In the evening, Foch called and chatted with Qin Zhiyuan.

Foch didn't talk about the ongoing war, but only chatted with Qin Zhiyuan about Girardin and Napoleon.

Girardin and Qin Zhiyuan returned to Paris together, Qin Zhiyuan was going to the front, originally Girardin could only stay in the Black Swan Castle, but Anne liked Girardin very much, so she let Girardin live in Foch's house.

Qin Zhiyuan knew that Foch was decompressing himself.

Although Foch is not pretentious about Qin Zhiyuan, he actually cares about Qin Zhiyuan more than anyone else.

will be outside, and the monarch's decree will not be affected. There may be a similar proverb in France, Foch does not point fingers at Qin Zhiyuan, since he chose Qin Zhiyuan, Foch gives Qin Zhiyuan full trust.

Qin Zhiyuan could feel Foch's kindness, relatively speaking, Leotera was not so friendly.

Perhaps the pressure on Leothai was too great, and Leotey asked Qin Zhiyuan to open the situation as soon as possible, even if he could not win a big victory like the Battle of Feron Tadenoy, at least he had to drive the German Eighteenth Army out of the Reims area and recover a piece of land, so as to give an explanation to the Parliament.

This is a bamboo pole sent to the door, Qin Zhiyuan can't let it go, so the two newly organized French army divisions were assigned to the 17th Group Army and became Qin Zhiyuan's direct troops.

That night, Qin Zhiyuan came to Ernest and Pierre to discuss how to use these two newly formed French divisions.

Although "Ernest" is a German name, Ernest himself is British.

A fan of the Knights Templar, Ernest served in the Royal Army a decade ago as a lieutenant colonel before retiring as a hermit in a Belgian monastery.

Ernest now commands an army of 1,600 men, all ardent Crusader supporters who fantasize about one day returning to Jerusalem and restoring the glory of the Crusaders.

What is now Jerusalem has been occupied by the Turks for 400 years.

After the start of the World War, the British organized an expeditionary force of 150,000 men, led by Commander-in-Chief Allenby and 170,000 Turks led by Germal and advised by Falkingham, in the vicinity of Gaza and Be'er Sheva.

Although Ernest and the others were fanatical, they did not lose their minds, they knew that Qin Zhiyuan and North Africa were now in different battlefields, and Qin Zhiyuan had to end the war here before he could take care of North Africa, so although he had a grudge, he never slackened.

"Your Excellency, Grand Master, I salute you." Ernest was respectful to Qin Zhiyuan.

"Sit, we've got two new editors, and I need someone to lead them." Qin Zhiyuan was not polite, in fact, Qin Zhiyuan has always been wary of religious fanatics.

"They have officers." Ernest was noncommittal.

"They don't need officers, they need spiritual leaders." Qin Zhiyuan pointed to the core of the problem, what the current French army needs is faith: "You know the current situation of the army, let alone the newly formed troops, if there is no one to lead them, they will be scattered." ”

The large-scale mutiny seems to have subsided by now, but in fact many French units have not yet regained their combat effectiveness, especially cohesion, which has been exhausted in the previous mutiny, and it will take more time to reunite.

Faith is the last thing that the Knights Templar's fanatics lack, and they don't even need to say much, as long as they lead by example.

"Well, Grand Master, if you insist." Ernest agreed to Qin Zhiyuan's arrangement, they had been waiting for the "Eastern Crusade" for hundreds of years, and they had enough patience.

These two new divisions have not yet been opened, and when they are on the battlefield, I am afraid it will be at least half a month later, so Qin Zhiyuan can only rely on the existing forces at present.

Early the next morning, the battle resumed.

As ever, the battle began with shelling.

Last night, Qin Zhiyuan issued a combat order to Zhou Hongguang, the commander of the bomber unit, that today, the bomber unit must be ready, and they may be dispatched at any time.

Zhou Hongguang is the former worker representative in the Renault factory, and the other is named Zhang Tianyun. Zhou Hongguang has always been very interested in aircraft, and when Qin Zhiyuan formed a bomber unit, Zhou Hongguang recommended himself and passed Qin Zhiyuan's assessment.

In this era, there are actually no complicated tactics in air combat, and even the formation of two planes has not yet appeared, and the outcome of air combat depends on the pilot's proficiency in the aircraft, Qin Zhiyuan only briefly assessed Zhou Hongguang's piloting skills, and appointed Zhou Hongguang as the commander of the bomber unit.

The salvo of 1,000 guns was incredibly powerful, and there were more than 400 large-caliber guns, which were placed in six artillery positions, each responsible for a different area, and bombarded the German positions indiscriminately.

The first round was high-explosive shells, the second round was poison gas bombs, and the third round was grenade bombs......

And so it goes.

In order to better command the troops to fight, Qin Zhiyuan took a command vehicle and went out to the Obili area, which was less than three kilometers away from the German defense line, and Qin Zhiyuan could have a clearer grasp of the offensive and defensive situation.

