"The launch of a large-scale offensive in the Somme is part of the Allies' strategic offensive plan for 1916.

In December 1915, in the town of Chantilly, France, the commander-in-chief of the French army, Xiafei, agreed with British commander Sir Heg that the three French armies and two British armies would carry out a large-scale strategic offensive on both sides of the Somme, striving to break the deadlock on the Western Front and create conditions for the subsequent transfer to mobile warfare. They also determined that the main force for the implementation of the Somme Battle would be borne by the French army.

Xiafei and Hege initially formulated a plan for the Somme Battle, with the goal of completely breaking through the German defense line and winning a decisive victory on the Western Front. But they did not expect that the German army also had similar intentions and moved faster. The difference was that the German army's breakthrough point was Verdun. The sudden attack of the German army disrupted the deployment of the British and French troops, and a large number of French reserves were used in the direction of Verdun. The heavy casualties and the German army's attack were as tight as one day, which made the French army exhausted and could not prepare for the Somme Battle.

In this case, Xiafei and Hege had to modify the original Somme Battle plan. They reduced the original plan of the breakthrough front from 70 kilometers to 40 kilometers, and the number of troops participating in the battle was reduced from 64 divisions to 39, of which the French army reduced its strength by 64%, and the breakthrough area was compressed to 15 kilometers. The final offensive lineup they determined was: the British army participated in the battle from the 3rd and 4th armies, with a total of 25 infantry divisions; the French army was the 6th armies, with a total of 14 infantry divisions. The main assault force of the battle was changed from the French army to the British army's 4th armies, with a total of 14 infantry divisions. The main assault force of the battle was changed from the French army to the British army's 4th armies, with a total of 14 infantry divisions.

The five armies under his jurisdiction were deployed in a front line, and their main task was to break through the defense of the German 4th and 6th armies north of the Somme. The reserve team consisted of 2 infantry divisions and 3 cavalry divisions. The French army was divided into two echelons, with the main task being to break through the south to the east along the Somme River, and then assist the British 4th armies to march northward and develop towards Cambray. The general reserve team of the battle was the two British armies and the French 10th armies (the 4 armies under its jurisdiction). In this way, the protagonists in the Somme Battle will be the British Expeditionary Force and its affiliated country Canadian Expeditionary Force.

The reason why Xiafei and Hege did not give up the Somme Battle plan was, on the one hand, because the Allies wanted to break the deadlock on the Western Front through this battle. More importantly, the German attack in the direction of Verdun put a considerable pressure on the French army, and France had poured almost all its strength here. Therefore, it was necessary to fight out in other aspects. Only by using attack to restrain the German army can Verdun be relieved and the danger was turned into safety. Therefore, the original Somme Battle goal was changed to a counterattack before the war, partially reducing the pressure on Verdun. However, Xiafei and Hege chose the counterattack location on the Somme, just like the German Falkinham. Neither fully estimated the intensity of the enemy's defense. As a result, they both made the mistake of "touching stones with eggs", and the Somme Battle also became an unprecedented war of attrition that could not achieve the expected goal.

...If we say that in this unprecedented war of attrition, the only thing we can be glad that it is thanks to the full preparations of the generals of the Expeditionary Force that the Western powers' idea of ​​using our Chinese Expeditionary Force as cannon fodder once again failed, and history proved that the so-called blood-sized friendship was so weak when facing conflicts of interests. At that time, no one had ever thought that more than twenty years later, the former allies became enemies and the former enemies became allies. Perhaps this was the necessity of historical development..."

"Expedition to Europa - Father's Battlefield" - Zhang Zhongcheng

June 2nd and 4, 1916.

"The quietness is surprisingly quiet, and the hours before midnight are silent, and the noise that is often heard in war is almost impossible. The fields are filled with the sweet and vibrant atmosphere of the coming spring; the fresh and pleasant air is filled with the fragrance of trees, and the breeze blows gently from the branches that have not yet been spitting green; a little far from the front, only the shiny and annihilated signal flare above the treetops can eliminate the illusion caused by this heavy night: peace has returned to this beautiful land..."

As always, as a second lieutenant of the Second Army of the Kingdom of Prussia, Senke von Spertien, as before, recorded the beginning of such a new day in the diary when the morning came. For some reason, when he wrote in his pen that "peace has returned to this beautiful land", he suddenly stopped writing. After pondering for about a few minutes, he wrote in his diary.

“However, in general, there are signs of an imminent disaster…”

The reason why he was so sure was very simple. The entire German position was built on the hillside from low to high, and the actions of the British and French troops were clearly visible. Since a few weeks ago, almost every soldier on the German position had discovered the strangeness of the British and French positions. Therefore, they had long mastered the intelligence about the British and French troops building offensive positions. When the French troops moved towards their frontier positions, the German army could see clearly in the telescope that they almost mastered the days when the British and French troops began to attack, so they had already prepared. Both sides were waiting for the arrival of that day with nervousness.

