Fast forward to the end of March 1918, and the eyes of the world were focused on two things: northern France and Russia.

Let's start with Western Europe. The Germans, as expected, moved before the American forces had yet to form a decisive force. The Germans had massed a heavy force between Arras and Saint-Quentin in northern France, and with more than 6,400 heavy artillery pieces alone, Ludendorff's hammer was finally swung at the British.

The campaign was launched on March 21. The Anglo-French commanders-in-chief, Haig, Pétain, and Foch, had anticipated the attack, but the Germans managed to keep the secret until five days before the start of the campaign, when the troops entered their starting positions, marching at night, and successfully deceived their opponents.

In November 1917, the total strength of the German army on the Western Front was about 150 divisions, and by the beginning of March 1918, the total strength of the German army on the Western Front reached 205 divisions and 3.5 million men. The additional 55 divisions were secretly transferred back from the Eastern Front. The Germans once again brought their meticulous national character to the extreme, and the extremely efficient management of the railway department successfully completed the general staff's troop transportation plan, transporting about 800,000 elite German troops from Poland, Ukraine and other places to the Western Front, so that Ludendorff said at a military conference in Berlin that we have never had such a strong reserve, never.

The Germans attacking in the predetermined sector had 75 divisions, 45 of which were for assault groups, half of whom were transferred back from the Eastern Front, which were more accustomed to movement warfare and had a stronger desire for victory than the Western Front. Before the war, officers and soldiers were told that this was a battle to end the war. Their desire to make their dreams come true and thus their morale is high.

The German offensive was unusual. The first wave (called by the Germans as the Stormtroopers) attacked with few rifles, and they carried their rifles diagonally behind their backs, divided into small groups according to the latest training principles, and tried to make the most of the cover they could find, and chased the pace of the Xu Jin barrage covering their advance. When encountering the enemy, they desperately threw grenades, and organized the light machine gun cover with them, and kept the charge all the time. They use flares of various colors to indicate success or obstruction, and can also convey signals for artillery support or the cessation of artillery fire. They no longer care if they keep an intact front or if their flanks are exposed. When they advanced to an area away from the cover of artillery fire. The officer or sergeant decides for himself what to do next.

The stormtroopers were followed by the so-called "combat units". They carried heavy machine guns, flamethrowers, and light field guns, as well as a large number of construction machinery. The combat unit had two tasks, the first was to destroy the enemy strongholds left behind by the assault troops, and the second was to quickly organize the defensive line to prevent the enemy from counterattacking in certain areas. Further back are the third echelon troops. They were stationed on the Hindenburg Line. If something catastrophic happens. Combat units can retreat to this line of defense. Finally, there are the reserves, always ready to go where they are needed.

There were two people who created zào and practiced the new tactics of the German army, the first of which was Georg. Bruchmiller. This man was an artillery expert who had achieved good results on the Eastern Front, and was called the "breakthrough Miller" by General Hoffman. He proposed a new method of complete artillery barrage firing, because he found that the barrage of artillery, which was regarded as the norm by European armies, actually had a big problem, because of the high degree of industrialization in Europe, after the outbreak of the Great War, the artillery production of the main participating countries reached an astonishing number, and the artillery preparation for a campaign took several days, but the effect was extremely poor. The massive barrage of bullet fire told the enemy, and the infantry attack was about to begin. The defending side can take the opportunity to adjust deployment and tactics, dig deeper into the bunker, or retreat the troops out of the reach of artillery fire. In this case, a new tactic was finally born.

The new artillery tactics proposed by Bruchmiller were extremely complex and did not require days of bombardment, but only a few hours. He will repeatedly bombard the front and rear of the target area, using bombs, grenades and gas bombs. Each gun was precisely targeted, and the barrage of fire ended with a flood of bombs raining down on enemy positions, with the aim of shocking the enemy into a state of shock before the breakthrough force appeared. Bruchmiller had tested his tactics on the northern eastern front with excellent results. Now, his research results are being used by the British.

