On the night when Xia Shu arrived in Esch, Crown Prince William's troops sent several ingenious reconnaissance teams overnight. They walked through the pathless places deep in the dense forest and bypassed the French frontier guard positions to carry out deep reconnaissance. The next morning, three Zeppelin airships departing from the western German base also appeared in the Arden Mountains.

Constrained by weather conditions and technical means, the German team's three-dimensional reconnaissance did not immediately show results as Xia Shu expected. The fog that filled the mountains and forests seriously affected the sight of the airship crew. The aerial reconnaissance only sent back some one-sided intelligence, and the ground infiltration reconnaissance was not much better. The experienced German infantry traveled hard in the deep forest for a day and a night, touched three French outposts, and grabbed a few "tongues", but failed to interrogate valuable military intelligence from them.

On the third day, the German team continued to carry out active reconnaissance operations in the Ardennes. In addition to the Zeppelin airship, the General Staff of the Army also transferred two reconnaissance aircraft to Crown William. They were stationed in a grassy field outside Esch, and were temporarily dispatched by the 5th Corps Command.

In the afternoon, the sunny sun dispelled the fog in the forest. According to Xia Shu's request, two German pilots flew reconnaissance planes in the Ardennes area, especially on the Longwei-Monmedi line to conduct repeated aerial reconnaissance. As a result, the pilots found a large number of French personnel, artillery and baggage vehicles moving from the rear front line. Later, the German infantry ambushed a French correspondent during ground infiltration reconnaissance and found a combat order from him. The order showed that the French team deployed in the Ardennes area would launch an attack from two days later, August 21, to cooperate with the friendly attack in Alsace.

Since the French army was about to launch an attack, Xia Shu suggested that Crown William strengthen his vigilance, stabilize the front line, and reduce the pressure for the subsequent attack through defense. Crown William happily accepted Xia Shu's suggestion and sent out sentry and mobile patrol troops to the frontier of the main positions. After all, in Luxembourg and Lorraine, many residents were hostile to the German army, so they actively provided information to the French army on the deployment and mobilization of the German army, but it was difficult for the German army to obtain the opponent's movements in the same way.

Just as Crown William's 5th Corps was actively strengthening its defense, the German General Staff issued a new combat order, requiring the 4th and 5th Corps to advance steadily from the next day and use attack to support the upcoming counterattack operations by the German left-wing troops.

Before, he was unable to wait for the offensive orders, but now he was trying to fight a beautiful defensive counterattack, but he received a clear offensive order. Crown William and his staff were sarcastic. However, Crown William did not intend to persuade Moltke to take back his life. In his opinion, his troops were fully capable of using attacks to defeat the French attack. Moreover, he always felt that the 3rd and 4th French Army on the opposite side must have drawn some troops to join the Battle of Artsas and lost a considerable amount of troops there. The offensive posture he was showing at this time was just a bluff.

Before making the final decision, Crown Prince William called Ruprecht, who was stationed in Alsace, and learned that the Bavarian Legion suffered minor losses in the early combat operations, so he would devote all his strength to counterattack this time. Regarding the French army's losses in Alsace, the Bavarian Crown Prince gave an astonishing estimate of 250,000. This is equivalent to one-fifth of the French army's wartime force.

Regardless of how accurate this number is, Crown William is extremely envious of the record of friendly forces. He insists on following the orders of the General Staff to attack. In this case, most of his staff and staff members support the attack.

With the limited intelligence at hand, Natsuki could not determine that the French army on the opposite side would launch an attack with all their might, nor could they be sure of what specific impact the German navy's overwhelming victory would have on the combat deployment of the Allies' camp. They had to remind the crown prince not to be too anxious about this attack. Wherever the troops went, they had to dig trenches and deploy defenses to avoid being caught off guard by the French attack.

Colonel von Carson also had the same opinion.

After one night of deployment, the 5th German Legion commanded by Crown William launched an attack in the early morning of August 20. The dense and abnormal guns and shell explosions were heard from Monmedi to Lonvi. When the war broke out in 1914, Germany had about 10,000 artillery pieces of 77 mm or above, three times that of the French team. In addition, only Germany in the great powers equipped 105 mm howitzers to the division-level troops. Even without additional reinforcements, Crown William's troops were able to invest more than 800 artillery pieces on this battlefield less than 30 kilometers wide, and the battlefield was close to Germany's mainland, so ammunition supply was basically no problem.

