At the end of mid-September, on the banks of the Tyland, just over 50 kilometers from Paris, French soldiers braved the scorching sun to dig trenches forty or fifty meters from the riverbank. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 The soft soil is good for digging and absorbing the blast of the shells, but whether it is the Algerian infantry in sand-colored uniforms and gray leggings, or the French soldiers in blue shirts and red pants, their faces are tense, and there is not a trace of energy in sight.

This long riverside position stretches from Miyi at the northern end to Elm at the southern end, with a total length of more than ten kilometers. On the map, this improvised line of defense looked like a gate to Paris from the northeast, and as long as the gate was held, the German troops rushing from Amiens would either bury themselves in the attack and stop moving, or take a long detour, stretch the supply line, and expose the flanks to the French army. Whatever the choice of the German commanders, the French would have gained valuable time to consolidate the line of defense in Paris.

In order to hold the line of defense along the river connecting Miy, Beauvais, and Elm, the French took out almost all their belongings, and when the railway junction was bombed by the Germans, a motorized transport team composed of various civilian vehicles started a race at the same time, and it took only more than 30 hours to transport more than 10,000 French officers and soldiers from the periphery of Paris to the banks of the Tyland.

The enthusiasm of the Parisian population to support the front was admirable, but at the same time, the German army marching south from Amiens was racing against time. Before the French officers and men could dig the trenches along the river deep and wide, the advance force under the command of Grienz was already approaching the Tyland. When the alarm signal came from the outpost, the French officers and soldiers stopped what they were doing and took up their weapons to prepare for battle.

The main railway line from Amiens to Paris passed through the city of Beauvais, where the French defense was focused, but the German route avoided the city, and the French troops deployed north of Beauvais were surprised to see the gray waves of the Germans.

Before the German troops could get close to the riverbank, they heard two loud bangs, and the two short bridges nearby were reduced to flying debris in the sky in the violent explosion.

The orders of the French General Headquarters were strictly enforced, and every year during the flood season, people drowned in the Tyland, but after the flood season, the river usually reached only the thighs of adults, and even if the French destroyed all the bridges on the river, it would not be enough to resist the advance of the German army.

The grey procession approached, followed by the rumbling of trucks uphill, mixed with the indescribable sound of metal grinding and dull footsteps - the secret weapons of the Germans, the tracked chariots armed with artillery and machine guns, although not invulnerable, their attacks were always accompanied by a large number of German infantry, and the French soldiers were often knocked down by German bullets before they could get close.

No sooner had the Germans come into range than the French artillerymen deployed in the woods in the rear opened fire impatiently. The shells whistled into the distance, and when they fell, the orderly German columns suddenly scattered. It would be a mistake to think that the Germans had been thwarted or that the offensive had been contained. The Germans swooped down on the French positions on the banks of the river like swarms of provocative swarms, and the chariots rolled their tracks and kicked up billowing dust, and the charging cavalry, much more powerful than the cavalry, could hardly be deterred by the shells that fell nearby.

Looking down from the air at this time, you will find that these thousands of German troops are clearly lined up in three waves, each wave is not a single horizontal formation, but forms a loose and orderly battle queue, and the waves are separated by three or four hundred meters, so that it is not easy to suffer large losses in the face of enemy artillery fire like a uniform array.

The French troops in the woods on the east bank of the river were the first to engage the enemy, and a number of Hatch Chase machine guns let out a coherent roar, with the experience of fighting in the border areas of Belgium and France, such a fierce machine gun fire could take out thousands of German infantry without artillery support in a very short time - the old experience on the battlefield is not necessarily able to be tried and tested, after approaching the French position, the German tanks equipped with rotating turrets and short-barreled chariot guns began to clear the French machine gun fire points one by one, and within five minutes, the French machine guns in the woods were completely silent, and in front of the German tanks, the rifles in the hands of the French soldiers were tantamount to expensive burning sticks.

Next, the German tanks did not rush directly into the woods, but used artillery and machine gun fire to cover their infantry outside the woods to attack the French troops in the woods. Fighting in the woods was the same as close-quarters fighting in the trenches, with German naval infantry, armed with pistols, light machine guns and grenades, continuing the melee style of rushing and fighting, and the French soldiers here were either returning to the front after recuperation or reservists who had set foot on the battlefield for the first time, and they were driven out of the woods in the blink of an eye.

Seeing their own avant-garde troops retreating across the river in a panic, the French troops who were building trenches on the west bank of the river to defend were suddenly confused, and the soldiers were shooting at the opposite bank without a clue, and the officers thought that the Germans would launch a river crossing operation in the section of the river directly opposite the woods in front, and they were busy mobilizing combat troops here, leaving the rest of the defense line along the river empty.

