1890 King of Southeast Asia

On December 9, Steve and his team took a full 7 days to cross the 20-kilometer front line and reach the French defense zone.

On this road, Steve and his team became more and more desperate. They walked 20 kilometers in a straight line, and they circled 78 kilometers. All the areas they walked along the way were already the world of the Germans.

The Germans even marched on this land very relaxedly!

What does this mean? It means that the British have completely left this area.

The only time Steve saw the British in the past week was when the Germans escorted prisoners of war. About a battalion of German troops escorted thousands of prisoners wearing British uniforms and walked eastward.

When they came to the French land, they were discovered by the local French people at the first time, and then several French soldiers took them to the temporary residence behind the camp.

"Unfortunately, you are late. The camp is very short of accommodation and supplies. You have two choices."

"1. Stay nearby. We will provide you with a change of clothes, but they are French uniforms. We will give you a room, but there is no adequate heating facilities. You need to find a way yourself."

"2. You can choose to take a truck to Bovey, where there are sufficient supplies and it is safe."

The French lieutenant who was responsible for receiving them gave them temporary identification after initially confirming their identities.

The lieutenant handled it quickly. There were too many British people who escaped recently, and the lieutenant was already very skilled.

"What about after going to Bovey?" Lucas spoke before Steve spoke, and took out a watch and placed it on the table, next to the lieutenant's hat-it looked like it was originally the lieutenant's thing.

"I personally suggest that you stay. Although it's cold at night, you can go to the surrounding villages to buy some firewood, or go to the town to see if you can buy a quilt."

The lieutenant picked up the watch and put it to his ear to listen. There was a sound and the dial was not damaged.

"Marshal Haig retreated 40 kilometers and has stabilized the front line. I heard that the army will be reorganized soon to counterattack."

"The scattered soldiers will also be recalled. If you stay here, you will be the first batch of reorganized soldiers and will join us in attacking the Germans."

"As long as the attack begins, no one will ask you what you encountered at the beginning."

"So, what do you choose?"

The lieutenant put the watch on the table again, covered it with his hat, and then raised his head slightly and asked the three people.

"Of course we choose to stay! We hope to be assigned a house that is not leaky. We also need food, hot!" Lucas raised his hat, took out a stack of colorful banknotes from his pocket, and put it in under the lieutenant's eyes.

"Of course, this is our duty as an ally! We will provide food according to the French army's standards, as well as the tools and fuel needed to cook food."

"Please understand that we don't have enough people to deliver food to you now, but I can give you double the fuel." The lieutenant may be afraid of giving people the impression that he takes money but does not do anything, so he explained.

"Thank you very much, thank you France." Lucas's face was full of smiles.

After the three people left with the temporary certificate, Steve and Daniel, who were confused, dared to ask Lucas.

"Lucas, we gave the Frenchman at least 100 pounds. Do we need to give so much?" Steve asked in a low voice.

"Definitely worth it, Steve." Lucas said without any regret.

The money given out was partly in pounds, partly in marks, and more in francs.

The three of them found a lot of francs from the bodies of the British and Germans. After all, they were in France. As for whether the money was exchanged by the original owner or how it came from, they didn't care.

"I think most people will choose to go to Bovey and then be sent back to the British Expeditionary Force headquarters."

"Originally, this is nothing, and it is safer and more comfortable, but his words reminded me that if we go back, we will have to face a lot of trouble."

"We need to prove that we did not escape on our own initiative, and we have to throw away or hide all the property in our hands."

"What's more terrible is that if our original troops have been defeated - I think it should be defeated, then we will have to face infinite investigations."

"Of course, there may not be so many investigations. After all, it seems that the whole line has been defeated now. The expeditionary headquarters may not have so many manpower and energy to deal with us. This is the most terrible thing."

"Probably, we will become the first wave of cannon fodder in the counterattack."

Lucas pulled an unknown wild grass from the roadside, put it in his mouth, and looked at the busy French army.

The French are preparing for battle. After all, this is on French soil. If the British fail, the French will at most mock them and still lend a hand.

"Is that so?" Daniel muttered to himself after listening.

Steve, on the other hand, remained silent, which was completely conceivable.

Among the retreating soldiers, there might be German spies, who might be preparing to sabotage or investigate intelligence. This had happened more than once. Anyway, the origins of British soldiers were very complicated, and it was hard to tell anything simply by their accents and faces.

Even German spies could at least communicate in simple English, but British soldiers might not.

Therefore, the British still have very strict inspections for the scattered soldiers. Britain is also a relatively inefficient country. This set of procedures takes a lot of time.

And does Britain have this time? Steve already knows the scale of the rout. There is no doubt that Haig will soon launch a counterattack and will not have so much time to identify who is a spy among the scattered soldiers.

