The Battle of the Moreuil Forest took place at night, and the complex environment made the French officers and soldiers at first mistakenly believe that there were enemies on all sides, and the dense bullets also made the German lines ahead look impenetrable. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 After some probing, the French officer quickly realized that the horizontal blocking in front of him might only be a thin line of defense, and the strategy of more feints and one main attack was the most effective way to deal with such a line.

At the beginning of the battle, Major von Vacanau was in the middle of the line, and after the French adjusted their offensive strategy, he rushed to the left of the middle of the line with the battalion officers. The German officers and soldiers in this section were under unusually heavy gunfire and, inferringly, the French on the opposite side had thrown in several machine guns and hundreds of rifles. When the flares are lit, many French soldiers can be seen taking advantage of the trees and potholes to attack the advance. This method of attack is much slower than a direct charge, but it is effective in avoiding the high casualty rate that borders on suicide. On the German side, the naval infantry's ability to defend with their environment and the dim visual environment that was not conducive to their aim kept their casualties low, but as the French offensive forces continued to approach, the prospect of holding the line became precarious.

Before the battle began, Major von Vacanau had no idea that he and his battalion were facing French troops totaling more than two thousand. Among these men were not only officers and men of the French 6th Infantry Division, but also the headquarters of the French 27th Infantry Division from the upper Somme, and more than 60 dragoons who had lost their mounts. Although the French army looked large, it was in fact full of wounded soldiers, and the lightly wounded with weapons were able to charge into battle if necessary, but those who had lost their normal mobility, and those who had abandoned or lost their weapons, would have to sit back and wait to be captured if their comrades could not break through the German lines.

Seeing the ferocity of the French infantry, Major Vacano summoned the battalion communications officer and told him to inform the nearby officers and non-commissioned officers to be sure to let the soldiers throw grenades when the enemy approached.

In Napoleonic times, the grenadiers were both the pride of the French army and the ace of the Prussian army. By the time of the Second German Reich, the grenade was no longer a weapon unique to a certain branch of the army, but the standard equipment of ordinary marine troops, and throwing grenades became one of the daily training subjects of ordinary soldiers. By the outbreak of the war in 1914, the German Marine Corps was equipped with four types of grenades, namely the M13 fragmentation grenade, the M13 high-explosive grenade, the M14 smoke grenade and the M14 wooden-handled grenade. The long throwing distance and other advantages are welcomed and praised by naval infantry.

Stubbornly resisted by the German infantry, the French leapfrog attack was put to the greatest test at a distance of thirty or forty meters from the German position, because the area was relatively sparsely wooded and flat, and German officers who had graduated from regular military schools or were undergoing further studies had already taken these important factors into account when constructing their positions.

As a last resort, the French commander ordered his troops to charge, trying to force their way through this last short section of the dead zone.

In the face of oncoming bullets, the French soldiers rushed forward one by one, holding bayonets, burying their heads and burying their heads. Seeing that the tide was about to overflow the thin embankment in front of it, the woodland was suddenly brightened by a continuous explosion. This was similar to the scene when the German soldiers were bombarded by the M1897 rapid-fire field guns on the way to attack, except that the claws of death loomed over the French officers and soldiers.

The explosions lasted two or three minutes, and by the time the explosions were over, the woodland in front of the German position was littered with the fragmented wreckage of French officers and soldiers.

The battlefield fell silent for a short time, and on this occasion, Major Vacano once again launched a psychological offensive against the French officers and soldiers opposite, and he shouted in French: "Don't fight in vain, French soldiers, you are facing two fully loaded German infantry regiments. ”

"You only have two battalions at most." The Frenchman replied through the woodland, "And we have a division and a half, it is easier to crush you than to trample on the bugs, surrender!" We guarantee that you will return to Germany alive! ”

Major Vacano said-for-tat: "Look at it! You have already lost hundreds, are you going to continue this hopeless assault and continue to disregard the lives of your soldiers? ”

"Victory is more than anything else!" The people on the opposite side shouted, "For the victory of France, for the honor that we defend to the death, soldiers, attack!" ”

Regardless of whether they were shaken or not, the French soldiers still threw themselves into the attack with bayonets, and on the German front, many naval infantry had little ammunition left, but Major Vacano had already prepared, and he ordered the baggage team to carry most of the ammunition reserves to the position, and the two platoons that were in reserve were also transferred to the position where the French were under heavy attack.