In fact, in yesterday's firepower, the defensive facilities of the German forward positions have been basically lost, and a lot of explosives were used when retreating to Ankang, and many underground tunnels on the forward battlefields were blown up.

It took the Germans four months to build these tunnels, and it took the Chinese about 40 minutes to destroy them, which was easier than creating.

With each violent explosion, orange and flame and black smoke rose into the air, accompanied by dirt, wooden stakes, large sections of barbed wire, and severed German limbs.

The corpses that had been buried in the ground were blown out again, and the soldiers who had been defending the positions were buried.

The August sun was so high that even the freshest corpses were already highly decomposed, and more corpses were left with only a pile of bones.

If you don't wear a gas mask, you can't charge at all, and smoke can smoke people to death.

This time, Xu Sheng's regiment and Fu Lehe's regiment, which were in charge of the attack, were both infantry regiments under Greef, and were also supplemented by an Annam infantry regiment.

The task of Xu Sheng's regiment and Fu Lehe's regiment was to set up sniper positions on the spot after capturing the German forward positions, so the troops carried a large number of steel fortifications to quickly arrange the positions, and at the same time, there were tank units that would accompany the attack, and these tanks would become the defensive fulcrum of the defensive positions.

The task of the Annam Infantry Regiment is to assist in the defense, to put it bluntly, it is to help Xu Shengtuan and Fu Lehe Tuan to fight, help build positions, carry ammunition, transfer the wounded or something.

Bastian directly took out a division, the 32nd Division, which was the most combat-ready in his own hands, ready to be used for continuous attacks.

According to yesterday's battle arrangement, after conquering the enemy's forward position, Xu Sheng's regiment and Fu Lehe's regiment set up defensive positions on the spot, and Bastian's troops would continue to attack the second line of defense of the Germans.

Even if it went well, Bastian's troops would have been able to advance a kilometer at most, which was exactly half the distance of yesterday's 185th and 192nd regiments.

In this position, if the Germans launched a counterattack, they would not have much success, and if they did not launch a counterattack, then the Germans would have to be forced to retreat when the attacking troops had set up their defenses.

Qin Zhiyuan just wants to fight steadily and steadily, pressing step by step. Anyway, Leotei's operational requirement was to capture Reims, and the Germans' forward position was only about five kilometers away from Reims, as long as they advanced so steadily, then in three days at most, the Germans would either withdraw from Reims, or they could only choose to fight Qin Zhiyuan to the death.

Ludendorff's tactics are indeed unique, but no one tactic is a panacea, and the Germans are wrong in trying to use one set of tactics to deal with all situations.

How is this possible, if it can't be adapted to local conditions, then no matter how good the tactics are, they will become yesterday's obsolete.

It is not so easy to formulate a set of tactics, and in the early 20th century, when information was relatively closed, those who could formulate a set of tactics and implement them were all military masters of the time, such as Moltke Jr., such as Falkingham, and Ludendorff.

Speaking of Falkingham, after being dismissed as Chief of the General Staff of the German Army, he first commanded the German Seventh Army to defeat the Romanian army, then occupied all of Romania, and is now commanding the Ottoman army to defend Palestine, and in the meantime has successfully implemented the plan to expel the Jews.

Look, don't look at Kinham's fight against the French, but against the Romanians and the British in North Africa, Finkingham's performance is still remarkable, which also fully illustrates the combat effectiveness of the French army during the First World War.

For the time being, as long as Qin Zhiyuan finds the weakness of the "elastic tactics" and formulates corresponding tactics according to the weaknesses, what awaits the Germans will only be defeat.

Regardless of whether it is Admiral Hurtier or Admiral Ludendorff on the other side.

The shelling did not last long, because there were no more worthy targets on the German forward positions, and there looked like wasteland that had just been reclaimed and had not yet had time to be leveled, and it was no longer visible as it was, only craters and corpses scattered all over the hills.

So the infantry attacked.

Almost without any hindrance, the infantry under the cover of tanks reached the German anti-tank trenches.

After several exercises, the fighters were already familiar with the anti-tank trenches, three or four soldiers jumped into the trenches, punched holes in the trench walls with steel drills, and then stuffed a certain amount of explosives.

It's simply not too easy.

After capturing the forward positions of the Germans, the 32nd Division did not rush to attack, but set up simple defensive positions to cover the defensive positions arranged by Xu Sheng's regiment and Fu Lehe's regiment.

Compared with the position of the 32nd Division, Xu Sheng's position was much more complicated.

Because of the large number of steel structure bunkers, one pillbox after another was quickly set up, because of the repeated artillery fire, the soil on the surface has been extremely loose, and the sandbags that provide reinforcement quickly accumulated, and then two layers were thickly wrapped outside the bunker. Then it is necessary to connect the steel structure, set up anti-artillery holes and command headquarters; Finally, it is necessary to set up communication trenches, assign tank units to defend areas, and so on.

In less than two hours, a well-equipped, sturdy defensive position was built.

The steel structure has made a great contribution, if there is no such thing, if you want to build such a position, at least Xu Sheng and his two regiments will have to work for a week.

(To be continued.) )