Chapter 388: Bloody Battle on the Marne River

When the French Sixth Army could no longer resist and asked the French General Headquarters for help, France's logistics had a more serious problem.

The Ourc River position was very important, and the French General Headquarters also urgently mobilized a division of elite troops to take a train to Paris to support the Sixth Army.

But the problem is that there is still more than 60 kilometers from Paris to the front line. If you walk, it will take at least two days to reach the front line.

But the war does not wait for anyone. If the Sixth Army really has to wait for two days to see reinforcements, I am afraid the war has already failed.

In order to urgently transport this division to the front line, the French General Staff thought of a creative proposal, which is to requisition all taxis in Paris and use these taxis to transport troops.

In fact, the French army also has military trucks, but most of these trucks are responsible for logistics transportation, that is, the transportation of weapons, equipment and resources.

If these trucks are urgently called, it will take a certain amount of time to collect a large number of trucks, which will affect the supply of materials and logistics for all front-line troops.

Requisitioning taxis in Paris is obviously a better choice. They are all cars anyway, so it is no problem to use them to transport troops.

Moreover, requisitioning Paris’ taxis will at most affect Paris’ traffic. It is only natural that Parisians make some contributions to the victory of the French War.

Thanks to the development of France’s industry and economy, as the capital of France, Paris has thousands of taxis.

After the French General Headquarters issued an order to requisition all taxis, more than 600 taxis of various types went to the designated location in just half an hour. General Gallieni, who saw this feat, burst into tears and excitedly said loudly: "Look, this is such an extraordinary thing!"

The taxi drivers in Paris were very excited to be able to contribute to the defense of the country in this way. They chose to drop off all the passengers immediately and proudly explained: "Sorry, sir, I'm going to fight."

And most of the passengers would understand and say: "It doesn't matter, for France."

In just one night, thousands of taxis ran two round trips and transported nearly 6,000 soldiers of an infantry division to the front line 60 kilometers away.

This also allowed the Sixth Army led by Maunoury to receive reinforcements when it was about to collapse, and temporarily stabilized its position.

Compared to Joffre's excessive attention to the battlefield, the attitude of the German Chief of Staff Moltke the Younger was completely opposite.

After assigning tasks to the armies, Moltke the Younger did not interfere, but sat firmly at the General Staff Headquarters.

What was even more terrible was that the situation on the front line, especially the progress of the First Army, was unknown to Moltke the Younger.

Although Moltke the Younger sent his intelligence director, Lieutenant Colonel Hans, as a plenipotentiary representative to the armies to understand the execution of the orders.

But the problem was that without Moltke the Younger, how could a small lieutenant colonel order the commander-in-chief of the army in a high position?

Lieutenant Colonel Hans was indeed quite capable. He not only saw the problems currently exposed by the First Army, but also urged the commander of the First Army, Kruk, to execute Moltke the Younger's order, detour to the north bank of the Marne River, and cooperate with the Second Army.

But Kruk did not realize the seriousness of the matter, and believed that the possible French attack was only an auxiliary action, and its purpose was only to cover the troops' retreat and cross the Seine.

By the time the First Army found Joffre's order from a prisoner of war, the Battle of the Marne River had already begun, and it was too late for Kruk to regret it.

It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of the war, the First Army was under the control of Pilov.

But since the war entered a fierce state, Pilov no longer controlled the First Army, but let the First Army act on its own.

But because of Moltke the Younger's attitude of ruling by inaction, the First Army, which should have returned to the management of the German High Command, became truly autonomous, which led to Crook's blind arrogance and the First Army's danger.

In order to deal with the danger he faced, Crook ordered the Third Army and the Ninth Army in the southern section to march to the Volk River to participate in the battle, leaving only two cavalry divisions in the southern section to resist the British army.

Crook's blind decision directly put the right wing of the Second Army behind the First Army in greater danger.

Originally, these two armies were responsible for covering the right wing of the Second Army. After they evacuated, the right wing of the army was directly exposed, and the distance between the First Army and the Second Army was completely widened.

Faced with such stupid operations by the Germans, the morale of the French army increased greatly, and the charge became more courageous.

Battlefield of Ourc River, a tributary of the Marne River.

"Attack for France!"

A French officer carrying a command knife drew out his saber, pointed it in the direction of the enemy, and shouted loudly for the soldiers to attack.

