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The shells were endless, and the third German trench was surrounded by bursting fire and shrapnel) The thick yellow choking smoke characteristic of picric acid explosives quickly filled, but no one dared to blink an eye! The only thing to be thankful for was that due to the rapid agitation between the two sides, the German heavy artillery regiment further away was afraid of its own soldiers, so it temporarily put aside the gas shells that were attached to it, while the Chinese expeditionary force also put the gas shells sent by the French army to the side, and both sides seemed to intend to fight a dignified field trench tug-of-war.

However, the elite German heavy machine gunners, who were accustomed to cutting down British and French soldiers like wheat, were particularly depressed this time, not only because the smoke was too big to block the view, but also because the Chinese soldiers on the opposite side did not continue to use the skirmisher line assault Chapter 413 100-day fierce soldiers (below) tactics after seizing the second trench, but all of them lay down and adopted more extreme long-distance crawling forward tactics! The German soldiers in the trenches struggled to keep their eyes wide and gnash their teeth as they watched the Chinese Expeditionary Force soldiers crawl out of the second trench like a tide. Several German officers couldn't sit still and tried to personally lead the counter-charge, but the opponent's artillery fire was so fierce that it was completely beyond the intensity that an infantry division should have! What was even more surprising was that because they did not prepare for the necessary artillery fire at all, they directly kicked off the charge with a barrage of Xu Jin, so when the Chinese infantry appeared, many of them had not even entered the battle position.

"The machine guns have not been launched, the cannons are still in the bunkers, the soldiers are nervously nesting in the cold bunkers like cellars, waiting for the attack, everything is waiting according to inertia, but the enemy infantry has already appeared on the horizon, this is a damn war!" A staff officer of the Third Army of the German Crown Prince Army on the Western Front later described the first battle of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, northwest of Reims, on the edge of a small town called Montigny.

The German army, which was accustomed to artillery fire first, did not expect that the Chinese expeditionary force, which made its debut for the first time, would bypass the preparation stage that was regarded as a "must" by the officers, take an infantry brigade as the lead, and then directly open the curtain of the 413 chapter 100 days of fierce soldiers (below) and slowly advance to attack the defensive line, so that the three reserve divisions of the German Third Army more than 20 kilometers away were even eating breakfast slowly after learning the news, because the division commanders felt that the enemy would prepare for artillery fire for at least one or two hours, and it was completely possible to eat enough to make the soldiers more energetic before setting off.

But they miscalculated this time!

The French liaison officers widened their eyes, and they never lowered their binoculars after they were raised, and they didn't even have the heart to taste the instant coffee prepared for them by the Chinese staff officers. Infantry artillery: A perfect infantry assault! When the war went on two years later. When the French army used the tactic of barrage Xu Jin in Verdun, these Chinese soldiers were already very skilled! They are all officers who fought in life and death, and their previous arrogance and prejudice were instantly driven away by this flowing infantry tactics in front of the real picture.

However, the fierce battle is not over. The first two barriers failed too quickly, but instead compressed all the main forces of the German army into the third-line trenches, and also gave them more time to prepare, and completely burst out the world's famous firepower advantage and tenacity! Long-range artillery support from the small town of Montigny in the rear also began to pour dense shells between the two and three lines of defense, even if they were crawling forward, hundreds of officers and men of the expeditionary force were still blown to pieces, and the artillery fire of both sides was entangled at this moment, on one side two independent heavy artillery brigades at the army level threw frantically at the No. 3 trench, and on the other side tried to use the barrage to block the middle and indirect junctions.

"Pete, how are they going to break through the third trench?" Under blazing artillery fire. The French liaison officer was also a little nervous.

"I can't guess."

During their conversation, Du Zishan pulled open the gas mask as quickly as possible and stuffed two pieces of black stuff into his mouth, which he exchanged for canned luncheon meat from several French exchange soldiers, which is said to replenish physical strength called chocolate, "Sugar () He likes this taste very much, and secretly thinks that he must learn to make this thing after the war, and then return to China and open a chocolate shop, and the business will definitely be very good." Du Zishan smiled and quickly stuffed five shotguns into the magazine, found 4 grenades to fill the sac, and finally found a Mauser **** from the German corpse. Fully armed, the comrades-in-arms to the company commander.

"Wehrmacht attack!"

The long-lost cry of attack instantly ignited these soldiers, who had not been on the battlefield since 1911! Although they are in a foreign country, the soldiers still hold their steel guns and pursue the dream of a strong country!

"This battle is an opportunity for the world to re-understand our China, and this battle is the cornerstone of the Chinese boys standing in the world!" These two sentences of the commander-in-chief's public telegram sent to the whole army before the expedition lingered in my ears. With their dreams, everyone rushed out of the trench again, and then quickly crossed the second trench and continued to move forward along the mud marks crawled out of the brother troops in front! Two soldiers covered the thick wet quilt over the barbed wire, and the flying sappers compacted the dirt on the quilt with a few strokes, and an improvised passage was quickly opened. As soon as the passage was completed, a soldier of the first class from Sichuan leapt like a sharp sword to break through the barbed wire, but before he could take a few more steps, a machine-gun bullet rained down on him and hit him in the chest.

