"The new order in Europe in this century will be dominated by us!"

In the main conference hall of the splendid Berlin Imperial Palace, Kaiser Wilhelm, dressed in magnificent clothes, played the passionate overture of the imperial meeting with a majestic sentence. Everyone seated in the venue straightened their backs, even Qingying, who was in the first place on the right. In any case, the work for which he had fought for twenty years had finally paid off: not to mention the results achieved elsewhere, Germany was now in an absolutely undefeated position to end the war on the Eastern Front in such a heyday!

"The Russians have been defeated by us, and the next thing to deal with is the British and French forces that are still stubbornly resisting on the Western Front. Helmut, did the General Staff develop a new offensive plan that would be able to deliver an unbearable blow to the opposing side? William looked at little Moltke, who was sitting at the bottom of Qingying, and asked with a hint of anticipation in his eyes.

The little Moltke with a shiny head met the emperor's gaze and said respectfully: "Your Majesty, since the day the imperial army's offensive in northern France was blocked, the General Staff has been planning how to break the deadlock in the confrontation between the trenches on the Western Front. Thankfully, the German army had developed a new set of tactics after absorbing the wisdom of the grassroots personnel in countless battles, as well as the experience of the British and French offensive failures on the frontal battlefield; If it goes along the way, it will be enough to break through the trench defense line of the British and French forces. ”

William's heart was shocked, and his gray eyes suddenly bloomed with a look of incredible surprise. He and Moltke have known each other for more than 30 years, and they know each other's personalities very well: without 120% certainty, the always cautious and cautious Moltke will not be able to say it! Almost all the people in the hall showed the same look as the emperor, and even Prime Minister Holwig and the state secretaries were also interested; Only Qingying raised her eyebrows slightly. It seems to have foreseen what Moltke Jr. would propose.

"In all the large-scale battles that preceded it. There is almost only one way to use artillery on both sides of the enemy: that is, to carry out large-scale artillery bombardment in the early stage. Then send infantry to attack the enemy. This mode is quite practical in the field of interactive attacks, but in defensive warfare with trenches and barbed wire as the core, there is a fatal flaw: that is, the enemy's living forces and even fortifications are difficult to be removed in the early artillery coverage, and once the infantry is put into the offensive battle in order at this time, it will inevitably bring extremely heavy losses. Because of this, the British and French troops suffered a heavy defeat in the offensive near the Seine. In the face of the emperor and a group of civil servants who were not familiar with the military, Moltke tried his best to pick the key points and concisely explain his ideas to the other party.

Little Moltke paused slightly. "Therefore, there are only two options for achieving a breakthrough in the trench position: either develop new weapons, or explore new tactics. Now the former didn't work very well, so we focused on new tactics. After studying and analyzing the battlefield information fed back by a large number of officers and soldiers at the grassroots level, we have explored an artillery support method called 'Xujin Barrage'. In short, this method is a precise plan in advance, allowing our shells to form a constantly moving wall of explosive fire on the enemy's position, while the trained infantry follows behind this 'wall of fire'. In this way, as long as the infantry and artillery work together. Then the attacking infantry will always be supported by artillery fire; And since the enemy must return to the surface when counterattacking, our artillery can play the ideal lethal effect. "Speaking of which. There was a rare smile on his paralyzed face: "Fortunately, whether it is the strict artillery organization before the war, or the sophisticated grassroots officers and soldiers, the imperial army is not lacking at all. ”

"Your Excellency Chief of the General Staff, can you inform us of the specific implementation rules for this artillery support tactic?" Glancing at Ludendorff beside him, his face was puzzled and pensive, and Hindenburg, the oldest in the room, immediately asked respectfully. Moltke glanced at the Kaiser, who was also interested, and then further analyzed:

"At present, in order to minimize the losses in the preparation of artillery fire, the British and French armies have built the trench line into two layers, front and rear; Due to the limited firing range, it is difficult for our artillery to effectively support the vast depth of the enemy's trench defense line. To resolve this situation, our artillery positions will no longer be arranged in the usual way, but will be moved forward significantly: this process will take place at night, and our absolute superiority in air power will be sufficient to ensure the safety of the artillery fire itself when approaching the front line of the battlefield. The target battlefield will be divided into hundreds or thousands of small areas, and the responsible unit of each area will be detailed down to the artillery company. And after the battle deepened, the shelling did not continue strictly according to a fixed schedule, but made specific changes based on the feedback from the troops at the front. Seeing that the group of state secretaries on the opposite side had begun to show signs of difficulty, Moltke Jr. quickly reined in the momentum of continuing to go deeper, and said briefly. He believed that with the military skills of a veteran general like Hindenburg, he would be able to understand the meaning with just a little appropriation himself.

