On 20 May, on the sixth day of the Franco-German border campaign, a part of the French army on the periphery of the encirclement finally reached their intended escape point by crossing the destroyed roads and bridges. However, they were greeted not by the comfort of the village farmhouse, but by the German rifle fire. The French officers and soldiers who evacuated in a hurry did not expect that there would be German troops here, and they were suddenly knocked over like rabbits in front of bullets.

Faced with this situation, the French commander initially thought that a small group of German hunters was harassing. While they were amazed at the mobility of the German hunters, they sent a large number of soldiers to charge, intending to drive away the flies in front of them in one fell swoop. However, the German troops suddenly set up their military artifact, the Maxim MG07 (the same historical MG08 performance) heavy machine gun, and fired wildly at the attacking French infantry.

Since this group of troops descended from the sky directly across the intersection where the main force of the French army broke through the encirclement, the defensive task was not insignificant; In this case, Qing Ying specially assigned them an additional heavy machine gun company to guard against the French trapped beasts that attacked the cage. Thus, including the machine gun units of the German infantry battalions, the two German infantry regiments parachuted into the Alvi had a total of four heavy machine gun batteries of automatic firepower, and their heavy machine guns were almost three times as many as in the same period in history. And when these heavy machine guns were erected on a front less than ten kilometers long, they formed a rain of bullets that the French army could not surpass. For a time, the French soldiers who went to attack were beaten so that they could not raise their heads at all, and finally had to flee back to their starting positions in embarrassment after throwing down hundreds of corpses.

Until this time. The French commanders at the front only understood. The troops in front of them were not at all sporadic German hunters. And definitely the main force of the German army; And judging by the firepower it shows, there is at least one brigade of troops! The French commanders were stunned on the spot, and for a long time they did not understand what was going on; If they knew that Jessica, a famous female artist in Paris, had been elected as the new Minister of War, they would not have been more shocked than they were to learn that a brigade of German troops had appeared out of thin air in front of them!

When the news of the presence of a large number of German troops in Alvi reached Longvi, the commander of the French Third Army, Luf, suddenly opened his eyes and then froze as if he were petrified. For a moment, Lüf even wondered if the Germans had developed a chrono portal capable of folding space. And when the reports of the sentries witnessing a large number of German swarm airships reached him one after another, Lüf gradually had a clue. It is likely that these troops were transported by German airships; Since those aerial sharks can carry so many bombs, they can naturally carry a considerable degree of infantry. He slowly sat down in his chair, and the face that had been in good spirits in the past was now a look of pain and numbness.

The Beige Shark Airship, which is close to a heavy artillery regiment and has a maximum power of more than five times that of a 305 mm naval gun, is a steel monster that is not afraid of any bullets rolling forward, and can also possess cannon and machine gun firepower; Dragonfly-like aircraft that whizz through the air and drop bombs and strafe, as well as tailed weapons that can shoot hundreds of meters away, are more powerful than 75 mm cannons, and have almost no attack dead ends...... In this battle, which had been going on for almost a week, the southern flank cluster of the German army brought one fundamentally unexpected surprise after another to Luff. Under the combined blows of these unheard of and unseen technical forces, Lüfna, who could have expected to hold the southern defensive line for more than ten days, was swept away by the Germans like a devastated state, leaving behind a body of corpses and ruins. If it weren't for the number of the German southern flank cluster, it was close to 180,000. A large amount of supplies were needed every day, and this army had already rushed to the city of Longwei in one fell swoop.

And on the northern front, which has been gathering momentum for a long time and is determined to win. The situation of its offensive was very different from that of the Germans on the opposite side. Although they broke through the defenses of two German infantry regiments in succession, it also took nearly two days; By the time the French reached the vicinity of Theonville, the Germans had already built a well-established defensive system here. In the ensuing offensive, however, the French were vastly different from the Germans on the southern flank.

Originally, Lu Fu had high hopes. The cavalry that had been attached to the raiding force was completely useless in the battle against Theonville. They had great targets in front of the German machine guns, and they had no role other than helping the opposing machine gunners brush up their records. The French infantry, on the other hand, was severely short of heavy artillery, and they were still vulnerable to the German machine-gun trenches and barbed wire lines. And when they broke into the trenches at great cost, thinking that they would be able to slaughter and win the ultimate victory, they found that the jagged trenches of the German army were simply hell that devoured their lives. German grenades, mortars, mines, and explosives seem to have been created for this trench defense; The French soldiers could not move an inch in the trenches, and there was blood stained here at every moment.

