In order to ensure the suddenness of the start of the battle, the tank troops have been in a secret state after entering France, when Dieppe landed, the British troops blocked the entire port, no one could wait to approach, the tanks were covered with canvas when they drove on the train, disguised as trucks, August 2, half of the tanks were located in Dunkirk, their direction of attack was Bruges, the other half of the tanks were in Lens, and their target was Brussels.

On August 1, the Air Force of the Expeditionary Force began bombing targets in Belgium, with barracks, warehouses and railways being the focus, and Roque had 250 bombers in his hands, and the maximum number of sorties was 600 sorties a day to bomb Ghent.

Ghent was the transportation center of the German army in Belgium, and the German garrison in Belgium, as well as the supplies needed by the German troops in France, had to be transferred from Ghent.

Before launching a ground attack, Roque still has one more problem to deal with, the reason why the breakthrough from Belgium was opened, in addition to occupying the port city and destroying the bases of German submarines, but also because the Kingdom of Congo and the Republic of the Congo, and now Belgium has not recognized the independent status of the Kingdom of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo, which Roque wants to strive for.

The current king of Belgium, Albert I, did not have a good relationship with Roque, and before the outbreak of the First Battle of Ypres, Foch's warning to Albert I was still valid, and if the whole of Belgium fell, then Albert I would not be able to keep his throne, so the Belgian army is still fighting, although the total strength is only a pitiful 70,000.

When Frenzi and Haig were commanders-in-chief of the expeditionary force, they were equally dismissive of Albert I, and the Belgian army was inferior to the Indian Legion in the Entente.

Now that Roque was the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force, it was only a telegram to see Albert I, who would soon be in Ama.

"Lord Nyasaland, in gratitude for your help to Belgium, I sincerely invite you to serve as the Marshal of Belgium and lead the Belgian army to fight alongside the British Expeditionary Force." Albert I, dressed in military uniform, did not address Roque as "commander-in-chief" or "marshal", but instead talked about the title, apparently reminding Roque.

As for the honor of marshal, it is really dispensable, Foch will be the marshal of the Three Kingdoms in the future, Wellington will be awarded the marshal of the Seven Kingdoms, if Albert I thinks that a marshal title can buy Roque, then Albert I is wrong.

"Thank you for your invitation, Your Majesty, our most important task now is to defeat the Germans." Roque is not salty or light, and more than 70,000 people are embarrassed to set up the position of marshal, and there are more than 70,000 people under any lieutenant general in the expeditionary force.

"Of course, the Germans are our common enemy, and we will unite and fight hard—" Albert I said impassionedly, and Belgium must of course rally around the Anglo-French forces, or wait for the abdication.

"Your Majesty-" Roque interrupted Albert I very rudely, kings are not the same as kings, if this is George V, Roque can only listen honestly, Albert I forget it, Roque has no time to talk nonsense with Albert I: "-What do you think of the Kingdom of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo?" ”

Roque got straight to the point, everyone was so busy that they didn't have time to waste on boring maneuvers, Foch could threaten Albert I with "abdication" in order to force Albert I to persist in the war, and Roque was not far behind.

This is the sorrow of the widows of small countries, and those who think that the people of small countries can also live with dignity are either naïve or bad.

Mostly bad!

Albert I probably didn't expect Roque to be so British, and he was dumbfounded for a while before he was bitter: "Lord, about the Kingdom of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo, we are still discussing-"

Roque didn't speak, and glanced faintly at Albert I, who immediately fell silent.

"Both the Kingdom of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo have sent troops to Europe to assist the coalition forces in the war, and their independent status should be recognized, what else is there to discuss." Roque's voice was not loud, and his words made Albert I in a dilemma.

Obviously, without recognizing the independent status of the Kingdom of Congo and the Republic of Congo, Roque will definitely not give up, and the next expeditionary force will invade Belgium, whether this is good or bad for Belgium is all in Roque's thoughts.

It's not a joke to look at the Asia Minor Peninsula after the expeditionary force withdrew, not to mention the ruins everywhere, at least it is already ten rooms and nine emptiness, and the sky is three feet high is a true portrayal.

If the Congo Free State is retained, then Belgium can barely maintain it after the war, and if it loses the Congo Free State, then Belgium will instantly become a third-rate country in Europe, and even the Vatican, a country within a state.

Oh no, there was no Vatican at this time, and the Vatican would not be recognized until 1929.