The second person to contribute to the new tactical system was General Hurtier, who is already familiar to readers of this book. This man had always been fond of sports warfare and hated positional warfare, and his performance at the Battle of Vinnitsa was not only not appreciated by Berlin, but rather appreciated by Ludendorff. In Ludendorff's view, Huttier did well in the campaign against the Chinese army, and his troops seized large swathes of land in western Ukraine, but the losses were extremely small by the standards of the Western Front, showing a kind of flexibility that was rare in the Germans. He cannot be blamed for being besieged by the Chinese army in Vinnitsa, and the success of Hutil's negotiations with the Chinese army seems to Ludendorff to show a kind of courageous responsibility.

Immediately after the Battle of Vinnitsa, Lieutenant General Hurtier was transferred back to Berlin to report on his duties, and Hindenburg and Ludendorff, after listening to a detailed report on the Battle of Huttil Vinnitsa, especially some of his ideas on offensive tactics, arranged for him to take charge of a new army group on the Western Front, and he was entrusted with the important task by Berlin.

Huttier contributed to his research on breaking through the enemy's fortified areas. This idea had been in the works for a long time, and he was again inspired by the exchange with Major General Klaus, chief of staff of the 11th Army on the Northern Front, at Hoffman's headquarters after the Battle of Vinnytsia. Major General Krauss, like him, was a lover of infantry tactics, and the 11th Army suffered heavy losses in the offensive and defense of the 1st Chinese Army in the Sarne-Orevsk area. Major General Kraus appreciated the flexible defensive tactics practiced by the Chinese army, and the Chinese rarely built permanent and strong positions like European armies, and objectively, it was very difficult to build fortifications in the cold season in Ukraine. However, Kraus believed that the Chinese army's defensive tactics were excellent, and instead of constructing one or several stretches of trench defense, they carefully selected terrain to build one firepower point after another. They prefer to use sports to stop their opponents, and they do an excellent job of scouting. It is always possible to accurately judge the opponent's attack area and time, leaving only a small number of people to stick to a relatively solid firepower point, so that the opponent's firepower preparation is basically in vain, and when the opponent launches an infantry attack, its firepower and strength can always arrive in time, so that the opponent pays a large number of casualties and gains nothing. Then withdraw from the position again and meet the possible retaliation of the opponent. The basic premise of this tactic is that the troops' mobility and communication capabilities must be strong, and the troops cannot run uncontrollably, so there can be no talk of the implementation of this tactic.

Lieutenant General Hurthier was convinced that his predicament in Vinnitsa was caused by the long-distance penetration of the Chinese 9th Army, a force of tens of thousands of heavily armed troops that could avoid German aerial reconnaissance. Abandoning the main road and going south for more than 200 kilometers and maintaining strong combat effectiveness made Huthir very admirable.

Hurtier had been thinking about war on the Western Front. Both sides were exhausted by trench warfare, and the assault forces lost the sharpness of their attacks after tearing through the opponent's first, at most, second lines of defense, allowing the opponent to calmly mobilize reserves to block the breach, after the fall of 1914. This feature was embodied in almost all the major battles that broke out in Western Europe. If this problem is not addressed. Even if all the main forces of the German army on the Eastern Front were transferred to the Western Front, it would be useless. Thus Hurtier "invented" a new tactic. Instead of clearing all of the opponent's defenses, elite assault units armed with light weapons bypassed the opponent's fortified positions and flowed like water into the low-lying areas, all the way to the opponent's rear. Leave those fortified areas to the troops behind to clear.

Hurtier, together with Bruchmiller, combined with a strong reserve, made Ludendorff's "decisive" offensive in the spring of 1918 completely different from the past.

Ludendorff chose the opponent of the spring offensive as the British: Arras was Henry. The British 1st Army under Horn's command, south of Horn, was Julian. The 3rd Army commanded by Bing, further south at St. Quentin, was Hubert. The 5th Army under the command of Gough, three British armies with a total of 55 divisions, was selected by Ludendorff as the target of attack.

On the second day of the campaign (March 22), under the guidance of new tactics, the Huttier Army had broken through the defensive line of the British Gough Army and occupied all the positions of the LinkedIn 5th Army. The Germans advanced 15 kilometers in less than two days, entered a no-man's land behind the battle line, occupied a large area west of the Somme, and threatened Amiens - an important transportation hub, and if Amiens was occupied by the Germans, the British and French would be isolated and unable to support each other, and the Germans could break each other, first strike at the British, and then ignore the French and go straight to Paris, forcing the French to sue for peace.

