Rise of Australia

Chapter 433
Before the Battle of Verdun, the Germans were confident that their troops and artillery were invincible.But the Battle of Verdun has been going on until now, and the Germans have discovered that artillery is not completely invincible for warfare.

During this period of more than half a month, the Germans first tried to launch a fierce attack on the center of the French army's defense line. After the attack was fruitless, they turned to attack the left and right wings.

But apart from paying a lot of casualties, the Germans did not have too obvious results.

Especially after Petain adjusted his strategy, the Germans felt unprecedented pressure in the Verdun area, and their plan to win by storming with artillery and force superiority had completely failed.

The main reason why this tactic was able to win on the Eastern Front was actually because the Russian army was poorly equipped and the logistics were too backward.

But the logistics of the French are not weaker than that of Germany. With fortresses and new equipment, the French army is not inferior to the Germans in terms of equipment.

After the French army stabilized the line of defense, the rear staff replenished a large amount of troops, pills and weapons to the front line.

This also gave the French army sufficient strength to launch a counterattack and regain some of the positions and fortresses lost at the beginning of the campaign.

With the victory of the recent small-scale battles, the morale of the French army has gradually increased, and most of the troops on the front line have also recovered sufficient combat effectiveness.

When the two sides confronted each other offensively and defensively, the time quietly came to 1916.

On January 1916, 1, French commander-in-chief Joffre issued the latest instructions to all defensive troops in the Verdun area, including Joffre's encouragement to all soldiers.

Joffre said that for more than a month, the German army has given the Fortress of Verdun a fierce attack in an attempt to drive straight into it.

With their elite troops and extremely fierce artillery fire, they have achieved considerable results on the Eastern Front.

The French army in the Verdun area can make the Germans make no progress, and even frustrate the spirit of the German army, which is enough to show the strength of the French army.

Xiafei proudly stated that he would ensure the arrival of all military supplies and reserves as soon as possible in the rear, and make all logistical preparations for the frontline soldiers.

If the enemy still wants to attack, the French army will use their unyielding courage and sincerity to support the lifeline of the nation. Under the attention of the whole country, they will be praised by all French people. They are a solid sky to prevent the German army from entering Verdun.

Beginning on January 1916, 1, the Battle of Verdun officially entered its second phase.

The German command decided to mobilize its forces and move the focus of the attack from the east bank of the Meuse to the west bank, capturing the important defensive positions of the French army on the west bank in one fell swoop, and preventing the French army from using the terrain to provide artillery support to the east bank.

For the new campaign, the German General Staff transferred a small number of elite troops from other places, and supplemented the troops that participated in the first phase of the previous offensive.

In fact, the real purpose of the Germans attacking Verdun at the beginning was not to capture this strong fortress.

The top German military leaders headed by Falkenhayn, their real purpose is to let the French shed their blood and exhaust the French's vitality in the Verdun area.

But the problem is that this plan is impossible to realize at present.Maybe the French will bleed out one day, but the Germans will definitely bleed to the brink of death.

Although he knew that the Battle of Verdun had reached a stalemate, Falkenhayn decided to let the German army in the Verdun area continue to attack, and the name was only for the prestige of Germany.

It was also from this moment that the Battle of Verdun changed from a plan to a meaningless war of attrition.

Both France and Germany continued to invest their troops in this area, and the two sides launched rounds of tug-of-war, but it only consumed manpower and equipment and materials, and the actual front movement was not large.

Beginning on January 1, many German soldiers felt dissatisfied with this worthless sacrifice.

Although everyone is willing to give their lives for patriotism, if it is spent on a war that is not necessary at all, it is a bit unnecessary.

The planes of France and Germany hovered over the battlefield of Verdun, and a large number of corpses could be seen anytime and anywhere.

These piles of corpses are French, German, and colonial.

Some positions have been shattered by artillery, but the French insisted on being strong. On such positions, they sang battle songs of blood and fire.

Such heart-pounding scenes can be seen almost everywhere on the battlefield. Soldiers on both sides of France and Germany have suffered a lot of casualties. Their generous feelings of dying for the country are worthy of recognition.

The dense artillery exploded in the chaotic dead wood, blowing up large or small craters.

