Just when the undercurrent in the North Atlantic was surging, and the second collision of the main naval forces of the two sides had not yet broken out, a large-scale battle on land was slowly kicked off thousands of kilometers away in the southeast.

Ever since the British had once again resisted a new German offensive along northern France in mid-October, there had been some different considerations within the Allied armies. The British were delighted to find that their own soy sauce expeditionary force, which had been sent out of the responsibility of the Alliance, was now able to resist the Prussian beasts hatched from the shells and born to fight on the battlefield in France! Field Marshal Kitchener, the Minister of War who was originally a general and had the title of earl, was even more in the limelight in Britain at this time; After the fall of the once-glorious Royal Navy, the pocket army, which was not favored before the war, has now become the only hope for the British Empire's subjects to reap victory.

Coincidentally, the French military is also actively planning a new round of actions on the land battlefield. After half a year of fighting, the thunderous attack of the German army was finally resisted by them with great difficulty, and the front line is now stabilizing, and there will no longer be an avalanche like the collapse of the sky at the beginning of the war. For the French, however, this was clearly not a situation they could accept. The Prussian army, which rushed in from Belgium, rushed like a tsunami flood that burst its banks, sweeping a total of 100,000 square kilometers of territory in eastern and northern France, killing or maiming millions of French soldiers and reducing millions of French people to Prussia's iron hooves. The French army flew down from the sunset, and everyone had only one thought in their hearts, that is, to recover all the land that had been lost. And free those who were under the tyrannical rule of the Germans!

To the surprise of the British and French leaders. After a small setback in the offensive of the Germans in northern France. He threw away the battlefield on the Western Front and transferred a large number of fresh troops to the Eastern Front to deal with the offensive launched by the Russians in Romania! When the spies operating in the German-occupied zone sent back to the French headquarters the accurate news that the main force of the German army was rumbling eastward through the Guò railway, even the most unsmiling Xia Fei showed an excited look. If the German army always stationed its main forces on the Western Front, then France, which was limited by its national strength, would hardly have a chance to open up the situation under the hands of the other side, even with the help of the British Expeditionary Force. And at the moment, this is a great opportunity for them to take advantage of the situation to counterattack and regain lost ground!

Although in previous battles. The attacking side suffered from the troops crouching in the trenches for defense, but only half a year after the outbreak of the war, the "sharp pain" of this barbed wire line was not felt by the senior British and French officers. Since their own defense lines had been continuously broken through by the Germans, Xia Fei and French naturally thought that the barbed wire fence of the trench was by no means an insurmountable barrier: as long as they gathered a sufficient number of heavy artillery, they would definitely be able to smash the opponent's turtle shell!

On 24 October, a joint meeting of the British and French army leaders was held, and the strategy for the subsequent offensive was quickly established under the impetus of a common goal. As a result of the German offensive launched in northern France in early October, the originally well-organized Allied front was smashed inward and dented, threatening the flank security of the French army in the south; Thus, eliminate this salient that runs along the English Channel. It became the first task of the British and French military.

After some discussion, a preliminary battle plan was drawn up. An attack group consisting of 13 British and 5 French divisions. An all-out attack will be launched on the Seine River valley with Rouen as its core; Another 17 divisions of the French army served as reserves, and as soon as a breakthrough was formed on the front line, they were immediately thrown into battle. This is an astonishing torrent of heavy troops on the wide eastern front. The goal of the British and French leaders was clear: they wanted to stab an absolutely sharp dragon lance at the root of this salient and slash from the south to the north to the English Channel, so as to recover all the northern French territories west of Rouen that had been invaded by the Germans in one fell swoop.

In addition, another force of 16 French divisions was concentrated, but the goal of this heavy force was not to fight against the German invaders who were currently entrenched in their own territory, but to go to the southeastern provinces of France to deal the heaviest blow to the evil neighbor who had stabbed him in the back.

In the months before, the five French reserve divisions that had held the western foot of the Alps had been stubbornly defending against the all-out attack of nearly 30 regular Italian divisions, and had hardly lost any territory; The victory from the southeast was also one of the important pillars that supported the French military and civilians to continue fighting. Previously, in order to resist the fierce onslaught of the German army, the French army had always been overstretched, and there was no strength to help this lone army with outstanding achievements; Now that the main forces of the German army began to make great strides to the east, it was time for the French to completely cut off this rear threat. Even if you can't finish the battle, you must beat the opponent and not dare to cross the Alpine border again. Xia Fei, who formulated this plan, even had a hint of the idea of fighting the Italian army, which was not strong in combat and was easy to surrender: although their ammunition and munitions were not the same system as the French, they could be used to fight against the enemy!

