The battle of Saint-Quentin and the Somme ended on the morning of May 23, and the troops of the eight divisions of the central route under the jurisdiction of Ludendorff immediately encircled and annihilated the French troops on both flanks after breaking through the Somme defense line, but the French defenders, who were almost wiped out, were miraculously supported by two Anglo-French forces from the direction of Paris, and the two sides launched a fierce exchange of fire along the east bank of the Somme.

This frustrated Ludendorff's plan to encircle and annihilate the French army, relying on the rudimentary pontoon bridge over the river, the Germans were obviously not able to quickly engage in offensive forces on the east bank, and the British and French forces were obviously aware of the extremely low possibility of redeploying the Somme, and were eager to get out of the battle, so the two sides reduced their forces without a huge disparity in forces.

By the time most of the German army pursued along the Somme the next day, the main force of the Anglo-French army had withdrawn at full speed in the direction of Paris, 60 kilometers away...... Wait for this news to be sent to the commander-in-chief of the Western Front, Feng? By the time General Falkingham was there, the situation on the entire Western Front had been in full swing.

On the 28th, when Lieutenant General Ludendorff drove eight divisions under the command of the central road into the city of Clysuy, which was on the outskirts of Paris, the French spent a whole month finally laying out the defensive line, which was finally all exposed in front of the German army, running through the city between the Marne and the Seine in Paris, and Marshal Xia Fei, the commander-in-chief of the British and French forces, had already deployed almost all the forces that could be mobilized at this moment on the frontal battlefield that ran through the east and west for more than 25 kilometers.

The city of Claisuy in front of the assault did not have any fortresses, but a large number of fortifications were built in a short period of time, and the two sides immediately launched a life-and-death assault at the point of the breakthrough of the entire battlefield, and the German army rushed into the city under heavy French fire. Expulsion on the ruins of every city saw any French soldier. The French artillery shelled almost unrestrained German positions as they could see.

Before dark. Ludendorff was surprised by what happened, the French army, under the cover of artillery fire, sent an overwhelming army from both flanks and began to counterattack the German positions in front of Claisuy, and the fierce French field artillery and Hodchsky M1900 heavy machine guns opened the way for the French attacking troops to advance, but the French army, which had no combat experience for forty years, was obviously confused by their own strong firepower......

When the French army is frontally thrown into the attack with battalion-sized units. As soon as they set out from the Claisuy position, they were immediately met with barrage strafing from the German Maxim heavy machine guns, and there was almost no cover except for the craters on the frontal battlefield, and the French troops in the mass attack were like straws and were knocked down by the heavy fire densely arranged by the Germans.

The German army's MG4 series of standard heavy machine guns have a company-level configuration density that even surpasses the Chinese Army in this era, and the reason why the Chinese Army has reduced the proportion of heavy machine guns is mainly because of the light firepower at the squad and platoon level and the gradual replacement of the Type 06 general-purpose machine gun, which can also be applied to the Maxim heavy machine gun cartridge chain, as well as the characteristics of the general-purpose drum magazine, which greatly reduces the staffing required for fire projection.

But. MG heavy machine-gun firing group of the German army...... This seven-man squad, including shooting officers, has the most perfect control and maneuverability for heavy machine guns in this era. Compared with the French-standard Hodchsky M1900 heavy machine gun, the German-made heavy machine gun design team can easily maneuver on the battlefield at any time, which is a crucial tactic for surviving from direct fire field artillery at a distance of 2,000 meters.

Each army division of the German army is equipped with 120 Maxim machine guns, which played an amazing lethality in the counter-shock operation of the day, from the French attack launched before nightfall, the fierce fighting on the entire frontal battlefield lasted until after 10 o'clock at night, and finally, the French were surprised to find that despite the superiority in artillery and offensive forces, the surprise attack of the day only broke through the German 5 initial defense line, and did not form an effective blow to the German positions at all, but the price paid was so painful that it was difficult for the French command to execute.

When the sky was dark, the Chinese observer Tian Dabing, who had been hit on the shoulder by a stray bullet yesterday at the observation post, was lying unkempt on the small high ground behind the main German position......

MD, how many troops did the French deploy here, the troops that were invested in the attack at one time have reached the strength that can suppress the 3 divisions of the German army in the center, and at least more than 6,000 corpses have been dropped on the ground, according to the heavy fire battle loss ratio, the French have at least 1.5 times the number of wounded soldiers than the number of dead, then the French lost an army division in one day yesterday!

However, in the distance, the movement of French troops can still be seen everywhere in the French defense area, and defensive points are still being laid out layer by layer...... In the distance, on the Marne, small French steamships can be seen constantly sailing into the dead corners of the city, which must be deploying military supplies or transporting soldiers...... What a shocking battle!

One hour later, his hand-drawn map of the battlefield situation was quickly sent by the communications corps to the headquarters of the army group, where the Chinese observers would gather information and propose operational proposals to the German side...... What's more, every harvest from the battlefield will be summarized, summarized, and then sent to the nearest port of Bruges, where the local Chinese consulate will send it back to China.