Ludendorff pondered for a moment, his puzzled eyes gradually revealing a bright look.

"With the number of artillery we have now, it should be enough to achieve the cover advance of two layers of barrage, right?" Qingying on the side suddenly spoke. A hint of surprise flashed in Moltke's eyes, and then he nodded: "Just as His Highness said." After more than half a year of production and expansion, our artillery firepower has now reached an unprecedented height: almost all field artillery brigades have been expanded to 18 artillery batteries, which means that each of our infantry divisions can be strongly supported by about 100 regular field guns. ”

"In addition to this, we will be able to organize a large number of captured Russian artillery into new combat units. As early as the early stage of the war, our army had captured hundreds of Russian artillery, but it was only due to the difficulty in supplying ammunition caused by the difference in standards that it was not used on a large scale. And now that we have received a number of complete lines of ammunition on the lands ceded by Russia, this will undoubtedly give Russian artillery an opportunity to exert its might. At present, we have more than 1,400 Russian-style artillery pieces in our hands, and as many as 900 can be used for cluster suppression. Moltke Jr. paused, then added, "And after the Xu Jin barrage, our infantry tactics have also changed accordingly. A tactic called infiltration warfare was created, and a fairly complete system has now been formed: with the cooperation of Xu Jin's barrage, we are fully confident that we will achieve a breakthrough against the coalition forces on the Western Front. ”

Hearing these words, Qingying, who was sitting next to her, was already in her heart. Moltke Jr. was talking about the infiltration tactics that were widely used by the German Army in the late First World War.

In the other dimension, at the beginning of 1918, Ludendorff, who was in charge of all the power in Germany, decided to make a last-ditch effort before the main American forces left for Western Europe, feeling that Germany could no longer engage in a war of attrition. During the "Battle of the Emperor", which lasted for several months, the German army, using infiltration tactics, made a stunning advance on the solid defensive line dug by the British and French for three years, and the German army under the command of Huttier even drove as far as 50 kilometers from Paris. However, due to the lack of follow-up, Ludendorff's attack ultimately fell short; The Germans who had broken into the Anglo-French positions were all driven out, and the collapse of the Second Reich and the humiliating truce were finally ushered in in the Hindenburg Line.

In all fairness, the tactic itself was undoubtedly a success. It not only allowed the Germans to break the stalemate on the Western Front, but also opened up a whole new world of infantry tactics for later generations. However, during World War I, there was a weakness that could not be avoided by using this trick to break through the enemy's heavily defended trench positions: that is, the attacking side had to endure an extremely strict elite casualty rate.

The core of the infiltration tactics lies in the assault detachments. First of all, the lightly armed commandos quietly infiltrate the no-man's land of the battlefield and find weak areas of the enemy's positions to infiltrate under the cover of night or the barrage of Xu Jin: this is undoubtedly a very dangerous task in itself. And even after the lightly armed commandos have successfully infiltrated the enemy's defense line and cut off the telephone lines, headquarters, logistics stations, artillery positions, and other organizational structures, the heavy commandos will launch a frontal attack and wipe out the enemy strongholds that the lightly armed commandos have bypassed in advance -- although the nerve units of these strongholds have been cut off, their own defensive power should not be underestimated!

Since the assault detachment was charging forward in the face of the enemy's heaviest rain of bullets, the number of casualties can be imagined; And those who can take on this task are all the elite of the army. The loss of these battle-hardened veterans is a devastating blow to any army. What's more, after the two assault teams have completed their tasks, the follow-up infantry will launch a general attack on the remaining enemy lines, and the total number of losses will be greatly increased. In the Emperor's Battle in history, the German army killed 1,000 enemies and lost 800 of themselves, and the proportion of elites among the self-damaged personnel was frighteningly high!

Because of this, Qing Ying did not sell this tactic to the General Staff, but pushed the German chariot to turn to Eastern Europe to solve Russia, the weakest link of the Entente. However, what he didn't expect was that the General Staff would come up with this tactic so quickly and prepare it for practice. Although the battlefield faced by the Germans in this plane is far better than history, it will still be a breakthrough road paved by blood!

This time, however, Qingying was not prepared to raise any more objections. (To be continued......)

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