At dusk, in the large reeds adjacent to the riverside, French soldiers wearing blue tops and red pants were silently staring at the villages and fields ahead. At this time, the village was full of smoke and gunfire, and in the fields, the black team was advancing along the winding road towards the heart of France.

Suppressing the anger in his chest, these French soldiers holding rifles were quietly waiting for the enemy to approach. A battalion of German infantry lined up in five columns, stalking up, and behind the road, until the sight was full of dense troops, including infantry columns led by officers on horseback, artillery convoys, transportation convoys, and cavalry teams with nearly one division of troops advancing in an orderly manner.

"Taking enemy infantry as the primary target...the rifle ruler is 400 meters...aim!"

The command issued by the judging officer was quickly passed backwards. The soldiers picked up the rifles in their hands, and the reeds were still silent.

Seeing the enemy walking step by step with a proud look on his face, the French commander gritted his teeth and ordered: "Fire!"

There was a sound of gunfire in the reeds.

The German army was suddenly panicked. The trained German soldiers were dizzy by the sudden gunfire and left the road to find cover. The war horses struggled, jumped up their front legs with harnesses, and the cars overturned. The road was full of corpses, hundreds of them.

After almost all the ammunition was drained, the French troops in the reeds took the initiative to retreat. As soon as they left, large groups of German troops flocked to them, but except for the bullet shells, they were empty and had no gains.

Such a guard sniper battle is performed on the Western Front every day, and on this day, the French defenders' fighting spirit is particularly high.

Because it was September 2, "Seth Day". On this day 44 years ago, the French Emperor Napoleon III signed the surrender letter in Seth Day. The French regarded it as a great humiliation and had used it as a warning for decades. The Germans recorded this day in the history of honor and could step on the French corpses to achieve German unification. They were very proud.

After this month of fierce battle, the Western Front Wars had completely deviated from the idea of ​​Germany's Schliffen plan. The German army failed to annihilate the main force of the French army in the Maas River, but instead launched a full-scale attack with two wings flying together and a steady progress in the middle. On the right wing, the German Luke army swept across the northern coast of France and marched towards Paris with the Billot army along the long white roads in northern France; on the left wing, the German crown prince William and the Bavarian king

Churuprecht led his respective legions across the Maas River and pulled out the nails of Verdun, they could fight to Paris without any obstacles; in the middle, Hausen and Albrecht, the Duke of Württemberg, were once blocked by Sedan and Mauber, and had to rely on the support of friendly forces to break the deadlock. In the Sambur River, they defeated the French and won the lost face, so they were able to move forward with friendly forces.

On the surface, nearly two million German troops were unstoppable in eastern France, but the French team's resistance was making their advance slower and slower. After the bitter defeats of the rivers of Belgium, Lorraine, Artsace and Maas, the French generals reluctantly admitted that the offensive tactics they advocated seemed fragile and powerless in front of cannons and machine guns. They led their soldiers to retreat continuously, handing over the fields, rivers, and villages of the motherland to the barbaric Germans, and letting their companions suffer from the ravages of the German team, and great pain continued to continue

Inspire their inner strength. Whenever the troops stop to block the enemy, the soldiers are still full of enthusiasm even if they are extremely tired. They begin to dig trenches and dig deep enough to stand inside and shoot; they hide the 75mm field rapid-fire cannons, and wait until the German team gets closer and then use fierce artillery fire to attack head-on; they launch sniper operations in battalions and companies, and the soldiers ambush on the roadside, specifically attacking the German marching columns, and run away after fighting, leaving the Germans at a loss.

With the efforts of the rear guards, the main French forces retreated from the front line of the Maas River got a breather. They regrouped in the Somme River northeast of Paris and the Marne River basin southeast of Paris to build a defensive position, using this as the ultimate defense line to defend Paris.

From the lessons of the fall of the Liege and Namur Fortress, the French realized that simple fortresses were not enough to resist the heavy siege artillery of the German army and that they had to assist in defense with field defense. Some fortifications were immediately strengthened, but Verdun, the most important fortress in eastern France, had no such opportunity.

On September 1, the 9th Corps under the Hausen Army arrived at the small town of Gus, north of Verdun, and cut off the railway line from Verdun to Sedang. At this point, Verdun Fortress had fallen into the German army, and there were only a few paths for entry and exit in the hilly areas in the northwest. After 24 hours, even this last retreat was cut off by the German army.

Although the French officers and soldiers of the Verdun Fortress became alone, they refused to accept the German surrender. On September 2, Crown Prince William's army launched a series of fierce attacks on the last two forts that the Verdun defenders fought stubbornly. The German soldiers fought bravely with the support of artillery fire, but the God of Destiny did not favor the Germans on this day. Several main divisions of the 5th Legion suffered more than 30,000 casualties, and the most elite combat troops were all lost.

At the critical moment of the battle, French soldiers fought fiercely with the German troops who invaded the fort with pistols, bayonets and crowbars, and blocked some passages in the fort with explosives, and guarded the last two forts.

