On the night of Natsuki's arrival in Esch, Crown Prince Wilhelm's troops sent several elite reconnaissance teams overnight, and they carried out in-depth reconnaissance through the pathless places deep in the dense forest, bypassing the French forward warning positions, and the next morning, three Zeppelins from the western German base also appeared in the Ardennes Mountains. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Constrained by weather conditions and technical means, the three-dimensional reconnaissance of the German army did not show immediate results as Natsuki expected. The fog that permeated the mountains and forests seriously affected the sight of the airship crew, and the aerial reconnaissance transmitted only some one-sided information, and the infiltration reconnaissance on the ground was not much better. Experienced German infantry trekked hard for a day and a night deep in the mountains and forests, touched three French posts, and caught a few "tongues", but failed to interrogate them with valuable military information.

On the third day, German troops continued active reconnaissance operations in the Ardennes. In addition to the Zeppelin, the Army General Staff also transferred two reconnaissance planes to Crown Prince William, which were stationed in a meadow outside Esch with their pilots, and were temporarily assigned to the command of the 5th Army Corps.

In the afternoon, the scorching sun cleared the fog in the forest, and at Natsuki's request, two German pilots flew reconnaissance planes over the Ardennes Mountains, especially on the Lonvi-Monmedi line. As a result, the pilots found a large number of French personnel, artillery and baggage vehicles moving from the rear to the front line. Later in the evening, German infantry ambushed a French communications officer during a ground infiltration reconnaissance and retrieved a combat order from him. The order indicated that the French troops deployed in the Ardennes would attack two days later, on 21 August, to complement the offensive of friendly forces in Alsace.

Since the French army was about to attack, Natsuki suggested that Crown Prince William strengthen his vigilance, stabilize the battle line, and deplete the enemy's living forces through defense, so as to reduce the pressure on the subsequent attack. Crown Prince William gladly accepted Natsuki's suggestion and sent additional outposts and mobile patrols to the front and depth of the main positions. After all, many of the inhabitants of Luxembourg and Lorraine were hostile to the Germans and therefore actively provided the French with information on the disposition and movement of German troops, while it was difficult for the Germans to obtain the movements of their opponents in the same way.

While Crown Prince Wilhelm's 5th Army Corps was actively strengthening its defenses, the German General Staff issued a new operational order, requiring the 4th and 5th Army Corps to advance steadily from the next day and use the offensive to respond to the upcoming counterattack of the German left flank.

Having waited for an offensive order before, but now they wanted to play a beautiful defensive counterattack, but received a clear order to attack, Crown Prince William and his staff officers were suddenly ironic. However, Crown Prince Wilhelm did not intend to persuade Moltke Jr. to retract his fate, in his opinion, his troops were fully capable of thwarting the French attack with an attack, not to mention that he had always felt that the French 3rd and 4th armies on the opposite side must have drawn some troops to join the battle of Alsace, and lost a considerable part of their forces there, and the offensive posture at this time was only a bluff.

Before making a final decision, Crown Prince Wilhelm called Ruprecht in Alsace and learned that the Bavarian Army had suffered minor losses in the previous combat operations and would be fully engaged in a counterattack. For the losses of the French army in Alsace, the Bavarian crown prince gave a staggering estimate: 250,000. This was equivalent to one-fifth of the wartime strength of the French army.

Regardless of the accuracy of this figure, Crown Prince Wilhelm was already extremely envious of the achievements of his allies, and he was bent on following the orders of the General Staff to go on the attack, and in this case, most of his staff members supported the attack.

With only the limited information at hand, Natsuki could not determine that the French army on the opposite side would definitely launch an attack with all its might, let alone what specific impact the overwhelming victory of the German navy would have on the operational deployment of the Entente camp, so he had to remind the crown prince not to rush this attack - the troops must dig trenches and deploy defenses wherever they go, so as not to be caught off guard by a sudden French attack.

Colonel von Carson was of the same opinion.

After a night of deployment, the German 5th Army Corps under the command of Crown Prince Wilhelm went on the offensive in the early morning of August 20, and the line from Montmedy to Longwei immediately resounded with dense and unusual artillery and shell explosions. At the beginning of the war in 1914, Germany had about 10,000 guns of 77 mm caliber and above, three times the size of the French army, and Germany was the only great power country to equip 105 mm howitzers to divisional units. Even without additional reinforcements, Crown Prince Wilhelm's forces were able to commit more than 800 artillery pieces on a front less than 30 kilometers wide, and the proximity of the battlefield to the German mainland made ammunition supply largely unproblematic.

