On May 17, on the Western Front, outside the city of Saint-Quentin, the 11th and 13th divisions of the French Second Army stationed here were the first French troops to arrive at the second-line defensive position.

Thousands of French soldiers, these days have only done one thing, that is, to pick up the catalpa, mix the cement and various building materials transported in the city, and then block every point into the city, the commander of the 11th Division, Major General Aaron, a veteran who has participated in many overseas wars, and he has carefully studied the tactics of the Sino-Russian urban defense war when he observed the Sino-Russian Siberian campaign as an observer of the six countries more than ten years ago, this time, he obviously made up his mind, Make every part of the city a graveyard for the German army.

After the tens of thousands of German troops arrived at Saint-Quentin, they were indeed shocked by the French determination to defend themselves, and the entire important stronghold connecting the city on both sides of the Somme River was covered with cement by the French, and the whole city almost became a fortress in just ten days...... Fortunately, this is not a fortress after all.

However, the German attack was met with great resistance from the French heavy machine guns, and what is more terrible is that the pontoon bridge built by the French in the rear of the Somme River made the French positions on both sides of the river able to cover each other's horns for artillery.

Inside the city, the soldiers on both sides have entered the stage of street fighting, but the tens of thousands of German soldiers who are blocked here are obviously unable to fully engage in urban warfare. This led to a battle that could not be resolved quickly. What's more. The French relied on the pontoon bridge of the Somme, which became a hard bone that the Germans could not gnaw on for a while, even if they organized artillery bombardment, unless the entire pontoon bridge was blown to pieces, it would not be of much use to this kind of pontoon bridge that could be quickly repaired.

The French, on the other hand, relied on fortifications and artillery attacks, causing the Germans to suffer casualties in the city for a short period of ceasefire. A funeral procession of priests and medical staff carrying the Red Cross flag removed the surviving soldiers from the battlefield while moving the bodies of both sides to the open ground...... In just a few days, thousands of casualties have been inflicted on both sides.

Suddenly, the trumpets of the note priest team sounded on the German position, which surprised the French corpse collection team, and immediately quickly withdrew from the battlefield, and a few minutes later, there was a numbing "buzzing" sound in the sky, and the German troops who were nervously observing behind the bunker suddenly let out a cheer......

A whole 20 huge rigid airships. In the sunlight, a huge shadow is cast on the ground. This was the first time that Germany had entered the war with the Zeppelin military airship, and with the advance of the Western Front, this big guy that Germany had been secretly developing finally appeared on the battlefield, and behind the airship, four biplane single planes with an iron cross painted on the bottom quickly flew over the city.

Zeppelin flew unhurriedly over the French position, and then dropped a large number of bombs from the pod below like eggs, which surprised the Chinese observer Wang Liang, who was hiding in the observation position of the front-line command post, who originally thought that the Germans would push the train cannon to conquer the fortress of the Liege here, but it was clear that the Germans did not regard this place as a real threat, and the real French army was obviously not here!

Boom Boom Boom Boom ...... Boom Boom Boom ......

A series of black smoke flew up from the French position, and the explosion set off a series of black clouds, and the ground felt a terrifying vibration, which suddenly made the German troops on the front line cheer, but the French on the opposite side were obviously not willing to be passive, and immediately fired a series of artillery fire, so that the German positions here were full of dust.

Boom Boom Boom ...... The 20 airships had no opponent at all, and they were unscrupulous in dropping bombs back and forth at an altitude of 800 meters, but due to the accuracy of the bomb hits, the bombing did not directly point to the position where the two sides were close to the battle, but mainly attacked the supply points and obvious military targets assembled behind the French positions, and the French army on the ground had almost no anti-aircraft weapons, and rifles and machine guns were completely no threat to the giant flight at this height.

When the overwhelming explosion dust cleared, the front-line commander, Lieutenant General Ludendorff, appeared at the observation post, this German with a strong fighting style was obviously not willing to be blocked in front of the city, he stood in front of the telescope and carefully observed the changes in the French positions after the bombing, and selected the necessary assault points in order to quickly achieve victory......

However, the effect of the bombing apparently disappointed him a little, a little later, a small plane swept over the position, threw down a small parachute hanging tube, the aerial scout sent back the bombing report, the result was basically consistent with the judgment of Lieutenant General Ludendorff, 20 airships dropped nearly 60 tons of bombs, although caused chaos in the rear of the French army, but did not destroy the opponent's defense system.

The only good news is that the four airships discovered the field artillery positions arranged by the French army on the east side of the Somme River, and successfully bombed the positions, causing a lot of casualties.

Lieutenant General Ludendorff was obviously not satisfied with this result, and the defeat of the French army was the result he needed, but he did not expect that after breaking the fortress of the scorching sun, he was blocked by the French by the river at St. Quentin...... He immediately paid attention to the young Chinese observer around him, he had seen the battle report of the Sino-Russian Northern War, and since Russia had always been the imaginary enemy of the German Empire, he had also studied the tactics of the Chinese to conquer the fortress.

