The order to halt the offensive had been given, and the king returned to the capital overnight, leaving only Marshal Navarro and his staff in the army's headquarters, two miles south of Lalinea. The staff officers silently packed up their things one by one, while the marshal was lonely in a soft chair, looking dejected.

Outside the command department, hundreds of army officers and soldiers gathered there, reluctant to leave for a long time.

"Let my regiment rush again! I want to avenge my dead companions! ”

"Why retreat? Everyone's blood can't be shed in vain! ”

"Attack! Offensive! We want to take back the land that belongs to Spain! ”

"The people are waiting for us to triumph, and we will go back like this and face them without shame!"

Grievances, grievances, anger, all kinds of voices mingle.

On the battlefield in front of the Gibraltar Hill, after consultations, soldiers from both sides began to clear the battlefield separately. The bodies were carried one by one into wagons and transported to the pre-dug mass cemetery, where the relics of the dead could only be disposed of in the simplest possible way, given the sheer number of casualties.

In a printing factory on the outskirts of Madrid, workers worked overnight to produce tens of thousands of death notices.

For a long time to come, almost all of Spain was enveloped in a gloomy atmosphere of mourning, with countless people wearing black veils and women with tears on their faces everywhere.

Countless young lives have been lost, but the politicians and the instigators of the war are still alive and well.

People began to blame the king, began to blame the War Department, but all this was to no avail.

The people hated the British, who caused this tragedy, hated the war, and completely forgot who pushed them into this fire pit.

As a result of commanding a failed war, the Minister of War, Marshal Paolo Navarro, and the Minister of the Navy, Marshal Jog Kabilas, resigned one after another. After a slight continuation, Alfonso XIII granted their request.

Beginning on 26 March, trains loaded with soldiers and wounded on the railway line from La Linea to the interior headed away from the coast, in contrast to what had been seen for weeks.

The soldiers sitting in the carriage lowered their heads one by one. Some even sobbed lowly.

On the afternoon of March 27, the German marines from the port of Cádiz arrived in Lalinea, and these more than 1,100 soldiers became the first German troops to arrive at the Gibraltar front, while the Spanish troops did not completely withdraw, they left behind about 7,000 soldiers and nearly 200 artillery pieces to assist the German army in maintaining the land blockade of Gibraltar.

"Oh, God! I couldn't believe my eyes! ”

On the road from Lalinea to Gibraltar, groups of retreating Spanish soldiers were stunned by the sight of what was happening in front of them.

The big things were slowly moving under the tutelage of many horses, and even the road was trembling at this time.

The German soldiers who were in charge of transporting them all held their heads high and their expressions were serious. It's like escorting the king to a military parade.

When the Spaniards saw the German-aided 280mm heavy howitzers, they were already impressed by their huge barrels and bodies, and the big ones they see today are much bigger than those howitzers!

It took Kleist and his men a day and a half to transport them from Lalinea to 14 kilometers from Mount Gibraltar, which was beyond the range of any land-facing artillery in the British fortification.

Under the guidance of artillery experts, the soldiers first dug four large pits more than three meters deep, then filled them with cement, and then fixed the big ones one by one in the cement seats, a process that took nearly six hours.

At dawn on March 29, along with the first rays of sunshine, there was also the doom of the British.

In the morning light. The four big guys were like overfed slugs. The stocky barrels, combined with the giant braking barrels, make them look extraordinarily fat. One by one, they opened their cavernous muzzles to the sky.

Soon, not far from the cannons, two round balloons were raised, and in the basket under the balloons sat a telescope-wielding shooter, and after rising into the air, they communicated with the ground by telephone lines.

The gunners, who protected their eyes, ears and mouths with pads, fell prostrate on the ground, 270 meters from the gun emplacement, ready to fire the four electronically controlled cannons.

At 7 a.m. sharp, the first shells shook Gibraltar with a loud bang.

Then came the second, third, and fourth, and the loud sound echoed in people's ears for a long time.

The Spanish soldiers in the vicinity left their positions to see what was going on, but the officers tried their best to stop them from leaving their posts.