Any experience that can be learned from the meat grinder in the European war will help the Chinese army avoid losses in the future, and young officers like Wang Liang and Tian Dabing are deeply aware of the responsibility on their shoulders!

In contrast to the concerns of the Chinese observers about the French lines, von Murray, who served as commander-in-chief of the German front, was von? Admiral Falkingham, apparently aware of the fact that the critical moment had come to determine the success of the entire battle plan, had approached the 300,000 troops of the French Fifth Route Army on the outskirts of Paris, and the 300,000-strong army of the Lucre Army on the far right flank, which was only 15 kilometers from the city of Paris, and began to outflank the right flank of the campaign plan.

On May 29, the Lucreo Corps encountered the French 6th Army mobilized by Xia Fei from the Grimm Battlefield, and Lieutenant General Maulali, who served as the commander of the Group Bureau, had just implemented the No. 17 battle plan originally formulated by Marshal Xia Fei on the Grimm Battlefield, but was hit by the tight defense of the German left flank Corps, and the French army attacking on the left flank lost nearly 20,000 people, and was hastily withdrawn to block the German army on the right flank.

At this moment, the German army has formed a full-scale offensive posture of the right flank rushing forward, the middle road approaching Claisuy, and the left flank chasing the Green battlefield to evacuate the French army, and on the entire battlefield, the right flank Lucree First Army has become the key to the entire campaign to attack Paris, once the French defense line along the Marne River is broken, the rear of nearly 800,000 British and French troops in the entire Paris theater will be ended.

But, von? Admiral Falkingham was obviously aware of another huge problem, although the No. 17 battle plan initiated by Marshal Xia Fei failed to achieve the results of the original entry into Germany, but the nearly 200,000 troops invested by the French still made it impossible for the German troops on the left flank to start from the German-French border and act as a defense to quickly approach Paris and complete the siege of the French capital, while the 3rd Army under the command of Lieutenant General Ludendorff, who was responsible for the central attack, cooperated with the 2nd Army of Biraud on the left flank of Germany to prepare to break through the French defense from the front.

The original plan was for the Germans to open their fists and prepare to take turns to slam the front and right flanks of Paris, but in the early hours of June 1, General Falkingham was shocked by a report sent by the front staff of the front, which came from the report of the Central Army under the command of Lieutenant General Ludendorff, the German young general, who had just established his outstanding achievements in the Somme, drafted an urgent report that determined that the German offensive was in extreme danger.

In fact, the source of this report was naturally not Lieutenant General Ludendorff, who was busy assaulting the main position of Klaisui, but from the Chinese observers stationed in the Third Army.

Since the Schlieffen plan launched on May 6, which lasted for a full 24 days of operations, Germany has rapidly invested nearly 1 million troops on the Western Front, and the troops that the French side can invest have been predicted before the war, about 800,000, but in the fierce war for 24 days, the losses of both sides in the war are far less than the deadline.

France launched a strong attack on the German-French border in the Grimm theater of operations, and finally encountered the brutal participation of the German steel defense line, and the German left flank defense unit confirmed that it killed nearly 20,000 French troops, causing at least double the number of casualties, in addition, it also captured nearly 13,000 French troops, and the right flank, the powerful right flank, which gathered nearly 800,000 troops of the First, Second and Third Armies!

Except for the Third Army under Ludendorff's command in the Battle of the Saint-Quentin-Somme, which defeated three French divisions and captured nearly 8,000 French troops, the total number of French troops annihilated in the battle is estimated to have not exceeded 25,000 people, and the German troops attacking from other directions, although they encountered a blocking counterattack by the French army, all failed to complete the formed annihilation battle, and the total enemy casualties were also more than 30,000......

Feng? When Admiral Falkingham carefully studied this urgent report, he did not forget to report this situation to Admiral Moltke in the glass by encrypted telegram, and in fact, that night, Admiral Moltke, who was briefing Wilhelm II at the Berlin General Staff, was also troubled by the hidden worries mentioned in the war report.

For 24 days, Britain had declared its entry into the war on the day Germany entered Belgium, and within 24 hours, the first reinforcements of the army were sent to the port of Le Havre, and on the same day, the troops were sent by steam ship along the Seine to Paris, and the German spies in Britain confirmed at least 150,000 British troops who were involved in the French war, some of which were originally stationed in Paris before the war.

Twenty-four days is enough time for the Royal Navy, which has a strong sea force, to transport the entire army to Paris, which means that the French forces that the German Army has routed and annihilated in the advance are likely to have been replenished by the British army, which also means ...... The danger that terrifies Admiral Moltke!

Almost at the same time, in the Ministry of Military Affairs in Beijing, Xu Shoushan also received a secret telegram from Europe, and Colonel Feng Guozhang, who served as a military attache and military observer in Berlin, sent a secret message to fulfill the agreement - it is reported that the 7th has arrived. (To be continued......)