"You've seen that kind of chariot that runs on tracks! When was the last time? ”

Natsuki came down from the hill and went straight to Lieutenant Colonel Ottezig, the infantry commander here, to inquire about the situation. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The lieutenant colonel was a little surprised by Natsuki's condescending tone, he obviously hadn't recognized the other party as the imperial prince with a prominent background, but thought that the other party was just a staff officer at the corps headquarters.

"About an hour ago, four cars passed by and headed for Verdun."

"Do you have a telephone or radio here to get in touch with the front command in Verdun?"

"The phone line is broken, and I have sent a communications officer to investigate, but I am not sure when it will be restored. The regimental headquarters had transmitters, and they were now somewhere in front of us. ”

Knowing this, Natsuki turned to Carson and said, "Can we go east and get around this stretch of road?" ”

Carson glanced with his telescope in the opposite direction of the French: "There seems to be a path to follow, but it is very unsafe - cars can easily attract enemy fire, and they can also be attacked by French troops as they pass through woods and villages." ”

Xia Shu then turned around and asked the lieutenant colonel, "Can you send your communications troops to catch up with those chariots and ask them to turn around and support the battle?" ”

The lieutenant colonel looked at Carson and saw that the chief staff officer of the corps headquarters had no objections, so he said to Natsuki: "Our communications corps only has ordinary horses, and judging from the speed of those chariots, they are now estimated to have reached Verdun - here is only 14 kilometers from Verdun. ”

"It's that close?" Natsuki said to himself, and he looked into the distance, and at the end of his vision, a yellow-brown building was faintly visible on the hill, which should be the famous Verdun Fortress.

Carson was worried that Natsuki would go straight to Verdun despite the danger, so he suggested to him: "Your Highness, maybe we can wait here for an hour or two, as long as the main force of the 22nd Infantry Division comes up, we should be able to repel this French army soon." ”

"It's good to take a break here." Natsuki replied, and when Carson called him "Your Highness", the Lieutenant Colonel Ottzig in front of him suddenly widened his eyes, and his words suddenly became less neat:

"Ah...... Are you ...... Your Royal Highness Prince Joachim, my God, it is really you! ”

Natsuki raised his index finger and made a boo gesture and said to the panicked lieutenant colonel, "Don't let the enemy know who I am." ”

The lieutenant colonel hurriedly stood up and saluted: "Obey, Your Highness...... Absolute secrecy! ”

"Then, if it does not interfere with the established combat operations of your battalion, send signal corps to chase our chariot troops! If they have reached Verdun, find a lieutenant Eckerle and ask him to send three chariots in the best condition. You can tell him that this is my order. Natsuki glanced at Carson.

"Execute the order!" Carson confirmed the command to the Major in a calm but serious tone.

The lieutenant colonel no longer had any hesitation or doubt, and in order to ensure the delivery of the communication order, he sent three signal soldiers to ride in groups and rush in the direction of Verdun, bypassing the road attacked by the French.

Shortly after the departure of the signal corps, the French troops in the northwest again attacked the road held by the Germans. Natsuki and Carson returned to the hill and watched the battle without saying a word. The blue shirts, red trousers, and bowler-brimmed hats of the French infantrymen (similar to the style of the Northern Army during the American Civil War, like a flattened cylindrical hat) stood out in the field, and they were lined up in horizontal rows, with the officers in prominent positions, covered by field artillery in the rear, and marching in small steps and bayonets, except for the changes in uniforms and weaponry, all of which bear a striking resemblance to the battlefields of a hundred years ago.

Coming within range of the German guns, the French soldiers began to fall in twos and threes like targets in an amusement park, beside their comrades who had been killed in the previous attack, while the remaining French soldiers mustered up the courage to move on, most of them still engaged in a frontal attack, with about a third of their forces on the flanks. At this time, the German soldiers who were prostrate in the skirmishers only had to repeat the action of shooting, and there did not seem to be many people injured by French artillery fire and bullets in the battle.

Soon, with the slogan of the charge, the French infantry rushing forward with shouts and shouts, although the distance of this charge was only a few hundred meters, but in the face of the suppression of five or six hundred Mauser rifles and two MG-08 water-cooled heavy machine guns, none of them reached their destination alive.

The French unit that flanked was also unable to complete the offensive mission, and instead found itself caught in the middle of two German units. In less than two minutes, the gunfire on the German side had subsided, and the roar of artillery still echoed on the battlefield, but it felt like death. Of the more than 1,000 French soldiers who went on the attack, only a few dozen wounded were rescued by paramedics, and the rest fell in the green fields.

When a unit was wiped out on its own initiative, who could rebuke the French soldiers for their lack of courage?

Carson said coldly and sarcastically: "The unenlightened French, they think they are still in the Napoleonic era!" ”

Seeing this battle scene like a moth fighting a fire, Natsuki's heart couldn't calm down for a long time. What he felt was not surprise and wonder, but a shock that was difficult to let go. It is incomprehensible that in the two world wars more than 20 years apart, the rigid conservatism shown by the French military top brass is not at all in line with the romantic and unrestrained emotional world of this country, and even if the men in the command put one-tenth of their thoughts on flattering women and creating a mood on tactical innovation, they will not make these black tragedies that have become a joke.

