The Battle of Verdun was different from all previous battles, it lasted for a long time, the combat consumption was large, France and Germany both regarded Verdun as a Shura field to consume each other's strength, the German army believed that the French army suffered more than 200,000 casualties in two months, and France also believed that both sides believed that the other side would exhaust the war potential in a few months and had to withdraw from the war.

The main disagreement between the German command on the Battle of Verdun was the choice of the main battlefield, Falkingham insisted on attrition of the French strength at Verdun, and the crown prince believed that the offensive line should be expanded to include the Dead Man's Mountain on the west bank of the Merz River, focusing on the French artillery positions, and the Germans must be more cautious in the use of reserves, if the German casualties were the same as the French army, then the German army should stop the offensive.

Falkingham's goal remained the same, he never wanted to defeat France, but to destroy France and make France lose the courage to confront Germany.

Wilhelm II was silent and disappointed in both the crown prince and Falkingham, the war did not end in a few months as Wilhelm II had imagined, and turned into a protracted trench war, the longer the war lasted the more unfavorable it was for Germany, and the war potential of the Allies was far inferior to that of the Entente, which Wilhelm II was well aware of.

The end result of the meeting was to strengthen the German generals' belief that the Battle of Verdun must be fought, otherwise the previous sacrifices would be meaningless.

While Germany was unifying its minds, Xhauffer and Haig were planning a new offensive.

Through the defeat at the Battle of Mons, Haig was deeply aware that the British Expeditionary Force could not defeat the Germans without the cooperation of the French troops, so when Xia Fei proposed a new battle plan, Haig readily agreed.

Chauffeur prepared to attack the Germans at the Somme, for the same reason as Haig before him, most of the German troops were involved in Verdun, and the Somme was empty, which was a rare opportunity for the Anglo-French forces.

Preparations for the campaign began after the Autumn Offensive last fall, after Inferior had transferred artillery from the fortified fortress of Verdun in support of the Battle of the Somme.

In order to preserve as much viability as possible to launch the Battle of the Somme, Chauffeur rejected Petain's request for reinforcements, appointed Petain commander of the Verdun theater, and requested support from the Russian Empire.

Last winter, at the meeting of the Allied high commanders on the battle plan, the Russians complained that the Allies could not trust each other and could not provide timely support when needed, and Nicholas II sent the Chief of the General Staff General Mikhail Alekseev to the meeting, Mikhail proposed that the Entente should establish a coordinated combat mechanism: whenever a certain battlefield is threatened, other countries must take the initiative to attack the Central Powers to relieve the pressure on the attacked side.

The reason for Mikhail's suggestion was that the Russian Empire was driven out of Poland by the Germans last year, and the Anglo-French forces did not come to their aid.

The Anglo-French forces at that time were all concerned about the Dardanelles, and no one noticed the state of the Russian Empire at all.

General Mikhail's proposal was agreed to by most of the generals present, and both Chauffy and Haig believed that the current Entente was a mess, and they wanted to change the status quo, but did not know how to proceed.

Now that France was under attack by Germany at Verdun, according to the agreement reached at the end of last year, Chauffeur asked the Russian Empire for support, and Nicholas II, after consulting with his chief of staff, decided to come to the aid of France, in contrast to the bitterness of the British.

However, it will not be easy for the Russian Empire to launch an attack on Germany, spring is coming, the snow will melt, and flash floods will trigger the annual "road break period", and the Russian Empire will face many difficulties.

Nicholas II decided to attack Germany anyway, and before the snow melted, the remaining question now was where to attack, Nicholas II had three options, one was the Eastern Front led by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, in this direction there were 180,000 men in Germany and 300,000 in the Russian Empire.

The second direction was in the center, where 700,000 Russian Imperial troops fought against 360,000 Germans, but most of these Russian troops were new recruits, they lacked sufficient training, and even basic weapons could not be guaranteed, and the average two soldiers only had a rifle.

The third direction is Austria-Hungary, in this direction the Russian army and the Austrian army each have 500,000 people, but Austria-Hungary occupies a geographical advantage, and the Russian army has no advantage in attacking.

On balance, Nicholas II still chose Hindenburg and Ludendorff on the Eastern Front.

At the beginning of March, Nicholas II mobilized his forces and ordered the dismissal of a number of men, and the more capable Generals Alexei Eft and Alexei Kulopatkin were transferred to the Eastern Front to command the battle.

In contrast to the active Russians, British support remains superficial.

In the whole of Britain, only Haig probably agreed to Xiafei's plan, and the Cabinet did not agree to launch the Battle of the Somme, after Haig's attack had failed and the troops almost mutinied, and the Cabinet now had serious doubts about Haig's ability.

The generals within the expeditionary force also did not agree to launch an offensive on the Somme, and in the third year of the world war, all the countries involved in the war had realized the importance of defending the fortresses, the trenches were becoming more and more perfect, the tunnels were dug deeper and deeper, and the mines were being planted more and more.

