Reborn South Africa as a police officer

Chapter 1010 The Commander-in-Chief’s Dinner

Nivelle finally left the French command in an unseemly way, ending his military career. Petain became the new commander-in-chief of the French army. It seemed that the French army was back on the right track, but now Petain When the difficulties faced were much higher than during the Battle of Verdun, Petain needed more time to restore the organization of the French army.

For others, facing the current French army may be helpless, but for Pétain, temporarily taking over a mess is already familiar, and he is very good at this kind of work.

Pétain, who had just come to power, immediately took forceful measures, just as he had done during the Battle of Verdun. On the one hand, Pétain did not over-stimulate the emotions of the French troops to avoid larger-scale riots, and on the other hand, he rectified military discipline. , arrested the soldiers who shot and killed the officers some time ago, forced those troops who rebelled collectively to lay down their weapons, and urgently dealt with a group of unforgivable rebels.

About 5000 people were executed by shooting, others were imprisoned, and some were exiled to the colonies.

While suppressing the rebels with an iron fist, Petain appeased those soldiers who were tired of the war, gave them better treatment, more vacations, and vacated Paris hotels to house officers and soldiers who were reunited with their relatives. It worked very well.

As the commander-in-chief of the French army, Petain was completely different from his two high-ranking predecessors, Joffre and Nivelle. Petain didn't like living in luxurious castles, and preferred to be with front-line soldiers. The French army fell into chaos. During this period, Petain visited 90 divisions of the French army, had heart-to-heart talks with soldiers representatives, gave speeches to French soldiers while standing in a car, and had meals with ordinary French soldiers.

With the efforts of Pétain, the French army gradually returned to normal, which accumulated a huge reputation for Pétain, and of course it also brought a huge scandal that could not be eliminated for Pétain in the future.

During the time when Pétain was trying to reorganize his troops, in order to divert the attention of the German army, the British Expeditionary Force kept attacking, attacking, and attacking again.

The loss of Vimy Ridge was a huge blow to Ludendorff. Ludendorff learned that the German army had lost Vimy Ridge on April 4. This day was originally Ludendorff’s 9nd birthday. The German General Staff specially honored Ludendorff. A banquet was held to celebrate. Ludendorff took the battle report telegram and hid in the corner of the banquet to reflect. He later recalled: I used to have the confidence to meet the enemy's attack, but now I feel depressed. Is this the result of our hard work and hard work in the past six months? result?

After studying Arras' battle reports, Ludendorff finally discovered the problem. Ludwig von Falkenhausen, the commander of the Sixth Army in Arras, should be responsible for the defeat of the German army. Falkenhausen did not According to Ludendorff's order, when the British Expeditionary Force attacked, Falkenhausen did not order the troops to abandon the first line of defense in time when facing the Canadian Expeditionary Force, which had an absolute superiority in strength, but ordered the troops to stay on the ground and fight with the Canadian Forces. Recklessly.

As a result, the German army suffered heavy losses under the combined attack of the artillery and air forces of the British Expeditionary Force.

At this time, the second mistake made by Falkenhausen was also fully exposed. The three lines of defense of the Sixth Army were too close. After the first line of defense fell, Falkenhausen had no time to organize the defense. With the cooperation of the German army, they successively broke through the second line of defense and the third line of defense of the German army.

Falkenhausen continued to make mistakes. He placed the reserve force 15 miles away from the front line. As a result, when the battle broke out, the reserve force could not reach the front line in time to provide sufficient support to the front line troops. Total breakdown.

After determining the real reason for the failure of the German army, Falkenhausen was dismissed, and Ludendorff had to draw troops from Chemin d'Edam to strengthen the defense in Arras, and the danger facing Paris was further reduced.

The geographical location of Vimy Ridge is very important. Controlling Vimy Ridge can control the vast plain east of Arras. Therefore, during last year's autumn offensive and this year's spring offensive, Vimy Ridge became the focus of competition between the German army and the British Expeditionary Force .

On April 4, the Canadian Expeditionary Force, which captured Vimy Ridge, received an attack order from Rock and continued to move forward.

But the road ahead was not smooth. The German army blew up all the roads and bridges during the retreat. When the spring offensive started, a snowstorm fell on Vimy Ridge. Although the snowstorm is over now, the ground is full of mud. The tank fell into a mud pit just after starting, and there was also a problem with the supply of the Canadian army. In order to appease the French army, Kitchener sent part of the supplies of the Canadian army to Paris. Nearly 100 million French troops are stationed around Paris.

The vanguard of the Canadian Legion is the Reorganized Second Division, which is also a meritorious unit, and it was this unit that was the first to rush up Vimy Ridge.

