On 10 June, the French counteroffensive on the Marne gradually came to an end.

Due to the strength of both sides, the French did not achieve the victory of repulsing the Germans on all fronts, as in history: after driving Crook across the Marne, they were forced to divide their forces to the west to aid the Sixth Army in the garrison of Paris, ending the counterattack launched in the front. And on the battlefield 35 kilometers to the east, the attack of Despere and Foch on Billo also came to an end. A week of fighting had already taken a toll on both armies, and more importantly, the German heavy artillery units were about to arrive at the front; In this case, stopping the offensive and digging trenches for defense became the only choice for this French army.

The current situation is an outcome that Xia Fei can reluctantly accept.

As the commander-in-chief of the French army, Xia Fei did not know that the Ludao army was exhausted after crossing the Marne on June 2, and was already at the end of its powerful crossbow. In fact, not only did Crook, Bülow and other German field commanders not pay attention to this, but even Moltke, who had been worrying about himself all his life, did not take this factor into his consideration. In addition, as a figure of this era, Xia Fei could not have known the Battle of the Marne River in the history of the Dao, and achieved a brilliant record that drove the Germans all the way to 100 kilometers, which can be called a miracle.

Therefore, in Xia Fei's view, the German army was undoubtedly a strong posture that was fierce and could almost annihilate France in one fell swoop before the battle began; It was through this counterattack that he succeeded in repelling the further advance of the German army and retaining a large area south of the Marne. In Xiafei's original plan, the French army was to retreat all the way south to the Seine, about 80 kilometers south of the Marne. Give all of Paris to the Germans! Now they resisted the advance of the Germans not only on the Marne. It also preserved the capital of Paris; Although the Germans were still only 15 kilometers away from Paris. But this has also greatly exceeded Xiafei's initial expectations.

The only thing that made him a little worried was the advance of the German Fifth Army in the center. As a result of this German breakthrough, the French 1st and 2nd Armies deployed in front of Alsace were in danger of being surrounded by the rear and were forced to move to the southwest as a whole, which had been held in place for more than half a month in the previous battle, so that Ruprecht's army could not be saved. Even after he decisively ordered a retreat, the Second Army, which was located further north, was outflanked by the Germans, leaving a large division of troops in the middle. There is almost no hope of a breakthrough again.

At present, the right flank of the French army is deteriorating sharply because of this, and the German army is advancing here layer by layer, and there is a feeling of unstoppability. However, Xia Fei, who had the experience of commanding in the middle of the previous disastrous retreat, had already made the most familiar strategy for dealing with this situation: a telegram of retreat and battle told all armies to rely on the mountainous terrain of northeastern France to slow down the German advance. With the overall force still largely intact, there was no reason to think that the French would be unable to withstand the German attack.

The next day, the Germans launched another fierce attack on all fronts. Crook and Bülo's Army, who were waiting for the heavy artillery, did not hesitate at all, and the fierce artillery roar seemed to be venting the grievances of being suppressed by the French firepower for more than a week before. However, the various units of the French army had already built extensive field fortifications and were ready to fight. The "desperate offensive" advocated by the "Field Regulations" promulgated last year has long since been thrown out of the sky by the surviving robes with the tragic deaths of countless French officers and men who believed in it. After a day of bloody battles. The French army on the left flank was firmly able to withstand the German attack on the Marne, and only part of the territory was broken through. The retreat of the French army in the center also stopped, and the German Fourth Army, which launched an attack with the Qing Ying Division, was forced to stop its advance after advancing for more than ten kilometers.

Faced with this situation, the German field commanders were angry and anxious. In their understanding, France should have been completely defeated in the previous battle, and now, these guys in red pants not only appeared in front of them again, but also resisted their attacks, which was undoubtedly a situation that was simply unacceptable to the German army that had passed the time for victory stipulated in Schlieffen's plan!

When it was difficult to break through the French frontal line for a while, the German field commanders first thought of a roundabout outflank attack: this was the only way to break the stalemate on the battlefield in any type of battle. At present, Rupprecht's troops were advancing in eastern France, and the German troops in front of the Marne River should naturally make a detour to the northwest of France and encircle the French army from the right flank. Schlieffen's original idea was to weave a large encirclement network from the northwest of Paris, encircling all the French troops in the heart of France.

