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Emperor Napoleon.

France hadn't mentioned the name for more than half a century, the First Empire was a proud glory for the French, and Napoleon III was just a lame imitation of his uncle. The construction of a splendid but decaying palace, a cannon of the Franco-Prussian War, disintegrated the vanity and arrogance of the French.

And now, he's back.

Despite Storwell's detailed explanations, the marshals would not believe in the resurrection of a man, but there was a savior in France, and everyone would tacitly defend the lie, even if it was as ridiculous as the village woman Joan of Arc who claimed to have received a revelation from God. When France was at the end of its rope, someone stood up to turn the tide.

"What should we do now? Bazin was dead, Prussia had lost the object of negotiation, and the enraged Second Army should recklessly attack the fortress of Metz. ”

Conrobel moved his knuckles, and he said with a sinister smile, "The Prussian bastards thought that we would give in and surrender, but this time the French army will prove to Frederick Karl that we will never give in and give in!" ”

His words were approved by all the marshals present, and no one dared to disapprove of the temporary directive. After all, everything they have is pressed on Paris.

Held, they are the heroes of Paris.

Can't keep it, they are sinners in France.

"So get the Rhine Corps ready, and what follows is a protracted war. According to Napoleon's instructions, digging trenches and barbed wire near the fortress of Metz to block their progress before the Prussians could react, and 170,000 men would be enough to complete the project in a few hours, as long as we held the place and successfully slowed down the attack of the Second Army, and then handed it over to Paris. ”

Stockwell looked up, and he recalled what Napoleon had said before leaving. As long as they hold the fortress of Metz, the chance of winning this war will increase by ten points.

Stottwell said to Leboeuf, "Make a game and give Bazin's body to Frederick Karl, and the flesh-strong prince will not be able to bear the humiliation of the revelation of the conspiracy, and will tempt him to attack by any means necessary." This time we are going to inflict a bloody loss on the Prussian Second Army. ”

Frederick's fears became a reality, and the French army sent a unique gift to the Prussian Second Army.

Bazin, who had been privately communicating for days about his surrender, was now reduced to a cold corpse with a striking bullet hole in his forehead that seemed to mock Frederick Carr's defeat.

I thought I could quickly take the Metz Fortress and go to Paris to support my uncle, but I didn't expect that everything would change because of that hot air balloon.

And Bazin also had a satirical letter from Frederick Carr on his chest.

"We have executed the traitors, and you will be the ones to be executed next. Don't forget, our Fortress guns have a longer range than your Krupp guns! ”

He stood up in silence, clutched the letter tightly in his hand, stared gloomily at the fortress in front of him, and threw the letter in his hand to the ground.

The commander of the 12th Army, Crown Prince Albert of Saxony, vaguely felt a certain uneasy taste.

Frederick Carr turned his head, patted Crown Prince Albert on the shoulder, and said in a cold voice, "Prepare for this, now the 12th and 5th armies will start attacking Metz Fortress on special flanks. The Third Army will be responsible for supporting your two flanks, and this time we will have the Ninth and Tenth Armies attack from the rear, breaking down their defenses from east to west, occupying block by block. ”

The attack on Metz is destined to be a bloody battle, and there are no shortcuts at all. Later, in the Battle of Metz in 1944, the remnants of the 25,000-strong Wehrmacht halted the advance of the US Third Army for 77 days, withstanding the repeated attacks of six divisions.

If the Rhine corps stationed at the fortress of Metz surrendered, it would be a shame for France.

Albert hesitated, "But Chancellor Bismarck said before that we only need to surround them......"

"If the fortress of Metz is not captured as soon as possible, it will always threaten the offensive of the Prussian army. Are you willing to bear this part of the loss? And the command has already said that the Second Army can play freely according to the situation. ”

Frederick Karl looked at the fortress in the distance, the fortress cannons leaning on the fortifications, ready for a bloody battle.

The clouds of war loom over the ancient buildings of the Lorraine Mountains, and the mottled walls suggest that this is destined to be a battleground for the past.

The soldiers hiding in the fortress stuffed the last bullet into their rifles, and the priest of Metz Cathedral blessed the soldiers, rifles and fortress cannons with their own blessings.

With an order from the staff of the Second Army, the Prussian army began an offensive on the fortified fortress of Metz. As a fortress fortress, Metz connected the fortress artillery defenses on the bastion with solid marble brick walls into a single fortification, which became a nightmare for the Prussian offensive and the last support of the French army.

The continuous artillery bombardment slowed down the Prussian army's attack, which had previously been only responsible for besieging Metz and preventing Bazin's army group from breaking through, without imagining the cost of capturing the fortress.

Prussia, carried away by the joy of victory, realized that attack was not the exclusive domain of Metz, and defense was the eternal theme of this fortress!

Soldiers were constantly shuttling around the fortress, carrying shells to the various fortifications to support the French legions on the outskirts. They formed a fortification with improvised barbed wire and trenches to hold back Krupp artillery and machine guns. Because of the easy and difficult terrain of the Metz fortress, the 5th and 6th Prussian cavalry divisions could not exert their mobility and could only become an ornament.

Occasionally, shells fell on the fort outside the fortress of Metz, blasting a gap in the fortifications, and the French soldiers looked out of the gap to see a dense line of guns approaching the fortress.

By this time they had forgotten their fears, because there were still hundreds of thousands of troops in the Metz fortress, waiting to fight Prussia to the death.

Stray bullets flew through the ears, and the soldiers hiding in the improvised trenches did not dare to raise their heads, they thought that the idea was terrible, and they wanted to stop the attack of the Prussian army with three trenches?

However, the soldiers with Shasebo rifles did not realize that the trenches were the best defense after the evolution of foxholes. Able to withstand artillery and bullet attacks, the hand-cranked Gatling was dismantled and placed on the trenches, becoming the earliest infantry support weapon.

There was no need to wait for the Zulu War of 1879 for France to allow Gatling to flourish in this era. According to Napoleon's instructions, Stottwell devised a new battle plan.

With their guns pointed at the Prussian soldiers advancing in line, France would tell the world with a new way of fighting that it had entered the era of skirmishers.

The orders issued from the headquarters of the Rhine Corps were passed from the inner fort to the outer fort to the outer fort, all the way to the outer defensive line, all the way to the ears of every combat soldier.

The roar of artillery fire in the sky could not drown out the hoarseness of the herald, stimulating the boiling blood of every soldier.

The Motherland is calling them.

"This is an order from the command, so everyone must hold the fort and not take a step back! You have no way back, and under your feet is the land of Paris! ”

“ILS NE PASSERONT PAS’。”

“pour la france!”

Stirring slogans, echoing throughout the fortress, heavily armed soldiers, remembering only the last sentence!

"For France! Stick to it! ”