid he will have to rest in Verdun for a while! I wish the fighting on the Eastern Front would end soon, I prefer to deal with the romantic French and the gentlemanly British to the barbaric Russians. Now that we have the conditions to land on the British Isles, we should do it as soon as possible, otherwise the British will gather more and more strength on their homeland, and they will recall a large number of colonial legions and recruit a large number of recruits. I think if they were given half a year, they could even gather more than a million army troops! Chentian handed the telegram back to Hoffman, looking west with expectant eyes.

"An army of millions! Indeed, we have always thought that the British were only strong in the navy, and in fact if they were given enough time, they could really train an army that could not be underestimated, at least in numbers! If Britain continues to implement the current volunteer system, they will need one year to recruit about 1 million British men to fight, but if they temporarily change to the conscription system, plus Australia, New Zealand, India and other colonial corps, their army can reach this number before the end of the year, and then spend another four months to initially form combat effectiveness, that is, we must carry out landing operations before April next year? Hoffman did a quick calculation, and the joy on his face just now was replaced by a serious expression.

"That's right! It's just that we're too tight right now! It is very reluctant to withdraw an army on the Western Front, let alone on the Eastern Front, and if our Austrian allies continue to be suppressed by the Russian army, the situation on the Eastern Front will be even worse! As for Turkey, they are going to fight on two fronts with Russia and Egypt, and it will be nice to be able to remain undefeated! Chen Tian put down his towel and began to walk towards the corps headquarters, "The tanks have been put into the battlefield on the Western Front, the enemy will soon become familiar with them and research weapons against them, and we must act as soon as possible!" Last time in East Prussia, the power of machine guns overshadowed tanks, and the Russians did not seem to pay much attention to them. This time, we also hit the Russians by surprise with tanks! ”

Chentian silently walked on the stone road in the countryside, and bursts of cheers began to erupt nearby, and the officers and men of the legion began to celebrate the victory of Verdun. But it won't be long before they will be in a brutal battle again.