Although people are reluctant to admit it, since the outbreak of the world war, the performance of the main commanders of the Anglo-French coalition forces on the battlefield is extremely incommensurate with the strength of Britain and France.

Xia Fei famously had the habit of sleeping until dawn after a hearty dinner, no matter how intense the fighting at the front line was, and no one could disturb him, a habit that continued during the Battle of Verdun.

On January 16, the Germans launched an attack on Duvermont, which was the last barrier between the Germans and Paris, and if Duvermont was taken, the German army would be flat in front, and this time the Germans would not make the mistake they made during the Battle of the Marne, and the Germans would definitely launch a direct attack on Paris as long as they had the opportunity.

The attack was still in charge of the Fifth Army led by Crown Prince William, Falkingham mobilized 1,500 artillery pieces to participate in the battle, and some of the new artillery came from the capture of the German army at Verdun, and the French army did not even have time to destroy the artillery that could not be taken away when it retreated, and now these artillery pieces have become accomplices of the German army, which are used by the German army to bombard Duvomont.

By this time, Duvomont's defenders had been replaced by the French Second Army led by Petain, and the commander of the front, General Fernand de Carry, sent a telegram to Petain asking for reinforcements, but Petain was not at the headquarters.

Fernand then sent a telegram to Xiafei, who was having dinner when the chief of staff of Noel Edward de Castellau, who had served as commander-in-chief of the army, suggested that the troops withdraw to the Wavre plain and completely abandon all positions east of the Merz River.

Xia Fei agreed to Castello's suggestion, ate his dinner unhurriedly, and replied with unusual composure, perfectly illustrating the origin of the nickname "General Sluggish".

At 11 o'clock in the evening, the Germans did not rest, but attacked overnight, the front line was in a hurry again, Castello came to find Xia Fei again, Xia Fei's adjutant reminded Castelao that he should not disturb the commander-in-chief who was resting, Castello ignored Xia Fei's adjutant, and insisted on waking up Xia Fei in his sleep.

After listening to Castello's report, Xia Fei had an indifferent expression, thinking that the front line had not yet reached the point where reinforcements were necessary, so he gave Castello an order to act freely, and then continued to go back to sleep.

Castellao went to find Petain, who had not yet returned to the headquarters, no one knew where Petain was, and after Castellao rested, Petain's aide-de-camp, Bernard de Serrepin, drove overnight to Paris, directly to the Gare du Nord hotel.

The duty manager of the Gare du Nord hotel did not admit that Petain was here, and Serripin, knowing his superior, searched from room to room on the top floor of the hotel, and outside the door of one of the rooms, Serripin found Petain's military boots, along with a pair of beautiful women's slippers.

Serry knocked on the door, and it was Petain in his pajamas who opened the door, and Seri pinched handed Petain's order to Petain, and when Petain took the order, a woman's crying could be heard in the room behind him.

In the face of the German frenzied attack, Petain was as calm as Xia Fei, he asked Sérime to open a room in the hotel, met Pétain in the hall at seven o'clock in the morning, and only returned to the headquarters with Séric Pin four hours later.

By the time Petain returned to command, his Second Army had suffered more than a third of its officers and men in casualties.

Compared with the Shen (ma) cold (bu) quiet (ren) Xia Fei Petain, Haig is irritable, cold-blooded, withdrawn, stubborn, and loves to make small reports, which is also not much better.

After suppressing all the dissenting voices, the British Expeditionary Force offensive continued.

On the night of January 16, a huge cold wave hit Mons, hundreds of wounded soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force who had not yet had time to transfer were frozen to death on stretchers, their blood and the ice and snow on the ground were frozen, the stretchers could not move, several soldiers in charge of collecting the bodies had emotional breakdowns, and one soldier shot himself in the corner of the cemetery.

At two o'clock in the morning on the 17th, Koker received an order that the troops should shell the German positions at five o'clock in the morning, this time only two hours of shelling.

On the first day of the attack, the shelling lasted for 12 hours, although the effect of the shelling was not bad, destroying the barbed wire and mine arrays in front of the German positions, and also destroying a section of trenches, but Haig believed that the shelling was too long, and the time left for the infantry to attack was seriously insufficient, which would give the Germans a chance to breathe and allow the Germans to calmly mobilize their forces at night, so Haig shortened the shelling time and left more time for the infantry to attack.

Five o'clock artillery bombardment, which means three o'clock at most, the officers and men of the artillery unit will have to get up.

Yesterday's attack did not end until 1 a.m., and the officers and men of the artillery division did not even have the strength to eat before going to bed.