Crown William, who wanted to show off his best results in the attack, was very angry about the defeat in front of the German Emperor. In order to commemorate the key victory 44 years ago, Crown William II will visit the front line for the first time. If the 5th Legion can win the Verdun Fortress at this time, it will definitely be praised by the German Emperor, and Crown William will also gain unprecedented prestige in the minds of the people.

The Verdun Fortress failed to capture, and the commemoration event held in Sethon was still held as scheduled. Before dusk, the frustrated Crown Prince William and his younger brother Prince Joachim set out from Verdun and drove three hours to the city of Sethon more than a hundred kilometers away. German Emperor William II arrived here one step earlier. In the afternoon, he also inspected the Saxon troops commanded by General Hausen. A few days ago, these "barbarians" defeated the main force of the French 5th Army with a landslide and tsunami-like offensive, and took Sethon into the Germans' celebration day.

Xia Shu followed the crown prince William to catch up with this grand dinner. Fortunately, the French army hurriedly evacuated Seedon and did not have time to clear the countryside, nor did they fight a fierce street battle with the Saxony Legion in Hausen. Only the extremely handsome German emperor had the opportunity to have a grand show in Seedon's best mansion. In addition to Luke, Ruprecht and Hellingen, the three legion commanders, were unable to come because the defense area was too far away. Bilo, Albresit and many princes and nobles who fought with the army were invited to attend. The contact officials and military observers sent by the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the Western Front also appeared at the banquet.

At the banquet, General Hausen, who had recently won two big victories and personally led his army to conquer Sedan, was undoubtedly the most energetic one. He sometimes described the scene of the French retreat in a vivid way, and sometimes lamented the hardship of marching and fighting. This general who commanded the Saxony army did not regard simplicity as the Prussians as the Prussians. He felt that living comfortably every night was more important than anything else, but after entering France, he could never do what he wanted. Either the messy room or the farmer with a strange smell.

In the civilian houses, and his Saxon soldiers marched in the enemy's territory for many days, the weather was hot, and they had to fight from time to time. The supply was always unstoppable, and the lack of bread and meat, the troops had to rely on local livestock to survive, and the horse feed was insufficient. Despite this, Hausen still managed to march 23 kilometers per day on average, which was the most basic requirement of Schliffen's plan for the German advancement speed. According to the original schedule, the Luke Legion on the far right marched thirty kilometers per day, and even more, and when forcing it, it reached forty kilometers per day.

Luke did this because he only let the soldiers stay along the way, and did not let them scatter to camp on both sides of the road. In this way, he could run six or seven kilometers more a day, but because the German transportation line was long, the troops' advance far exceeded the end of the railway line that transported military supplies, and food was often not available. Horses had to go to the fields to eat immature crops. The soldiers marched all day long and only ate raw carrots and cabbage. They were both hot and tired, and they were as painful as their enemies. They were getting hungry, but they still marched according to the schedule.

Hausen's trouble lies in the arduous march conditions. Crown William was troubled by the stubbornness of Verdun Fortress, and several other German legion commanders also encountered difficult problems. General Von Bilo's 2nd legion was in the middle of the right-wing front. According to the initial deployment of the German General Staff, he was responsible for coordinating the three right-wing legions, but the two friendly and neighboring troops were staring at their respective targets and always ignored Bilo's "requests". As a result, an unsettling gap gradually appeared between the three legions. Once the French reorganized their troops and launched a counterattack, this may become a hidden danger of the German right-wing offensive being defeated.

Taking advantage of the opportunity of the German Emperor visiting the front line, several legion commanders seized the opportunity to explain their ideas and intend to gain the support of the Supreme Commander. This seemed to be a shortcut, but William II did not engage in military affairs and was willing to hand over the full authority of military command to the General Staff. His promise to be fulfilled would probably drive Chief of Staff Mowchurch crazy.

On the other hand, the defeat of the Sambur, the fall of Mauber, the shaking of Verdun, the precariousness of the Aene River, the French Command was already in jeopardy. They searched hard on the map for every unit that could be mobilized, sent them to the northern coast to resist the Luke army, sent to Amiens and St. Continent to resist the attacks of Bilo and Hausen, and sent to the Aene River to curb the troops of Crown William and Crown Prince Ruprecht, and all fronts needed reinforcements. The colonial forces had been mobilized, but they needed trains to transfer ships, ships to change trains, and cross thousands of kilometers to reach the front line. This took time and precious time.

On the day of Se, the British decided to continue to send army expeditionary forces to France, and informed the French government and the French command within a week that two army divisions and two marine brigades would arrive in Le Havre by boat, and then head to the front line as soon as possible according to the French railway transportation arrangements. In addition, the British Expeditionary Forces that had arrived in France and had already been put into combat, the British teams who had been put into the French battlefield still did not reach the six divisions agreed by both sides before the war, but for France in distress and the same tormented Britain, this was undoubtedly a profound decision.
Chapter completed!