"Ceasefire! Stop shooting...... Stop shooting! ”

The French attack was over, and the remaining soldiers were far out of range, but the artillery on both sides was still firing at each other, and the German officers in the positions had to repeat the order loudly so that all the soldiers could hear the cease-fire. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

The gunfire gradually subsided, and the thick smoke and undispersed fog still permeated the fighting area. Also on the first occasion on the battlefield, the German soldiers in their peaked helmets were much luckier than the French opposite, who had to repeat the firing and reloading maneuvers for most of the battle, and many had run out of their standard rifle rounds, and in those machine-gun positions, countless bullet casings had been piled up on the ground.

As soon as the battle ended, the soldiers in the trenches kept their guns in their hands, but raised their muzzles slightly. They looked at the front of the position with a look of astonishment, the green grass in the near distance, the curtain wall formed by the smoke in the distance, and the middle few hundred meters were replaced by red and blue - densely packed with the corpses of French officers and soldiers. Not so long ago, these Gallic warriors marched in beautiful formations, led by officers wearing white gloves and wielding sabers, but the glory of the French army had long since been buried in history with Napoleon, and the dull tactics had buried thousands of well-trained soldiers. This is neither the first nor the last.

Ten minutes later, the artillery on both sides also fell silent, and only the groans and wails of the wounded remained on the battlefield. On the side of the German position, the soldiers took turns to withdraw from the trenches with breast walls, and took a short break in the low-lying terrain or behind obstacles, drinking water, smoking, and convenience. Because of the slight casualties of their own troops, the officers were in a much more relaxed mood, and some of them took their notebooks to count ammunition and contact supplies, gathered in one place, smoked and talked. It was not long before communications officers from all levels of command arrived at the positions on horseback or on foot to convey new combat orders to the battalion and company officers.

With the new combat order, part of the soldiers quickly returned to the forward positions. They received refill ammunition before their other companions, removed their backpacks and food bags, inserted bayonets at the front of their rifles, stuffed grenades into the ammunition bags (at the outbreak of World War I, the Germans were mainly armed with two types of ovoid fragmentation shells, the K1913 and K1913N), and then crossed their trenches under the leadership of junior officers - at the beginning of the war, the trenches of both warring sides were still very shallow, and the soldiers usually fired behind the breastwork in a lying or kneeling position, in the event of enemy shelling, You need to lie down in the trench to avoid shrapnel.

Under the cover of the machine gunners, these combat reconnaissance squads quickly passed through the battlefield, ignoring the French wounded who were still twitching or struggling, and disappeared into the smoke.

The presence of "sharp knife platoon" companions in front of the battle line to probe the enemy's situation, the German officers and men who continued to stay in the position were a little less worried. In a short time, the quartermasters drove the wagons to bring combat supplies, and the soldiers received sufficient ammunition, and the morale of the army was stable and high.

Suddenly, a sharp whistle sounded from the depths of the dense fog that filled the forest, which was a battle alarm from the vigilantes. The German officers and men in the rear of the battle line immediately returned to their positions as fast as they could, and the position was filled with the clatter of pulling bolts, but before everyone could be deployed, the rapid sound of gunfire and the explosion of grenades sounded in front. Immediately afterwards, the shells drilled out of the smoke with a sharp whistling sound and fell in a dense force on the front of the German positions. Although the exact location of the enemy artillery was unknown, the field artillery deployed behind the German positions quickly returned fire.

"French cavalry!"

High-decibel screams rang out in the German positions, and a group of French dragoons brandishing sabers appeared on the right flank of the position. They were clad in dazzling armor with long black ponytails hanging from their helmets.

"Fire! Fire at the cavalry! ”

The officers gave the order in great a hurry, the machine guns began to roar, the riflemen barely had to aim, they mechanically pulled the trigger, pulled the pistol, pulled the trigger again, the guns were dense enough, but could not contain the wave of French cavalry......

In front of the net of fire pouring down from the German position, the French cavalry at the front had only time to let out a muffled grunt before being beaten into a sieve, and they either fell off their horses, and were soon trampled into flesh by the hooves of the horses behind, or rolled down with their mounts, and melted into the billowing dust. The cavalry that followed behind saw their companions fall one after another, knowing that death might come at any moment, but they still rode forward fearlessly.

On the German position, the MG08 water-cooled heavy machine gun frantically threw out a light smoke bullet casing, this weapon could inflict huge damage on the swarming cavalry, but the cavalry sprinted too fast, and it took less than half a minute to rush to the German position from within sight. These French dragoons forced their way into the barbed wire in defiance of death, and the first few soon wrapped their men and horses around the barbed wire, and the scene of helpless struggle was very tragic, but they also broke through the passage in the barbed wire.

