From the end of the World War to the present, the armies of the participating countries have been making continuous progress, and relatively speaking, the progress of the German army has been particularly great.

At the outbreak of the World War, the German army carried out operations strictly according to textbooks, with artillery units first shelling for hours or even days, and then infantry charging, without even basic infantry and artillery coordination.

In the Michael plan, the German army implemented a perfect infantry artillery coordination, the artillery first carried out several hours of intensive artillery bombardment, and took turns to use high-explosive shells, grenade shells, and poison gas bombs to sort out the starting positions over and over again, when the German infantry units entered the starting position, the German artillery began to extend to the rear of the French position, forming a perfect battlefield partition, at this time the German army mainly used poison gas bombs, in order not to destroy the road as much as possible, so as to facilitate the attack of the infantry troops.

By the time the Germans began the shelling, the infantry units had already set out, and as a rule, the infantry units were starting from positions more than a mile from the defensive line, so as to ensure the safety of the infantry units.

In Michael's plan, the Germans abandoned the traditional way of attacking, and the infantry troops boldly advanced to a position less than 500 meters away from the French position, at which time the shells fired by the German artillery were actually likely to fall on the heads of the German infantry units preparing to attack.

The German artillery units behaved very professionally, there were no fratricidal oolong incidents, the infantry stepped on the landing point of the shells, and the French defenders of the Reims Line had not yet entered a combat position, and the Germans had already crossed the first line of defense and advanced to the second line of defense farther away.

Although Roque is reluctant to admit it, it has to be said that in terms of professionalism, the German army is really far superior to the French army, and at the beginning of the world war, the armies of all countries participating in the war have suffered accidental injuries of varying degrees, and the Battle of the Dardanelles commanded by Roque has also occurred.

With the development of the war, there are fewer and fewer accidental injuries, the most recent is the French army during the Battle of Verdun, the artillery will be attacking French troops as German troops a fierce beating, in the Michael plan, the German troops did not make mistakes, this is really very rare, to know that commanding millions of troops to fight is a very complicated matter.

The perfect performance of the German artillery was thanks to a man named Georeg Bruchmüller, a true artillery specialist who had previously served on the Eastern Front, and for his outstanding performance earned Bruchmüller the nickname "Breakthrough Miller".

After the battle on the Eastern Front, Ludendorff transferred Bruchmüller from the Eastern Front to the Western Front, and his artillery theory was tested in the 12th Battle of the Isonzo River, in which it was because of the excellent performance of German artillery that the Kingdom of Italy was so badly defeated.

Now it was the turn of the French who lost miserably.

Ludendorff improved Bruchmüller's tactics, the main of which came from the German infantry units.

In the Michael Plan, the six divisions that served as the vanguard of the German army were all veterans of previous battles, and these experienced veterans carried a large number of grenades and light machine guns, and in the event of French resistance, the attacking German units would use different colored flares to call for support or to warn the artillery units to stop shelling.

These veterans were given orders to advance as fast as they could, no matter what circumstances, not to worry about flanks, not to worry about whether there were still enemies in the line of defense they had crossed, and when they broke through the French lines and away from German artillery support, the officers could decide for themselves what they should do next.

Behind the forward units were the attacking troops, armed with heavy machine guns, flamethrowers, mortars or field guns, to wipe out the surviving French units on the French lines.

There is also a third echelon behind the attacking troops, who are responsible for providing protection for the first two echelons, and in the event of a thwart attack, ensuring that the first two echelons have a solid rear.

The attacking forces were finally the German reserves, with 38 divisions in Ludendorff's hands as reserves for the attack.

The unit responsible for the defense of Reims was the French Fifth Army under the command of Louis despere, in the Battle of the Marne, Louis despere performed well, earning the nickname "Desperately Frankie", and now it is time to desperately do it, Louis despere's forces are still insufficient, the German offensive is still fierce, four years have passed, it seems that nothing has changed.

A German soldier wrote home of the battle as follows: "—We attacked the French trenches with flamethrowers, the smoke and flames forced the French to flee from the trenches in disarray, we caught the first prisoners -- we moved on, the French collapsed on all fronts, we met no resistance, and when we crossed the second trench we found the French kitchen and dining room, where the stove was still on, the bacon was sizzling, and there were grilled steaks on the table— Our backpacks were all full, and each of us took several individual rations of the French, which, I have to say, tasted much better than our brown bread - in the dining room we found a lot of cigarettes and liquor, my backpack was full, and I stuffed a dozen packs in my pocket, and everyone drank alcohol, and even if we didn't take it, the reserves would take it all out—"

Commanding the Germans was Otto von Billow, who had just won a brilliant victory at the Isonzo River, and on the first day of fighting, Otto von Billow's troops advanced 15 miles, a jaw-dropping distance, and in last year's battle, the Germans had not advanced that far for an entire year.

