At the beginning of 1915, Ireland was only one of the destabilizing factors in this turbulent era, except for the United States and Italy, which were still waiting, the world powers were already involved in this war, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Austria had fully mobilized their own and colonial military forces, and tens of millions of soldiers fought each other on land, sea, and sky, and the lives of those who died in the war were counted in millions......

On the sea near La Rochelle on the west coast of France, more than 20 warships flying the Black Hawk Cross battle flag on the flagpole appeared impressively, which was the first time that the German surface fleet carried out combat operations in the waters of the Bay of Biscay. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info learned that the two kings of naval battles, the "Elector" and the "Regent of Louispold", were coming, and the main French fleet with four dreadnoughts and many former dreadnoughts actually retreated to the port of Bayonne in southwest France and did not dare to move, which really made people feel full of awe of the super performance of the German Imperial Navy in this war!

With minesweeping and escort ships to open the way, the two King-class dreadnoughts sailed one after the other to a position about ten kilometers from the shore, and on the land as far as the eye could see, a fierce battle was going on, through the dust covering the sky, you could see that the gray "waves" were rushing towards the blue "embankment" one after another, and the defending line seemed to be crumbling, but no matter how the attackers attacked, infiltrated, and pressed, the main position was always firmly in the hands of the weak......

Since 1915, with the strong victory of the German Navy and the gradual tightening of the German Army, the situation of the French military and civilians has become more and more difficult. Just after the New Year, the Germans launched an all-out offensive against the Loire defense line hastily constructed by the French, and the main forces of the three lines quickly crossed the Loire. The 6th Army Corps led by Bavarian Crown Prince Ruprecht reached the city of Lyon in only one week, advancing more than 200 kilometers deep into the French army; The 4th Corps of Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg, advanced from Orleans to Montluçon, two hundred kilometers to the south; General Hausen's 3rd Army also captured Nantes and marched all the way to the port of La Rochelle. Just when everyone thought that the war on the Western Front would end with a complete victory for the German army, the French soldiers once again showed their iron willpower in a desperate situation, and they fought bloody battles under the leadership of the military chancellor and the French hero Gallieni, and fought the first battle of the Jedi counterattack in the small city of Vichy under the condition that the German tank troops were greatly attrition and the heavy artillery units were left behind. The 90,000 French troops surrounded the German 34th Infantry Division, composed of Bavarian soldiers, killing and wounding 14,000 Germans, capturing 5,000, and leaving less than 2,000 troops to break through and evacuate. The flank of the Ruprecht corps was threatened, and the reserve corps was immediately sent into the battlefield, and hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers on both sides launched an unprecedented and tragic battle on the banks of the Loire, and the French officers and soldiers conquered the opponent with increasingly excellent battlefield performance and perseverance, the German army was defeated and retreated, and the siege of Lyon was resolved.

After the occupation of Montluçon, an important town in central France, the German 4th Army Corps, a member of the German Imperial Family and the famous General Albrecht, faced the French Central Plateau with steep mountains and variable terrain. The result was another setback under Vichy, a city notorious for the French puppet regime in the old time, and a new symbol of the French spirit in this time and space because of the fearless fighting of the French army and civilians. At the height of the battle, Gallieni visited Vichy to inspect the troops and encourage the French officers and men to resist the strong enemy in the adversity of lack of guns and ammunition.

In the La Rochelle area, the reconstituted French 9th Army fought with 120,000 troops against the 170,000 men of the Hausen Corps. The French army's aircraft, artillery and combat vehicles were completely inferior, and the only advantage was that French ships often provided fire support to the French army in the coastal theater of operations, but the French navy, which had lost Brest and Saint-Nazaire, struggled in the Bay of Biscay, confronting German submarines, aircraft, and shore artillery, and on the other hand, they had to fight against disastrous logistics, but even so, their frequent sorties played an important role in defending the French 9th Army against the German attack. Thousands of German officers and men, including two divisional commanders, were killed in the shelling of the French fleet, and after the 2nd Army Corps of Bilow replaced the 3rd Army Corps of Hausen, the number of sorties of the French fleet became less and less due to increasing losses and poor supplies. While actively preparing for a new offensive, Bülo's troops waited for naval reinforcements.

