Back to the Republic of China as a commander

About 33 kilometers away from the Fortress of Verdun and about 22 kilometers away from Metz, the small town of Droitaumont is located among these low hills. Most of the residents here are French. They chose to leave this place after the outbreak of the war. The town at the center of the warring parties.

Due to the terrain, walking 15 kilometers from this town in the direction of France is the Great Plains, so here, the armies of both sides fought an unprecedented brutal battle.This is what happened in 1916. In May 1917, the small town of Droyatemont was recorded in the annals of the First World War. The Verdun counterattack that finally affected the direction of the entire World War I was based on this It started with the town as the center.

Many years later, the French built the Verdun Counterattack Monument in this town to commemorate the Chinese and French officers and soldiers who died gloriously in this famous battle. Come here in person to lay a wreath to the martyrs of the Chinese Federation who participated in this counterattack.

But now, May Day is still an ordinary day for both warring parties.

After the war ended, the relevant military history research experts consulted almost all the relevant materials. They even found out the names and resumes of the first-level officers of both parties involved in the war in detail, but they did not find the plans of the top commanders of the two sides for this battle. Or a written order.In the end, they came to a conclusion that was closest to the truth. This battle that changed the direction of World War I was completely an accident.

The two spy battalions Guo Meng and Li Dachao rushed to this small town called Droy Tomont at the first time, because the command of the expeditionary force commanded them to have close contact with the German army as much as possible to prepare for the follow-up. Units in forward motion do tactical warning.

But obviously, the good luck of Lieutenant Colonel Guo Meng, known as the tiger in the army, and Li Dachao, known as the wild fox, were all used up in the previous series of actions that showed their faces. The result of this mission was to directly change the two people. military career.

When they entered the small town, a regiment of German troops arrived on a small mound not far from the town, and then made people dumbfounded. These German troops also walked into the town swaggeringly. It was the morning local time Eight thirty.The root cause of this error was a rare morning fog in the hilly area, and the visibility on both sides was not very good, so they walked to the center of the town at the same time.

When the two groups of people saw that the other party was the enemy at the same time, they were not in a hurry to shoot, because the distance between the two sides was too close now, so close that no matter how good their skills were, they couldn't dodge the bullets that would fly at any time.Then there was a strange scene on the battlefield. Li Dachao and Guo Meng and the German officers chose to kill each other with their eyes at a distance of less than one meter, but they didn't shoot or speak. It's so embarrassing to death, once the fire is fired, none of the three will survive.So, in a very rare and tacit understanding, everyone moved back slightly, keeping a distance from each other very carefully, so as not to provoke each other to fire.

This atmosphere is really too depressing. The first one who couldn't bear it was Li Dachao. This clever boy from Henan was the first to wake up after taking three steps back. He was afraid of hair, so he would be safe if he just lay down on the ground.As a result, when Li Dachao was there, Guo Meng and the German police officer were both annoyed and yelled at the bastard, but the strong desire to win still made the two guys choose to follow suit and lie on the ground.The soldiers who didn't know the situation thought that the other side had shot. In short, they chose to shoot each other, and the Verdun counterattack began. . .

The most wry thing is that the first people to meet in the Verdun counterattack, which is called the Battle of Asura Hell by later generations, are Li Dachao, Guo Meng, and the German major Lundstedt. The damn guy is not dead.Because Li Dachao was seriously injured in this battle, he was judged unsuitable to continue serving as an officer of the field army after he recovered from his injury, so he had to retire in 1918. Later, under the special care of Bai Chongxi, Li Dachao was retained in the army and transferred to the Sichuan Security Command Served in the corps, then promoted to major general in the security system, and transferred to Wuhan Security Command Academy as the director of the special operations department.In the following history, he lived an ordinary life. Although Guo Meng was also injured, his luck was better than Li Dachao. The injury was not serious. After he recovered, he was promoted to a colonel in the army. Commander, Brigadier General of a brigade of the Guards Division, Major General Commander of the Central Military Commission Guard Regiment, Commander of the Nanjing Garrison District, Commander of the Military District of Jiangsu Province, Commander of the Military District of Hebei Province, Commander of the Federal Defense Forces in the Kingdom of Vietnam, and Commander of the Federal Defense Forces in the Kingdom of Korea , General Commander of the Federal Military Police Command, then retired with honor.