Then the most likely approach is to organize these scattered soldiers into empty names and let them serve as "pioneers".

Their future is like those people in the movies related to World War I, who swarmed out of the trenches and rushed towards the machine gun bullets as soon as the non-commissioned officers or officers whistled.

As a skilled heavy machine gunner, Steve knows the lethality of heavy machine guns, so he is even less willing to be cannon fodder.

"If we stay here, the higher-ups will probably send a few officers to reorganize us, but we are far away from the main expeditionary force, so logistics and daily operations should be temporarily carried out with the French."

"In this case, the officers sent must be unlucky and will not be too serious, and the French will not watch us die. This will make both sides lose face."

"If we stay here, we will have more supplies and it will be safer. The only problem is that it may be difficult to get promoted in the future, but we are all soldiers, and promotion is none of our business."

Lucas talked about the benefits of staying...

…………

"The Germans adopted a key breakthrough tactic, focusing on attacking the three British salients, and at the same time, mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to make a feint attack."

"The British Expeditionary Force did not judge the Germans' intentions in the first place, but mechanically dispersed the reserve troops evenly over the entire 100-kilometer defense line, and the fighting style was nothing new."

"The Germans concentrated the artillery of two army groups, about 1,600 ordinary artillery and dozens of large-caliber howitzers, By concentrating absolute strength and firepower advantages in a local area, they easily penetrated the three British salients. "

"Afterwards, the German 6th Army completely cut off the British front before the British reacted and continued to spread. "

"After the British Expeditionary Force discovered that the front line had been broken, it immediately sent out a reserve to retake the position, but under the absolute strength advantage of the German army, it failed to achieve any results. "

"The Germans acted quickly. On the evening of the 2nd, the British Expeditionary Force's rear defense line was attacked. In the early morning of the 3rd, the British Expeditionary Force headquarters and important departments began to retreat, and the British troops on both ends also evacuated. "

"On the 4th, the German army did not continue to pursue, but turned around and surrounded the British between the three breakthroughs. About 300,000 British troops were surrounded and logistics were cut off. "

"As of yesterday morning, the Germans announced that all British in the encirclement had been annihilated, and casualties and results have not yet been mentioned. "

"At the routine military meeting of the Huaxia Empire during the war, Xie Hui informed everyone of the latest battlefield situation that the Huaxia Empire had recently obtained and confirmed.

"This is the longest battle on the Western Front since 1915. The Germans' learning ability is still good. Only a few months after the Brusilov Offensive, they can skillfully apply the key breakthrough tactics." Yang Tao looked at the big arrow on the map and sighed.

Not only him, but also the others. Since the end of the Battle of Paris, the two sides have gradually shifted from mobile warfare to positional warfare, and the changes in the battle lines of both sides are very small.

In a battle, from the attack to the end, the changes in the battle line rarely exceed ten kilometers. If calculated by day, it may not advance 100 meters a day.

Therefore, the combat map of the Western Front in the Joint Command had to be made very large, because the scale was large. Compared with other maps, it was like the comparison between tactical maps and strategic maps.

"It has been several days. Have the British made any moves?" Liu Ming touched his chin and looked at the map.

"The British cabinet has held several emergency meetings and is preparing to draw 500,000 people from all over the country to supplement the British Expeditionary Force."

"In addition, the British have also asked for help from other participating countries, mainly hoping that France will launch an attack to contain the Germans from the flank."

"In addition, we and Russia have also received requests." Jiang Wang looked at Liu 1ming and said.

"What is the reaction of the Russians? What is the reaction of Tsar Nicholas II?" Liu 1ming leaned forward slightly.

"Nicholas II asked the Tsarist Russian army to launch an attack on the Eastern Front. The Tsarist Russian government opposed this approach, and different voices appeared within the military." Seeing this, Jiang Wang raised his voice.

"It's December, it's freezing cold, and the front line should be quite cold... How is the army's warm-keeping work done?" Liu 1ming suddenly turned his head and looked at Xie Hui.

"A total of 500,000 sets of winter military uniforms have been delivered to the front line. I have tried the quality and warmth of the uniforms, and they all meet the requirements."

"Due to the limitations of raw materials and production capacity, there are only 200,000 sets of winter cotton clothes in stock. We have to replace some coats with fur products. The three war zones can only guarantee two sets of clothes for one person at present."

There are many places in the Huaxia Empire that need winter military uniforms. The front line and the three war zones in the north have a total of 8.9 million people, and at least two million sets of clothing are needed.

"The supply of warm clothing to the front line must be guaranteed, and the supply of clothing to Europe can be postponed."

"In addition, increase the supply of materials to Germany."

"And... increase troops!"

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