The night gave Louis despere time to adjust his defensive line, but Louis despere did not have enough troops at his disposal, and Petain sent four divisions of reinforcements to Louis despere, but in the face of the huge salient formed by the German breakthrough of the defensive line, four divisions seemed to be a drop in the bucket, and it was not enough to fill the gap caused by the rout of the defenders of Reims.

That night, the telegraph operators of the entire coalition army were extremely busy, the transmitters were non-stop all night, the operational headquarters was brightly lit, the guards were patrolling with military dogs, the lights of the armored vehicles were all turned on, Petain was busy mobilizing troops to support Reims, and Roque also sent 12 divisions of the Anzac Corps to advance to Reims according to the agreement with Petain.

The 12 divisions had exceeded Roque's promise to Petain, but it would take them 24 hours to reach Reims, and it was not known how far the Germans could advance within those 24 hours.

So 12 divisions were probably not enough to withstand the German attack, and Roque took precautions and ordered the Canadian Corps to move towards Paris, and once the French troops could not stop the Germans in Reims, then the Canadian Corps would have to block the Germans out of Paris.

Now Paris is almost like the end of the world, the rich people in the city are busy fleeing, the poor want to escape, but they don't know where to flee, the rear troops want to pass through Paris to support the front, the wounded soldiers on the front line are loaded with every truck, the roads are impassable, the railroad is completely paralyzed, the German hidden Paris rioters took the opportunity to make trouble, and fires were lit in several streets of Paris, nearly 100 houses were burned down, the firefighters in Paris showed great courage, they fought against the rioters, While trying to restore order to the city.

After the Germans launched the Michael Plan, Foch spoke to Roque as soon as possible, hoping that Roque would launch an attack on the German positions in front while providing support to the French army, so as to form an effective containment of the German army.

Roque fell into deep thought after receiving Foch's call, the situation in front of him seemed to have happened, when the German army launched the Battle of Verdun, it had hoped that the British Expeditionary Force would launch an attack on the German army to reduce the pressure of the French army in Verdun, and then there was the Battle of the Somme, and then there was the gloomy departure of Haig, and Roque made a brilliant appearance.

Is Roque now going to join Haig in launching a second "Battle of the Somme" against the Germans?

The answer is definitely no.

If the German army does not take the initiative to attack the position that the British Expeditionary Force is responsible for, then Roque will not take the initiative to attack the German position, this is not to sit back and watch the French army get into trouble, Roque can mobilize the Anzac and the Canadian Corps to provide support for the French army, but if Roque takes the initiative to attack, then Roque will not have enough reserves in his hands.

After all, Ludendorff still has dozens of divisions and nearly a million mobile troops in his hands, and the German positions in front of the British Expeditionary Force are also defended by nearly a million German troops, and no one knows which direction Ludendorff will throw these 38 divisions next.

Not to mention the question of whether it is very likely, even if there is only a one percent possibility, Roque must consider it as one hundred percent.

Besides, to contain the Germans, it is not only possible to rely on the British Expeditionary Force, Roque believes that Foch will call Pershing at the same time as Roque, and Pershing, who is eager to fight, should not refuse Foch's request.

Sure enough, the day after the German attack, American troops in Antwerp launched an attack on the fortress of Liège, and the second "Battle of the Somme" finally broke out.

The British Expeditionary Force had the second largest air base in France and the largest air base in Dunkirk, with more than 800 fighters and bombers at the Air Base in Ence, enough to provide air support to Reims.

Roque also ordered air forces to launch an air attack on the German army in Reims the day after the German attack.

As Roque feared most, Petain's four divisions to Louis despere were simply not enough to fill the line, the Anzac reinforcements were outstretched, and the attacking German troops advanced another 12 miles to Paris the next day, and by the end of the next day's fighting, the German forward was less than 80 kilometers from Paris.

At this distance, the German artillery with the longest range could already launch an artillery bombardment of Paris.

(End of chapter)