Chapter 194: , Verdun meat grinder (3)

Soon after the first round of salvos passed, the ten cannons fired a second round of salvos. The salvo once again caused dozens of casualties, and it also plunged the Prussian army into chaos. Everyone knows that you definitely can't stop here and get shot, but you don't know how to do it. Some brave people saw that the position of the cannon was not too far away, and wanted to rush over, and stepped on a landmine; some timid people ran back, hiding behind, and then stepped on the landmine.
Under chaos, it is obviously impossible to attack, even an orderly retreat is not easy. I can only run back in a mess, saving as many lives as possible. Of course, when they retreated, they could not care about retreating from the narrow areas that the British took a long time to demarcate. As a result, it was natural to use artificial methods, and the efficiency was much higher than that of the British. Mine action.
"General, the enemy was beaten down, we only fired a few shots, and the enemy was beaten down, and we had almost no loss. This is really..." An officer of the Northern Legion was very excited to stand aside. Said Joseph watching the battle through the telescope.
Speaking of which, many officers in the Northern Army also knew Joseph. After all, the Bonaparte brothers had worked in the Northern Army before and even rescued many officers. Although later the Bonaparte family and the Italian Legion showed signs of disagreement with the Northern Legion, the reputation of the two Bonaparte brothers in the Northern Legion was actually good.
"Who said we had no loss? We just sacrificed several soldiers." Joseph immediately corrected. Then he raised the binoculars again, looked over there, sighed again, shook his head and said, "Also, one of our parapets is broken, and there is also a minefield, which is basically broken... …Especially some mines, which were also dug away by them-how can it be said that there is no loss?"
"General, among those mines, is there any technology that can be seen at a glance?" the officer asked.
"Of course there are, such as reducing the charge, reducing the volume, reducing the cost..." Joseph said bitterly.
After spending half a day destroying a shoddy breast wall and effectively destroying a French minefield, the Anglo-Prussian coalition returned to their starting position.
This is undoubtedly a major setback, but compared to the other two bad news they received that night, this setback is nothing at all.
The first bad news is: The Russian Tsar and the French have made peace. After a period of stalemate in Italy, the specially authorized Russian consul in the Republic of Venice and the French consul also specially authorized reached a peace agreement. According to this agreement. Russia and France have achieved peace. In this agreement, France assured Russia that it would strictly control the export of weapons; and Russia agreed to purchase a batch of weapons from France. At the same time, the two countries also agreed to strengthen cooperation in academic, cultural, and other fields.
"Damn Russian! I knew they were unreliable. If they hadn't pitted us last time, we would have...this time they pitted us again!" The Duke of Brunswick was so angry that he was sweating. .
"These Russians! Half a month ago, they just got a sum of money from us!" Major George Cavendish also said angrily, "I have never seen such a brazen person!"
"At this most critical moment, when we were about to take Paris, the Tsar actually betrayed us. I really don't understand how his brain grew. Doesn't he know that we will soon win? "The Duke of Brunswick said, "Some people say that he is not the biological son of Peter III. But judging from his actions, I am afraid that no one will believe this nonsense again!"
General Blücher also nodded and said: "Yes, he is the son of that man, there is no doubt about it!"
At the most critical moment of the Seven Years' War, Prussia was exhausted. When King Frederick was about to die, he suddenly turned back, leading to the defeat of the French side and saving Prussia. Then because of this completely betrayal of Russian interests, he was overthrown by his wife Ekaterina in the coup. And even the Prussians who got the advantage admitted that Peter III's defection was totally unreasonable and completely mad.
"But anyway, the instability factor is now on the French side." Major Cavendish looked very eager.
And because although his rank is not high, his status is not low, (there is an uncle duke) so everyone is very kind to him.
This news also means that the South of France no longer poses a big deal, so they must speed up to take Verdun and take Paris before Napoleon arrives. Otherwise, the outcome of this war is really not optimistic.
