The German-Austrian forces had quietly assembled their forces along the Maas River, and on the Alsace-Lorraine line, the Germans included the 4th and 5th armies on the Western Front and the 9th and 11th armies mobilized from the Eastern Front, with a total strength of 850,000 men. Austria-Hungary also mobilized the 3rd, 4th, and 7th armies on this front, with a total strength of 670,000 troops.

The German-Austrian forces were ready for a general offensive, while civil strife was raging in France.

General Chauffeur, who had been the commander-in-chief of the French army since before the war, was dismissed from his post due to political disagreements with Prime Minister Briand and Minister of War Leotei, and Briand chose Nivelle, who had risen rapidly in the Battle of Verdun, as his successor, and the generals were skeptical of the ability of the new commander-in-chief, because Nivelle had never commanded more than one army before, but now he suddenly became the supreme commander of the 3 million French army.

In mid-January 1917, he was promoted to Field Marshal of the French Army and relieved of his duties as Commander-in-Chief. General Nivelle was appointed commander-in-chief of the French army, but this appointment was clearly a problematic move.

The young and enthusiastic Nivelle advocated a large-scale offensive, but the senior French generals, who had extensive experience fighting on the Western Front, were not impressed. Foch, Cassteno, and Petain were well aware of the difficulties of breaking through the deep ditches and criss-crossing trenches of the German army on the Western Front, and in their view, the cost of hundreds of thousands of casualties to advance more than ten kilometers to the German positions was of no use in turning the tide of the war, and the French army's task now was to wait in the trenches and wait for the Americans to prepare and rush to Europe before attacking.

However, Neveler, who was overjoyed, wanted to quickly establish his authority, and strongly advocated a large-scale campaign on the Western Front, and even persuaded the British top brass to agree to his battle plan.

The plan of the new French commander-in-chief was to launch an all-out and large-scale offensive from Arras to Reims, intending to annihilate the German 3rd Army in the Noyon salient in one fell swoop, thus completely turning the tide of the war on the Western Front. The de facto supreme commander of the German army, General Ludendorff, deputy chief of the General Staff, was also aware of the danger to the German forces in the Noyon salient as the French began to prepare for the campaign, and ordered the troops to voluntarily abandon the Noyon salient and retreat to the more favorable Hindenburg defensive line.

The French immediately revised their battle plan, and as the Germans retreated to defensible terrain, the battle line was narrowed and more defensive. The officers of the General Staff believed that since the Germans had changed their defensive posture, they warned the commander-in-chief that if they forced themselves on the offensive, they would suffer heavy losses.

The commanders of the three Army Groups, which were tasked with the offensive, disagreed with the continuation of the offensive, and Despere, Pétain, and Michele, expressed to Nivelle in respectful but resolute terms that they did not consider a sudden and violent attack to be a practical way of breaking through the enemy's lines, which would put the initiative in the campaign in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy.

On the evening of 6 April, the new Minister of the Army, Pan Lewe, convened a meeting at the War Department, which was attended by the Prime Minister, the Commander-in-Chief and several other ministers. The Minister of War drew the attention of General Nivelle to the misgivings of his principal subordinates.

But Nivelle insisted on his opinion, he firmly believed that he had no problem in achieving a complete victory, and the British army participated in the battle with nearly 400,000 men in three army groups, while the French side would send 65 divisions and nearly 850,000 men, while the defending German army had only 43 divisions and nearly 650,000 men, and the Anglo-French army was nearly twice as large as the enemy.

In the end, the commander-in-chief declared that if he did not have the support of the Cabinet, he would ask them to elect a new successor. This was a very serious threat, and the British cabinet was won over by Nivelle, and the British command was convinced.

The problem now was that the rejection of Commander-in-Chief Nivelle from the post of Commander-in-Chief of Nivelle against the offensive plan would not only mean a crisis in the Government and Parliament, which could be fatal to the new Government, but would also mean that it would be essentially impossible to carry out any major operational plans in 1917.

In the end, the Prime Minister and the ministers of the Cabinet of Ministers gave in, and this was the beginning of the disaster.

At the same time, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor had persuaded the German Emperor and the German General Staff to agree to a large-scale offensive campaign in France, and the German-Austrian forces began to withdraw their troops from the Eastern Front and move them to the Western Front.

The offensive campaign of Venyler began.

On 9 April, the British army, which was tasked with flanking the flank, first launched an attack on the German army on the line from Douai to Cambrai, and broke through the first line of German defense, but then the attack was stopped by the German army and did not achieve the goal of containing the German army. On 16 April, the French launched an all-out assault on the German line of the Aisne River on the frontal line from Reims to Soissons, and the two sides fought fiercely on a front of nearly 130 kilometers, until mid-May, when the British and French forces suffered nearly 400,000 casualties and heavy losses, but only advanced the front by 10 kilometers, while the German side suffered 240,000 casualties.

Unable to break through the German lines, the Anglo-French forces had to stop the offensive. The largest offensive campaign of the French army since the beginning of the war was a crushing defeat.

As a result of the great setbacks suffered, the feelings of defeat spread rapidly among the French army. Due to the lack of confidence in the Supreme Commander, but also due to heavy losses and active defeatist propaganda, a tense atmosphere arose throughout the army. The French soldiers began to mutiny, and it soon spread to the 16 armies of the front, and even some of the elite units did so. Russian-style councils of soldiers were formed in many units, and the soldiers did not obey the orders of their superiors. The entire regiment of soldiers went to Paris to ask for a peace with Germany and Austria.

The soldiers began to desert or sit in the barracks, demanding the removal of the commander-in-chief of the army and refusing to return to the trenches on the front line.

Nivelle was not Xia Fei, who had won the trust and support of the soldiers in the war, but the new commander-in-chief forced an attack with heavy losses, which most soldiers believed was a needless death on the battlefield. The French army was out of control, and the entire front was in disarray.

But the news of the French mutiny was tightly sealed, and neither the German and Austrian intelligence services received any news in time.

In another time and space, Ludendorff abandoned his original battle plan because of the heavy losses of his troops and the need to recuperate, and failed to seize this golden opportunity. But a butterfly flapped its wings and changed the direction of the wind, as the Austrians had already begun to make landfall in the port of Vendel, adding to the confusion of the French.

It was true that Lehedon was unaware of the French mutiny, but the German-Austrian attack coincided with the most chaotic time for the French army.

As the saying goes, if you don't die, you won't die.

And this time, it was the French themselves who were dying.

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