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At the same time as the Anglo-German naval battle, on the Western Front, the Germans quickly occupied Ypres, Belgium, relying on Chinese tanks. xstxt.org French Minister of War, General Gallieny, saw the power of Chinese tanks and persuaded the French government to place an order for 500 tanks from China, and confronted the Germans at Verdun, and the two sides fell into a protracted war.

On Christmas Eve 1908, Schlieffen, chief of the General Staff of the German army, drafted a memorandum to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was losing patience with the war, predicting the strategies available militarily, and the memorandum read: "Your Majesty, Britain's main weapons on the mainland are the armies of France and Russia, and the Russian ** team has nothing to worry about on the Eastern Front. If the French people can understand that, in terms of military significance, they have nothing to count on, and if they do not give up resistance, death will come, and the best weapon in the hands of England will be defeated by us".

Schlieffen intended to choose an area on the Western Front that was emotionally sacred to the French, to "shed the blood of the French", and in order to defend this area, the French would have to throw in every soldier they had.

Schlieffen chose Verdun, a sleepy French provincial town of about 14,000 people that had been a military stronghold in Roman times. From here, the great Caesar conquered the Gauls 2,000 years ago. Schlieffen also intended to crush the French army from here.

Verdun was defended by a massive fortress complex protruding into the German lines. Moreover, Verdun was also unsettlingly close to Germany's main railway system. It's only about twelve miles.

In order to ensure the consent of the Kaiser, Schlieffen sent Hindenburg and Ludendorff as commanders and chiefs of staff of the corps, respectively, and asked in the direction of Verdun. Attack the Meuse area.

Reinforcements were drawn from the battle-hardened units of the German Army, and the three corps were transferred to Hindenburg's command in January 1909. After a short rest in the recuperation camp, Brandenburg's Third Army arrived.

By mid-February, thirteen divisions were deployed in the middle of or around Argonne, Shambani, and Lorraine, concentrating an astonishingly large number of forces in an area of about twenty square miles.

Although Schlieffen retains nominal command, key decisions. It was made by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, but the central strategy of the whole campaign was still formulated by Schlieffen.

Germany's preparations for this massive offensive. First, the artillery was surprisingly concentrated from the Eastern Front, the Balkans, the Krupp factory, etc. Lined up around the scene of the attack were five hundred and forty-two mine-throwers. Together with the flank weapons, there were more than fourteen hundred cannons lined up on a front less than eight miles long! In the midst of these cannons, 13 earth-shattering siege howitzers of 420 mm caliber came into play. More artillery than the Belgian fortress of Liège.

The Germans also had a particularly terrible weapon. That was the mine-thrower, which fired a shrapnel loaded with more than a hundred pounds of high-explosive and metal fragments. Thunder can be seen rolling one after another in a high bow, but once this precursor is seen, it is often too late. The explosion will destroy the entire section of the trench.

Another formidable weapon of the Germans was the 130-millimeter small-caliber high-speed gun, which fired a five-.2-inch shrapnade at the speed of a rifle bullet, killing the French before they could even notice it. The Germans also adopted flamethrowers.

In 1908, after the Belgian fortresses of Liège and Namur were captured by the Great Berta guns, Chauffy considered the fortress of Verdun to be useless for military purposes. More than four thousand guns were evacuated from the battery. At least 2,300 of them were large-caliber artillery, practically dismantling all of its defenses.

At the end of 1908. Nancy parliamentarian and preeminent military analyst Emile. A report written by Colonel De Leon, sent to General Gallieni, who was already Minister of War at the time, stressed the urgent need for more artillery, manpower, and supplies to the fortress of Verdun, including barbed wire.

General Gallieny, unlike Chauffeur, had a lot of combat experience, and immediately sent another delegation of the French Army Council to visit Verdun to conduct research and research, and it turned out that Verdun was the masterpiece of Vauban of the greatest military engineer of the Sun King Louis XIV! The fortress complex of Verdun is distributed among the wooded mountains, connected by rugged mountain roads in the middle, and the town of Verdun is located in the center of the fortress group, like a pear in a big bowl, easy to defend and difficult to attack, it is worth having!

A report affirming the defensive value of Verdun was quickly sent to Gallieni. Gallieri immediately decided to increase his forces to defend Verdun.