"Machine gun...... In the shouting of the company commander, five light machine guns were aimed at the hidden Makqin machine gun fort at the same time, and the dense fire point was suppressed in an instant, and at this moment, more than a dozen soldiers had already crossed the passage, scattered in all directions, and continued to maintain the intact straggler line crawling forward.

Du Zishan was also crawling in the mud, and from time to time explosions rising from his side lifted the dirt and gravel high and then smashed his head and face violently. Along the way, the helmet clicked unconsciously. The body, which was only wearing a thick cotton coat, was smashed in pain, but no one dared to stand up. He crawled past two German corpses, one covered in dirt with only two feet still outside, and the other had half of its head cut off, and yellow and white streams were everywhere! He didn't stop, he didn't even flinch his gaze. It only stopped when the body of a comrade who had been blown in two appeared.

The lower body of the body was gone, the intestines dragged out for several meters, the eyes bulged as if unwilling, and the rifle twisted into a twisted grenade sac was missing. Just one glance at Du Zishan to understand that it should be a shell that exploded at close range and caused shrapnel to hit the grenade and cause a secondary explosion, completely cutting the comrade-in-arms from the waist! If you were an ordinary soldier, you might not dare to move forward, but all the people who took on the first battle were veterans who had participated in the Qingdao Campaign, so Du Zishan tore off the nameplate around his partner's neck and stuffed it into his pocket, closed his eyes with his hands and gritted his teeth and continued to crawl forward.

A Fokker C fighter jet circled back and forth, and the sight on the ground made the pilot's scalp tingle, and all he saw was the brownish-yellow dirt in front of the third trench, and the yellow figure wriggling like maggots everywhere. Little by little, they gnawed away like locusts and approached the line of defense, which reminded him of a word spoken by His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm.

"Yellow Peril...... The artillery fire is too fierce! Can't go up to the casualties, what! Still not clear? Wings...... regiment, 421 regiment went up from both flanks to disperse enemy artillery fire. "The telephone bell in the rear headquarters was chaotic. The constant news made Xie Ruyi, a general who came out of the Yunnan Jiangwutang and participated in the Northern Expedition and the Qingdao Campaign, also sweat profusely. Although everyone understands that as long as they survive this wave of crazy artillery fire, the more they get to victory, the more nervous everyone becomes.

"Try to disperse enemy artillery fire. Tank company, go up! ”

Two tank companies specially reinforced for the first battle set off! The Renault FT17 tank began to show its grim face. These tanks were all manufactured by the French company Renault after Yang Qiu sold the drawings. Exactly like the original, weighing 7 tons and operated by 2 people, equipped with a Haqikai 8 mm heavy machine gun, 4,600 rounds of ammunition, and 22 mm frontal armor to ensure protection against strafing from the Maxim heavy machine gun. Originally, the expeditionary force version was supposed to install a 12.7 fangs heavy machine gun. However, since this heavy machine gun has not yet been sold to Britain and France, it needs to be shipped from China and has not yet arrived, so it can only be used with French machine guns first.

The Germans had already seen tanks, so they were not panicking, in fact, they saw tanks as not very effective, and they could be blocked by simply widening trenches, and this idea later affected the generals of the Western Front. But the appearance of Renault FT17 still surprised the German ** official! This means that 10 kilometres away there is already a pontoon bridge with a capacity of 7 tons! Although the soldiers were still gritting their teeth and holding on, the officers realized that something was wrong! As the artillery fire of the expeditionary force began to extend, the thin "long dragons" on both flanks, under the cover of tanks, began to encircle the third trench.

Du Zishan, who was lying on the ground, could not see the brother troops outflanked on both wings. He couldn't see the picture of the tank spraying bullets, he only felt that there seemed to be a lot less explosions around him, and when he was wondering, the barbed wire finally appeared! See these dense defensive nets on the entire Western Front. He immediately followed the method of pre-war training to find the nearest breakthrough, and then jumped up and jumped over the quilt covered with soil.

The rainstorm of bullets chirped under the feet, breaking through the barbed wire was the most difficult step, these little things were not expensive but really hindered the advance of the troops, and the machine guns could calmly block the gaps that they were trying to cross, so there were hundreds of officers and men of the expeditionary force who fell around the gaps alone! He threw two grenades in succession with all his might, and then used the barrage to rush dozens of meters again, and when the smoke cleared, the trench that poked out of the dense barrel like an enraged hedgehog finally appeared in sight!

The moment the artillery fire suddenly stopped, thousands of officers and men of the expeditionary force who were crawling to about 50 meters all jumped up, and dozens of Han III heavy machine guns, hundreds of light machine guns, and specially reinforced 12.7 mm fanged heavy machine guns opened fire at the same time, mercilessly firing at the third line of German trenches. Thousands of shotguns followed Du Zishan like a tiger descending from the mountain. Ravaging the trenches again and sweeping everything.

The battle is still in full swing...... Paris.