However, this operational plan of the British and French armies in the area of the North Seine was clouded with a heavy haze from the first day of implementation.

Whether it is the primitive and bloody cold weapon period or the dazzling technology of the information age in the later generations, both warring sides have a core task before the battle, that is, to detect the enemy's movements and intentions. Only when the opponent's overall deployment is understood and the opponent's reconnaissance is completely blocked, can the most favorable battlefield situation be obtained. This rear-attack by the German army on the battlefield in Romania was a textbook encirclement with insight into the full intentions of the opponent and completely hidden in the fog of the battlefield.

As far as Britain and France are concerned, they can understand a little bit about the movements of the German army on the other side: after all, the current front is on the territory of the French themselves, whether it is spies or guerrilla reports, and the millions of French people who are under German rule who cherish their homeland provide a good environment for these behaviors. However, the actions of their own army were almost no secret in the eyes of the Germans! This is not because the Germans are so brilliant and so pervasive in the face of Britain and France that they can corrode the hollow rotten wood of Russia, but the reason why they cannot hide secrets in the eyes of the other side is entirely due to weapons reasons.

As long as the weather was fine and there were no rain and winds, German airships and planes would appear over the battlefield on time within 30 minutes of sunrise to conduct carpet reconnaissance of the Allied positions in front of them and in depth. The number of barracks, the amount of baggage, and the transportation of the Anglo-French forces were ...... Connected to the mountains, rivers, land, grass and trees, all at a glance in the eyes of the German army. With the precision observation instruments developed by ZEISS, German officers and soldiers at an altitude of several thousand meters can still have a close understanding of the enemy positions below. Unlike bomber airships, which were small and fast, the French anti-aircraft guns with limited altitude could hardly pose a lethal threat to them, as was the case with reconnaissance aircraft. And if fighters are sent to intercept them, the only role of the British and French planes without machine gun coordinators is to brush up on the opposing pilots!

After several battles, the Newpole fighter launched by the French military industry under heavy pressure was directly blown up by the German Fokker II fighter with the nose of the nose straight firepower, and the German army completely gained air supremacy on the battlefield. Despite the various expressions and disguises of their actions by the Anglo-French forces, it was impossible for such a large army to act silently; After several reconnaissances, the German command immediately discovered the unusual behavior of the British and French troops. The root of the salient was originally a sensitive part of the commander, and the German General Staff, which had analyzed it slightly, sensed that the other side was going to launch a counterattack and take its soft abdomen.

With the issuance of military orders, the German army immediately devoted 12 points of energy to the task of building fortifications near the Seine. A large number of dense and tortuous trenches were further dug and reinforced, and the concrete and concealed machine-gun bunkers on the surface became dotted; Barbed wire fences were firmly erected, blocking the enemy's positions and the advance path of their own trenches. In front of the position, there were gray figures of wild plains planting mines in the sand; Artillery was also erected, ready to launch a thunderous bombardment of the attacking enemy forces. With each passing hour, the German positions became a little stronger.

On November 11, the news came that the three Russian armies that had entered Romania had been encircled and annihilated, and the morale of the German officers and men, which had been somewhat depressed by the trenches, was instantly swept away, and the crowd only hoped that the British and French troops would do their best to storm their defenses, so that they could also get their own share of honor. And in the face of the clamor of the Russian offensive on the Western Front, Britain and France obviously could not take it lightly: the Russian army's crushing defeat greatly exceeded their expectations, the former European steamroller seemed to be gone, and they had to put unprecedented pressure on the Germans on the Western Front, so that the Russians could have some respite in winter!

At the urging of Xia Fei and French, the Anglo-French army accelerated its preparations for the attack: a large number of troops and ammunition supplies arrived at the departure front, and this qiē did not escape the eyes of German aerial reconnaissance. Some of the German works that were too time-consuming and laborious were halted and replaced by small-scale excavations that could produce immediate results, and the reinforcement of the fortifications at the front line was simply stopped. The main German defenders began to live deep in the trenches, leaving only a few sentry scouts to observe the situation on the surface, in order to be on the lookout for a sudden tsunami-like artillery bombardment from the opposing side. At one o'clock in the morning of November 15, when the German night sentry was on routine alert, the quiet night sky suddenly resounded with the scream of shells; Immediately a dog eating threw themselves into the trench, and the next moment, a deafening roar suddenly filled their ears, and the whole world seemed to shake and shake! (To be continued......)

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