Four shells with a diameter of 420 mm and weighing almost a ton were thrown into the air at an altitude of 1,200 meters. One minute later they landed on the hills of Gibraltar. The dust, debris and smoke from the explosion of the shells formed a huge cone, which then rose to an altitude of 300 meters.

After the shells exploded, most of the Gibraltar Mountains were shrouded in puffs of smoke and dust, and it was impossible to visually measure the effects of the shelling at first sight, but their momentum alone was enough to make people tremble.

Subsequently, the German soldiers began to reload the shells, and the number of soldiers assigned to each cannon reached 200, but this number was still slightly lacking, and the soldiers were still somewhat unfamiliar with the artillery. The current rate of fire is only 12-15 rounds per shot.

By the time the soldiers finished loading and preparing for a second round of shooting, the smoke and dust on the mountains of Gibraltar had cleared.

The school-fired balloon quickly sent back a report: "1 shot directly hit the fortress, a fatal blow!" 3 shots hit the non-fortress area, and three large craters can be seen! ”

"Excellent! Very good! Officers and artillery experts couldn't stop admiring.

In contrast to the laid-back and pride of the Germans, there was a mess in the British command.

"Calm down! Stabilization! General Roque waved his chubby fist, and not so long ago he had cowered under the warm covers, nearly falling under the bed with loud noises and concussions. But when he tried to find out what was going on, his staff officers didn't know why, some said it was the shelling of the Spanish army, some thought it was an explosion at the arsenal, and some thought it was super lightning.

"A bunch of rubbish! Find out the damage now! ”

The general angrily walked to the observation room and used the periscope there to look around the front of the fortress, but he did not find anything unusual, and the battlefield that had killed countless Spaniards was quiet and terrible at this time. He was about to say something, and suddenly. The strange and loud noises were heard again, like thunder in the rain, and like the main guns of battleships firing, and the only thing the British could be sure of now was that they were coming from the north.

"It is impossible for a battleship to shoot from that direction!" General Roque spoke in disbelief as he continued to observe, and eventually, he saw only a puff of white smoke from artillery fire rising from behind a grove of trees to the north.

Tens of seconds later, the whistling sound of a heavy object falling quickly came from above. The British soldiers hiding in the fortress were all silent, they listened, they waited, the sound was getting closer and closer, and everyone's mood was extremely nervous, and it was as if it were a death sentence.

Finally, the earth-shattering popping sound sounded overhead, and the whole world seemed to shake violently, and a large amount of dust fell in the tremor, and the contents of the shelves fell one after another. Some people can't even stand on their feet.

General Roque stumbled and almost fell to the ground. Fortunately, his adjutant held him up, and even more fortunately, the command post he was in was located 10 meters underground, otherwise the shell that exploded not far away would have been enough to send him back to his hometown. But. The explosion at such close range still caused a lot of damage to General Roque and his staff officers, who spoke loudly but could not hear anything.

"Big Berta, well done!"

Looking at the rising smoke clouds on the mountains of Gibraltar, the German officers and soldiers couldn't stop praising the four cannons.

In Schlieffen's war plan for Germany, the Belgian fortress of the scorching sun and the French fortress of Verdun were both stumbling blocks on the way to the march, in order to conquer this large fortress composed of a large number of fortresses, underground bunkers, heavy artillery and various facilities, the German General Staff needed a super-large caliber heavy siege gun that could be transported by land, and the Krupp Arms Company, known as the "artillery kingdom", took on this task as a priority. In the case of top secret, the "cannon king" Alfred, Krupp's son Filitz, Krupp led a group of outstanding designers and engineers to tackle the problem. Finally, in 1909, a giant mortar was developed, which was named the "Big Berta" after Filitz's mother.

The caliber of this artillery reaches an astonishing 420 mm, which far exceeds the various types of artillery in service in various countries. It is a short-barreled mortar that fires at a high angle so that the shells fall on the roof of the fort while hitting specific targets with considerable accuracy. In addition, it fires armor-piercing shells equipped with a delayed fuse, causing the shell to explode after penetrating the inside of a human target.

