The sunset is sinking, and the sunset is in full swing, illuminating the land of thousands of miles of Western Europe in red. After a day of fighting, the battlefield on the banks of the Maas River was already a mountain of corpses and devastation. Groups of German officers and soldiers in gray uniforms were sweeping the battlefield and carrying the surviving wounded to the rear for treatment; A large number of red, blue, and white tricolors fell feebly in the dirt, and the glory they represented seemed to have been lost with the rise of that empire in Central Europe.

Under the all-out onslaught of the two German armies, the Third Army, which was located on the central front of the French army, came under unprecedented pressure. The two German armies combined with more than 400,000 troops, supported by exaggerated firepower from 122 heavy artillery batteries; The French army, commanded by Saraj, was just over 130,000 men, and its troops were armed with 105-mm heavy howitzers of less than two battalions. Previously, with the mountainous terrain of the upper reaches of the Maas River, the French army still had the capital to barely confront the Fifth Army of the Qing Dynasty; And when the Duke of Württemberg's Fourth Army joined, the already unbalanced balance of the battlefield tilted sharply in favor of the German army.

Although the French officers and soldiers resisted in the battle, and used the trench defense they had built to inflict heavy casualties on the Germans, even destroying several Panzel tanks, their huge gap in numbers and firepower could not withstand the pace of German advance. At the end of the day, both German armies had advanced 8 to 10 kilometers in their respective positions, completing the distance set out in the New Schlieffen Plan.

Hearing the news that Qingying's headquarters was going well, Moltke Jr., who was far away in Luxembourg City, couldn't help but let go of his high heart slightly. In order to be able to grasp the situation of the front-line troops in a timely manner, to ensure that the current operation of the German army, which is completely different from the Schlieffen plan, can be foolproof. Moltke the Younger moved his headquarters overnight to Meziers, 30 kilometers southwest of Sedan. 80 km further south. It is Vitré Le François, the former headquarters of Chauffeur. It was being ravaged by German artillery. In this land belonging to the French, commanding the last battle against France, Moltke at this moment seems to feel a little bit of the feeling that his uncle was in control of everything 42 years ago.

In the bleak night, a detailed report of the French army was also sent to the commander-in-chief Xia Fei through radio waves. In fact, not long after the battle began, Saraj's forces had already discovered that something was wrong with the German army in front of them: the German Fifth Army alone. It is absolutely impossible to make such a big move, and there must be another reinforcement behind them. And the battlefield intelligence that came later also confirmed their judgment, and two corps belonging to the German Fourth Army also participated in the attack on them!

Such a change made Xia Fei suddenly startled. Since the Third Army had been annihilated by two-thirds of its troops in previous border battles, he was most concerned about the safety of this army; It was only because Saraj had promised him a few days earlier that he would be able to withstand the attack of the German Fifth Army, and because Crook's right flank was indeed naked in front of Gallieni, that he finally gave the order to launch a counteroffensive near the Marne. And now, the German army attacking this French army turned out to be as many as two large army groups, and the German army on the offensive constituted an absolute advantage over this defensive army, both in terms of strength and firepower!

Mobilization of troops from the 1st and 2nd armies on the right flank to the rescue? This thought Fang Fu rose in Xia Fei's heart, and was immediately vetoed by him. Although at the very beginning of the war. The French army had deployed more than 550,000 troops here to retake Alsace and Lorraine, but as they continued to launch a "desperate attack" against the German trenches. Its combative forces have been greatly attrition in this senseless attack. In addition, in order to cope with the powerful offensive of the German right flank, Xia Fei began to transfer this group of troops to his left flank after the border battle, which made the French army on the Alsace front even weaker. As a result of the constant redeployment of the Chauffeurs, the French forces currently deployed in this area were reduced to four corps, which was the bare minimum to keep the front unbreached: on their side, the German troops of six and a half corps under the command of Ruprecht, were now launching a fierce attack on the Moselle.

In the absence of skills on the right flank, Xia Fei immediately spoke on the phone with the commander of the Fourth Army, Dranger, - thanks to the internal operations of the French army, they would not have a bad situation like the German army because the telephone line was too late to be erected, or the telephone line was destroyed by the aborigines of the land, resulting in the telephone could not be connected. Faced with Xiafei's request to support his allies, Drangel was quite embarrassed, because he was also under the fierce attack of House's troops at the moment, and most of his troops had already been put to the front line. However, under Xia Fei's strict orders, Drangel still chose to obey; He agreed that the troops should immediately move to full defense, and that one and a half armies should be sent to reinforce the Third Army.