Already at the end of 1914, the French fleet was evacuated from Brest. At that time, in the face of the onslaught of German troops, the French army planted explosives in various coastal defense fortresses, and the port facilities with military purposes were either dismantled and transported away or destroyed by themselves, but the British were still not at ease about this. Just two days before the Germans entered Brest, the British navy launched an attack on the geographically important French port at the western end of the English Channel, and the shelling of three old battleships lasted 14 hours, depleting the main guns and ammunition on board before evacuating, in addition to the British scuttling several ships in the channel. When the Germans captured Brest, all they got was a ruined and non-functional port, and after that, the British Navy twice dispatched ships to harass German troops cleaning and repairing the port facilities. During the second attack, the British Navy cruiser Herring triggered the sinking of mines laid by the Germans outside the harbor, and this loss, combined with the frequent appearance of German submarines in the nearby waters, forced the British to end their military operations against Brest and silently accept the fact that the Germans had obtained a strategic port in the Bay of Biscay.

At the beginning of March, the "Elector" and the "Regent of Louitport" became the first German capital ships to arrive in the port of Brest. The port of Brest echoed the Faroe Islands and became a key stepping stone for the German Navy to impose a strategic blockade against Britain. After a few days of rest, two German dreadnoughts, under the cover of light ships, sailed to the coast of La Rochelle, more than 300 nautical miles, to prepare for the shelling of French positions in the La Rochelle area......

On the battlefield covered by gunfire, a light gray painted seaplane hovered in the air in a slow, clumsy manner, and the elite but scarce French fighter unit seemed to disdain to come to attack such a non-challenging target, and the French army on the ground had just been ravaged by German ground artillery fire, as if they had no heart to deal with this not too noisy guy. All in all, it was ignored by most of the French, and by the time the French commander realized what was behind this unusual situation, a shrill whistling sound was already coming!

Strongly supported by the German surface fleet, Bülow and his 2nd Army were eventually victorious at the Battle of La Rochelle, and the French left flank was exhausted in a difficult battle and was no longer able to stop the German offensive along the Bay of Biscay. In the process of looking for the traces of the German fleet, the French fleet was again and again attacked by the air raids of the German carrier-based aircraft and the ambush of the submarine forces, and the inconspicuous bombs and torpedoes successively damaged the French capital ships, and the French fleet had no choice but to turn and retreat, but the German fleet stared at it like a ghost, and two fierce battle cruisers were quietly added to the lineup. Trafalgar's nightmare was repeated, and in the Battle of Royan, the French fleet lost one dreadnought and one quasi-dreadnought, and the remnants fled in a hurry. Just a week later, the French Navy was left with no more than 4,000-ton combat ships in the Bay of Biscay, and the main French fleet, which was still strong on paper, withdrew to the Mediterranean, taking refuge in the military ports of Marseille and Nice, which were protected by coastal defense fortresses with the Alps as a natural barrier.

The resounding victories of the German Navy and the triumphant advance of the German Army in western France were the last two straws that broke the French down. On 27 March, the German Crown Prince William the Younger led the 5th Army Corps and the 6th Army Corps of Ruprecht to encircle Lyon and trap the main force of the French 1st Army; A day later, the German 1st Army under the command of Kluke captured Vichy, and the famous general Philippe Petain, commander of the French 3rd Army, was martyred on the battlefield.

On the same day, French President Poincaré decided to send a request to Germany for armistice negotiations, and after a heated debate, Gallieni led all the members of the wartime cabinet to announce his resignation. Within a few hours, Germany accepted France's request for armistice negotiations, declared a three-day ceasefire from midnight on March 30, and chose Lyon as the venue for negotiations between the two sides. Former Prime Minister Joseph Keyo and Army General Nivel were appointed by Poincaré to Lyon as plenipotentiary negotiators, while German Crown Prince Wilhelm Jr. was appointed by the German side as chief negotiator.

Although the outcome of the armistice negotiations between Germany and France was unpredictable, the French government's move had in fact violated the secret clause that Britain, France, and Russia were not allowed to make peace with Germany alone, and there had been a long-term dispute between Britain and Russia, and France actually acted as a link in the Triple Entente, and once France withdrew from the war, Tsarist Russia's war position would also be unprecedentedly shaken, and the British, who had lost the main force of the fleet, fell into a huge panic.

(End of chapter)