In contrast, the luckiest of the three was the German guy. Not only was Rundstedt not injured, but he also managed to break out from the battlefield. In the German army system, he ended up with a marshal. If you compare people, you will die, if you compare goods, you will have to throw them away!

Pulling away, let's go back to this battle. When the Droy Tomont battle started, the commanders of both sides were taken aback.Bai Chongxi was surprised because he didn't expect the German army to come here. Xiao Zhuge's original plan was to go around here and flank the returning German army, but he didn't realize his plan to mount it head-on. Why didn't these German guys take the road?

And Ludendorff was surprised because he obviously chose to give up taking the road very conservatively in order to avoid positional warfare, and went back through the hills, but the squadron still appeared in front of him. What is going on?Did the Chinese not defend their position, but pulled out to fight against themselves?

Ludendorff gave the order very decisively: "Order the vanguard to immediately bypass the town of Droitaumont, defeat the damned squadron from the side and rear, and follow up with the follow-up troops. This damned hilly area is not suitable for us." The troops are deployed, and everyone must quickly pass through the twelve kilometers."

History is so amazing, on a small hill less than 4 kilometers away from Ludendorff's headquarters, Bai Chongxi also issued the same order: "Now we are going to conduct mobile warfare, tell Xia Wei and them, leave this small town alone If the gains and losses are lost, resolutely insert behind the enemy's side, stick it up, and disrupt the enemy."

But a tragedy happened. The officers and soldiers of both sides strictly followed the orders of their respective commanders. Almost all of them played sports warfare very enthusiastically. attack each other.Then, and then, massive bloodshed began. . .

The First Division of the First Army of the Chinese European Expeditionary Force entered the battlefield at about ten o'clock in the morning. Since Commander Liao Lei was also the commander of the First Division, the actual command was between Chief of Staff Wei Lihuang and Director of the Political Guidance Department In Jiang Zhiqing's hands, the thin and handsome Jiang Zhiqing followed Chen Cheng, the head of the 13th regiment.

According to the memoirs of this brother Jiang Zhiqing, who has the right character, the brutality of this battle is unprecedented.

"When we walked into the battlefield, the battle had already started on many small mounds. The fog in the air made us hear the thunderous gunfire and fighting, but we didn't know the enemy's situation. We wanted to come from the Germans. The situation is worse than ours, because our heavy artillery unit is seizing the opportunity to bombard their flanks every minute. The shells are almost as high as my waist, and the consequences of a real shot are very serious. Fortunately, I later Only then did I realize that due to many reasons, the artillery units that the German army has always been proud of did not play much role in this battle. This may be the luck of all our expeditionary forces... When we passed through several hilly areas We all saw our fraternal troops fighting fiercely with the German army. We even had to bend over to avoid being hit by stray bullets in some higher sections. It is hard to imagine that we dared to go to Europe in just 1 years. Come to fight against the big powers, and it is still such a chaotic battlefield. From time to time, we see brotherly troops fighting hand-to-hand with the German army, but we were asked not to reinforce them. The order from the headquarters to the 16st Division was to slam into the German army's flanks, but we almost ran away. After an hour, we didn’t find this side. The battle started almost at the same time on the hills of more than ten kilometers. As the running continued, a small group of lost German troops appeared in front of us from time to time. The superiority easily cleaned them up. But later, Chen Cheng and I were surprised. The nearly 13 officers and soldiers of the 3000th Regiment could keep up with us. Fewer and more officers and soldiers broke away from the establishment in this scuffle. This situation is really unexpected for me. But we are in Europe now, and there is really no second choice except to fight to the death. So we can only fight to the end. Fortunately, there will be small groups from time to time. The scattered members of our own team were added to our ranks, among them there were members from the first division, the second division, and even the fifth division. Anyway, when we came into contact with the German supply troops at the end, we unexpectedly There are more than [-] people..."

In fact, this battle was also a battle that changed Jiang Zhiqing's fate, because it was very fortunate that the German Marshal Hindenburg, who was in a trance due to excessive pressure, actually stayed with this supply unit, and Ludendorff learned that he was happy. When Deng Bo Yuanshui was in danger, he was unable to effectively command the troops and chose to give up. He personally led a regiment of German troops to fish out the Marshal.Then Ludendorff and Hindenburg successfully broke through and took full responsibility for the failure of the Second Battle of Verdun. After the war, in the beer halls in Munich, you can often see this famous German general during World War I. . .