Chapter 601 Fall of Liege

The outbreak of war in the past was often determined by the two sides first declaring war, then mobilizing and assembling troops, and then the battle of wits and courage between the commanders of the two armies, as well as the heroism of the two officers and soldiers, weapons and equipment, and the amount of supplies.

It takes a long time to mobilize and assemble the army. It is often a month after the declaration of war, and it is completely normal that the two sides have not yet fought.

But this time is a little different, because from the first time the war broke out, the two sides have been fighting. In the northern section of the Western Front, after Germany declared war on Belgium, it immediately dispatched troops to take down the fortress of Liege. As long as it was taken, the road to Brussels and the French border would appear in the eyes of the Germans.

However, this Liege fortress is not easy to fight, and the leading German troops rushed to Liege under the leadership of Admiral Amy He. But immediately they encountered a problem, that is, how to cross the Meuse River, because the Belgians have taken away the bridges and boats on the river.

At this time, the German army could only build a boat bridge to cross the river first, but at this time they did not know that the large-caliber artillery of the Liege Fortress had already been prepared. After a burst of heavy artillery bombardment, the German efforts were all in vain.

Not only that, the vanguard troops who were preparing to launch the first wave of attack suffered heavy casualties and were kneaded by the fortress’s 210, 170, and 120 mm artillery.

Seeing the fortress artillery bullying his own infantry, Admiral Amy He immediately ordered all kinds of field artillery he carried to fight back. Although the caliber of artillery carried by the Germans is not low, ranging from 105 to 210 mm, these field artillery are not too powerful due to the consideration of maneuverability. In addition to adding some bullet marks to the outside of the turret, it failed to destroy the dry artillery in the turret.

Not only that, the artillery of the fort also recklessly counterattacked the German artillery with its solid protection, which resulted in the loss of more than 30 German artillery pieces.

Seeing that the artillery battle is not taking advantage, Admiral Amyhe can only rely on the infantry to storm this road. But unfortunately, the large number of machine guns around the fort made it impossible for the attacking German soldiers to get close to the side of the fort.

In just three days (Schlieffen’s plan stipulated the time to capture the Liege fortress), Admiral Amy He used various methods, but he could not get close to the fort. On the contrary, the German army lost 31,000 people.

In the face of the fact that the German vanguard failed to capture the Liege Fortress, General Mooch, as the commander-in-chief, immediately sent Ludendorff with reinforcements, and Ludendorff went to the Liege Fortress and found it. intractable reasons. Immediately at his request, several giant siege guns were urgently transferred to the front line of Liege.

The gun is a giant howitzer secretly developed by Krupp. The gun has an unprecedented caliber of 420 mm (nothing larger than it), its shell weighs 1 ton, and its maximum range is 15.5 kilometers.

Such a huge heavy artillery can only be transported by rail, and its assembly time takes 5 hours.

But the wait is worth it. On October 10th, after the four large beta cannons were assembled, the fortress of Liege entered the countdown to destruction.

The 420mm artillery shells cannot be resisted by the fortresses of the Liege Fortress. In the bombardment of 420mm artillery shells, the fortresses of the Liege Fortresses were annihilated one by one.

During this period, Ludendorff once sent someone to persuade General Lehmann, who commanded the garrison of the Liege Fortress, to surrender, but he refused.

Finally, on October 14th, General Ryman fulfilled his promise to live and die with the fortress. The fortress of Liege, which had held the Germans for 9 days, was finally conquered.

However, although the Liege Fortress was broken, it blocked the German army for 8 days, which was the time Belgium bought for France.

And what is the French military doing at this time, the French Army is now implementing a combat plan called No. 17.

Since the Franco-Prussian War, France’s dignity has been trampled on by Prussia, its king has been sworn in as German Emperor at Versailles, and France has ceded Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. In this scene, all the war was lost, and there was a sense of resentment in France. In order to regain face, but also to regain the lost areas of Alsace and Lorraine. After several revisions by the French military, it finally came up with a combat plan called No. 17.

The French army launched an attack on Alsace and Lorraine according to the plan after the war.

When the news of the German attack on Belgium reached Paris, the French army was overjoyed. Because in the eyes of the French army, this is the German army giving itself an opportunity. It only needs to penetrate the thin German defense lines in Alsace and Lorraine, then the French army can go straight to Cologne, Bonn and other places to cut off the German army’s back road into Belgium. , and then annihilated them all within Belgium.

In terms of planning, this is indeed a good plan. But no matter how good the plan is, the soldiers need to implement it.

For this, the French are very confident. They think that their army is no worse than the German army. Coupled with their secret weapon, the 75mm rapid-fire gun, it is enough to shred the German defense and be ashamed.

So under the guidance of such thoughts, the French army sang the Marseillaise and stormed the German army in Alsace and Lorraine.

It is necessary to say one more thing here. At this time, the French army believed in the bayonet theory and believed that the high morale was enough for the French soldiers to endure huge casualties and rushed to the enemy’s position to fight hand-to-hand with them.

Therefore, in the attack on Alsace and Lorraine, we can often see groups of French troops shouting and launching battalion-level and even division-level charges.

The charge of the densely packed French soldiers was very shocking, especially when they saw their comrades falling down, they continued to charge fearlessly, so that it was enough to show the heroism of the French army.

But times are different. If this kind of charge was enough for the Germans to drink a pot during the Franco-Prussian War. But now this is the era when defense is greater than offense, and the rapid-fire weapons represented by Mark Qin are enough to prove that the body cannot fight against steel. UU reading www.uukanshu. com

As a result, groups of charging French officers and soldiers were ruthlessly knocked down, and the heavy rain of machine guns from Maxim made them like wheat being harvested.

Every time a German position was captured, it was at a high cost of casualties. However, for the high-level French army, this must be endured. As long as its frontal defense line is penetrated, the vast inland of Germany will be left to the French army to gallop.

With such expectations, the French attacked for a week. During this week, the French army captured Lorraine and most of Alsace at the cost of nearly 200,000 casualties, but they still failed to penetrate the German defense line.

But at this time, a piece of news made the French army unable to continue the attack. Because of the fall of the fortress of Liege, Belgium was safe from danger, as was the empty northern France.

In addition, there is news that the French military can no longer attack. That’s what the Italians did too.

They launched a massive attack on the French-Italian border. This north-to-south offensive made the French army have to stop and consider the next battle.