With the support of artillery fire, the two leading German infantry divisions took only half a day to advance 5-6 kilometers. They easily occupied several villages that were previously stationed by the French army. The frontier forces of the French army retreated at once and did not fight at all. The casualties of both sides did not exceed three digits. For the next half day, the two German infantry divisions strictly implemented the command of the Legion Command, stopped in place to build positions, deployed machine guns and artillery, and waited for the steadily follow-up of the subsequent troops.

At dusk, German reconnaissance planes discovered a French plane near Monmedi, which was also the first encounter between the two planes in the Ardennes. Although the British and German planes had already conducted the first air battle in human history in London several days ago, on the European continent, both pilots still maintained a gentlemanly manner, at most they waved their fists in the air.

After landing, the German pilot immediately reported to the Legion Command about the situation of encountering French planes. Not only Xia Shu, but several major staff officers of Crown William also felt that this was a signal that the French army was about to launch an attack. It seemed that the enemy did not give up the attack because of the German army's active advancement.

Crown William, who was eager to win, followed the advice of his staff and issued an order to the troops that night, requiring them to lay barbed wire in front of the new position overnight, strengthen defense bunkers, and use the terrain to deploy warning lines.

As the night grew deeper, the mist began to cover the mountains and fields, and even in the open areas, the visible distance of the naked eye was only a few dozen meters. In this case, small groups of German soldiers quietly passed through their own defense lines and sneaked into the woods, cornfields or lush grasses. These ingenious Prussian infantry only carried rifles, bayonets and grenades, and their pointed helmets were wrapped in gray canvas, creeping quietly in hidden positions like wolves, watching coldly at the places where prey might pass.

After five or six hours of patient waiting, the sky gradually brightened, and the thick fog that filled the forest still showed no sign of dissipation. The entire Aden Mountains was as quiet as a barren land forgotten by the world. Suddenly, rustling sounds came from the roads, hills, and woods. The German officers and soldiers who were ambushing 2 to 4 kilometers in front of their defense line immediately became alert. Some of them lay on the ground and put magazines at their hands; some knelt on one knee, holding rifles ready to fire at any time; some leaned against big trees, holding grenades with the safety cover unscrewed...

At 5:20 am on August 21, the Battle of Ardennes, with the German 5th Legion and the French 3rd Army as the protagonists, officially kicked off.

Hearing the sound of gunfire from afar, Xia Shu sat up from the camp bed. Unlike fleet combat, land combat often involves thousands of combat units. The time span of a battle ranges from several hours to several weeks, involving offense and defense, support cover, logistics supply, intelligence transmission, and various accidental and inevitable factors are intertwined on the battlefield, which puts very high requirements on the ability of commanders.

"Hey, Johen, listen, the battle begins!"

When he saw Xia Shu, Prince William, who was standing at the entrance of the Legion Commander's Department, showed a child-like excited expression. When he was 12 years old, when he shot a wild duck with his own hands at the Royal Hunting Ground for the first time, his cheeks were also glowing red.

"The French attacked." Natsuki said lightly, "Then let their attack come more fiercely!"

Crown Prince William had a telescope on his chest and put his hands on his hips: "It seems that the French really plan to open a breakthrough here. Tsk tsk, they may not underestimate me too much!"

"They don't really understand our strength and think that our reserve forces do not have the qualities to fight with active forces, just as most of us underestimate..."

Before Xia Shu could re-enact the old tune, Prince William took over his words: "Well, underestimate their field rapid-fire cannons! OK! We will soon find out how powerful the French team's new artillery is."

Xia Shu raised her eyebrows. Compared with the French army's 75mm rapid-fire cannon, her arrogant and conceited mentality is a more terrifying opponent.

After the battle started, the telephone from the Legion Command began to ring constantly, and the radio operators were busy. The battle reports from the frontline troops gathered like a river. A group of high-quality staff officers became extremely important at this time. They could screen out relatively important things from a large amount of information and summarize them, greatly saving the energy consumption of the army commander.

After breakfast, Prince William said to Natsuki with pride: "Look! Our front line is as solid as a rock, and the strength of the French team is not scary!"

Xia Shu smiled slightly and did not answer.
Chapter completed!