In Bern, the capital of Switzerland, under the eaves of a three-story western-style building backed by a large yellow lawn, a Chinese-made black Pegasus car came to an abrupt halt, and a navy major with snow-white and thick black eyebrows with particularly eye-catching eyebrows pushed the door and got out of the car, stood in front of the gatehouse with a briefcase in his hand, only to see a solid wood sign hanging next to the fence-style inlaid iron gate, and a column of large ink characters on the right: "Embassy of the Great Chinese Empire in the Swiss Confederation", and several rows of German, French, and Italian annotations were horizontal on the left.

took out his ID and showed it to the porter, the major walked in, and before he stepped into the hall, he first took a photo with a slender and handsome army captain, and the other party saluted first and greeted with a smile: "Is it Major Zhou Shuren?" I am Tang Lingzhu from the Military Attache in Switzerland, please come with me, the military attache chief is waiting for you. ”

An hour later, the two of them, who had changed into casual clothes, went out side by side, sat in the car that had been waiting outside the door, and left.

"Why do you want me to get involved? I don't know anything about this kind of strategy. ”

Major Zhou Shuren, who was on the right side of the back seat, asked suspiciously while taking out the cigarette case, more than half a year has passed, the scene of the air raid on Kiel Harbor is still vivid, which makes him have nightmares, this transfer to Turkey thought it was a carefree informal vacation, but he did not expect to receive this kind of temporary task that has nothing to do with his major and interests halfway.

Tang Lingzhu, who was next to the left car door, smiled. Hee took the cigarette handed by Zhou Shuren, took out the lighter and lit it for the other party first, shook his head helplessly: "We just need a reliable witness, please understand, it has been a long time since the war started to replenish and rotate military attaches stationed abroad, especially the special military attaches directly under the General Staff, so I had to catch one and use one - please rest assured, we will arrange it well and try not to affect your itinerary." ”

Zhou Shuren took a long puff of cigarette and looked out the window. Distant mountains and trees, he smiled bitterly: "No way, just take it as an additional three-day tour of Zurich, okay, tell me what's going on?" ”

Tang Lingzhu picked up the cigarette between his fingers and blinked. Laughing, he reached out and pressed a red button behind the driver's seat, and a thick partition was lowered from the roof of the car, firmly embedded in the groove of the floor, dividing the tiny sedan into two separate spaces at the front and rear.

"It's a long story, but there's a sentence that has to be said first, this Switzerland, but. Where spies from all over the world gather, please be careful in everything, everything you see and hear, please hide it in your stomach first, and then return to the embassy to make a report, otherwise, you are not afraid that the wall has ears, and you are even more afraid that the hidden arrow is difficult to prevent. ”

Zhou Shuren just lowered his head and smiled: "I think we have suffered the same. Confidential Discipline Education. ”

Tang Lingzhu spread his hands: "I hope we also have the same memory and. Concentration – it's still a long time before I get to Zurich, so I'll start from scratch ......"

After three cigarettes, Major Zhou Shuren came to his senses.

"I see, this time. Is it to pay the Russian revolutionaries in exile, I understand correctly? ”

Tang Lingzhu held a cigarette in one hand and played with the lighter in the other, and seemed to turn his head from side to side very comfortably and said: "It's not outrageous to understand in this way, the enemy of the enemy can be used as our friend." Speaking of Mr. Ulyanov, he began to take money from our Counsellor's Office as early as 15 years ago, and by the time of the Asian-Russian War, he had already eaten no less than two or three million marks, and in the past two years it has become more developed. ”

"Taking the money of the enemy country against the Motherland, is this the so-called revolutionary?" Zhou Shuren frowned as if he had eaten a fly.

"People want to 'turn an imperialist war into a civil war', and they don't have to think about the fortunes of the country or anything, as long as their organization can seize power, it doesn't matter whose money they take - that's what they should think."

"It is not an exaggeration to call this so-called revolutionary a scourge to the people?"

Tang Lingzhu shook his head and smiled: "It doesn't matter whose scourge he is, as long as it can help the great cause of our empire, he has to be fed well, and he will bite people when he is fed." ”

"I'm afraid that the rabies of these wild dogs will spread......"

Zhou Shuren didn't have to worry about it.

"Therefore, we can't release all the wild dogs at once, but we have to put them back in small batches to disturb them according to the change in the determination of the Russian government to resist, and save the most destructive ones for the last ones, and then use them as killer weapons when there is really nothing to be done. Once the strategic objective has been achieved and the expected peace has been achieved, they will immediately assist the Russian government in bringing them down, and if necessary, they will have to carry out targeted killings. ”

Speaking of this, Tang Lingzhu laughed, which made Zhou Shuren feel uncomfortable.