In the early morning of February 21, 1909, the sky had just fallen through the snow, and the air was strangely cold. The Germans attacked.

Along the six-mile front, concealed German artillery groups fired shells into the fortress complex at a rate of 100,000 rounds an hour. More than two million shells fell in a fourteen-mile triangle bounded by the villages of Verdun, Brabant, and Orne, blowing up all the French forward trenches. After twelve hours of bombardment, the German search force crawled forward in the darkness to test the French resistance.

By the night of February 23, the Germans had achieved nothing new. Despite their numerical superiority of seven to one in artillery and three to one in troops, they advanced only two miles and captured no more than three thousand prisoners. The next day, they broke through the main French line of defense, capturing ten thousand prisoners, sixty-five cannons and a large number of machine guns. At the same time, a large number of German artillery wheels followed, and in front of their infantry units, fired a continuous stream of rolling shells, leveling trenches, blowing up pillboxes, and blowing forests to pieces.

Due to the ferocity of the attack and the temperature of tens of degrees below zero, the French soldiers were numb from the cold. The light infantry recruited by the French from Algeria, accustomed to the Algerian heat, became vulnerable at minus fifteen degrees.

In the early morning of 24 February, a battalion of French light infantry froze to the point of unconsciousness, and the major who was then in command of the French army also fell. So a captain was in command, but his officer was so small that the others ignored him and turned their backs and fled. As a small squad of machine guns opened fire in their backs. Morale was "restored".

French War Minister Gallieni ordered the army to defend the army and appointed Henry. General Petain commanded the defense of Verdun to stop the French from escaping. Petain took up his new duties on 25 February. On that day, Duaumont was captured by the Germans.

At the Duaumont Battery, a French light infantry division that had been dug and fortified began to break up after withstanding 120,000 rounds of German artillery shells under continuous shelling. In the midst of the snow and smoke, a nine-man German patrol trudged to the drawbridge, which had been abandoned and laid down by the French. Other soldiers followed. Until three hundred stunned Germans wandered in the tunnels of this battery. Without firing a single shot, the mighty fortress of Douaumont was captured.

The fall of this fort dealt a heavy blow to the morale of the French army. Petain expressed his opinion on the senior French generals: "Duaumont was the hope of the entire Verdun defense system. Be sure to retake it! As a result, the battle between the two sides at several lines of defense on the outskirts of Verdun quickly turned into a tug-of-war.

It is absolutely impossible to fight a war without supplies. German artillery cut off all but a secondary road, twenty feet wide, from Verdun to the city of Bareduk, about thirty-five miles to the southwest. There is a one-way narrow-gauge railway along this road. Transporting supplies for the defenders in peacetime. But now it's no longer enough. Quarries were opened along the road, and thousands of French soldiers worked with groups of civilians to widen and pave the road with pickaxes and shovels.

At the same time, Pétain divided the front into a number of defensive zones to distribute heavy artillery, ammunition and other supplies. The French army continuously transferred troops and supplies to Verdun through the Baledique-Verdun road, organizing 3,900 trucks to transport 190,000 personnel and 25,000 tons of supplies within a week. Every 24 hours, 6,000 trucks cross the road - an average of one truck every 14 seconds.

Since Petain insisted that the troops on the battlefield must be rotated regularly. As a result, 70% of the French army was involved in the battle, while only 20% of the German army participated. As a result, after more than a month of fighting, the brutal fighting had a serious psychological impact on the French army, almost leading to a mutiny in the French army, which was prevented from actually taking place because of the promise that the soldiers would never take part in the harsh battles against the Germans again. Later, the French soldiers refused to engage in offensive battles, but only defended themselves in the trenches.

After a few days of temporary calm, the German Fifth Army, in another place, on the left bank of the Meuse, reoffensive. Pétain welcomed this tactical mistake, as the line was defended by his newest and best-supplied troops. The Germans, now caught under ferocious crossfire from the flank artillery positions on the other side of the Meuse, had to extend their line along the east bank of the river.

In the bloody battle around the steep bank known as the "Dead Man" for control of the West Bank, both sides suffered terrible losses. The dense high-explosive shells shook the earth, throwing people, equipment and rubble into the sky like chaff, and the heat wave of the explosion melted the snow and filled the craters with water, and many wounded soldiers drowned in them. The blind and bloody men groped their way to the cave to safety, and fell on top of their companions, drenching them in blood.