The two attacks ended in failure, the French temporarily abandoned this futile effort, the soldiers rested between the hills and the open field, and the field artillery also stopped shelling, but this did not mean that the road ahead could be restored, as long as the German marching troops and vehicles moved, the French could block the road with artillery fire at any time. In fact, even if he waited for the German reinforcements, Natsuki knew that the counterattack would not be effective in three or two strokes. Without adequate artillery support, the frontal attack of the German infantry was not much better than that of the enemy, and in the end it was inevitable to lose troops and corpses all over the field.

On the one hand, there is courage and ignorance on the one hand, and ignorance on the other. Since his current identity as a small prince of the German Empire, his personal fate is closely linked to that of this new industrial power that advocates force, and this war to readjust the world pattern is a historical inevitability, he has the obligation to guide it to victory in the best way possible, so that these best and most ideal soldiers can return home in triumph.

With this in mind, Natsuki asked the commander of the German unit, Lieutenant Colonel Ottezig, and his two most effective company commanders, plus Colonel Carson, to sit around the five of them, and Natsuki picked up a branch and drew it on the ground and said:

"A very important factor in the German fleet's victory over Jutland was our successful tactical innovation - after the advent of all-heavy artillery warships, we realized that the previous mode of naval warfare was outdated, and spent a lot of energy on the study of new tactics, and at the beginning of the war, our ships were slightly superior to the British Navy, only three-fifths the number and tonnage of our opponents, and it was the role of the new tactics that made up for this significant gap. I think that the advent of rapid-fire artillery and machine guns in the field also had a huge impact on land warfare. ”

"As you have just seen, the French army attacked us in a dense infantry charge formation that had been used for centuries, and we were defeated without difficulty, and again without artillery support. Thinking of the new tactics of the Navy, I think that such an infantry offensive formation may be more suitable for the current battlefield: the distance between soldiers and soldiers should be about five paces, and the distance between combat units should also be orderly and staggered, and every soldier and each combat unit needs to be improvised, pause their advance at the right time, look for concealment, or crawl on the spot. When battalion-level units are engaged in the attack, each company is separated by a noticeable interval of about 200 meters, and the distance between each platoon is increased to 100 meters. For example, the platoon on the left advances 200 meters, stops to shoot and cover, diverts the enemy's attention, and prevents the enemy's firepower from remaining in one direction, the platoon in the middle takes the opportunity to advance another 200 meters, approaches the enemy's position, and launches a charge or shoots on the spot, and the platoon on the right moves closer to the middle or flanks depending on the battlefield situation, looking for the weakest position of the enemy's firepower to charge. Particular attention should be paid to the fact that, on the premise of winning victory, it is necessary to minimize the damage caused by the enemy's bullets and artillery fire, and when approaching the enemy, it is necessary to rely on concealed objects to leap forward one by one, and it is best to be able to put machine guns into the attack, so as to form a more effective fire suppression. ”

Such a tactical model is not at all complicated, and it is easy for professional officers trained in the regular military system to understand, but the key is how to prove that this tactic is effective without making the offensive of the troops loose and weak.

Obviously, the battlefield with real guns and ammunition is the best place to test the effectiveness of tactics, and Natsuki struck while the iron was hot: "After the reinforcements arrive, we can try this tactic in the counterattack, and if there is a bad result because of this, I will bear all the responsibility, and I will never let you be punished." ”

It was not Lieutenant Colonel Ortezig and his company commanders who hesitated the longest, but Colonel von Carson, who had been authorized by Prince William to dispatch the front-line units. Although there is a "disclaimer" from Natsuki, he knows in his heart that the boss will not let a prominent and meritorious imperial prince carry the black pot no matter what. However, if he chooses to veto, he may need to bear more responsibility for more losses in the future, and it will be difficult for the crown prince to deal with him. Faced with a dilemma, von Carson made a seemingly calm but tangled decision: to try a new tactic with Major Ottzig's battalion!

Noting down the tactical pattern Natsuki had mentioned, the lieutenant colonel went back with his men to deploy. More than half an hour passed, but the field telephone lines had not been restored, there was no news from the communications troops dispatched, and the corpses of the French soldiers in the fields had not increased or decreased. Two battalions of German infantry, both belonging to the 22nd Infantry Division, were reinforced, and the forces gathered here gradually equaled the French troops on the opposite side, and a 77-mm field artillery battery of the artillery battalion directly under the division also arrived soon, and the counterattack of the German troops finally entered the countdown.

Commanding the battle on the spot was a colonel of the 22nd Prussian Infantry Division, who, despite being on a par with von Carson, behaved respectfully to the chief of staff of the corps headquarters and had no objection to his request for a secondment of a battalion of infantry for tactical attempts. And just as the German infantry was gearing up to attack, the noise of tracked chariots moving could be heard from afar—but not from Verdun, but from the broken down chariot that Natsuki had encountered earlier.

(End of chapter)