A minute ago, the French artillery had just bombarded the enemy's position. As soon as the sound of the artillery died, the commander of the army could not wait to launch an offensive.

Unlike those officers who were afraid of death, after shouting the charge, the French officer rushed forward first, followed by groups of French soldiers.

Obviously, the officer's heroic act also affected all his subordinates. This scene was staged in various places of the French Sixth Army, and also made the charge of the French army extremely fierce.

It is a pity that the airships in this area had been shot down long ago, and the planes had left the battlefield because of running out of fuel.

Otherwise, you can see from a God's perspective that the dense French soldiers are rushing towards the German positions like a tide.

Although many black spots stayed during the charge, more black spots rushed up.

On the other side of the French army, the German First Army was ready for battle.

The good news is that most of the soldiers in the German First Army are elite soldiers, and their combat effectiveness far exceeds that of the French army on the opposite side.

But the bad news is that after a long march, the soldiers of the First Army have long been exhausted.

In addition, the distance between the First Army and the Second Army and the German General Headquarters is getting farther and farther, resulting in insufficient logistics for some of the First Army.

Fatigue plus lack of logistics, double de buff, make the German army, a strong army, exhausted, and its combat effectiveness is greatly reduced.

Da da da! Pa pa pa!

The two sides seem to fire in an orderly manner, but in fact it is just a lot of gunfire overlapping.

Some French soldiers ended their short military careers before they even had time to fire a single shot.

Yes, France's casualties have already reached six figures since the start of the war.

Coupled with the implementation of the domestic mobilization order, this also led to a large number of conscripts on the French front, that is, recruits who had not been trained for a long time.

But there is no way, including countries like Germany, which cannot guarantee that their millions of troops are all elite veterans.

In order to prevent the army from reducing its combat effectiveness due to too many recruits, either more rigorous training should be added to the recruits, or some elite troops should be retained as much as possible.

Of course, there is also a faster and very cruel method, which is to let these recruits experience on the battlefield. After experiencing several life and death situations, they will smoothly become veterans who have experienced hundreds of battles.

At present, Germany and France are basically like this. After a few weeks of training, conscripts can enter the battlefield with their weapons and equipment and enjoy their short and long soldier careers.

The French army's charge was repelled wave after wave, but this still could not stop the French army.

In just over an hour, the Sixth Army had already moved forward to a distance of nearly 200 meters, and the German positions on the opposite side were already visible to the naked eye.

Of course, in order to achieve such results, the Sixth Army has so far suffered casualties of a whole division, and the number of casualties is still increasing.

Although the German army was visibly exhausted, the Maxim heavy machine gun, a powerful weapon, played an irreplaceable role in the offensive and defensive battles.

Most of the casualties of the French army were caused by the Maxim machine gun, and only a small part came from the enemy's artillery bombardment and rifles.

On the German side, the weapon that France could cause the greatest casualties to the German army was artillery, not only because the German soldiers were located in the built positions and were safer in the offensive and defensive battles.

It was also because many French soldiers died before they had time to fire the first shot, and the recruits were forced to leave the battlefield as soon as they entered the battlefield.

The fire suppression of the Maxim heavy machine gun quickly repelled the French soldiers who were about to approach the German positions.

Even if the French soldiers were fearless, they could only serve food in front of such powerful weapons.

General Gallieni was furious as he watched his men fall under the enemy's machine guns one after another. He quickly ordered the messenger next to him: "Let all artillery fire at the enemy's machine gun positions immediately. Don't worry about the artillery. Kill the enemy's machine gun positions first."

At the beginning of the war, the main target of the French artillery was the German artillery. But judging from the current situation, the casualties caused by the German artillery were less than one-third of the German machine gun positions. It is conceivable which position will be destroyed first.

Under the suppression of artillery, the German machine guns did not dare to show their heads easily. After all, France was equipped with a large number of French ladies famous for their firing speed. As long as the German machine gun positions showed their heads, they would face at least a dozen artillery bombardments.

Even if the accuracy of these shells was not very good, there were still more fortunate positions that suffered the baptism of artillery fire when there were more of them.

After the German machine guns retreated, the pressure on the French army was reduced a lot.

Seeing the German firepower reduced, the French commanders' eyes lit up and shouted at the top of their lungs: "Charge!"

The first update of 3,000 words, please vote for me, please support me!