The German General Command was so anxious, and when the news of the breakthrough reached the headquarters of the expeditionary force, it caused another reaction, and Lin Wenqian, who had read the telegram, was a little surprised: "The German army is actually defenseless? The breakthrough is so neat? ”

"yes. Li Yinpei's side took the entire chariot battalion up at once, and he had not prepared for artillery fire at all, which caught the Germans by surprise. "Zhou Sixu suddenly understood why Wang Shiqian was reluctant to dismantle the armored division below the battalion, this armored division was originally based on the battalion as a basic unit, and it was divided into battalions and used like a battalion, but the scale was smaller, and the others were harmless." Garrisoned in this section is the 47th Infantry Brigade of the 24th Reserve Division of the German 17th Army, this pure infantry brigade cannot stop the attack of the tank battalion, but the 86th Division, the main force of the 17th Army, is stationed at Baledik Hill, which may be difficult to fight. ”

"Can you take Mount Baledik?" Lin Wenqian asked. He is now in a contradiction, on the one hand, he hopes that the armored troops will make meritorious contributions, and on the other hand, he is worried that the results of the battle will not be hidden after the achievements, and finally the tactics will be copied by Britain and France, so that the German army will collapse as soon as possible.

"This ......" Although Zhou Sixu has a certain understanding of the enemy in front of him, he has no judgment on how the war will develop in the future. He estimated: "It doesn't matter what the Baledique Hill is, the key is whether the Germans in Saint-Dizieri can hold it?" If you can't hold it, then it's actually the same whether you can take it or not. ”

Yes, the fight against Baledik Hill is for the sake of Saint-Dizier, and if Saint-Dizier really takes it, it will still be a sensation in the world. This is a good thing, but when it comes to foreign reporters and domestic reporters. How to say that? Could it be that the 11th Army, after a bloody battle, defeated St. Dizier?

"How's the 11th Army doing?" Prompted by Zhou Si, Lin Wenqian immediately asked Duan Qirui.

"The 33rd Division is closely cooperating with the tank battalion. The remaining three divisions were probably thinking about how to defeat Saint Diziye, and Duan Zhiquan would not let go of this opportunity. Zhou Sixu said.

"yes." Lin Wenqian nodded, those people in Beiyang have always wanted to get ahead on the battlefield, although Duan Qirui is honest, but his chief of staff Xu Shuzheng is not a character who is easy to fool. What a glorious thing it is to seize this fighter and take down Saint-Dizier in a pretended manner.

"Continental marrow. Are we ......" Before Zhou Sixu finished speaking, he was stopped by Lin Wenqian, and he said, "We can only plan it." And you can't do anything in action. Since this battle has begun, let's let it continue, and the result will be what it is. However, the 11th Army had to call and tell them not to penetrate the chariot battalion. ”

"I see." Lin Wenqian's words are equivalent to setting a bottom line for similar small actions. He immediately drafted a telegram and sent it to the headquarters of the 11th Army.

When the telegram from the General Directorate reached the headquarters of the 11 Army. Duan Qirui had just changed the feint attack to an offensive and gave the order. He received the news of the breakthrough of the German forward defense line by the tank battalion no later than Lin Wenqian; On the way back to the headquarters from the 33rd Division's defensive line yesterday, Chief of Staff Xu Shuzheng, a small fan, had already set a wait-and-see strategy for him, and now that the tank battalion had broken through smoothly, the 31st and 32nd divisions began to launch according to yesterday's arrangement.

The telegram sent by Zhou Sixu made Xu Shuzheng understand the final intention of the General Division, that is, this battle was actually the tank battalion training tactics, which was mysterious, not the fear of losing face if he didn't fight it before.

"Marshal, the Director-General has called!" Xu Shuzheng took the telegram and said with a smile.

"What did you say above?" Duan Qirui was stunned. He reached out and took the telegram. When he saw that it only involved the secrecy of the tank battalion, and only the words 'camera acting' for the war. Looking at Xu Shuzheng, he asked puzzledly: "What does the general secretary mean, to fight or not to fight?" ”

"The above meaning is obvious, that is, whether to fight or not is all up to us." Xu Shuzheng said. "The armored division is the treasure of the dynasty, and the revival army has always been good at making some new names and new tactics, and today's breakthrough should be a trial training of the General Directorate, and I don't want Britain and France and other countries to know."

"Is that so?" Duan Qirui nodded in thought, and he suddenly said, "Then what if Baledik Mountain really fights?" ”

"If you want to keep it secret, then you can only give this credit to the 33rd Division." Xu Shuzheng said firmly.

"How is that possible?" Duan Qirui shook his head vigorously, "Whoever laid the foundation is whose credit, how can you ......?"

"Marshal, it's not up to us to decide on this matter. If the General Division wants to hide the armored division, then the credit can only be given to the 33rd division, at least externally. Xu Shuzheng understood Duan Qirui's temperament, and comforted: "We can understand this matter in our hearts, and we have a clear conscience, but we are just misunderstood by the outside world." The most important thing now is to block the French observers, otherwise everything will be exposed. ”

In this operation of the expeditionary force, the French and the British sent a lot of observers, first, to monitor, and secondly, they were worried that the expeditionary soldiers would live in two lives, and they were not familiar with trench warfare when they first arrived, so they had the intention of assisting in praise of paintings. However, based on the principle of independent command, before the problem appeared, these foreigners only wandered around the headquarters and were not deeply involved in the battle plan. In addition to the 3rd Army, which is a reserve, these observers are dispatched to the other five army headquarters, and some important areas have observers for divisions and brigades.

Xu Shuzheng was talking about the French observer, and the adjutant outside reported to the French colonel Bertrand asking to see him. He and Duan Qirui glanced at each other and smiled: "Say Cao Cao Cao will arrive, I'll deal with him." ”

"General, I heard that several divisions on the front line are attacking, is this going to launch a big offensive?" Colonel Bertrand didn't know where he heard the news, so he saluted the army commander Duan Qirui and asked him bluntly.

"Mr. Colonel, our army is only launching a feint, and there is no complete battle plan." Xu Shuzheng replied, "But there is information that the Germans on the opposite side have withdrawn a lot of troops from the defense line of Saint-Dizier in order to launch an attack elsewhere, so we want to see if the German army is really as weak as the intelligence says." ”

The ......Frenchman was a little suspicious, but then advised: "General, in my many years of combat experience on the Western Front, it is difficult to launch an attack in a hurry, and even if we can occupy some areas, if this salient is not too large, it will be besieged by the Germans on three sides, so we must keep the balance of the defense line consistent when attacking." ”

Without assembling and organizing large-scale troops, it is indeed possible to open a gap in the German defense line with the strength of a single division or corps, but the tragedy is that the salient thus occupied is too narrow, and when the German counterattack comes, it will only be besieged on three sides by hateful howitzers, and the final result can only be to abandon this salient and return to the original starting point.

The French had suffered this loss, so whether they were attacking or retreating, they emphasized that the defensive line must be leveled all the way in order to prevent the German artillery from forming a favorable situation of siege on three sides. Now the 11th Army is delusional about attacking with its four divisions without making a large-scale build-up, which in the eyes of Colonel Bertrand is suicide. As an observer, he also had the obligation to remind the Allied army that this was the Western Front in Europe, not Asia. (To be continued......)