"In any case, the spirit of not being afraid of sacrifice for the sake of faith is worthy of our reverence as emperors."

Although Zhou Shuren's words were not meant to defend anyone, they made Tang Lingzhu laugh even harder, and waved his cigarette butt and said contemptuously: "If you are not afraid of sacrifice, you will still be in exile." ”

Although he didn't agree with it in his heart, Zhou Shuren couldn't find any powerful words to refute for a while, so he muttered for a while, so he had to change the topic for the time being.

"Russia can't finish it soon, recently Germany's western front has been tight again, Britain and France have launched a major offensive at the same time in Shambany and Artois, and the American expeditionary force has also landed, I heard that the German General Staff is also panicking."

Tang Lingzhu flicked the cigarette ash disapprehantly: "It doesn't matter if there is a kind of trench grinding war, I think that the British are worried about the Far East and are reluctant to invest in the new army, the Americans are worried about the Pacific Ocean, and the expeditionary force has only one division. ”

The two men, who had traveled carefree in the peaceful and beautiful territory of a neutral country, were not yet aware of the fact that the Autumn Offensive of the Entente** Shambani-Artois had come to an end on this very day, October 14, 1915.

The Second Battle of Artois, which had ended more than three months earlier, was a disappointment to the British and French high commands, which had neither achieved the task of breaking through the intended defensive line nor attracting German forces from the Eastern Front to the Western Front.

Shortly after the end of the campaign, the first Chantilly Conference, attended by delegations from the Entente of Britain, France, Russia, the United States, Belgium, Italy, and Serbia, was held.

The meeting, co-chaired by the French commander-in-chief Chauffy and the British commander-in-chief French French, agreed on a basic principle in the midst of bitter quarrels, that is, to give full support to one of the Entente blocs that had suffered the main blow – an undoubted "honor" that belonged to Russia.

The conference divided the various fronts, which had spread throughout the world, into three main theaters: the Western theater, namely the Franco-German front, the Italian front, and the Balkan front; the Eastern Theater of Operations, that is, the Russian-German, Russian-Turkish, and Russian-Chinese fronts surrounding Russia; The Asia-Pacific theater of operations, that is, the fronts against the East Asian Alliance.

Correspondingly, it was agreed that Britain and France would jointly dominate the operational command of the Western Theater, Russia would dominate the Eastern Theater alone, and Britain and the United States would jointly dominate the Asia-Pacific Theater.

However, in these three theaters, no central organization has been established to coordinate the operational plans of the various major events of the Entente, and even the Western theater of operations, which involves the largest number of participating countries, has not set up a theater headquarters with the effect of unified military orders, and coordination between countries must in the final analysis rely on their own volition. It was not until the end of the month that the French forced Britain to admit that the commander-in-chief of the French forces at that time was Marshal Chauffeur, who had priority over the conduct of the combat operations of all coalition forces in France.

Even so, the conference drew up a general plan for the military operations of the Entente group in the second half of 1915, the main points of which were fourfold: first, Britain and France should reorganize their forces and launch a new and powerful offensive on the Franco-German front to contain Germany; Second, the United States should send an expeditionary force to land in France as soon as possible to further oppress Germany; Third, Britain and the United States should carry out a partial attack on the Pacific side to contain China. Fourth, efforts should be made to secure lines of communication with Russia and increase Russian military aid.

At first glance, it seemed that it really meant to pull Russia along, but Britain and France, which actually played a leading role in the conference, had their own evil intentions: Britain was slow to transfer the basic strength of the newly formed 3rd Army to France, but it continued to send troops to Egypt and India; France, on the other hand, sought to make the German army sink deeper in Russia, so as to ensure that the British and French offensive against Germany in the second half of the year would achieve "decisive and significant results"; Both countries did not expect the U.S. Expeditionary Force to share the pressure, or rather, casualties.

As a result, under the influence of various human and non-human factors, including the disastrous Dutch campaign, the new offensive against Germany, which was scheduled to begin at the beginning of the month, was repeatedly postponed until the end of September.

The area where the offensive was launched was still Shambany and Artois, which had been repeatedly attacked before, so it was called the "Shambani-Artois Autumn Offensive", which stipulated that the French 2nd and 4th armies would attack Shambani, and the French 10th Army and the British 1st Army would attack in Artois, with the aim of breaking through the German defenses in the two places, so as to encircle and annihilate the German army in northern France, and at the same time attract the German army attacking Russia and reduce the pressure on Russia.