In the four years that followed, Filitz? Krupp continued to develop a cannon that could be divided into several parts and suitable for road transport. February 1914. The prototype was successfully produced and tested at the Kummersdorf Proving Ground, and the Kaiser, who was invited to the scene to watch it, was very satisfied. However, experiments with steam engines, gasoline motors and even horse-drawn vehicles on the road have shown that further improvements are needed.

By the time the war broke out in August 1914, Krupp had produced five 420 mm railway cannons and two road cannons.

However, these cannons did not show their might in the Belgian fortress of Scorching Sun and the French fortress of Verdun as expected by the German General Staff, in addition to the laborious transportation of the "Great Berta" guns, the tactics of high-altitude bombing with a large number of zeppelins and heavy aerial bombs also had a surprising effect in the capture of these fortresses, and the intensive use of tank armored vehicles and forced assaults allowed the German Army to finally cross the strongest lines of defense without the use of the "Great Berta".

Despite the surrender of the French, the "Big Berta" guns were not thrown into the trash for this. With plans to attack the British fortress of Gibraltar on the agenda, the heavy siege artillery was also revived. At a joint meeting of the army, navy, and air force in late January, the generals discussed how to capture the British fortress, at which Kaiser Wilhelm III proposed for the first time the idea of conquering the fortified fortress with a small infantry and heavy artillery. Because of the minimal cost and risk of this tactic, and because Germany's main air force was now invested in the British theater, it was supported by many generals. This plan was named "Deadly Great Berta", and the Admiralty's proposal to attack from the sea with battleships was listed as the second option.

As soon as the "Deadly Great Belta" plan was formulated, an efficient war machine was put into action. The first was the Krupp Arms Company, which soon provided four "Big Berta" guns that could be used for road transport, as well as 500 rounds of ordinary artillery shells and 500 armor-piercing shells, and sent experts and technicians to solve technical problems that might be encountered. Secondly, in order to control and protect these cannons, the 1,100 soldiers of the Royal 1st Hussar Regiment were selected to form a special Marine Corps, and the General Staff also sent a group of artillery experts to observe the use of this artillery throughout the process to assess its combat performance and the feasibility of various tactics.

When the Shepal fleet set sail in early February, the accompanying transport ships were carrying not only large quantities of weapons and ammunition, but also four "Big Belta" guns and marines. At that time, the German General Staff considered that the Spanish government agreed to a direct attack on Gibraltar by the German army, and these cannons would become the vanguard of the siege, if they did not agree, Germany would declare war on Spain, and the Hipper fleet would bomb the cities along the Spanish coast to the ground until the Spanish government compromised, and the "Great Berta" guns would still appear in front of the fortress of Gibraltar.

The final result was still expected, the "Great Belta" cannon made the British soldiers stationed in Gibraltar panic, a whole morning of shelling, four huge guns fired a total of 48 ordinary shells and 40 armor-piercing shells, after the shelling of the British Gibraltar fortress was in a mess, nearly 1/3 of the forts and batteries were seriously damaged, and there were several breaches in the forward fortifications composed of trenches and ramparts.

After lunch, the British sent seaplanes for the first time since the defeat in the air battle on 3 March, which reconnoitred German artillery positions and attacked German balloons used for school firing, the Spanish Army dispatched planes to intercept them, and German soldiers on the ground also returned fire with machine guns and machine guns. The battle lasted less than 15 minutes, and the Germans lost all two balloons fired by the Germans, but there were no casualties, and the Spanish planes and three British seaplanes then returned to their respective flights.

One hour later, 10 seaplanes from the Hillpel fleet launched a retaliatory attack on the British fortress and military port of Gibraltar, the British aviation unit still adopted the strategy of preserving strength, and the remaining seaplanes were all withdrawn into hangars that could withstand bomb attacks, and the German planes only damaged one British patrol boat and caused minor damage to several forts.

Beginning at 4 p.m., without the launch of the balloon, four "Great Berta" guns again began to bombard the Gibraltar fortress, this time for two hours, until nightfall the world returned to calm.