Some soldiers who were blind and seriously injured groped and crawled into caves or bunkers to survive. They thought that such bunkers would give them a sense of security, but the snow melted by the heat wave from the artillery explosion became the god of death.

The blood flowed into the huge craters and caves, drowning the wounded soldiers lying on the ground struggling helplessly.

Such a picture is not cruel, but it was a bloody reality in the famous Battle of Verdun in history.

Wherever the shells passed, there were human and horse corpses everywhere.Fortunately, it was January and it was still relatively cold in the Verdun area, so the corpses hadn't emitted a foul smell yet.

If it was summer, the smell of rotting corpses alone would be enough to make some soldiers mentally collapse.

What is even more exaggerated is that some German soldiers were not only covered in mud, with sunken eye sockets, but also looked extremely old and weak because they had lived in such a bad environment for a long time.

However, the high-level German military still wishful thinking dreamed of consuming the vitality of the French army through the Battle of Verdun to prevent the upcoming large-scale offensive of the British and French allied forces.

Instead of waiting for the British and French allied forces to launch an offensive in an unknown area, it is better to take the initiative to lead the British and French allied forces to the Verdun area, where there will be a decisive battle in the Verdun area, trying to eliminate the main force of the British and French allied forces. This is the plan of the German high-level.

In fact, the massive German offensive in the Verdun area did remind the British Empire.

The British government is keenly aware that it must invest more power in the European continent as soon as possible, and at the same time do everything possible to support the French army to prevent France from experiencing a Russian-style defeat.

Russia has great strategic depth, and a few failures are nothing to Russia, which has a vast territory and a large population.

But for France, if the Battle of Verdun fails, not only will there be a risk of Paris falling, but it will even affect the combat capabilities of the French army in the entire French region.

It is no exaggeration to say that after the fall of Verdun, Paris was lost.If Paris is not protected, France will not be protected either.

Under the premise that Britain strongly supported France, the French army fought fiercely with the German army in the Verdun area. Neither side could take the initiative, and the Battle of Verdun was therefore stalemate.

In February 1916, more than two months had passed since the Battle of Verdun began.

The German and French armies also confronted each other in this area for nearly 70 days. During this period, a large number of fighting took place, and both sides suffered heavy casualties.

In the hilly and forested area of ​​less than 20 square kilometers on the east and west banks of Maas, the offensive and defensive sides have fought fiercely repeatedly.

The German troops who lacked the necessary rest were exhausted at this time.The French army took advantage of the exhaustion and slack of the German army to launch local counterattacks from time to time, which overwhelmed the German officers and soldiers.

Due to the heavy casualties and the ineffective supply of food and ammunition, the German soldiers who had always strictly observed discipline and charged bravely had gradually lost confidence in the high command.

Since the beginning of the Battle of Verdun, the German High Command has never worried about heavy casualties.Eager to win, commanders never took the casualty count seriously.This actually ran counter to the German army's original campaign attempt, which was to "let the French bleed out".

Because in terms of human resources, the Allied Powers Group really cannot compete with the Allied Powers Group.

In this way, the Battle of Verdun not only failed to realize the attempt to let the French flow into blood, but it seemed to drain Germany's own blood.

Faced with extremely heavy casualties, under the pressure of William II, Falkenhayn had to modify the original battle plan to avoid causing more casualties.

The combat method of intensive assault by heavy groups commonly used by the German army has finally been revised. The French General Staff requires officers at all levels to pay attention to command in a scientific manner during the war, and requires all armies to implement timely and effective artillery support during the offensive.

In order to prevent the French machine guns and artillery in the fortress from causing huge casualties to the attacking German army, the German army also modified the tactical actions of the infantry.

The German General Staff asked the German troops in charge of the attack to adopt a more dispersed spacing and continuous progressive assaults, rather than the previous clustered charge.

Drawing lessons from the past, the German High Command no longer one-sidedly emphasized the power of artillery attacks, and began to emphasize that machine guns are effective weapons when approaching the enemy, and their role is irreplaceable by artillery.In the subsequent operations, the German army paid more attention to the strafing ability of machine guns, especially the fire suppression effect when close to the enemy.

In terms of the use of troops, the German army also changed the tradition of elite troops acting as the vanguard in the past, and changed to use weaker troops to launch the attack first, and then use elite troops to expand the results of the battle.

