The sun rose and sunset, day and night alternated, and the German and French armies held each other for another day under the city of Theonville.

As the French were frustrated in daytime battles, they invested all their strength in the night raid, and the effect of this move was almost immediate. Although their cavalry units were still swept down like wheat in front of the German machine guns, and although their infantry was strewn with corpses during the charge, they actually broke into the German trenches under the cover of night. The German and French armies met head-on in the narrow trenches, and the most primitive and fierce close-quarters fierce battles broke out.

Although neither the German nor the French had any experience in trenches, the Germans were equipped with weapons that allowed them to adapt more quickly to this new type of combat. The power of the grenade was put to great play in this jagged trench, which allowed the Germans to easily attack the enemy around the corner outside the field of vision, while the French were in a position of being beaten passively and had no way to deal with it. Occasionally, some impulsive French officers ordered the soldiers to rush through the corners of the trenches, and they were met by a head-on fire from German rifles. In such narrow corners, it was almost impossible for the French to rush past the German rifle blockade of the junction.

If the French chose to climb out of the trenches and make a detour attack from the ground, the German officers and soldiers in the rear trenches had already set up machine guns and rifles on the ground normally, and it was impossible for them to turn a blind eye to such actions of the French army. In fact, most of the reasons why French soldiers broke into German trenches were to avoid the horrific damage inflicted on them by German direct machine-gun fire. Under the blockade of German ground machine guns, every French unit broke into the German trenches. all have to pay heavy tolls; The French officers and men who managed to enter the trench rejoiced that it was too late. Not to mention crawling out of the wall to meet the German bullets.

Even inside the trenches. The safety of French soldiers is still not guaranteed. During the day, when the French frontal offensive was ceased by German firepower, the German mortar units, which had nothing to do, began to fire shells into the trenches occupied by the French. Tail-fed shells with large falling angles fell from the sky and landed precisely into the trenches, exploding with a bang; In this way, a large number of French soldiers were swallowed up by the exuberant heat and the rapid burst of shrapnel, and the severed limbs were exploded, and the blood was shot out. For this extremely obscene and powerful weapon, the French officers and soldiers have long cursed it countless times through gritted teeth; If the mind could kill, the German mortar unit would have been turned into thousands of minced meat and then used as a supper for wild dogs!

It's night. The advance of the French army was also difficult. Not to mention the possibility that a mortar shell or grenade could fall from the top of their heads at any moment, blowing them up in a bloody blur; Not to mention the fact that the Germans set up checkpoints at the corners of the trenches and blocked the junctions with dense rifle fire, even if they repelled the enemy in front of them after paying heavy casualties, few people dared to occupy the empty trenches. Every time the Germans withdrew from a small section of trench, they quietly planted mines in it, and every time the French troops advanced, their vanguard was blown to pieces. The most evil thing was that the German soldiers would also pre-plant explosives on the earth walls on both sides of the trench; As soon as the French arrived, they were detonated. Boom and bang. Fragments shoot out, sand rolls up; A large number of French soldiers were killed and wounded. This section of the trench will also collapse in this thunderous blast, directly blocking the pace of the French army's continued advance. If the French army wanted to dig up the earth and rocks again, it would not only be laborious, but also would be hit by grenades and mortar shells falling from the sky by the Germans.

Faced with this situation, the only safe way for the French army was to dig tunnels and take a large section of the trench by surprise. However, unlike digging trenches, digging tunnels in the dark takes a lot of time and effort, which is undoubtedly an undesirable option. The French army, which had penetrated deep into the city of Tionville, had become a lone army, and if it continued to be worn out by the Germans for a long time, there would inevitably be unexpected variables. If the Germans come to support the army, or if the Qing Ying sends a force back to help, then the surprise attack plan of the French army will be in vain!

Therefore, in this situation, the French could only launch a stormy assault on the German troops in the trenches. In front of the German army, countless French officers and soldiers were buried here, stained with blood. At the end of the day, the French army only captured a small section of the outermost trench position of the German army, and destroyed only two battalions of German troops, and the price they paid was so high that they were not at all in the same order of magnitude as the German army!

When he received the news that the attack of the Northern Wing Army had been blocked, the commander of the French Third Army, Lüf, who was far away in the fortress of Longvi, was not surprised at all. According to his script, scattered and scattered German troops would have no ability to resist in the face of their own assault army of more than 60,000 men; In this way, he could easily sweep the rear supply base of the German army and lay the foundation for victory in the border battle in one fell swoop. However, who would have thought that the German troops, who were absolutely inferior in numbers, would be able to build a solid defensive line under the city of Theonville that the French army could not surpass, and stand like a reef in the onslaught of the French army!