At this moment, just as Link put down his pen and was about to close the notebook, a thunderous roar came from the air. It was... Looking into the air, Second Lieutenant Senke then understood what the roar was - artillery bombardment.

"Everyone is hidden, bombarded!"

Before Senke could give a warning, a burst of shouts from sergeants rang out in the trenches. The Prussian soldiers who were originally alert in the trenches immediately rushed into the anti-aircraft shelter or bunker near them, waiting for the shelling to pass.

The 2nd Army belongs to the forefront of the Somme River defense line. Since the Western Front fell into a trench stalemate, no large-scale battles broke out in this direction, so they spent more than two years to strengthen their defense. They carefully selected the terrain and built a complete set of defense systems. In addition to traditional trenches and support points, traffic trenches and concrete covers, they also built an underground tunnel network of 40 feet deep, and the entrances and exits of the underground fortifications are hidden in the villages and nearby woods, and difficult to be discovered by the enemy.

At this time, when they were bombarded, these German soldiers immediately retreated into the complex underground tunnel to avoid the shells of the British and French forces. Although they retreated very quickly, they could not keep up with the speed of the shells falling. While some soldiers retreated into the anti-aircraft tunnel, the shells, like raindrops, smashed down from the air.

In an instant, the frontier positions of the German army were completely covered by a rain of bullets, and gunpowders and explosions. The shells and shells flew across the German positions and fell into the trenches. A bloody storm was caused. The soldiers were thrown into the sky by the bomb wounded. The wounded were torn into the sky. The bodies of the wounded were torn apart by the fragments and then torn apart. In the black gunpowder, there was a bloody storm. Screams and howlings echoed in the explosion.

Bombardment!

Even for Senke, such a dense shelling was something he had never experienced before. The shelling was like a huge wave, constantly hitting the seemingly solid trench. Even in a limestone tunnel 10 meters deep underground, he could still feel the power of the explosion. The electric light at the top of the tunnel swayed from time to time with the explosion, and fine stones fell down on his head. During the explosion, the electric lights were on and off. Every time they were extinguished, they could always hear the terrifying screams of the soldiers.

"Let the French explode! We are here and we can't hurt us at all, that is Alfred's shelling, and we don't need to worry. When the French finish the shells, we will leave them a nightmare!"

While the earth was shaking, despite the extreme fear in his heart, Senke still loudly encouraged the soldiers so that their courage would not be defeated by an unprecedented bombardment of this scale. Will. In this stalemate, will is sometimes more important than weapons!

"Haha, the French must have never expected that we were playing poker..."

Although the tunnel was shaking in the rain of bullets, the German soldiers who were slowly calming began to joke. It seemed that for them, none of this was worth worrying about, nor was it worth their consideration, because they could not hurt them at all.

The shelling will end soon!

In his heart, Lieutenant Senke said to himself, how long can such a shelling last? According to his knowledge, at most one day, both French and British would stop shelling.

What Kersenke didn't know was that in the past six months, the generals of Britain and France had been preparing for this battle. Even when the Battle of Verdun reached the most critical moment, they had never slacked off. The British and French troops had been actively making large-scale and careful preparations. In the attack zone, 250 kilometers of railways and 500 kilometers of narrow-gauge railways were laid from the rear to the front, and 150 concrete sites were built at 6 airports, and trenches were built.

, transportation trenches, sheltering departments to hide fortifications and avoid artillery firepower, and various warehouses. In order to obtain sufficient water, they also dug 2,000 small wells. In terms of material preparation, they concentrated their maximum strength since the war started, concentrating about 8.4 million shells, 3,500 artillery pieces and more than 300 aircraft. In this way, the British and French troops had an average force and density of weapons on the front of each kilometer of breakthrough to reach one infantry division and nearly 90 artillery pieces.

Such unprecedented material preparation is the first time in human history. Therefore, this time, the gunners in Britain and France do not need to consider the issue of shells. The only thing they need to consider is how to shoot the shells out and complete the bomb drop plan formulated by the headquarters in the shortest time.

In short, in order to ensure the success of the battle, the British and French armies formed an absolute advantage over Germany in the breakthrough areas. Their infantry exceeded 3.6 times, their artillery was 1.7 times, and their aviation was nearly 2 times. Now, the number of artillery shells they are deploying on the battlefield is as many as one million.

"Full erase the German positions from the earth!"

The orders accepted by the British and French artillery were so simple, and they were confident that they could do it. Almost at dawn, the hidden artillery group of British and French troops had the largest shelling since the war began on the German positions, from 82mm mortars to 406mm train guns, the British and French teams concentrated almost all the artillery fire that could be used to achieve that goal.

The unprecedentedly fierce artillery fire caused the German positions to fall into a sea of ​​gunpowder and fire, and the earth shook. During the violent explosion, German bunkers and obstacles flew into the sky from time to time, and even some solid fortresses were bombarded by trains above 12 inches and were bombarded into the air.

