When the Battle of the Dardanelles broke out, fighting on the Western Front broke out again.

This time it was still Xia Fei who took the initiative to attack, don't be surprised, the French were so iron-clad, Xia Fei used 14 divisions to attack St. Michael's fifty miles wide battlefield, 360 guns to provide cover for the attacking troops.

In the second year of the World War, the generals of the Anglo-French forces believed that the defeat of the front-line troops was largely due to the insufficient support provided by the artillery units, and several offensives launched by the Southern African Expeditionary Force strongly supported this conclusion.

The infantry units of the Southern African Expeditionary Force were not equipped with artillery, but the Southern African Expeditionary Force had two powerful artillery divisions with more than 200 large-caliber guns of 120 mm and 150 mm calibers.

After the "Operation Victory Horn", Xia Fei and Frenzi demanded that before the campaign was launched, more artillery should participate in the offensive and fire strikes for a longer time, when the world war just broke out, the fire attacks launched by the campaign were only half an hour, and after the New Year, the fire attacks at the beginning of the campaign had reached more than four hours, and they were soon extended to the current 24 hours.

If the battle is fought like this, no amount of shells will be enough.

But this is clearly just the beginning, future shelling may take more than a week, the arsenals in the rear are trying to organize production, women are assembling shells on the production line, and the same is true for the arsenals in Nyasaland.

After 24 hours of shelling, the effect was not obvious, the Germans occupied St. Michael last autumn, and then built a complete fortification of St. Michael, the barbed wire in front of the position was 50 feet wide and 50 miles long, the Germans used concrete to build strong fortifications to protect artillery and heavy machine guns, and also laid mines under the barbed wire, the attacking French army suffered heavy casualties, as many as 62,000 casualties in six days, the offensive was stopped in silence, this attack was called the "Battle of Wavre".

On the third day of the battle of St. Michael, the German army in Ypres also began to attack, and the Second Battle of Ypres broke out.

The battle began at six o'clock in the morning on April 7 and was the first to begin in the area defended by the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Cavalry Division, Elizabeth.

Six o'clock is usually breakfast time, and Sergeant Major Heywood's breakfast consists of five boiled eggs that have cooled to the cold, a carton of canned beef, a glass of steaming milk, and a glass of vodka produced in Johannesburg.

Alcohol is the standard equipment of front-line soldiers, soldiers need alcohol to forget their fears, French soldiers can get one liter of brandy per day, the supply of brandy is much more abundant than cannonballs, British soldiers like to drink rum the most, southern African soldiers like wine or vodka, whichever must be produced in southern Africa.

After breakfast, there is coffee from the East Indians, the coffee is burned on the fire in a large iron bucket, the soldiers take it at will, the container is their own, some people use the white enamel jar issued by the expeditionary force, some people use steel helmets, some people put the steaming coffee in the kettle they carry as a drink, the coffee in the tin bucket does not put sugar, and the sweetness is put on their own, and the soldier's supplies have a small packet of sugar, although the quantity is not much, it is enough to drink coffee.

Several soldiers next to Heywood were playing poker together, there were no too complicated rules of the game, simple comparison of size, the most common bet was cigarettes, one at a time without a cap, after the "Operation Victory Horn" the stakes gradually increased, gemstone rings and gold pocket watches often appeared, needless to say, they were all trophies from the battle with the Germans.

Heywood wasn't playing cards, he sat upright with a towel around his chin, and Corporal James was helping him trim his beard.

James was a barber before he enlisted, and many people in the regiment asked James for help, one shilling at a time.

Unlike many people's beards, Heywood has high requirements for image, the beard of the chin and cheeks should be trimmed cleanly, the beard on the lips should be trimmed to a delicate shape, the end must be slightly curled with a wonderful arc, the sideburns should be trimmed to the sharp angle like the tip of a knife, and hair wax should be used after trimming to keep the hair neat, Heywood's good friend, Sergeant Kleist, who also served in Elizabeth's 3rd Infantry Regiment, often laughed at Heywood, saying that he was a flamboyant turkey, I was about to be brought to the table.

Today, too, while James trimmed Heywood's beard, Kleist was next to him with all sorts of cynicism.

"Hey, hey, James, you're not doing it right, you see, the two whiskers are not cocked at the same angle, and this will affect the image of our Mr. Heywood-"

"Why don't you trim his eyebrows too, I think it would be better to shave them off too-"

"Heywood, seriously, you can change your suit later, and then you can go to Buckingham Palace with the Lord for a banquet, maybe the king will marry you when he sees you so handsome!"