The herald sent by Haig refused Koker's request, and in an arrogant and contemptuous tone he believed that the work of the artillery units was not dangerous, and the troops did not need too long a break.

"Major, go back and tell your admirals that the officers and men of the artillery division are people, not damn machines, and they also have the right to full rest." Koker was angry, the work of the artillery units without danger is simply nonsense.

Since the outbreak of the World War, more than half of all casualties have been caused by artillery, and every battle has always been preceded by artillery shelling.

An important element of the work of artillery units, in addition to shelling, is the countermeasures of the enemy's artillery positions.

After the artillery position is fired, the enemy observer can deduce the position of the artillery position from the trajectory of the shells, and then guide their own artillery to suppress the enemy's artillery.

In yesterday's battle, the three artillery divisions of the Southern African Expeditionary Force also suffered heavy casualties, with losses of more than 500 men; although the losses of the artillery units were insignificant compared to those of the Anzac Corps, the effort paid to train a qualified artilleryman far exceeded the training of a qualified infantryman, and Southern Africa began to consciously train artillery three years ago, and now there are only these three divisions.

"General, if the offensive on the front line is affected because the artillery needs to rest, you will be fully responsible." The major from the command had a sense of superiority over the servant corps generals from southern Africa, and Cocker even doubted that this was still a British unit with a reputation for its hierarchy.

"Shut your mouth and get out of my headquarters, I don't need you to teach me how to command troops to fight." Koker is welcome, others may not dare to argue with the local officers, but Koker is not afraid, he is also a soldier from the homeland, but now he is serving in southern Africa.

An hour later, Haig called Cocker personally.

Cocker's adjutant replied to Haig, who was resting and asked Haig to call again in an hour.

It sounds a bit excessive, but if you look at what Xia Fei and Petain did, you can understand why Coker's "rest" is so important.

Haig did not come directly to Cocker, and at six o'clock in the morning the artillery unit was ready to begin shelling the Germans.

At half past eight, no sooner had the shelling ended than Koker received an order to be relieved of his duties.

"Dismissal? Do you want to expel my chief of staff from the military? The rank of General Cocker was not conferred by the Expeditionary Force Command, and his post of Chief of Staff was not appointed by the War Department, and any person's order is null and void unless there is an order from me to remove General Cocker from office. "It was already ten o'clock in the morning when Roque learned about this, and Haig was too fussy to delay the attack by an hour, and to attack by an hour earlier, would not have a fatal effect on the battle at the front.

"Sir, General Cockle is a disobedience to military orders, and the nature is different." Ian Hamilton is also helpless, and Haig has not yet figured out what his main job is.

Like Roque as the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Haig served as the commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force, and his main job was to coordinate the internal relations of the expeditionary force and strengthen the cooperation with the French troops.

No matter how arrogant Haig may be, in the French battlefield, the French army as the main force, the British Expeditionary Force is in a supporting position, and in a futuristic phrase, do not force yourself to play.

Originally, the main target of the German army was not the British Expeditionary Force, and Falkingham launched the Battle of Verdun to attract all the main forces of the French army to Verdun, to continue to kill and wound the French troops, so that the French troops continued to leave blood, and then forced France to withdraw from the war.

Not to mention whether Haig's forcible attack can achieve its tactical objectives, it will certainly further deplete the strength of the British Expeditionary Force and exacerbate the divisions within the Expeditionary Force, which will have a fatal impact on the future Expeditionary Force.

"Ian, you wait and see, Douglas continues to act arbitrarily like this, there will be more and more violations of military orders, in his eyes, soldiers are just consumables used to brush up on the record, not a living life at all, they butchers will definitely be firmly nailed to the pillar of shame in history, no matter how the newspapers glorify them, the families of those sacrificed officers and soldiers will remember everything they have done." Roque also knew that Coker had violated military orders, and if this matter was placed in southern Africa, Coker would also be punished, but now, Roque could only defend Coker unconditionally, even if it was also against Roque's principles.

At 12 o'clock in the afternoon, Roque sent telegrams to King George V and Prime Minister Asquith, as well as to Secretary of War Kitchener and Chief of the General Staff of the British Army, William Robertson, accusing Haig of reckless human life on the Western Front, ignoring the facts, and insisting on going his own way.

At the same time, Roque instructed his media to increase their coverage of the Western Front, so that more people could know what was happening on the Western Front.

Not only does Haig make small reports, but Roque also does if he needs to, and he is better at it than Haig.

(The explanation of Haig is below, a little further down-)