Although he no longer had any illusions about a quick victory over France, Moltke Jr. began another large-scale dispatch command in order to optimize the current situation on the battlefield. The three German armies adjacent to the Marne began to gradually extend towards the right flank of the Marne, gradually spreading their armies westward along the Marne; The assembled Germans bypassed Paris and turned northwest to capture their first target, Rüzasz-sur-Oise.

Located just 12 kilometers north of Paris, the town was already heavily fortified as part of the defensive area around Paris after Gallieni became commander of the garrison. However, because the Sixth Army, which was responsible for the defense of the city, had already suffered huge losses and more than half of the casualties in the previous counteroffensive operations, its defensive strength had already decreased significantly compared with before; What's more, the French army did not expect that the German army located east of Paris would suddenly turn to the northwest, and was caught off guard. In less than three hours, the red, white and black iron cross flags of the German army were flying over the town center square,

After receiving the news that the Germans had captured Rüzash, Xia Fei was shocked. Although he could not yet determine whether the Germans were going to attack Paris from the north or if there were any other intentions, he had to react accordingly. Under his orders, the French troops also began to gradually extend to the northwest, and thanks to the status of Paris as a railway hub, the French army was able to catch up with the Germans in a short time. As for the British Expeditionary Force, they were left behind for frontal defense; After a deadly counteroffensive, the British commander French no longer allowed his troops to leave the trenches and engage the Germans in a field battle.

On 12 June, intelligence from all quarters came to Xiafei's eyes: the German forces deployed on the Marne were beginning to show signs of mass movement, and the speed of Crook's maneuvers to the northwest had increased sharply. Based on this, Xia Fei judged that the German army wanted to bypass the fortified Paris barracks and achieve a breakthrough from the northwest, where the French army was weakly defended. At present, France has only three native divisions deployed in the north-western region. On paper, this force was more than the strength of an army, but in reality it was made up of a police force that was inferior to the reservists, and could not withstand the German advance from any point of view.

With a series of telegrams from Charillon, the French army south of the Marne also began to move rapidly to the northwest to stop the German army on the task of outflanking and detouring. Xia Fei gave orders to the commanders of the various corps that in the event of an encounter with the Germans, they should immediately turn to the defense if they were unable to defeat the enemy, and never launch a senseless attack driven by "impulse" - if any French commander dared to give this order a month ago, Xia Fei would definitely dismiss him as soon as possible, or even directly order him to retire. In the face of the painful lesson of the blood of hundreds of thousands of French officers and soldiers, even if he was stubborn and stubborn, he would rather bend than bend like a sun, but he had to bow his head and give in, and buried the "desperate attack" he had fanatically believed in into the grave with his own hands.

As the moon rose and the clouds cleared, the battle that had lasted nine days in the Marne valley in a bleak and silent night finally came to an end with the roundabout maneuver of the German and French armies to the northwest. The night breeze blew, mixed with the lingering unpleasant smell of gunpowder smoke and blood; The vast and beautiful plain of France was already full of corpses and devastation due to the desperate confrontation between the two camps.

For the Germans, they undoubtedly achieved a victory that was far superior to history. They were not chased north, as in another plane, but firmly entrenched near the Marne; The front of Crook Group was even on the outskirts of Paris, ready to attack the French capital at any moment. On the left flank, in Alsace, the German Sixth and Seventh Armies also made a breakthrough unprecedented in history under the instigation of the Fifth Army, and their overall front approached the French hinterland by nearly 100 kilometers. In terms of casualties, they also had an advantage over the British and French forces in front of them with 160,000 to 265,000, which was undoubtedly a satisfactory exchange ratio for Germany, whose population exceeded 70 percent of the French.

Strategically, however, Germany, as in history, declared bankrupt their plan for a quick decisive battle to destroy France in six weeks, dragging the war into a protracted and long attrition. In fact, Schlieffen's plan was originally an impossible illusion - not to mention whether it could have the objective technical strength to meet the needs of so many troops to carry out a thousand-mile advance at the beginning of the 20th century, when the mechanization era was only showing its young buds, and the core system on which it relied was proved to be wishful thinking. Schlieffen wanted to destroy the French will to resist by occupying Paris, but in Xia Fei's retreat plan, Paris was originally to be lost to the Germans as an outcast; The extraordinary fighting will of the French army in the Battle of the Marne is enough to explain everything! (To be continued......)

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