"This is the largest shelling bombardment in human history!"

Perhaps, on the British attacking position, the battlefield observation group led by Cai E and others looked at the artillery bombardment in front of them in surprise. Until this time, they truly felt the "power of industry". This devastating artillery fire relies entirely on the power of industry. No industrial backward country could prepare nearly ten million artillery shells for a battle.

"If it's in Jiaoao..."

Just imagination. Han Wu felt that some cold sweat appeared on his back. The Battle of Jiao Ao has always been regarded as the "pride" of the Chinese team. It was the first truly modern war that took place on the land of China. But there, after several months of battle, the Jiangsu Army only fought less than 200,000 shells in total. But now, the battle has only started for more than an hour. The British and French coalition forces dumped nearly 200,000 shells into the German positions. According to the plan of the British and French coalition command, during the entire fire preparation process, they will fire 1.5 million shells at the German positions!

"The result of this shelling is devastating!"

Hearing the commander's gentle murmur, Xu Shuzheng said in a remark that he had never been to Europe and did not know what modern war is. And a few months after coming to Europe, every expeditionary officer and soldier had a deeper understanding of modern warfare. It was the war between man and steel, between man and machine!

"If I could give me such firepower back then, I could have fought all the way from Jiaoao to Tokyo!"

Han Wu's words reached Xu Shuzheng's ears without falling. As the "three giants" of the expeditionary force, although the three temporarily let go of all contradictions and the interests they represent, occasional disputes between words were inevitable, just like at this time, almost as soon as Han Wu's words fell, Xu Shuzheng said in a slightly thorny manner.

"If you can swim to Japan, I promise. You can hit Tokyo all the way!"

"No need to swim, we have an Army Navy!"

Han Wu just replied indifferently about Xu Shuzheng's words, and then the three of them smiled at each other and continued to observe the situation at the forefront of the German army with telescopes. For the expeditionary army that only needs to undertake auxiliary tasks. Now, there is nothing worth worrying about. After all, the battle has just begun. The only thing they need is to bring their subordinates to experience what modern war is. A modern army cannot be established simply by relying on weapons. A real modern army is the modernization of thought, not just the modernization of weapons. Otherwise, the ending would be like the Qing army during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. With advanced equipment, they ended up in a desperate battle.

When the unprecedented artillery bombardment was in progress, over the German positions, the school-firing aircraft sent by the British and French armies kept hovering, and used signal flares and reflectors to indicate targets to the ground artillery to correct the point of the artillery bomb. At the same time, hundreds of combat reconnaissance planes dropped bombs at the German positions from time to time, and then circled and scattered the German positions.

After the shelling lasted for two hours, the German army's surface position was already empty, because no one could survive such a violent shelling. Even if they were not directly killed by the dense shells, they had already been killed by the violent explosions one after another. What the British and French teams did not know was that at this moment, as early as the beginning of the shelling, most German soldiers had already drilled into deep underground fortifications and safely avoided the pouring shells. The German army, responsible for reconnaissance and surveillance, used periscopes to observe the movements of the British and French troops in the fortifications.

In fact, this kind of shelling "enough to destroy everything in the world" caused extremely limited casualties to the German army. Not only was the German underground tunnel fortifications very profound, but the tunnels were equipped with field kitchens, laundry rooms, battlefield hospitals, etc., which were rich in ammunition and food. The tunnel network was lighted in the tunnel network, and electricity was provided by a special diesel generator. At this time, lights were a rare luxury at that time and were not widely used among civilians. However, here, the tunnels relied entirely on light lighting.

"Let them blow it up, and when they finish the last shell, the war will be over!"

Shaking off the limestone debris falling on the collar, Ensign Sengk comforted his soldiers with a smile. Although he was in a rock formation ten meters deep underground, the soldiers did not need to consider the damage of the shelling at all, but the shock of the shelling still made people feel like a doomsday, especially for some new recruits. At this time, only the comfort of the officers can play all roles in this sense of doomsday.

Suddenly, the shelling stopped, and the noise in the tunnel became quiet as the shelling ended. The soldiers looked up at the top of the tunnel and interspered and asked each other, at the entrance of the tunnel, several pigeons in the cage suddenly flew up, and then the pigeons began to fall into the cage.

"Gas bomb!"

Accompanied by the terrified shouts, the German soldiers in the tunnel quickly grabbed the gas mask and raced against time to put it on their heads, fearing that the poisonous gas would hurt them.

"Prepare to counterattack, prepare to counterattack..."

When the poisonous gas bomb came, the officers immediately began to mobilize troops. According to convention, after the poisonous gas bomb, it often means the enemy's attack. However, to their disappointment, when they were about to receive signals from the ground and leave the tunnel to counterattack the British, a new round of artillery bombardment began again.

How long will the shelling last?

Lieutenant Senke, who was staying in the tunnel, looked at his pocket watch. It was already ten o'clock in the evening, but the shelling was still continuing...

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