Albert I wanted to cry, but his status prevented him from doing such a thing.

Albert I wanted to scold again, but he didn't dare.

Roque didn't speak, the world or hell is in a thought, don't think about heaven, for Belgium, heaven is too far, England, France and Germany are too close.

"Well, Lord Nyasaland, when the war is over, the Kingdom of Belgium will recognize the Republic of the Congo, and the Kingdom of the Congo, as an independent state." Albert I wept bitterly, what should not belong to Belgium will not belong to Belgium after all.

Roque was finally satisfied, and while serving the British Empire, he could not ignore the interests of southern Africa.

After the independent status of the Kingdom of Congo and the Republic of Congo is confirmed, Southern Africa can carry out the next operation, whether it is direct annexation or manipulation of vassals, it has nothing to do with Belgium, the suzerain.

From August 1 to August 5, the expeditionary force bombed strategic targets in Belgium, and on August 3, Kaiser Wilhelm II sent a telegram to King George V of England, claiming that the expeditionary force's bombing of Ghent had accidentally bombed a local orphanage in Ghent, killing 258 children.

George V sent a telegram to Roque asking for the veracity of the incident.

Roque flatly denied that the Expeditionary Air Force would not bomb civilian targets, and that 258 children may have died in Ghent itself, but it was certainly not caused by the Expeditionary Force, which was deliberately poured sewage on the Expeditionary Force by Wilhelm II.

George V immediately issued a statement in the "Times", demanding that the German army effectively ensure the safety of civilians and not build military facilities in residential areas, and condemned Germany's shameless behavior of dragging innocent civilians into the war.

Wilhelm II also wrote articles in the newspaper, criticizing the expeditionary force for indiscriminately killing innocents, claiming that the expeditionary force's bombing of Belgium had turned Belgium into a hell on earth, and in Wilhelm II's description, the British expeditionary force became the devil hired by Roque from hell, and Roque was the legendary Great Demon King.

Roque did not care about these childish behaviors, and while George V and Wilhelm II were talking about cannons, the artillery units of the expeditionary force began shelling the German positions.

In order to prepare for this attack, Roque mobilized nearly 2,100 artillery pieces, including 750 heavy guns with a caliber of more than 120 mm, which is unprecedented in the history of human warfare.

Before the ground forces launched the offensive, the artillery carried out six hours of shelling, which, together with the bomber units and the Royal Navy fleet, poured nearly 30,000 tons of shells on the German positions, and the expeditionary force was repeatedly ravaged by an average of 500 kilograms of bombs per meter on the frontal sixty-kilometer front.

Unlike the previous shelling, the artillery bombardment of the expeditionary force was mainly concentrated on barbed wire and mine arrays in front of the German positions, and there was no concentrated artillery bombardment of the fortifications that the Germans focused on reinforcing them.

After more than two years of operations, the Germans accumulated a lot of experience in fortifications, and in key fortifications, the Germans were specially reinforced before the war, and the Germans in the fortifications were hardly harmed unless they were directly hit by large-caliber shells.

The Germans, who had narrowly escaped, did not have time to rejoice, and the ground offensive of the expeditionary force began.

Unlike the expeditionary force troops that lined up in a neat formation to send them to death in the past, this time the first to appear in front of the Germans was a steel monster covered in armor, these steel monsters were about two meters high, 2.5 meters wide, and 5.5 meters long.

If there were only one or two tanks, then it would not be able to change the shape of the battlefield, but this time the expeditionary force poured out, all the tanks were put into battle, and as far as the eye could see, the entire battlefield was full of steel monsters with teeth and claws.

The Germans had no direct guns, no anti-tank rifles, no anti-tank grenades and anti-tank mines, and could only watch the tanks of the expeditionary force rumble over and then rumble over the trenches.

This day's offensive gained greatly, and unlike the tanks that did not play much role in another time and space, this time the tanks appeared on the battlefield in a stunning way, in just six hours, with the help of tanks, the expeditionary force successively conquered the first and second lines of defense of the German army, and in some sections broke through the third line of defense of the German army at one time, which was a miracle for the Western Front, which had been mired in a tug-of-war of trenches for a long time.

At the end of the first day's fighting, the 2nd Cavalry Division, which had advanced the most, had advanced the line thirty kilometers from Saint-Omer to Abel, and had advanced the line into Belgian territory.

(It's so hot, 36 degrees, the head of the fish becomes dried fish-)