"Shut up Kleist, you're as noisy as five hundred ducks—" Heywood couldn't help but fight back, this was the way they communicated with each other.

"Hahahaha-" Kleist was satisfied, laughing and looking around, casually glancing at the front of the position.

Then Kleist fell into a stupor.

"What's wrong?" Heywood sensed Kleist's abnormality, and under normal circumstances, Kleist would not be quiet for a second.

"It's a bit strange today—" Kleist looked at the front of the position with a puzzled expression.

Heywood motioned for James to stop, and stood up and looked ahead of the position.

About a hundred meters in front of the position, the dense fog that could not be seen at a glance was spreading towards the position of Elizabeth's 3rd Infantry Regiment, different from the usual white fog, this time the fog looked white from a distance, but when he got closer, Kleist found that the fog was actually yellow-green.

"What a strange color, why green?" There was curiosity and fear in Kleist's eyes, and the green fog in front of him was like an unknown monster rolling in, and Kleist didn't know what was in the fog, but it felt dangerous.

The sixth sense of a soldier is also very sensitive.

"Green fog - green fog - what the hell is it, put on the gas mask first-" Heywood jumped to his feet, remembering that the Umbrella Company had conducted a similar exercise before.

"- gas masks! Put on your mask—put your gas mask on—" Kleist shouted as he woke up from a dream, rolling into the pit and rummaging through his backpack.

Last winter, poison gas was used for the first time by the German Eighth Army in the operation of East Prussia against the Russian Empire.

However, because of the cold weather at that time, the poison gas was pre-condensed and did not play a good role, and the Russian Empire informed the Anglo-French forces of the use of poison gas by the German army as usual, but because the poison gas did not cause heavy casualties to the Russian Imperial Army, the Anglo-French forces did not pay attention to it.

The Germans were also aware of the effects of the weather on poison gas, so they endured it until now before using it again in war.

When the Southern African Expeditionary Force came to Europe, everyone was equipped with gas masks, and Roque's reason at the time was to deal with the smog in London, and now it has finally come in handy.

When Kleist and Heywood put on their masks, James was overwhelmed with horror.

"Go find your gas mask and put it on, this could be some special gas—" Heywood yelled at James, his voice muffled through the gas mask, but still audible.

"I-I-my gas mask is gone-" James almost cried, the yellow-green fog was already less than fifty meters from the trenches of Elizabeth's 3rd Infantry Regiment.

"Why?" Heywood was surprised.

"I thought gas masks weren't useful—" James was about to break down, and the soldiers around him were already wearing gas masks, all of them were like goblins in witch legends, and although they looked funny, people without gas masks were even more funny.

"Damn, you're done! Generals are always smarter than you and won't spend money on your useless stuff—" Kleist's tone was tinged with pity, but he was also helping to figure it out: "Who has a spare gas mask?" ”

The soldiers around him were shaking their heads, and they looked at James with worried eyes, and they gathered around him, as if this would isolate James from the poison gas.

"God, help me! I don't want to die-" James finally broke down, big tears streaming down his cheeks.

Heywood doesn't shed tears, he didn't shed a tear when half of his ear was knocked out by a stray bullet last winter.

When the others were at a loss, Heywood noticed the towel in James' hand, and then grabbed the towel and began to take off his pants.

James was stunned.

Heywood worked hard to get lucky—

It didn't work, Heywood had just gone to the toilet before the haircut.

Fortunately, there were a large number of soldiers around, and someone immediately helped, and a large group of people were busy taking off their pants, and the white towels suddenly became wet and ticking-

"Cover your nose and mouth—" Heywood pinched the corner of the still ticking towel with his fingertips and handed it to James.

James didn't dare reach out to take it.

"Cover—cover—" It was a bit big and a little yellow in color, and James felt his stomach struggle.

"Cover your nose and mouth, or you'll wait for yourself to fester—" Heywood smashed the towel into James' face, lifted his pants and picked up his rifle into combat position.

By this time, the thick green fog had already floated over the trenches.

The other soldiers had already moved into combat positions, and no one really laughed at how embarrassed James was.

"your grandmother's Jerry—" James howled, and resolutely covered his nose and mouth with a towel firm cover.

Heywood, who had already entered the combat position, shook his head again and again, this guy is probably a little lacking in heart, but you are twisting-