The planned breakthrough at Shambani was 35 kilometers wide and was planned to be divided into 32 infantry divisions and 5 cavalry divisions of Pétain's 2nd Army and Langer's 4th Army, equipped with 200 aircraft, 120 tanks, 950 light guns, 750 heavy guns, and 740 trench mortars.

The defenders were the German 3rd and 5th armies, with only 9 infantry divisions, 3 of which were in reserve, equipped with 40 aircraft and 700 light and heavy guns.

The intended breach of Artois was 22 kilometers wide and consisted of 27 infantry divisions and 3 cavalry divisions under the command of Dibay's French 10th Army and Haig's British 1st Army, equipped with 270 aircraft, 160 tanks, 1,400 light guns, 730 heavy guns, and 220 trench mortars.

The defending force was General Ruprecht's German 6th Army, which had 13 and a half infantry divisions, six and a half of which were in reserve, equipped with 70 aircraft, 00 light guns and 270 heavy guns.

In addition, in places such as Ypre, the Entente was preparing to launch a luring assault support campaign with two to four infantry divisions.

On 22 September, the Allied artillery began a three-and-a-half-day sabotage campaign, firing more than 3 million shells, but the rainy weather from the 24th to the 29th hampered the activities of the Allied military academy aircraft, making it impossible for the artillery to effectively suppress most of the well-concealed German artillery batteries.

At 9:15 on September 25, the French 2nd and 4th armies launched an attack on the Shambany area at the same time, and the first echelon deployed 1 division, the second echelon division, with the cavalry corps as the reserve, and the attached tank units were scattered in companies into several divisions of the first echelon's main attack.

The Germans reacted quickly and immediately mobilized their reserves through the dense railway lines in the rear of the theater of operations, and in just two weeks, the German army in the Shambany area increased from 9 to 21 divisions, the artillery pieces increased to 1,500, the number of aircraft increased to 100, and a few reserve tank companies were also invested.

The offensive of the French 2nd and 4th armies was halted on 7 October, and then they were attacked by a strong German counter-attack, and it was not until 13 October that the front was barely secured, and the final force invested reached 42 divisions, using nearly 3,000 light and heavy artillery, and the result was only to occupy a small area of 22 kilometers in front of the first position in the Shambany area, 3 to 4 kilometers in depth, and approaching the second position in the front of 12 kilometers.

At 6:30 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. on 25 September, the British 1st Army and the French 10th Army began their respective attacks on the Artois area.

Under the cover of poison gas and smoke screens, the British army steadily advanced with battalion-sized tank units as the pioneers, but due to the wrong prediction of the wind direction, some poison gas invaded their bunkers, causing a lot of confusion, and the leading tank units were subjected to concentrated fire from the Germans' newly equipped 37 mm special anti-tank guns and trench mortars with improved firing methods, and they were completely lost in the first few days. As the campaign progressed, the Germans continued to send additional reserves to the Artois area, eventually increasing to sixteen divisions and 1,200 artillery pieces. The British 1st Army finally halted its offensive on 14 October, before the Germans became increasingly stubborn, while the French 10th Army had already stopped the previous day.

In the end, the British and French used 32 divisions and 2,500 artillery pieces in the Artois area, and captured only two small pieces of scorched earth that were not worth mentioning on the map: the British 1st Army captured a section six kilometers in front and three kilometers in depth; The French 10th Army occupied a section of nine kilometers on the front and two kilometers in depth.

By 14 October, the British and French had consumed a total of 5,200,000 shells in the Shambany and Artois assault areas, with 200,000 French casualties and 74,000 British casualties.

The German army suffered 141,000 casualties, but it withstood the largest frontal attack since the beginning of the war between Britain and France, proving that traditional frontal assaults could not break through their own tight defensive system, and adding confidence to the German high command's general strategy of the Allies to "settle Russia first" - in fact, the Germans did not withdraw a single division from the Russian front during the entire campaign.

"I wonder what Brother Zhou thinks of the so-called moderate socialists in China?"

Going around and around, Tang Lingzhu still went back to the topic, Zhou Shuren scratched his head helplessly, and began to regret his rashness - what kind of Turkey to go to, how good it is to stay in Berlin honestly, eat sausages, drink beer and read novels, and make up this trouble in the middle, I am afraid that I will not be comfortable in Istanbul.

"To be honest, I don't have any ideas about this or that, except for my own job, I am only interested in literature and art—no, to be specific, novels from ancient and modern times, both Chinese and foreign."

"It's okay, let's talk about Brother Zhou's own job, this trip to Turkey, I don't think it's just for general observation business?"

Why can't this guy stop for a while, but it's a pity that I have half a box with me......

Zhou Shuren secretly complained in his heart, but his mouth unconsciously ran the train.

……！