The Champs-Élysées boulevard is lined with bunkers and sandbags, military vehicles come and go, and the Élysée Palace, the symbol of France, has become an icy fortress, with anti-aircraft guns sticking out of the lavishly decorated complexes and heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft surveillance posts on the roof.

In the office, the well-dressed new commander-in-chief of the French army, General Nivelle, talked and laughed with the officers. After Xia Fei became a marshal, he finally ascended to the throne of the Supreme Commander of the French Army! Of course, this position is not very secure, especially since Petain and Foch are still eyeing each other, so the situation must be opened as soon as possible. He picked up the whip and pointed to the map, and his voice was loud and full of confidence: "Generals, the Germans have no strength!" Hindenburg was shrinking his forces and retreating to the Siegfried Line he had built, but he was wrong! Verdun had exhausted the strength of Germany, any stubborn resistance would be futile, and our artillery could easily be torn apart...... General Reims telegraphed that Chinese had broken through the lines of the Hessian reserve division of the German 3rd Army, and they were ready to continue the attack on Montigny in the afternoon...... So fast? ”

"Didn't you say that the attack only started this morning?"

"God, it's only five hours!"

"Was it an effective breakthrough or only the first line of defense?"

The staff officer interrupted the new commander-in-chief's enthusiastic speech, which also caused an uproar in the office. Nivelle's face darkened a little, he didn't care about the Chinese Expeditionary Force! In his opinion, it was just cannon fodder cannon fodder found by politicians! The only use is to consume the Germans in front! So cough a few times at once. Bring back everyone's attention: "You have nothing to celebrate about breaking through the defense line of the Hessian reserve division of about 10,000 people with a reinforced division!" Our goal is the Siegfried Line, and we must break through it! Then drive the Germans back to Belgium until they reach Berlin! ”

Although the generals still wanted to know more about the inside story, Nivelle's words also made them feel very reasonable. It is important to know that Hindenburg is organizing a general retreat of troops. So Montigny, northwest of Reims, has only one German reserve division stationed, but the Chinese used a full division plus 2 independent artillery brigades, as well as tanks, machine guns, etc. A battle with hammers to smash iron, is it worth writing about?

General Nivelle naturally pressed the detailed battle report at the bottom of the document, and the staff officer moved his mouth when he saw this, and originally wanted to remind him of the suggestions put forward by the front-line liaison officer on learning the tactics of the squadron, but in the end, the new commander-in-chief seemed to dislike the Chinese, so let's mention it less in the future! The staff officer thought about it and turned away. It was not until many years later that he wrote in his autobiography: "At that time, General Nivelle, who had just taken office, was sketching with his enthusiasm the great battle that would later bear his name, but because of my carelessness, France missed the opportunity to end the war early." ”

The staff officer walked to the door, suddenly remembered something, turned around and asked, "General, they want more supplies?" ”

"Alright! Give them enough ammunition and supplies, and let them die with those damned German pigs, and do more for France. Nivelle waved his hand impatiently away from the staff officer, and the moment the door closed, the staff officer heard a burst of laughter from inside.

The war continues. The 8th Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, which had entered the battlefield, finally captured the position of the Montini German army in 6 hours, killing 1,300 and capturing 2,700 people. After capturing 77 guns of various types, including 8 K16 long-range cannons, 45 heavy machine guns and countless supplies and ammunition, two reserve divisions of the German Third Army appeared behind the small town of Montigny.

The 8th Division retreated to the top of the 3rd Division.

A few days later, the 3rd Division retreated...... On top of the division, followed by the 221st and 201st divisions. In the snowy winter, several German infantry divisions that also took turns on the field began to use poison gas after a long time, and the expeditionary force also silently counterattacked with poison gas shells. On the 115-kilometer (the fastest update) line of defense from Montigny to Suvadai, the Chinese Defense Forces began their own 100-day plan. In the 116 days of repeated tug-of-war between the smallest regiment and the largest two divisions, all the 20 divisions that arrived one after another were pulled up.

At the cost of 12,000 dead and wounded, more than 30,000 German troops were killed and captured. More importantly, these small-scale battles gave the expeditionary force an intuitive and clear idea of the war on the Western Front, and also allowed all the troops to be trained. However, this series of small battles did not attract the attention of the top brass of the British and French armies. The battle briefing was finally reduced to lines of inconspicuous small print that was pressed on the case records of the generals, and the only changes that could be seen for the officers and men of the expeditionary force were that the logistics were smoother, the ammunition replenishment was faster, and the delivery of equipment was faster! Similarly, neither Yue Peng nor the Expeditionary Force Command raised any complaints, because everyone understood that compared with the more than ten major battles that had taken place on the Western Front since the beginning of the war, this kind of small battles that were fought every day really had nothing to boast about. And everyone knows about it. A new battle begins to brew as winter departs day by day.

At the end of February, on the occasion of the Lunar New Year, Nivelle, who had just taken over as commander-in-chief of the French army, formally proposed a plan for a major counteroffensive in the spring of 1917.

The Nivelle massacre, which shocked the world, emerged from under the snow and ice...... To be continued ......) rx！！！