Unlike the U.S. troops who pay attention to appearance, after many days of continuous combat, the Reorganized Second Division has no time to tidy up the appearance of the army. After running out of food, the soldiers shared the remaining food with each other. Some officers and soldiers could only get two biscuits a day.

"I really don't know what our officers are thinking. There are only two pitiful biscuits a day, and we are so hungry to attack the German army. Aren't the officers afraid that we will learn from the French?" A corporal said He complained about the two biscuits in his hand, to be exact, there were less than two, and one of them was missing a corner.

"Hush—shut up, do you want to kill us?" A sergeant next to him reminded that the command of the expeditionary force had issued a gag order, and no one was allowed to discuss what happened in Sherman Dedham.

"I'm not wrong. Give the supplies that originally belonged to us to those French who can't eat enough and can't do anything. Licking the dog will kill you—" the corporal breathed out fragrantly, "There is not enough food, "What can't you do?" is a slang term from the Southern African Expeditionary Force. It was originally used to complain about the Indian Army, but now it is also very appropriate to use it to complain about the French Army.

As for licking dogs—

This verb also came from the Southern African Expeditionary Force, and was originally used to complain about the British government.

After the great changes in the Russian Empire, the British government did not stop its assistance to the Russian Empire, and still gave the Russian Empire 2000 million pounds every month, hoping that the Russian Empire could persevere.

But more and more people are not optimistic about the prospects of the Russian Empire. After the establishment of the provisional government, Kerensky became the leader of the provisional government. Manage effectively, and no matter what Kerensky orders, things will go for the worst. Murphy's Law is fully demonstrated here.

Kerensky first tried to solve the military problem. He issued an order to relieve men over the age of 43 from military service, so millions of veterans immediately chose to retire, and the already overcrowded railway immediately collapsed.

Then Kerensky abolished the death penalty for deserters. His original intention was probably to boost morale. As a result, millions of soldiers immediately threw away their rifles and became deserters.

In this case, Ludendorff personally ordered someone to be put on the train bound for St. Petersburg.

"I can't say that. If the French army hadn't held up most of the attacks of the German army, we would have no way to come here." A sergeant major finally told the truth. Although the French army did not perform very well, but indispensable.

Just like the Indian Legion, although the performance of the Indian Legion is even worse, without the Indian Legion to make up for it, the British Expeditionary Force would not have the right to speak now.

During this period, the right to speak and the total number of troops were still very important factors.

"What do you think our commander-in-chief will have for dinner?" The corporal took a bite of the biscuit, and carefully picked up the falling crumbs, which should not be wasted.

"There must be chicken legs!"

"A foot-long lobster!"

"What is a lobster, foie gras and caviar are necessary to be worthy of the commander-in-chief—"

Gossip topics are indeed very popular, and there will always be a market for such questions as to whether the emperor's pole is made of gold.

"Fuck, can we talk about something else, listening to what you're saying, how the hell can I eat it—" The sergeant major's expression was broken, looking at the biscuit in his hand——

Eat, eat, something is good.

"If you can't eat it, you can't talk about it—" The corporal ate a biscuit in five times, maybe it would make him feel better psychologically.

At this time, a truck drove up in the distance, and the big red cross logo on the vehicle was very conspicuous.

During the war, this kind of red cross symbol is actually of little use. The red-eyed officers and soldiers don't care about any international conventions. The dead enemy is the best enemy.

The sergeant major and the corporal didn't know what was being pulled on the truck. After the truck stopped, there were faint cheers.

The sergeant major and the corporal straightened their necks and watched. Several soldiers with rifles on their backs jumped out of the carriage, and then a familiar cardboard box was lifted down.

Only those who have experienced hunger know what it feels like to see the logo of a South African company when they are hungry.

There were cheers one after another, and the whole position was boiling. The trucks delivered luncheon meat and coffee. Although the quantity was not large, it was enough for the officers and soldiers of the reorganized Second Division to have a full meal.

When receiving two boxes of lunch meat and two bags of instant coffee, the sergeant major had never felt that lunch meat was so cute.

"Gentlemen, this is specially brought to you by the commander-in-chief. It also includes the commander-in-chief's dinner. The commander-in-chief has brought you his own dinner. He would rather starve himself than let the frontline officers and soldiers go hungry." Stomach—" the head chef who distributed the luncheon meat muttered, repeating this passage every time he handed out a box of luncheon meat.

The light luncheon meat in his hand suddenly became heavy.

(Originally I planned to send it again at midnight, but after thinking about it, let the brothers feel at ease earlier, and say that the fourth watch will be the fourth watch——)

(End of this chapter)