The Chinese airships, heavy artillery and engineering tactics won the battle at an extremely alarming speed, and the defense system of the French city in front of it, which was obviously not enough to compare with the fortresses of the Russians, now contained the six divisions under its jurisdiction, and the Zeppelin airships that were now rushing to the battle, according to the records of the military, were technically speaking. It has surpassed the Tianzhou series of attack airships that the Chinese originally transferred to Germany. But in terms of the results achieved. Is the Chinese airship bombing completely different from the German one?

"Major Wang, what do you have to do for this battle?" Ludendorff was obviously curious about the Chinese's opinion, after all, it was a powerful country with absolute dominance in the East and had successfully defeated all of Germany's rivals.

Wang Liang apparently did not expect to discuss this issue with Ludendorff in this situation, and in his opinion, the German army was indeed a well-trained war machine, but. Compared with the growth history of the Chinese Army, the Germans obviously have too little experience in participating in the war, and the basis of the German offensive tactics is also based on military research in the later period of the Franco-Prussian War.

Fortunately, the Chinese front-line observers were originally authorized domestically, and in addition to the classified tactical content, a qiē was conducive to the construction of the German army to speed up the offensive. They can all put forward proposals to the German side, and as for whether the Germans can listen to them and adopt them. This is not something you should worry about, "General, your army has not equipped weapons for attacking fortified positions, and I think your army has not equipped the submachine guns and squad blasters at the squad and platoon level, which makes the advantages of the army unable to reflect in the hand-to-hand combat......"

"Your country's airship tactics...... My general view is that the tactics are single, mainly attacking targets behind enemy lines, and they lack the determination to hit the breakthrough point of fire bombardment, and moreover, the bombs are too small, and the bombs are single, and there is a lack of incendiary bombs that our army has already equipped, and for this kind of open fortification, the power of incendiary bombs far exceeds that of ordinary high-explosive bombs......"

After just a few minutes of conversation, when Ludendorff heard the airship tactics carefully relayed by the interpreter, he couldn't hold back the excitement in his heart, and immediately gave Wang Liang a thumbs up, and couldn't wait to wave his hand to call over to the staff officer, asking him to communicate carefully with Wang Liang, and he had already left the command headquarters quickly.

On the same day, due to the temporary adjustment of the French artillery positions, the Germans intensified their attack on the right flank of Saint-Quentin and, in coordination with the Guò artillery, took seven or eight French positions, but compared to the staggered positions scattered throughout the city, it was clear that the day's results were completely unsatisfactory in order to completely penetrate the French lines.

However, after a continuous exchange of fire during the night, when the sky was dark, the French, who had just come out of their bunkers, saw again a group of German airships in the distant sunlight, and to their shock, the Germans had apparently launched an even more intense airship attack than yesterday......

Ludendorff yesterday met with the commander-in-chief of the Western Front, von ? Admiral Falkingham agreed to requisition all the airship units that had just arrived at the Frenoy front, and to install fuel bombs made by front-line engineers on the airships overnight, and the strict German engineers were convinced that these improvised zuò big guys would be able to exert the effect demanded by Lieutenant General Ludendorff.

The French, who had experienced yesterday's bombing, had apparently gained some confidence in coping with today's bombing, and although the Germans' airships could not be shot down for the time being, the bombs that fell from the sky were absorbed by the buildings in the densely populated cities, and the casualties caused were more due to the collapse of the buildings.

However, this time, the French realized their mistake, and when the buzzing airships swept through the sky, the German artillery positions began to bombard the dream position, and the Germans began to cultivate the western positions of the French front line in a barrage of bullets as if they were not paying any money, and at the same time, the mortar battalions belonging to the German divisions also began to fire intensively at their respective targets.

The number of airships that appeared today was much beyond the expectations of the French army, and the entire German Empire now had no more than 150 improved Zeppelins in service, but today, almost the entire Western Front Army had more than 60 attack airships, rushing in a dense formation to the west of the St. Quentin Line.

When huge oil drum bombs rained down into the sky, the tide of the battle suddenly turned to the German side...... In just a dozen minutes, the passage to the positions on the Western Front, as well as the positions in the middle of the Western Front, were drowned in the skyrocketing flames, and the German airships dropped more than 120 barrels of fuel on the entire position with astonishing efficiency...... The intensive artillery fire of the German army completely ignited these deadly chemicals.

When the second wave of German commandos broke through the main French position on the west flank at 10:07 a.m., they were stunned by the corpses of the soldiers of the two armies entangled with each other on the position.

At 12 o'clock, when the Germans, who were immediately following the assault force into the French line, cut off the line of the French defense forces and repelled three rounds of counterattacks organized by the French side, Lieutenant General Ludendorff had realized that the goddess of victory had opened her arms to him, and he immediately made a decision - to assign a good German staff officer to each Chinese observer, and all the construction provided by the Chinese must be sent to the corps headquarters as soon as possible.

The German army is on the front of Paris!

When the news reached Beijing in the middle of the night, Qin Kai, who was studying the report sent by the Northern Shi Yàn Room, also silently put down the work at hand, he stood outside the study with a bright moon full of windows, looking at the sky from afar, and couldn't help but have a little expectation in his heart - the moment to decide the fate of the war situation on the Western Front had finally arrived. (To be continued......)