The northern attack was blocked, the southern flank defense collapsed, and every factor was unexpected by Luff. And this time, what the German army did directly subverted the thinking of ordinary people, and nearly a brigade of troops was quickly transported from the sky to the destination, directly blocking the retreat route of the main force of the French army! The knowledge accumulated in decades of military service is now being destroyed by one subversion after another, and Lu Fu's spirit is almost unable to withstand the pressure of these thunderbolts from the sky; If they continue to fight, God knows what kind of crazy weapons or combat skills will the Dao Dao Army use that they don't know at all?

Just when Luff was about to collapse by the German army's heavenly soldiers, news came from the French headquarters that was even more unfavorable to him.

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It turned out that at the same time as Luff's Third Army and the Qing Ying Division, the Fourth Army, commanded by General de Langer, the other main force of the French army attacking the German center, also engaged in a fierce battle with the German troops invading Luxembourg in the Ardennes Mountains in the north-central region.

Although the French army fully carried forward the spirit of the unstoppable "desperate attack" and was once inseparable from the Germans in the dense Ardennes forest, the German Fourth Army, still commanded by the Duke of Württemberg, gradually gained the upper hand over time. Although the German army was not as tenacious and fierce as the French army, its scientific infantry tactics and fierce firepower projection were far beyond the French army. In addition, the German officers and soldiers themselves were also trained for a long time, and the French army, which fought with only one courage, soon felt powerless.

On 19 May, the two important towns of Rossinol and Tantini fell one after another, and the French Fourth Army was forced to withdraw to Sedan in the west, completely exposing the left flank of Lüf's Third Army to the Germans. By this time, Luff's troops had become a lone force in the center; If he did not retreat, the German Fourth Army in the north would most likely move south and hit his left flank. At that time, the entire Third Army would be in an extremely dangerous situation, and even be completely annihilated by the Germans in one fell swoop!

The retreat of Dranger's men made Luff's situation even more acute. It was already clear that the only option left for Lüf was to withdraw and abandon the fortress of Longvi, the two main cities of Verton and Montmedy, the great iron ore mines of Brière, which were vital to France, and to Stenay on the Maas. Only in this way will he and De Langer be able to reunite and avoid the fate of being divided and surrounded by the Germans. At this time, Luff's northern flank surprise attack force was fighting fiercely with the Germans at the other end of the Ardennes Mountains, and the main force had already fallen into the encirclement of the German army, and it was impossible to get out of the game at all!

In the face of this unfavorable situation brought about by the objective situation, Lu Fu, who was already in a critical situation, could no longer hold on.

Lüv ordered the surprise forces besieging Tionville to retreat. Although the temptation to wipe out the rear supply base of a large German army group was great, and although he was unwillingly unwilling to bury his own painstakingly devised tactics and undo all previous efforts, the current situation no longer allowed him to do so. The current situation of this surprise attack force is even more dangerous than that of the main force of the Third Army, which is in the encirclement; If they were unable to break the situation under the city of Tionville for a long time, and then they were copied by the headquarters of the German Fourth Army, then they would be greeted with only one way to destruction!

On the southern flank, Lüf ordered the encircled troops to abandon Visoland at the foot of the Ardennes and retreat in general to the northwest. With the flanks exposed, neither the Longwei fortress nor the rear of Verton could hold on, so Lüf ordered this force to attack, break through the newly constructed German defensive line in the Alvi area, and withdraw to the rear of the Montmedy area before making a decision. At the same time, the French forces on the southern flank, which had been cut off by the German assault clusters, were also ordered to launch a counteroffensive in the Alvi area, and to join forces with the French forces in the encirclement to create a way to retreat. At present, Lüff no longer had any illusions in his mind about defeating the German army, and he only wanted to preserve the strength of the Third Army as much as possible so that he could devote himself to the next step of the war against Germany.

Ten minutes later, Lüf's command took the lead in preparing for a retreat. The staff officers quickly packed up their belongings and threw documents into the roaring fireplace. After a while, the command post suddenly became much more depressed.

Luff sat silently in place, a bitterness quietly dissipating into his mouth. (To be continued......)

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