In order to change the serious defeat on the battlefield and reverse the passive situation, the German army has indeed made a lot of efforts in terms of tactics and technology.

In order to destroy the defense line of the French army, the German engineers even dug holes under the French army positions, and then buried a large amount of explosives inside, blasting a crater as deep as 10 floors in the French army positions.

However, subsequent battles once again proved that these so-called new tactics could not produce much effect in the face of a solid positional defense system with strong fire support and a certain depth due to the lack of necessary protection for the offensive forces at the time.

Will the Germans stop attacking because of too many losses?This is the most concerned issue of the Allied Powers, especially the French people.

The protracted and tragic situation of the Verdun War has become a heavy psychological burden on the French people.

The whole country was proud of the fact that the French army was able to hold their ground tenaciously and crush the crazy attack of the German army, but they were also disturbed by the excessive number of casualties.

Facts have proved that the Germans still have not given up attacking Verdun Fortress.

However, Germany originally thought that the Battle of Verdun would soon achieve its goal, so it only invested the main attacking troops of the six armies.

But as the battle progressed, Germany had to send more reinforcements to join the Battle of Verdun.

This kind of behavior is the most taboo in war. The method of increasing troops one by one is far inferior to investing more troops at one time. This is like a gourd baby saving grandpa. A small number of troops supported many times is extremely easy to be targeted by the enemy. Always unable to maintain the superiority of the enemy's forces.

To borrow the original words of the Paris Daily News evaluating the situation of the Battle of Verdun at the end of February: "No matter what the reasons are, it can be proved that the German army has reached the period of taking the defensive. Since then, the German army has been powerless to stop the development of the Allies."

Of course, there is an exaggeration in this, but the status quo of the German army in Verdun is indeed not good, and the Germans can no longer maintain their advantage over Verdun.

On March 3, General Robert-Georges Nivelle succeeded General Pétain as the commander-in-chief of the Verdun theater, and General Pétain was transferred to the Central Army on the Western Front as the commander-in-chief.

The reason why the commander-in-chief of the Verdun theater was changed at such an important moment was because Joffre was quite dissatisfied with General Petain's strategy in Verdun.

In fact, the new commander-in-chief of the Verdun theater, General Nivelle, also has a good reputation.

General Nivelle was a learned and eloquent artillery expert, and before becoming the commander-in-chief of the Verdun theater, he served as the artillery commander of the theater.

He was born in a military family, and now he is studying at the Saumur Cavalry School, studying cavalry command, and then changed to artillery, and his grades are very good.

General Nevel's promotion journey is also very exaggerated. At the beginning of the war, Nevel was just an ordinary lieutenant colonel.

But then, he was quickly promoted to the commander of the fifth brigade, and then was appointed commander of the sixth division.

His artillery prowess found use at the Battle of the Marne, for which he was promoted to general and commander-in-chief of the Third Army.

It is worth mentioning that General Nevel also invented a high-altitude explosive bomb that can destroy airborne balloons, even airships and airplanes during this war.

After the invention of this artillery shell, it caused a fatal blow to German aerial scouts and greatly weakened the German air force. General Nivel's talent in artillery can be seen.

At this time, preparations for the offensive of the British and French forces on the Somme River in northwestern France have come to an end.

The original purpose of launching this battle was to deal a heavy blow to the German army and even invade Germany, but at this time the main purpose was to relieve the pressure in the direction of Verdun and force the German army to withdraw its troops from the Russian front.

In order to weaken the scale of the battle launched by the British and French forces in the Somme area, the Germans launched a more violent attack on the Verdun area.

Because of the fierce German attack on the Verdun area, the British and French allied forces decided to strengthen their offensive in the Somme area to distract the Germans, forcing the Germans to divide their troops and even withdraw from Russia.

The two sides have implemented combat plans for their own strategic goals, but judging from the development of the current situation, it is obviously more detrimental to the German side.

Under the orders of the German Command and the Anglo-French Allied Forces Command, the German army decided to resume a large-scale offensive in the Verdun area, and the Anglo-French Allied Forces decided to speed up preparations for the battle in the Somme area. Offensive, forcing the Germans to withdraw from Verdun and Russia.

　Just an update today, 4200 words.

　　The specific reasons are explained in the easter egg chapter, thank you for your support!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)