Seeing the French cavalry rushing into the position despite the strafing of the dense gunfire, the German infantry in the trenches at the front retreated from their positions in panic, and some of the unlucky ones could not dodge before they were killed by the roaring cavalry like cutting watermelons.

Although the trenches on the front line of the position were broken through by the French cavalry, the German machine guns were deployed at a density of one every 100 meters, choosing the advantageous terrain to play the role of a tactical support point, and at this time, the German field artillery behind the position also reacted quickly, they quickly loaded the shrapnel shells, lowered the muzzle and fired at the French cavalry.

Under the fierce suppression of German machine guns and field artillery, the French cavalry, which had just found a little feeling, suddenly suffered huge casualties, the corpses of their companions and horses were piled up, and the advance speed of the subsequent cavalry was greatly delayed. In front of machine guns, artillery and well-trained riflemen, the cavalry, who lost their speed, quickly lost their lives. In this way, the German infantry stubbornly contained this wave of cavalry onslaught, and more and more cavalry fell off their horses, and finally after a sharp whistle, the remaining dozens of cavalry turned around and retreated.

The morning battle was scattered and prologue in nature, and by the afternoon the battle in the Ardennes was in full swing. In Verton and Tantiny, at Rossinhoor and Neufsciato, on various battlefields, artillery rumbled and guns were fired, and the French troops tried to break through the lines of a part of the German advance force with their attacks, but at great cost. In Rossinho, the Algerians of the French 3rd Colonial Division rushed to the opponent again and again with bayonets, and by the time they occupied the German positions, there were only more than 400 men left in the division.

By dusk, it became clear that the French army had lost its spirit, and the Prussian corps under the command of Crown Prince Wilhelm was well disposed and in good condition, and the divisions were waiting for the horn of the counterattack to be sounded, and on the same day, the French army launched a final attack on the Bavarian corps under the command of Ruprecht at Salbull and Morange, which was unsurprisingly defeated. The victories of Salbul and Moranger allowed Ruprecht to seize the best opportunity to counterattack, and the Bavarian soldiers were highly motivated and wolf-like, and under the support of heavy artillery fire, they rushed to the French positions in waves like a tireless wave, and the exhausted French troops were quickly repulsed, and the fall of Metz left them without the cover of their flanks, and the French troops trying to regain Alsace began to retreat on all fronts, and their morale was greatly damaged......

Now that the main French forces have pounced, it is better not to let them retreat back to their original line of defense - at the headquarters of the German 5th Army Corps, the generals and staff members were united in their judgment of the current situation. As night fell, in addition to the 1st Division and 5 brigades of the mobile reserve, the 5 main corps and 2 cavalry divisions of Crown Prince Wilhelm were fully engaged in a counterattack in the southern Ardennes Mountains. Artillery flames flickered in the darkness, shells were whistling, exploding, shrapnel flew sideways, and the French positions were littered with corpses. The shelling continued, but as soon as it stopped, the wails of the wounded in the forest were heard, and people were constantly losing their minds under the pressure.

Ironically, it was not until the last moments before the battle that General Luff of the French 3rd Army discovered that the three reserve divisions of about 50,000 men belonging to him no longer belonged to him - in order to deal with a possible attack by Rupprecht, Xia Fei quietly withdrew these three divisions and put them together with four reserve divisions from other sources to form a Lorraine Army. This was one of the last redeployments, and the immediate consequence was to weaken Luff's forces and render the seven divisions useless at critical moments. Later, Lüf kept saying that he had already made arrangements for the 50,000 men, and that he could win the battle of Vilton, and that he could win the battle if he had these forces at hand. When a staff officer of the General Headquarters came to his headquarters during the battle, Luff was furious and said: "Your people in the General Headquarters never read the reports we send. You are as ignorant as oysters in the bag of your enemies...... Tell the Commander-in-Chief that he commands operations worse than he had since 1870 - he can't see anything at all - he can't do anywhere. ”

Obviously, these words were not welcomed by the gods who lived on Mount Olympus, and the gods of Xia Fei and his retinue were always fond of blaming the incompetence of their commanders and soldiers, and Luff was one of them.

In the Ardennes Mountains, where the terrain was complicated, the German and French armies fought hard all night, and the superiority was divided. Solid, step-by-step training triumphed over courage. Both French armies in the Ardennes were retreating, the Third Army was retreating towards Verdun, the Fourth Army was retreating to Sterné and Sedan while the German 5th and 6th Army Corps were advancing in unison, galloping towards the Maas under the leadership of the two royal commanders.

(End of chapter)