In the mutual killing, the armies of both sides fired tens of thousands of shells, millions of bullets. While the defenders could not be shaken by the continuous shelling, flamethrowers, and infantry charges of hand-to-hand combat, the German sappers dug holes under the French positions and exploded powerful blasting mines, which exploded into many ten-story deep craters.

In early 1909, the Germans launched a general offensive at Verdun in advance, carrying out simultaneous artillery bombardment on a frontage 40 kilometers wide, and the German airship aviation also bombed French positions for the first time, destroying some defensive positions and killing and wounding a large number of French troops. In just over a month of fighting, the number of French casualties killed, wounded, captured and missing was numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Germany is similar. If the blood of the French is to be shed, it will also be the blood of the Germans.

The Battle of Verdun was the first large-scale automobile transport in history. A large number of French reinforcements were put into battle in time, strengthening the defense in depth and having a significant impact on the course of the campaign. The Germans also had a large consumption of ammunition, and the strategic reserves did not arrive in time, and the attack power was sharply reduced, so the opportunity to break through the French line was lost, and the two sides fell into a war of attrition.

But this is extremely unfavorable for Germany. The German High Seas Fleet could not hold out, and the British Royal Navy imposed a naval embargo on Germany, making it impossible for most ports to import goods. British Prime Minister Asquith violated international law by declaring the entire North Sea a war zone. Not only were German ships forbidden to transport any food and medicine to Allied ports, but even neutral ships and neutral ports were under embargo. In particular, the British Navy announced a blockade of the Mediterranean, which outraged China and the United States!

The Mediterranean Sea is the oldest sea in the world. History is older than the Atlantic. As the largest intercontinental sea in the world, the Mediterranean Sea is surrounded by the European continent to the north, the African continent to the south and the Asian continent to the east, with a total length of about 4,000 kilometers from east to west and about 1,800 kilometers from north to south, including the Sea of Marmara, excluding the Black Sea. It is about 2,512,000 square kilometers, which is very vast.

As one of the oldest oceans in history, the Mediterranean Sea has always been the busiest ocean in the world. Because the Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea. It is relatively calm, coupled with the twists and turns of the coastline, many islands, and many natural harbors, which have become the main transportation route between the three continents. Such conditions. The Mediterranean Sea has flourished maritime trade since ancient times, and has also played an important role in the rise and rise of ancient Egyptian civilization, ancient Babylonian civilization, and ancient Greek civilization. The Phoenicians, Cretans, Greeks, and later the Portuguese and Spaniards along its coast were all seafaring peoples. Famous navigators such as Columbus and Magellan came from countries bordering the Mediterranean.

The blockade of the Mediterranean Sea by the British Royal Navy was tantamount to cutting off the financial routes of neutral countries. Among them are Chinese and American. Because after the British blockade of the Mediterranean and the North Sea, Germany had almost no merchant ships on the high seas, so it began to use submarines to counter the British and French naval blockade. British and Irish waters were declared war zones, and merchant ships were not allowed to approach.

Of course. At that time, the Allies also had to replenish supplies, and the merchant ships related to them basically had only two routes, one was to take the Atlantic, from the United States or Canada and other regions to transport supplies to the British mainland or the ports of northern France. At that time, the United States was far superior to Canada in terms of industry, population, and other aspects, so that such resources were usually shipped from the United States to Europe, compared to the small amount of goods sent from Canada. The other route is to purchase supplies from China. Germany used submarines to attack merchant ships to counter the British blockade of the sea.

In the beginning, the Germans were rigid and German submarines attacked merchant ships under the "prisoner rule", according to which naval ships had to identify themselves before attacking, and the submarines had to surface and wait for passengers and crew to transfer to lifeboats before launching torpedo attacks. However, the British did not play their cards according to the axioms, and disguised some warships as merchant ships (i.e., Q ships), or installed cannons on merchant ships, which was extremely dangerous for submarines that were small in size, slow in speed, and slow in ascending at that time. The German submarines surfaced according to the traditional rules, which was almost tantamount to suicide, so that after the loss of five or six submarines, they did not follow the traditional rules.