General Haig, commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force, panicked, and he asked for help from the French allies, and Foch, who had succeeded Petain as commander-in-chief of the French army, also realized the urgency of the situation and immediately sent reinforcements, first seven divisions, and later six more divisions, to save the British allies' fronts.

But the Germans managed to advance anyway. On 23 March, a part of Huttier's unit successfully crossed the Somme, and in the summer of 1914 the situation reappeared, and Berlin was so ecstatic that even the decadent Kaiser Wilhelm II took a special train to the front to cheer up the generals and fantasize about how to accept the enemy's surrender.

The Entente countries panicked, urging the American troops in southern France to immediately reinforce the front line, and on the other hand, ordering the Chinese expeditionary force to carry out "active" operations to contain the German forces on the eastern front. The latter, of course, does not help, and the distant water does not quench the thirst of the near. The Entente was well aware that the troops that Germany transferred back to the Western Front were mainly the troops of the former Poland and East Prussia that confronted the Western Front and the Northwest Front of the former Russian Army, and with the signing of the Treaty of Brest, the main corps of the German Army on the Eastern Front had gained freedom of movement. If it were not for the containment of the Chinese army, there would have been more German troops arriving on the Western Front, and it is unreasonable to blame the Chinese army. But the British and French military leaders were deeply afraid that the German troops who were confronting the Chinese army in western Ukraine would also be transferred to the Western Front, and they were a little panicked when the dawn of victory was already visible. Both the French Prime Minister and the British Prime Minister sent telegrams to Beijing informing them of the situation on the Western Front and requesting Beijing to order the expeditionary force to take active action to provide strong support on the Western Front.

Long Qian pointed out in his reply to the heads of state of Britain and France that they should not be intimidated by the temporary success of the German army, the Germans were already at the end of their crossbows, and in fact they did not have much stamina, Paris would not be in danger of falling, and the crisis in Paris was far less than that of Amiens, this small city connecting the British and French fronts was extremely important and must not be occupied by the Germans. It will stop soon. Long Qian pointed out that Ludendorff was somewhat disorganized after his initial success, and that it was strategic short-sighted to target Paris instead of arranging troops to capture Amiens. Long Qian reminded the leaders of Britain and France that the enemy of the expeditionary force had become Red Russia, and if Red Russia gained a firm foothold, all the investment of Britain, France, the United States and China in Russia would be in vain.

Before Long Qian replied, the British and French military leaders had realized the importance of Amiens, and Petain had ordered the French troops to go to the British combat area to turn to Amiens. But they are still amazed by the sharpness of the eyes of the Chinese across the ocean. U.S. President Wilson fully agreed with Long Qian's view of the situation in Russia, and bluntly pointed out that according to the actions of the Ulyanov regime, if they ruled Russia, it would be a disaster for the entire civilized world. In a telegram to Long Qian, President Wilson said that the US Government "sincerely" hopes that China will play a decisive role in Russian affairs, and that the US Government will continue to increase military and economic assistance to China to help China carry out effective military operations in Russia.

The new regime in Petersburg has publicly announced its withdrawal from the Entente bloc, all previous agreements with the Entente have been nullified, and the Russian war bonds purchased by major US consortia have become waste paper overnight, especially the Wall Street hegemon Morgan consortium, which simply hates the new Russian regime, Morgan knows that behind the rapidly developing Huamei machinery in the United States are Chinese, and once said in a meeting with Liu Xiaoqi that as long as the Chinese kill the cloth party, he is willing to pay $10 million to sponsor military spending. The Morgan consortium suffered the most from the great changes in Russia, and from the February Revolution of 1917 onwards, they always stepped on the wrong drum and believed too much in the capabilities of Kerensky's provisional government. The Huamei consortium (Morgan believes that Huamei Machinery has a consortium atmosphere) once warned Morgan that the Russian affairs were not over and Kerensky could not be relied on, but Morgan did not listen to the advice, but instead increased his investment in Russia, and the consortium suffered huge losses, no wonder he was annoyed and angry. (To be continued......)