In the three days that the French army broke through the Ardennes from the north, the 60,000 French troops had already suffered more than a fifth of the casualties. Judging by the situation on the battlefield at the front, their attack on the German base of Tionville was still difficult. Lüf was bitter and remorseful about his practice of sending a large number of cavalry to assist the assault troops; If he had been able to replace these troops with infantry carrying a large number of 75mm cannons, he might have smashed the defensive turtle shells of the German machine-gun trenches in one fell swoop!

On the night of the fourth day of the border battle, the situation in the center became increasingly unfavorable for the French Third Army. The northern surprise attack force, which had been pinned on by Lüf, was slow to advance under the effective defense of the German army because of the large number of cavalry that could not be attacked; The swift assault on Theonville in the plan turned into a bloody tug-of-war with extremely unfavorable battle damage, and the tragic and aggrieved deaths of French officers and soldiers were carried out at every moment.

On the southern flank, on the battlefield of Lorraine, the German army cluster composed of three corps was like the creation thunder in the hands of Zeus, sweeping and sweeping along the way. The cascading defensive line established by the two French regiments in succession was like mud and paper in front of this unit, which had opened the way with airships and heavy artillery and advanced with tanks and fighters, and after a short battle, it collapsed and collapsed, and fled backwards in disarray. Although the main army under the city of Visoland, which served as a decoy, also launched a number of attacks on the attacking German flank, intending to stop the German advance on the southern flank, they were swept back by the German barbed wire and machine guns that had established defensive lines along the way, and the corpses were scattered everywhere.

In a matter of days, the number of casualties and missing of Luff's Third Army was close to 50,000, and what frightened him even more was the rapid advance of the German army in the south. The advance of this force was already far faster than the French army, and even the German command itself, had expected, and a large encirclement was about to be formed near Visoland, northwest of Lorraine. Due to the successive routs of the French frontal defense forces on both flanks, the total number of French troops in the current encirclement has risen to 130,000; Once they were encircled and annihilated, the backbone of the French Third Army was broken, and this was an absolutely unacceptable collapse of the French army!

Luff was a masterpiece in strategic games, but it was directly erased by violence by the Germans, who had an absolute advantage in tactics. The heart of the veteran of the battlefield was filled with grief and anguish when he thought of the ingenious strategy he had painstakingly devised and the fact that he had been aborted with all sorts of variables that he had never seen in his decades of military career. After comprehensively analyzing the situation on all sides, Lüf once again issued a series of orders.

On the northern flank, with the exception of the necessary reconnaissance troops, Lüf ordered all the cavalry to dismount and act as infantry, rush into the trenches, and engage the Germans in close combat with sabers and spears. As long as the French army can take the German base of Tionville in one pot and cut off their backup, the offensive momentum of the German southern flank cluster will be sharply reduced, and their own troops will be able to pull the situation back again. Even if it is not good, it can allow some German troops to return to the base and relieve the pressure on their own south flank.

Since all hope could not be pinned on the already frustrated offensive on the northern front, the French army in the south had to act accordingly. Luff hesitated for a while, but finally painfully let a large number of French troops around the city of Visoland quickly evacuate. In order to lure Qing Ying into taking the bait, this decoy force was located quite inward, and now it has been deeply wedged into the core of the German encirclement. The main forces of the Third Army were obviously more important than the loss of the homeland and the order to retreat, which was regarded as an absolute taboo in the army more than defense; If they are not allowed to retreat, once the northern forces still can't defeat Tionville, the hundreds of thousands of French troops on the southern front will really be swallowed by the Germans!

To Luff's slight rejoicing, although the German southern flank cluster was unstoppable in the previous offensive, the encirclement of the main force of the engine room had not yet been fully formed. At the end of this rapidly forming pocket, there was also a gap for the main French army to escape. The gap was adjacent to Alvey, in the hinterland of the country, and the German front was temporarily out of reach. The French forces around Visoland had a good chance of escaping before the Germans closed their pockets if they retreated quickly. (To be continued......)

PS: The third watch is really tired, I have basically never left the computer since the morning, and I am extremely tired now

There will be a normal update tomorrow, but the author may not be able to maintain the overdraft update speed of today