On June 7, the battle on the Western Front reached its highest peak since the beginning of the war. From Lébe, 40 kilometers east of Paris, to the Alsace border on the upper Rhine, the German army and the Anglo-French army, totaling more than 2.4 million men, collided on all fronts at the same time and engaged in thrilling fierce encounters. The battle between the two sides is like two prehistoric beasts uprooting mountains and trees in the wilderness fighting to the death, each impact tearing off a large piece of each other's flesh and blood. And every cell in their body is the life of a young European, and at this moment in this peak duel between them, thousands of them have turned into dead bodies and bones.

As time passed, this all-out fierce battle gradually turned against the French. On the Paris front, the French Sixth Army, commanded by Monuri, had been completely crushed by two divisions under the attack of Crook's main force: three-quarters of their soldiers were killed and wounded, and only one-twelfth of the officers were able to retreat in one piece. The "famous" Algerian 45th Light Infantry Division also lost nearly half of its losses in four consecutive days of fierce fighting, and had to temporarily withdraw from the battlefield with two other reserve divisions, which were no longer formed. Although the Germans also suffered more than 22,000 horrific casualties, they still had a surge in offensive strength and were still surging. In this situation, it won't take more than three days for Monuri to be wiped out by Crook!

On the front of the Marne, the British Expeditionary Force and the French Fifth Army, which launched a counterattack, made some progress and pressed the German army, which was only one-third of their total strength, back to the Marne 15 kilometers to the north. However, the two German corps that confronted them were not defeated, and still maintained a solid front that was connected together. The most important thing is that they have no fewer casualties than the French Sixth Army, which is under attack by Crook's main force! In less than four days, more than 10,000 of the British Expeditionary Force marched in dense formations dead or wounded, and the combat attrition was close to two brigades; Such a heavy loss made the commander of the expeditionary force, French, even regret that his intestines turned blue, and he complained sharply in the command that the shameless French had deceived him. The number of French casualties was also 6,000, and if it were not for Crook's transfer of the main forces to attack Monuri, resulting in too few front-line defenders to fully deploy, the losses of the British and French troops would have risen several steps.

Thirty-five kilometers to the east, another part of the French Fifth Army, together with the Ninth Army under Foch's command, was fighting with Bilow's Second Army near the Marne. At different times and in different regions, the offensive and defensive roles of the German and French ministries have changed in turn; The troops were scattered, retreated, and after completing the build-up, continued to the forefront. Because both sides had the idea of defeating or even annihilating the other, and Foch, Despere, and Bilow were all generals known for their courageous attacks, there were few passive and obscene trenches and barbed wire fortifications on the battlefield, and almost every major battle was a head-to-head confrontation. However, this situation of no victory or defeat was extremely unfavorable for the French army, because the Germans were engaged in a confrontation with the French army without heavy artillery! Once their heavy artillery units, which were on a par with Austria-Hungary, reached the front line and entered the battle, there was no chance that the French would be able to repel their entire army!

As the French forces moved to full defense, the German 3rd, 4th, and 5th armies were attacking the two French armies on a 60-kilometre-long front from Vitry-le-François to the Maas. Although Xia Fei had made the correct adjustments according to the situation, the lag in the response and execution of the French army could not offset the sudden onslaught of the previous two German armies on the French Third Army in time. In particular, the Maas River valley, which was attacked by the Qing Ying, was located further east than the Duke of Württemberg's attack point, and French reinforcements from the west could not reach it at the first time.

Relying on its absolute superiority in strength and firepower, the Qingying Division advanced rapidly, along the Maas River all the way to the south; By the time night fell on 7 June, the vanguard of the German Fifth Army had reached Tur on the upper reaches of the Maas. Twenty-five kilometers to the southeast is Nancy, the headquarters of the French Second Army, which is stationed in the front of North Alsace. Relying on the full play of the advantages in his hands, Qingying had already formed a breakthrough in the middle battlefield, and the front of the troops went straight to the rear of the French First and Second Armies. (To be continued......)

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