Before the First World War, the armies of all countries regarded the offensive as a treasure trove of victory. Whether it is the outnumbered and sophisticated British army, or the huge and bloated Russian army, the peerless German army, and the French army, they all respect offensive tactics, and never thought that they would be indecent in the damp and deep trenches as turtles in war. On the one hand, both warring sides believed that a protracted war would lead to the collapse of the entire country and that a quick and fierce attack was needed to solve the problem, and on the other hand, it was also influenced by the Russo-Japanese War, which ended not long ago. In that shocking battle in which the Asians defeated the whites for the first time, the Japanese were at a great disadvantage in terms of strength and firepower, but they did not build strong fortifications in place to prepare for the defense, but decisively adopted offensive tactics to seize the opportunity. The outcome of the battle was already clear, and the Japanese repeatedly defeated the Russian army, which was much stronger than them, and achieved a stunning victory in smashing the European steamrollers.

However, behind the glorious offensive warfare of the Russo-Japanese War, few people have insight into the real reasons hidden beneath the surface. The defeat of the Russian army was largely due to the poor command of Kuropatkin, and the fortifications on the Manchurian battlefield were still primitive and could not withstand a massive onslaught from the enemy. In the face of strong fortresses and defenders determined to fight to the death, the attacking side often suffered heavy casualties but could not make any progress, as evidenced by the corpses of 50,000 Japanese officers and soldiers under the city of Arthur. And when World War I broke out, the power of the defensive shield was perfectly interpreted. In the war on the Western Front, which lasted for more than four years, the loudest main theme of the battle between the two sides was squatting. In general, the Western Front of World War I was basically about who rushed and who died. Occasionally, one side could not hold back and launched an offensive. They were greeted with unbearable losses.

The direct cause of this phenomenon. It is the large-scale application of machine guns in warfare.

In 1884, the British-American Maxim invented the first automatic machine gun in the true sense of the word, and since then the methods of warfare in the world have quietly changed. When the soldiers attacked the enemy positions in a dense phalanx, as they did during the Napoleonic Wars, the machine guns, which could easily reach a rate of fire of more than 300 rounds per minute, would shoot a storm of steel barrage, and then slaughter all the soldiers on the attacking side in a very short time. This horrific weapon of killing, combined with rapid-fire guns, barbed wire, and trench defenses, suddenly became an insurmountable chasm for the attackers.

While the attacking side prepares for artillery fire, the defender's soldiers will take refuge in underground bunkers up to 10 meters from the ground. Rock solid. After the shelling, the soldiers of the defending side rushed out of the holes of the various anti-artillery pits like rats, set up all kinds of messy guns, and killed the enemy soldiers who came to attack like rabbits. The trench was preceded by a large number of criss-crossing barbed wire, which acted as a great lag and buffer for the attacker, allowing the defender to fire more effectively at the attacker through the firing holes in the trench. As a result, the attacking side often pays heavy casualties in vain, while the defending side suffers extremely low casualties.

Even if the attacker prepared extremely powerful artillery preparations, it would be difficult to take advantage of a complete trench defense system. In the middle of World War I, both sides fought trenches in order to break through each other's defensive lines. In several major battles, the preparation of artillery fire took several days or even more than a week, but the enemy's trenches had become extremely solid and solid after years of excavation and reinforcement. These fortifications were either buried in the ground or well camouflaged. They could hardly be inflicted devastating damage by conventional artillery fire. In the event of a hellish long artillery bombardment, the attackers can achieve sporadic small victories, but they will soon be bloodied by the close coordination of the opposing artillery and infantry. Not only does the attacker have artillery, but the defender also has a lot of artillery, so how easy is it to use flesh and blood to wade through the steel firepower that is densely intertwined with heavy artillery, rapid-fire guns, machine guns, and rifles. In World War I, 10 percent of soldiers on both sides were killed in trench warfare on the Western Front, a percentage far higher than the 4.5 percent on the battlefields of World War II. After such heavy casualties, the situation on both sides did not change significantly, and the 1918 front was almost exactly the same as the 1914 front. If this kind of personnel loss and material consumption are used to advance, even if all the young and strong men in the country die, they will not be able to push to the core area of the other party!