After occupying the east bank of the Tyland, the German troops advancing from the direction of Amiens did not rush to cross the shallow and narrow river, but braved French fire to stay in the woodland and the open area behind the riverbank. Soon after, two two-wing, single-seat German planes flew in from the north, one of which took the initiative to divert the French fighters operating nearby, and the other circled over the French positions on the riverbank, causing the French soldiers to crack and shoot into the air. After a while, the gray-painted plane continued to lower altitude, and then landed in an open field far from the river bank - before the French artillery destroyed it, the pilot on board had a brief verbal exchange with the infantry officers on the ground, and then took off, leaving the French on the other side stunned.

Guided by the pilots, the Germans crossed the river to find the weak spot of the French army, and some of the tanks marched several kilometers along the river bank, although only a few hundred soldiers followed them across the Tyland at the first time, but easily tore through the French line and established a bridgehead. Then, the chariots and infantry crossing the river were divided into two, one part stayed on the river bank to cover the follow-up troops to cross the river, and the rest formed an elite rapid assault force, using the advance speed of the chariots to occupy the road intersection in the rear of the French army, and put on a posture of outflanking and annihilating the French troops.

The experienced Grientz did not miss such an easy feat, and he immediately commanded the advance troops to cross the river at three sections at the same time, and although they encountered stubborn resistance from some French officers and men, within an hour twelve naval chariots and more than 4,000 German infantry broke through the Tyland, which was defended by more than 10,000 French officers and soldiers, and the French army retreated.

Two hours later, Grienz led his troops into Beauvais with the defeat of the French army, and the French army, several times the strength of the German attacking force, took the initiative to abandon the capital of the province of Oise, and surrendered the last gate to Paris to the Germans.

"I can't believe my ears that an ally beloved by 40 million French people would abandon us at a critical moment when life and death are on the line...... I'm sorry, but discarding may be an inappropriate word, but please don't pay attention to the gibberish I speak in the midst of extreme grief. ”

At the headquarters of the French army in the small city of Bar, Xia Fei, who had always shown a resolute image, seemed to have been beaten with a stick, his eyes were red, his hands trembled, and the British generals standing opposite him had lost their former arrogance at all, and they all seemed to have done something wrong, and their eyes were lowered to the ground.

Field Marshal Sir French French, Commander of the British Expeditionary Force, said: "I am sorry, I am very sorry, we have done our best to hope that you will understand our situation, and I can assure you that the British troops who remain in France, no matter how bad the circumstances, will fight alongside the French army to the end, and I myself will return to London as soon as possible by plane to present my stakes to the Cabinet members in the hope that they will retract this decision." ”

Hearing the rhetoric of this crown, the French generals were indifferent one by one, the alliance between Britain and France was originally a union of rights and interests, in order to curb the aggressive ambitions of the German Empire, the old feuds, prejudices and conflicts of interest between Britain and France will not be erased because of a paper agreement, the military cooperation between the two sides was full of doubts and suspicions at the beginning, thanks to the efforts of a few people of insight in the British and French armies, such as Wilson and Foch, the army staff of the two countries formulated a detailed and feasible joint operation plan, This plan ensured that the British and French forces would work closely together from the outset of the war, unlike Germany and Austria-Hungary, where the two sides were not even aware of each other's true strategic deployments, let alone strategic coordination.

After a moment of silence, Xia Fei looked at French and said: "In the past week, we have launched a counteroffensive against the German army with unprecedented determination and courage, and now hundreds of thousands of soldiers have shed their blood and died on the banks of the Marne...... I'm afraid we've already lost! ”

"As long as the battle is not over, we have hope of victory." "I am saddened and proud that 33,000 British soldiers have so far been wounded and more than 8,000 have lost their lives on the Marne," French responded. ”

Xia Fei sighed heavily: "But I no longer have a reserve to reinforce the Marne front, after your troops withdraw from their positions, the only thing I can do is to let the participating troops withdraw from the battle in an orderly manner, and then redeploy them to the Paris defense line." It is hoped that we will be able to hold off the German attack under the city of Paris, and that the Russian army will force Kaiser Franz to withdraw from the war and attack France from the eastern front with all our might. ”

"There will be a day." French stretched out his right hand to Xia Fei, "Let's see you in Paris!" ”

Xia Fei nodded slightly, and the hands of the two commanders were tightly clasped together.

"Let's see you in Paris!"

(End of chapter)