Most of the German soldiers who were issued with the Mauser C96 attached the body of the gun to the magazine and used it as a single-shot semi-automatic weapon, which had a strong attack and lethal effect at a distance of 50 meters. When the charging French officers and soldiers approached the front, these German soldiers with Mauser pistols stood behind trees or crouched beside them, calmly and orderly shooting at every attacker who came into sight. The riflemen's duties shifted to protecting their own light machine gun combat groups and throwing grenades at dense French soldiers. The French army could break through at any moment, but after a few minutes, the position was still shrouded in fierce gunfire and explosions.

Since the French were full of strength to break through this position, Major von Vacanau hurriedly sent out the last reserve, but the infantry platoon did not feel it, and the French soldiers, who had desperately rushed upward, finally broke through to the German defensive position. Once the soldiers on both sides were wrenched, the use of machine guns and grenades was greatly restricted. The German infantry, who was far outnumbered and overwhelmed, began to retreat in panic.

At the critical moment before the landslide, Major Vacano shouted in his loud voice: "German soldiers - only advance and not retreat!" ”

Hearing the major's call, the German soldiers nearby stopped retreating, and several officers also repeated this order in a high-pitched tone, and the surrounding naval infantry temporarily stabilized their positions, but the red-eyed French soldiers did not know what to die at this time.

The German officers and men shot down a French soldier, and in the blink of an eye one, two, or even three or four more came up with bayonets, and the momentum of stepping through the pile of dead people was not something that ordinary spirits could resist.

Loading his empty pistol into a new magazine, Major von Vacano raised his arms and shouted: "Naval infantry - bayonet charge!" ”

In the usual training and exercises, the officers of the Marine Corps used nothing more than such concise and rational commands as "rapid advance," "alternate attack," and "holding on to the spot." Although bayonet fighting was a compulsory subject for the soldiers, the top-down military thinking of the Marine Corps did not advocate this combat method of killing 1,000 enemies and inflicting 800 losses.

The inexperienced young officers had no idea of their own at this time, and they did not hesitate to follow Major Vakano - and the soldiers naturally followed their officers.

Before the charge, the riflemen drew their bayonets and loaded their rifles, and many of them lost their lives with nervous hands trembling. The officers and men with pistols were the first to buck the trend, firing at the oncoming French soldiers as they went. As for the machine gunners, some did not participate in the charge because they were not given clear instructions, while others advanced with ten-kilogram Madsen machine guns and fired directly at the enemy without aiming.

In the blink of an eye, the two groups of officers and soldiers who were charging in the opposite direction were completely entangled, and a moment later, the naval infantry platoon that had been ordered by Major Vacano to enter the battle also rushed directly into the battlefield. Despite the addition of these new forces, the number of German officers and men who followed Major Vacano in hand-to-hand combat with the French was less than 200, but fortunately, after the heavy attrition in front, the number of French officers and soldiers who finally broke through to the German positions was not much more than this number.

Major Vacano, who took the lead, did not rush to the front recklessly, he knew that a Luger pistol could deal with at least five or six riflemen with bayonets in this environment, so he observed the surrounding situation very calmly, and accurately shot one French soldier after another who was threatening his officers and soldiers, until all the magazines were exhausted, and then he picked up an M1888 without a bayonet from the ground, and reloaded, aimed, and shot with skillful and agile movements, at most half a cigarette, The French soldiers who were eliminated by him numbered fifteen or sixteen, to say the least.

The high proportion of automatic and semi-automatic weapons allowed the Germans to gradually contain the French infantry offensive and then completely repel it.

The remnants of the French officers and soldiers no longer had the courage to attack the German front head-on, and they either waded across the river, withdrew from the battle around the east bank, or left the forest and retreated to the southwest, either way, a long and dangerous journey awaited them, and according to the official statistics after the battle, as many as 922 French officers and soldiers were killed in the Moreuil Forest that night, that is, the 3rd Light Infantry Battalion of the German 11th Naval Infantry Regiment defeated four times its opponent and killed an enemy equal to 1.5 times its total number of soldiers.

On the battlefields of the First World War, this was quite a remarkable record, and for the French, a nightmare killing, and this terrible, catastrophic war continued. On the Marne front, heavy fighting would continue until 23 September, before which 390,000 soldiers had fallen on both sides, with an average of 31,000 soldiers killed every day. During the same period, the armies of Russia and Austria-Hungary fought fiercely in Galicia, and by the end of the battle on September 21, the Austrian army lost more than 400,000 soldiers, and the Russian army lost 230,000.

(End of chapter)