Under the background of the technical skills limited by the times, the defensive power of the complete trench defense system was much greater than the offensive power at that time. The Western Front, due to its relatively small territory and the fact that the two sides were at a stalemate, did not form a very long front, which also gave the warring sides the ability to build a perfect defensive system on the entire defensive line. The million-strong armies of both sides are gathered on this front, which is only hundreds or nearly a thousand kilometers long, and digging trenches as long as there is nothing to do, it is enough to raise the defense of the entire front to an extremely high level. On the Eastern Front, however, the opposite was true. The vast Eastern European Plain was thousands of miles in circumference, and even if the Russians wanted to defend it, it was impossible to build trenches and fortresses everywhere on such a wide front, like a narrow battlefield on the Western Front, leaving a lot of room for the Germans to outflank and encircle. This is also a tactical condition for the success of the strategy of defending the west and attacking the east.

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Since the military strategists of this period did not believe in the power of fortifications, they could only let Qingying, a traverser, come out. He decided to conduct a simulated offensive and defensive military exercise with Schlieffen to prove with the most direct facts that the German army's defense in Alsace and Lorraine could be impregnable, and that it was completely possible to ensure the safety of Germany's Ruhr industrial area. For two months, the 5,000-strong army that Qing Ying had called in from Schlieffen had been wielding shovels day and night in designated exercise areas, building fortifications and fortifications according to the standard trench defense system of World War I.

On the winding defense line several kilometers long in front, the trenches are dense and the fortifications are like forests. Huge towering steel frames were dug deep into the earth, and two twisting barbed wire swarms were opened in front of the defensive position; Each wire is densely packed with sharp metal needles, and if you force it over, you will inevitably be pierced by them. Behind the barbed wire, there are dense jagged trenches that crisscross and lead in all directions, with traffic trenches, tunnels, shelters, shooting holes, and so on. The solid concrete fortress is dotted and half-concealed from the ground, and the loess foliage makes it look completely integrated with the surrounding scenery from a distance.

Seeing this scene, Schlieffen couldn't help but furrow his two long gray-white eyebrows. The fortifications in front of him were unique and new, and he searched for memories in his mind, but he still did not find the slightest trace of such a line of defense from any of the battles. With the unique sixth sense formed in the army for half a century, his intuition told him that the defense line in front of him must be unspeakably strange. However, at this point, he could only play the role of the French attacker and completely crush this defensive line. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, who was full of self-confidence, directly opened his thin lips lightly, and put down the rhetoric that "even if the attacker has 6 times the advantage of troops, he will not want to conquer it"; Now he has the offensive power of nearly 2 divisions in his hands, and even the most solid turtle shell has to be completely pierced!

With the launch of a signal flare at the beginning of the exercise, a loud thunderstorm broke out behind Schlieffen's position, and the grandeur of nearly 100 cannons roaring in unison was not much better than the firing of battleships. Although all shells were replaced with special salute shells for safety during the exercise, the dye filled with them also allowed the participants to accurately determine the number of "dead" and "wounded".

Out of prudence, Schlieffen extended the preparation time for artillery fire by one hour, and repeatedly bombarded the twisting ravines and trenches. He was keenly aware that the barbed wire fence in front of the position would greatly hinder the infantry charge, so when covering the empty barbed wire area with artillery fire, Schlieffen used shells that could explode normally to clear these obstacles. The roar of the cannons continued from the rising sun to the sun. Just as the spectators yawned at the boring artillery preparations, the roar of Schlieffen's own artillery finally came to an abrupt end, and groups of soldiers in gray uniforms streamed out of the attacking positions and lined up in dense formations on the open flat ground. They flat-ended their rifles and quickly pressed towards the defensive positions hundreds of meters away.

With a gentle breeze blowing and the sun warming, the officers and men who had been lying in the offensive trenches for more than three hours were finally able to move their muscles and bones in such a fine and fine weather. Seeing that the attacking troops rushing like a gray wave successfully crossed a distance of more than 300 meters and approached the first barbed wire fence that had been blown out by artillery fire, but there seemed to be no movement on the opponent's position, Schlieffen with a telescope in his hand couldn't help but have some doubts in his heart. Could it be that most of the opponents were sentenced to death and wounded in the high-intensity artillery preparation that lasted for 3 hours before, so they did not have the strength to resist in the first position? If you think about it carefully, this situation is also entirely possible, based on the requirements of the crown prince, he has gathered far more troops and firepower than the defenders, and the number of suppressed artillery pieces per kilometer of battle exceeds 20, which is already an extremely terrifying firepower density!

Just when Schlieffen was worried about whether he was too ruthless, there was a slight movement in the outermost trench opposite. He frowned, grabbed the telescope on his chest and looked forward, only to see a large number of faint gray steel helmets moving rapidly in the trench at some point, like voles jumping in March. Seeing this scene, Schlieffen couldn't help but be taken aback, how could there be so many soldiers left on the defending side? (To be continued......)