In this way, it would be difficult for merchant ships to travel to Europe, which would be tantamount to cutting off the financial routes of neutral countries. At this time, China and the United States were both big customers of European countries, with China accounting for about 50% of the European market share and the United States accounting for 30%, so they decided to visit the United States to seek support from the United States and negotiate that the two countries would "not hesitate to use force to maintain neutrality and free trade." Another reason for his visit to the United States was that he received information that Britain was secretly supporting Japan because of China's establishment of Greater Tibet.

In World War I, because of the European war, the European powers, including Germany, Britain, France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and other countries, had a great demand for materials needed for the war. The problem is that the war itself consumes too many materials, and many countries, such as Russia, cannot even meet the requirements of weapons and equipment, let alone some materials needed for daily life. In order to meet this demand, countries such as Britain and France have only one way, and that is to buy. Buy from abroad. Buy from China, the United States, Japan, and many other countries in South America. This massive demand for materials has brought unlimited business opportunities to the above-mentioned countries. For example, the United States still owed Britain 400 million pounds before the war, but after the war, Britain owed the United States 800 million pounds, a full 1.2 billion pounds, which was almost equivalent to Britain's fiscal revenue for seven or eight years before the war. After the war, Britain and other countries had to introduce many new taxes and raise tax rates to make up for the government's shortfall. And it is with everything that the United States has earned in this war. After the end of the war, it became a world power that could be on a par with Britain.

In the war of 1909, China's goods had a strong competitiveness in low prices, earning a lot of pounds and gold, and not only did the domestic military industry make great progress. Industry also "ran into industrialization" because of this war. Domestic fiscal revenues have also been greatly improved.

In 1909, China's industrial strength was about the same as that of Britain, the world's largest country, in several major indicators, such as steel production and coal production. For example, the three northeastern provinces. It has become one of the most important heavy industrial regions in China, especially in terms of steel, and the production of steel in Tohoku is almost double that of the whole of Japan.

The United States has the second-largest benefit from this war, accounting for about 30 percent. Another beneficiary country, Japan, has a share of about 15 per cent.

Despite the catastrophe of militarism. Japan is broken, but the Japanese nation does have a strong learning ability and development potential, and after paying off the war reparations. Japan recovered very quickly, and the demand for materials in Europe also led to great progress in Japan's domestic industry, although it did not reap as much of the benefits of this war as China. But it's also very impressive.

With money. Japan's military power has also made great progress. It took the Japanese three years to make up for the losses of the army, and the army strength was expanded to 600,000, and the navy took almost five years. With the help of the east wind of the European war, the Japanese greatly expanded their army, and in addition to the two new 10,000-ton battle cruisers purchased from Britain, the navy also began a new shipbuilding program.

Those right-wingers in Japan, who are not mentally normal and accustomed to shouting, are clamoring for another war with China. But. China's power has grown stronger, leaving the Japanese emperor a little desperate.

China has adopted a low-tax approach. However, fiscal revenues are still much higher than those of Japan. Plus the vast territory. With inexhaustible manpower and material resources, China's advantage over resource-poor Japan is too great. China's army has expanded to 3 million, and its navy has become second only to the British navy in terms of size, similar to Germany, and China's military industry is also very developed, with aircraft, tanks, and submarines all world-class.

Moreover, the total strength of the Chinese Empire's national defense forces is almost five times that of Japan. And the quality is also good. After many years of hard work, the Wehrmacht of the Chinese Empire was in no way inferior to the Japanese in terms of training, and its training and actual combat experience were superior to those of the Japanese troops. Today, the new army of the Chinese Empire, even if the ratio of troops is 1:1, can still defeat the Japanese. Moreover, due to China's restrictions, Japan's heavy industry is relatively poor and cannot compete with China.

Song Xiaofei visited the United States and brought a lady to the United States in accordance with diplomatic practice. Such a good opportunity, Xi Muqing and Rong Rong both want to go, now Song Xiaofei is embarrassed, both of them have stayed in the United States, they are fluent in English, and they have outstanding temperament, Xi Muqing's work in the International Red Cross is also very good. In the end, for the sake of fairness, Song Xiaofei asked Xi Muqing and Rong Rong to draw lots. As a result, Xi Muqing's luck was better, she was chosen, Rong Rong was so angry that she didn't eat for a day, until Song Xiaofei promised to take her with her for the next visit abroad. Xi Muqing got the opportunity to visit Washington, cherished it, and made up for his English.