With the support of artillery fire, the first two German infantry divisions advanced 5-6 kilometers in only half a day, and they easily occupied several villages previously garrisoned by the French, and the French forward troops retreated without fighting, and the casualties on both sides did not exceed three digits. For most of the day, the two German infantry divisions strictly carried out the instructions of the corps headquarters, stopped in place to build positions, deployed machine guns and artillery, and waited for the steady follow-up of the follow-up troops.

At dusk, German reconnaissance planes spotted a French plane near Montmedy, which was also the first encounter between the planes of both sides in the Ardennes. Although British and German planes had fought the first air battle in human history in London several days earlier, on the European continent, the pilots of both sides remained gentlemanly, at most waving their fists at each other in the air.

Immediately after landing, the German pilots reported to the corps command about the encounter with the French aircraft. Not only Natsuki, but also several of Crown Prince Wilhelm's main staff officers also felt that this was a signal that the French army was about to launch an offensive - it seems that the enemy did not give up the attack because of the German army's active advance.

Eager to win, Crown Prince William heeded the advice of his staff and issued an order to all troops that night, requiring them to lay barbed wire in front of their new positions overnight, strengthen defensive bunkers, and use the terrain to deploy a cordon.

As the night deepens, fog begins to cover the mountains, and even in the open area, the visible distance to the naked eye is only a few tens of meters. In this case, small groups of German soldiers crept through their own lines, sneaking into the woods, cornfields, or dense grass. Armed only with rifles, bayonets, and grenades, their pointed helmets wrapped in gray canvas, these skewed Prussian infantrymen crawled silently like wolves in their hiding positions, coldly watching where their prey might pass.

After five or six hours of patient waiting, the sky gradually brightened, and the dense fog that filled the mountains and forests still showed no sign of dissipating, and the whole Ardennes Mountains were as quiet as a barren land forgotten by the world. Suddenly, there was a rustling sound on the roads, hills, and woods, and the German officers and men who were lying in ambush 2 to 4 kilometers in front of their own lines immediately became vigilant. Some of them lay on their stomachs and kept their magazines at hand; Some fell to their knees on one knee, rifle in hand, ready to fire; Some leaned against the trees, holding grenades that had been unscrewed......

At 5:20 a.m. on August 21, the Battle of the Ardennes, starring the German 5th Army and the French 3rd Army, officially began.

Hearing the sound of gunfire in the distance, Natsuki sat up from the marching bed. Unlike fleet engagements, land operations often involve thousands of combat units, and the time span of a battle ranges from a few hours to several weeks, involving offensive and defensive defense, support and cover, logistics supply, and intelligence transmission.

"Hey, Jochen, listen, the battle is on!"

Seeing Natsuki, Crown Prince William, who was standing at the entrance of the legion headquarters, showed a childlike excited expression, and his cheeks were also flushed red when he shot a wild duck for the first time in the royal hunting ground when he was 12 years old.

"The French attacked." Natsuki said lightly, "Then let their attack be more violent!" ”

Crown Prince William has binoculars on his chest, and his hands are on his hips: "It seems that the French really plan to open a breakthrough in me, tsk, they may not underestimate me too much!" ”

"They don't really understand our strength and think that our reserve forces don't have the quality to fight in conjunction with active forces, just like most of us underestimate ......"

Without waiting for Natsuki to repeat the old tune, Crown Prince William took his words: "Well, underestimate their field rapid-fire guns!" All right! We will soon find out how powerful the new artillery of the French army really is. ”

Natsuki raised his eyebrows, compared to the 75mm rapid-fire guns of the French army, the arrogant and conceited mentality was a more formidable opponent.

After the battle began, the telephone of the corps headquarters began to ring non-stop, the radio operators were busy, and the battle reports from the front-line troops were gathered like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, and a group of high-quality staff officers were extremely important at such times, and they could sift out the relatively important ones from the large amount of information and summarize them, which greatly saved the energy consumption of the army commanders.

After breakfast, Crown Prince William said to Natsuki proudly, "Look! Our front is as solid as a rock, and the strength of the French army is not to be feared! ”

Natsuki smiled slightly, not answering.

Soon a staff officer returned to the headquarters from the front, and he described to Crown Prince William the battle ahead. The German positions were equipped with trenches and barbed wire, the machine guns were hidden in bunkers, the bombardment of the French field artillery was useless, and the French soldiers wore eye-catching blue shirts and red pants, held snowy bayonets, and marched in a neat pace to attack the German positions as if participating in a military parade, but the range of rifles has been increased several times decades ago, and the fire output provided by one machine gun is equivalent to dozens of rifles, and each German division is equipped with at least 20 water-cooled heavy machine guns, and the fire density is the highest among all major powers. Therefore, every charge of the French army ended in the corpses of the soldiers scattered all over the field and rivers of blood.

(End of chapter)