In France, after Petain was appointed commander of the Verdun theater by Chauffeur, Robert Georges Nivelle became the commander of the Second Army, after Nivelle took office, he stopped the rotation tactics developed by Petain, and sent officers to set up machine guns behind the charging troops, and if the charging troops dared to escape, the machine guns would shoot the enemy and the deserters together, which was the first of the world war, and the punishment for deserters was also very severe before, but not to the extent of cruelty, Nivelle created a precedent, and the real flesh mill came, Verdun turned into a hell on earth.

Compared with Verdun, the generals of the expeditionary force were willing to maintain a state of "peace" with the German army, and as long as the expeditionary force did not attack, the German army would not attack either, which was in the best interest of Britain, because the strength of Germany and France was being depleted, and the British fishermen benefited.

Haig made a mistake at this time, he concealed the war committee and Xia Fei many times to discuss the details of the organization of the Battle of the Somme, the British Expeditionary Force could put in 25 divisions, the French troops were pinned down by the German army in Verdun, and could only take out 20 divisions to attack the German army, Haig was very excited, the British Expeditionary Force invested more troops than the French troops, Haig thought that he could take the lead in the battle, so that if the British and French forces won, then Haig could get no less than the record that Roque won in the Mediterranean.

While Verdun was in the midst of war, the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force was spending its days in Asia Minor.

After the surrender of the Ottoman Empire, the peninsula of Asia Minor was not peaceful, with rebels rising one after another, and the garrisons being attacked many times.

Roque was not tolerant of the rebels, and if any garrison was attacked, all Ottomans within a radius of ten miles would be thrown into concentration camps.

For a time, the concentration camps on the Asia Minor Peninsula were overcrowded, and in early March, nearly 800,000 Ottomans were imprisoned in 57 concentration camps on the Asia Minor Peninsula.

Roque was good at making good use of every manpower, men were pooled for labor, women were also required to participate in labor to obtain food, the total number of workers on the island of Cyprus exceeded 300,000, the railway connecting the two ports stretched at a rate of 20 kilometers a day, and the railway, which was less than 100 kilometers long, was repaired in less than a week.

The reconstruction of Beirut and Damascus also went very well, Martin ordered the walls of Damascus to be pushed down, huge bricks were sent to the city to lay squares, the thousand-year-old city was razed to the ground, new buildings were erected, Martin's headquarters were moved to Beirut, where the port has been expanded, and it is only 170 kilometers from Cyprus.

"Marshal, our soldiers have caught a couple of spies, and this is something that was found from them." Martin's lieutenant came to Martin's office with a large pile of things.

Martin picked up a satchel and emptied everything on the table, top of which was an identification document issued by the Ministry of War, and the person arrested was a journalist.

"They carried a couple of cameras, they've been wandering around our construction site for the past few days, and now the photos are being developed, and I don't know what they've taken yet—" The adjutant's expression was playful, a war correspondent or a spy—

Well, that's a problem.

Martin noticed a notepad wrapped around a leather rope in his satchel, and when he opened it was a diary.

On January 15, 1914, Harry and I finally got our ID cards issued by the War Department, which was our talisman in the war zone, and Harry joked that we wanted to frame the ID cards, I don't think I was joking, and I was going to do that-

On the 8th of February, we arrived in Cyprus, where Lord Nyasaland's headquarters was located, but we could not enter Lord Nyasaland's headquarters, and the staff refused us rudely, even though we identified ourselves as reporters from the Daily Telegraph, the young captain still looked at us coldly with mocking eyes, and to my anger and humiliation, several Times reporters were allowed to enter Lord Nyasaland's headquarters, This seems to confirm the rumors about Lord Nyasaland and the Times.

On April 10th, Harry and I got nothing in Cyprus, and then we came to Cairo on a cargo ship from southern Africa, and the greedy captain asked Harry and me for five pounds each, and Harry was too expensive, and he was like a stingy Grandet when he paid for it, and I am afraid that no one would think that he was an out-and-out rich man who received a salary of 120 pounds a month, well, from that point of view, I was too-

On April 15th, we were finally allowed to enter Damascus, two months ago, the troops of Southern Africa and the Sultanate of Najd captured this famous city of the previous year, what Jean and Harry did not expect was that this thousand-year-old city has now been destroyed, we saw corpses all over the ground behind a sand dune not far from Damascus, Harry was so frightened that he couldn't hold his camera, several cavalry from the Sultanate of Najd found us, we identified ourselves, the cavalry of the Sultanate of Najd asked us to leave immediately, I thought, I'll never forget it.

On July 6th, I ran out of negatives with Harry Day, and Harry took a lot of photos that shouldn't have been taken, and we didn't know what to do, and if these pictures appeared in the newspapers, I think there would be a lot of big people who would be angry, and then Harry and I would be in trouble.

Martin looked at the diary without saying a word, his expression becoming more and more grim.