Washington, USA. Compared to Europe, which is shrouded in gunsmoke, and China, which is preparing for war, it is undoubtedly much quieter, and Washington, as the political center of the United States, is still very safe. Otherwise, neither the Entente nor the Allies would have taken the initiative to provoke such a behemoth as the United States, although the United States in this era was not as powerful as Germany and Britain.

Unlike in Europe, not only are many cities at war, but also large numbers of conscripts are mobilized in various countries. The lives of the people have long been disturbed, and the peaceful and tranquil life of the past is gone. As British Foreign Secretary Grey lamented: "The lights are going out all over Europe." "In this country far from the war, many white Americans are strolling leisurely through the streets. Except that blacks are still severely discriminated against in this era, the United States is still good.

At that time, the president of the United States was already William Brown. Taft. Song Xiaofei is coming to Washington for a visit, and he and the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State, William Brown, is also the Secretary of State. Jennings. Brian discussed how the United States should take a stand.

At the White House, President Taft sat in a black swivel chair and looked at Brian, who was sitting opposite: "Do you think we in the United States should ally with the Chinese now?" ”

Brian said: "Mr. President, now the Chinese have quite good strength. It may be a decisive force in this war. In this way, China has not expressed its position, and it is better to maintain our neutrality. And at the moment there is a lot of isolationism in the country, and it won't be easy for us to get involved if we want to get involved without the necessary reasons, because you know, it's not easy to convince those members of Congress to support the war. ”

William. Taft nodded slightly and said, "Now we don't need to intervene in this war, let's talk to the Chinese, after all, we all need free trade." ”

"But for the sake of the United States, it is best for us to join this war and get a piece of the pie when the victory is decided, and with the strength of the United States, I believe that neither the Entente nor the Allies will refuse, and they may even take the initiative to invite us." Brian said.

Song Xiaofei knew that the United States would have such a position. In the era of 1909, there was nothing more important to any country than interests. Taking the opportunity of the European war to weaken and deplete the European powers, and maintain the free trade of neutral countries to develop their own industries, from a certain point of view, the interests of China and the United States are the same, so Song Xiaofei's ideas coincide with Brian's ideas. In addition, of course, the Americans were also interested in the colonies of the European powers, otherwise the United States would not have been in a hurry to move against Spain and include Cuba and the Philippines. China, of course, is also interested.

So, in the next three days, Song Xiaofei and U.S. President William. Taft held friendly talks. Taft invited Song Xiao to his private estate as a guest, a gesture of the President of the United States to receive his honored guests. Three days later, China and the United States issued a joint statement: "China and the United States oppose any side of the war harming the merchant ships of a neutral country, and will not hesitate to use force to safeguard the legitimate rights of their neutral countries!" Any side that seizes or destroys China's merchant ships will be regarded as declaring war with China and the United States, and will pay a heavy price! ”

U.S. Vice President James Murphy. Sherman also invited Xi Muqing to give a speech in the Senate.

Xi Muqing was surprised, but out of politeness, she agreed. That morning, she delivered a speech in fluent English on Capitol Hill in the United States: "Honorable Mr. Speaker, members of the U.S. Senate, ladies and gentlemen! I was particularly touched by the warm and sincere welcome from the American people that you represent. But I did not know that I was going to address the Senate today, and your Vice-President told me that he wanted me to say a few words to you.

I'm not good at extemporaneous speeches, and I can't really be called a speaker at all; But I'm not going to get stage fright because of that. Your country and China have a 160-year-old friendship, and the first foreign students from China came to the United States. I have also been to your country, when I was a little girl, I know your people well, we have lived together. I grew up with the people of your country, and I thought and spoke the same thing as you. So, coming here today, I feel like I'm home. Freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and fraternity are values shared by the people of China and the United States, and I would like to assure you that our people are deeply aspiring and eager to realize these great ideas. My husband and I, who are now sitting in the audience with the President of your country, hope that these ideas will not be empty words, but will become real life for us and our children! ”

Xi Muqing's speech was very successful, Song Xiaofei was the first to stand up and applaud, and all the members of the US Senate and the guests stood up, and the audience burst into warm applause. (To be continued......)