As for the second bad news, the continuous rainy weather in southern France has ended. Now there have been two consecutive days of fine weather. If this trend continues, the conditions of the road from the south of France to the north will improve rapidly, and this means that Napoleon’s marching speed will become faster. If before Napoleon’s arrival, both the British and Prussians will Without Verdun, after Napoleon arrived with the Italian Legion, the British and Prussians would be even more unlikely to seize this fortress.
And if this fortress cannot be captured, then the war will continue even in the most ideal state. And considering the combat effectiveness of the French army, this kind of ideal state is only the "ideal".
Because of this urgency, the British army, after discussing with the Prussian army, decided to launch a storm as soon as possible, at any cost, to take Verdun and occupy Paris as soon as possible.
So early the next morning, not only the Prussians, but even the British sent a large number of troops, entered the starting position from multiple directions, and put on a posture of immediately launching a full-scale general offensive.
Joseph was naturally awakened by this posture. He hurried to the headquarters and began to coordinate the defense of the entire fortress. Soon, the observations observed by the observation posts in all directions were summarized here by Joseph.
"Damn, what do these guys want to do? In this matter of war, shouldn't it be a tentative offensive in various places first, to learn more about the configuration of various defensive forces of the defending side, and then targeted and focused attacks? What are they doing? Do they understand tactics!" Hearing these reports, Murat said immediately.
If Napoleon were here, he would definitely laugh out loudly: "Joashang, did you actually talk about tactics?"
But Napoleon is not here, and Joseph is not a bitter person on the surface. In addition, he didn't know much about Murat, so he analyzed it seriously:
"I think most of the enemy already knows that Russia has withdrawn from the war and the weather in the south has begun to improve. They are worried about Napoleon... Well, they are worried that the Italian Legion will appear here soon, so they are eager to attack. As for the test. Sexual offense, I guess today they are still conducting tentative offenses, but they are conducting tentative attacks in multiple positions at the same time-they must use this method to save time. Well, according to our previous calculations, they have no The force required to launch a full-scale offensive from so many directions. This can only be a comprehensive test."
After the explanation, Joseph lowered his head to stare at the map and studied it, then raised his head and issued this order: "Well, we must reserve a hand for the defense behind. Note that today artillery cannot use artillery over 12 pounds. , Other artillery only allows single-numbered artillery to be put into battle, and the use of'shrapnel' is not allowed. When using'broad sword' mines, it is not allowed to detonate more than three at the same time, flamethrower is not allowed, and the'melon launcher' is not allowed. '. To withstand other directions, area 1, area 7, area 12... you can retreat a little bit, but you can't retreat through the second trench..."
Soon, the British and Prussian troops launched attacks from multiple directions. Although as expected by Joseph, the attacks in so many directions are basically thunder and rain, and the pressure on the defending side is relatively limited. But because of Joseph's "not allowed", everyone seemed to be playing very lively.
After a day of fighting, the British and the Prussians took a look at the results of today's offensive, and then found that overall, the offensive efficiency was quite low. However, the opponent also exposed many problems:
First of all, UU read www.uukanshu. The com French army obviously received more new weapons support, but because they had lost too many heavy weapons in the northern battlefield, especially lost too many artillery, so their artillery quantity was obviously insufficient. In addition, their number of mines does not seem to be particularly sufficient, so the density of mines in some areas is significantly less than in other areas, and the results of demining indicate that the types of mines in these areas are also more complex, except for new ones. In addition to the "small charge mines", there are many old-fashioned landmines-in the eyes of the British and Prussians, this is a typical manifestation of the insufficient number of landmines.
Of course, these problems are likely to improve over time, because there are many military enterprises near Paris, and their production capacity at this time cannot be underestimated. Therefore, to attack, you must be as early as possible, otherwise, this fortress will become stronger day by day.
The Duke of Brunswick, along with General Blücher and some other British generals, carefully studied the areas where the defensive force is relatively weak. There are two places that are obviously the most important, but they appear to be defensive. Insufficient strength, even a little weaker than some more harmless places-this is obviously a trap, you must never step into it! Most of the remaining areas are easier to defend on terrain, so the relatively weak strength here may really be true.
In the end, they chose two places where these might be true, respectively, as the key targets for the British and Prussian forces to attack tomorrow.