Chapter 156: Charles's Troops

Charles's army was divided into two parts, each with about a thousand men, commanded by Justinian and Browne respectively.

They had indeed set out from the tractor factory in Charles, tanks, sidecars, troops, and ammunition, all loaded onto a train bound for Paris.

But the spies didn't expect one thing: train carriages can be easily replaced.

The train entered the Paris train station, and the carriage was secretly divided into two parts inside the station and then hung behind different locomotives.

One train went straight to Andrusie, north of La Forx, and the other went to Tamon, south of La Forx.

The so-called "train carrying Charles tanks and troops" followed far behind, and its carriages were full of canned goods and bread to be transported to the front line.

The landslide was man-made, the purpose of which was to make everyone, including Joffre's command, think that the troops would not arrive in time, so that they would not be able to cause trouble.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the train that was blocked by the landslide. No one expected that Charles' troops had already reached their destination and were deployed to the battlefield in an orderly manner.

Astinhos was responsible for the attack on the Andrusian region.

He rushed to the battlefield first on a sidecar, raised his telescope and looked in the direction of the enemy. The enemy in front was not prepared at all. There were only a few insignificant barbed wires and wooden fences on the entire line of defense. There was no human figure outside. Estinni guessed that the enemy should be hiding from the rain in the trench.

An infantry colonel wearing a raincoat hurried to Estiny in the rain. He looked at Estiny and saw that he was dressed as an artillery colonel. He asked in a puzzled tone: "Colonel, which unit are you from?"

It seems that I haven't heard that there are artillery reinforcements coming!

Colonel Estiny said nothing, he just stood there and waited quietly for a while.

The telephone in the sentry post rang, and the guard shouted out with the phone: "Colonel, your call is from the Paris Defense Command!"

The infantry colonel was even more confused. What did this have to do with the Paris Defense Command?

He walked into the sentry post with confusion and answered the phone. Then he opened his eyes wide and looked at Estinni outside in surprise.

After coming out, the infantry colonel seemed like a different person, so nervous that he couldn't speak clearly:

"You are... Ciel's troops?"

"Attack from here? I mean... My name is Klopp, Colonel, nice to meet you!"

Estinis shook hands with him politely and told him his name.

"Colonel Estiny!" Colonel Klopp puffed out his chest. "What do you want me to do? I mean, how should we cooperate with you?"

"You just need to watch, Colonel Klopp!" Estiny replied coldly: "You don't have to do anything, you just need to watch, please remember this!"

Colonel Klopp was a little embarrassed. He felt that this was an insult to them!

However, Colonel Klopp soon realized that this unit was indeed qualified to insult them.

It was not that Astinni was arrogant, but he knew that it was not suitable to join untrained troops in a coordinated operation, as they would only turn the coordinated operation into chaos.

The tanks drove up one by one, and with the rumbling sound of their engines, they formed a wedge in the rain in preparation for the attack.

There are not many tanks, only 36 in total, forming a tank battalion.

There were two tank companies placed on the left and right, and a tank company in the rear as a reserve ready to provide support at any time.

Astinhos did not hesitate at all and ordered the attack as soon as he was ready.

To catch the enemy off guard in battle, you must use speed to defeat slow. Every minute wasted gives the enemy one more minute to prepare.

The tanks rumbled as they carried the infantry through the mud, their tracks clattering as they stirred up patches of mud.

The ground was littered with craters of all sizes, which were a nightmare for the CA-1 and Saint-Chamond, but were nothing to a fully enclosed tracked tank like the Mark 1.

The tanks passed by easily one by one, and the only impact they caused was that the body of the tank would tilt from time to time, stirring up a cloud of mud, which would pounce on the faces of the soldiers following behind like a wave.

Five hundred meters.

The tank ran over the rotting and smelly corpses left on the battlefield, and it burst out with streams of black and green liquid with dark red and black blood. The air was instantly filled with a suffocating stench.

The soldiers were so choked by the smoke that their stomachs churned.

But they knew that this was a matter of life and death and they could not be careless or affected by external factors.

Therefore, even though they were extremely unwilling, they had no choice but to step into the filth filled with flies and maggots in order not to change the formation.

Four hundred meters.

Perhaps because of the sound and curtain of rain, the enemy still did not notice that a tank unit was approaching them.

The soldiers looked straight ahead and followed the tanks closely. Their hands holding the rifles turned white from exerting too much force, and their breathing became increasingly rapid.

The war is about to begin...

Three hundred meters.

The German soldiers finally heard the sound, and several people came out of the trenches and looked over here, some of them holding binoculars.

Estiny made a prompt decision and whispered, "Fire!"

The soldiers raised their guns and fired decisively. The few German soldiers who stuck their heads out were covered by bullets from several directions. They flew a little bright red in the rain and fell back into the trenches.

The gunshots alerted the German soldiers, who immediately emerged from the edge of the trenches in rows, raising their rifles.

However, they were so obviously frightened when they saw the tank suddenly appear in front of them that the gunfire stopped for a while before it started again.

The bullets hit the tank armor, sparking and making crisp "clang" sounds. Some of the sounds were particularly crisp and bright, with a little lingering sound after the "ding" sound, just like ringing a bell.

Estiny knew that they were German K-bombs, which could not penetrate the frontal armor of the tank.

"Speed ​​up!" Estiny shouted.

The infantrymen who received the order waved signal flags several times in front of the tank's observation hole, and the tank roared and moved forward at full speed.

It didn't take long for the German artillery shells to come over. They were German 77MM caliber artillery, and there were only a dozen or so shells. Most of them fell behind the tanks, and only a few fell near the tanks.

Estinni secretly felt lucky that the German 105MM howitzer was tricked by Charles into the Lafox area, otherwise the loss would be inevitable.

Seeing several soldiers hit by stray bullets and falling to the ground, Estiny shouted, "Hide behind the tanks and maintain the offensive line!"

Now is not the time to show up and shoot. Doing so would be tantamount to seeking death under the enemy's dense firepower!

It was not until the tanks crushed the barbed wire to the ground and approached the German defense line for more than 30 meters that Estiny shouted, "Grenade!"

Then blow the whistle as hard as you can, in all directions so that everyone can hear it.

The soldiers quickly pulled out grenades from their waists, pulled the trigger with skillful movements, and threw them towards the enemy's defense line with all their strength.

Some soldiers even took a short run-up behind the tank before throwing the grenades. Their movements were natural and smooth, and the grenades drew a graceful arc, passed over the tank and were thrown into the enemy's trench. It was obviously not the first time they had done this.

Although the German soldiers didn't know what was thrown at them, they still felt the danger and screamed and dodged.

“Boom! Boom…”

A row of uneven smoke rose from the trench with a burst of explosion, and the French soldiers shouted and rushed over the tank with their rifles with bayonets!

(The picture above shows the German 77MM artillery, which has a range of only 5 kilometers, far less than the French 75 gun with a range of 8 kilometers)

(End of this chapter)