Glorious Mission 1937

With development goals in place, the entire "government" of Saibei Province and the headquarters of the eighth war zone fell into a busy state in the next time. With the issuance of military and political orders, nearly 2000 million soldiers and civilians in the province were all in operation. .

Quietly, a large number of troops in the eighth war zone moved into the dark. It took a month for the five major armies and a large number of troops directly under the theater to reduce their troops by about half. Half of them went to deep mountains, dense forests or plateau deserts for high-intensity training, and the navy and air force were also doing similar things.

Therefore, the Japanese army in North China was surprised to find that the Chinese army on the opposite side was surprisingly quiet this year. Although the time limit for the truce agreed by the two sides had passed, the Chinese army on the opposite side showed no sign of attacking at all, but had a faint intention to shrink its troops.

The Chinese army does not take the initiative to attack, and the North China Front Army, which has just been hit hard, is naturally happy and quiet. Although it has received 10 reinforcements, both the new commander of the Front Army Tada Hayao and the division and brigade leaders below know that these newly formed new troops It's not useful at all, and it's not a star and a half behind the previous elites. Don't expect them to go to the battlefield without half a year of training.

As the national government's attitude gradually became tougher and its demands became more and more stringent, the Japanese government already knew that the national government intended to hold peace talks with them, so disputes arose again in Japan over how to deal with the current crisis.

The military believes that since the Chinese "government" refuses to surrender, the only way is to defeat them.Using force to force the Chinese government to surrender means that there is no way this war will continue.However, Minai Mitsumasa and others disagreed. In the end, the two sides brought the matter to the imperial meeting again for discussion, but there was still no result.

However, just as the situation in East Asia was complicated and confusing, there were waves on the battlefield in Western Europe-Germany attacked France.In fact, Germany does not want to go to war with Britain and France. After all, after more than 20 years of sanctions, Germany has not reached its peak economically or militarily.But Britain and France are different. They were victorious countries during World War I and received a lot of war reparations and resources from Germany.

At the same time, Britain and France still have a large number of colonies overseas, which made Britain and France recover in a short period of time.So Germany does not want to go to war with Britain and France if it is not necessary.

But after Germany conquered Poland.Adolf Hitler made a peace proposal, but it was rejected by Britain and France, which annoyed Germany, so Hitler decided to use his strength to force Britain and France to seek peace.In the same year Hitler was in instructions to the generals of the German army.Explains why he firmly believes that attacking Western Europe is the only way out for Germany.He worried about the treaty with the Soviet Union.Neutralize the USSR only if it serves the USSR's purposes.Therefore, once Britain and France attacked Germany.The Soviet Union was likely to deliver a fatal blow from behind.So he wants to attack France early, before the Soviet Union is ready.He also believed that if France failed, Britain would follow suit. [

However, the German army generals headed by Army Commander-in-Chief Brauchitsch resolutely opposed it on the grounds that the German Army was not strong enough to defeat Western European armies.Once war starts, Germany will die.Although in the end Hitler severely reprimanded Brauchitsch and others and ordered them to comply with his proposition, in fact Hitler also had the same concern about Germany's military power.

So before attacking France, Germany conducted the "Wessel Exercise", raiding Denmark and Norway. The result of the "exercise" was unexpected. Denmark surrendered in 4 hours. Although Norway persisted for more than 20 days, they finally surrendered. Even the British Expeditionary Force who came to reinforce them was severely damaged.

The victory of the Danish-Norwegian campaign completely awakened the beast in Hitler's heart. Hitler, who was full of confidence in German military power, quickly formulated another huge battle plan-the yellow "plan".

Under Hitler's repeated urging, the German Army Staff Headquarters formulated a western front operation plan code-named "yellow" plan.This plan is similar to the Schlieffen plan for the German army to attack France in World War I, that is, to place the main force of the German army on the right flank and attack France through Belgium.

But Erich von Manstein, Chief of Staff of the Army Group, hated this plan, thinking it was just an old tune.Hitler himself did not like the plan either.As can be seen from the map, France and Germany have a section of adjacent border.To the north of this stretch of the border are Luxembourg and Belgium, and to the south is Switzerland.Therefore, if Germany wants to attack France, there are three options: 1. Launch an attack from the border between the two countries;

Via Belgium and Luxembourg;

By way of Switzerland.Since Switzerland is a mountainous country, the Alps run through the entire territory, which is not convenient for military operations.So the third option is ruled out first, leaving two options for attacking routes.

However, it turns out that the first tactic is not advisable. In 914, World War I broke out.At the beginning, the German army basically fought in accordance with the "Schlieffen Plan". It invaded Belgium on August 8 and began to enter France in mid-August.But since then, the "Slieffen Project" has been thrown aside.The German army did not continue to penetrate into the hinterland of France from the southwest. Instead, it followed the southeast direction and encountered the main force of the French army at the Marne River early.

Germany may have underestimated France at that time, and wanted to annihilate the main force of France as soon as possible, and then swaggered into Paris, repeating the glory of the Franco-Prussian War more than 40 years ago.However, as a result, Germany suffered a head-on blow at the Marne River, and a quick victory came to naught, and the two countries had to turn to arduous positional warfare and a war of attrition.

The "Slieffen Plan" was expected to defeat France in 6 weeks. In fact, World War I fought for 4 years.In the end, Germany was defeated.

This leaves a question for history: If the "Schlieffen Plan" was faithfully implemented, would Germany win the war?This question is not only of interest to historians, Hitler was also very interested.After he came to power, he decided to use the "Slieffen Plan" to attack France.In other words, Hitler still wanted to attack France from Belgium.

However, at this time the French also learned a lesson and built a solid "Maginot Line of Defense".The Maginot Line stretched from Longhillon to Belfort.The total length is about 390 kilometers.Including the Metz fortification area, the Saar flood area, the Lauter fortification area, the Lower Rhine fortification area and the Belfort fortification area.The entire line of defense consists of a security zone and a main defense zone (6-8 kilometers in depth).The engineering construction is strongest in the two fortification areas of Metz and Lauter.

The Saar flood area is formed by using natural river barriers and swamps. Fortifications began to be built after 1935, and the fortifications are the weakest.The Lower Rhine fortification site uses the Rhine River and the Rhone River Rhine Canal as natural barriers, and only the support points consisting of permanent shooting fortifications have been built in the area along the Rhine River.In the most important parts of the Metz and Lauter fortification area, a comprehensive fortification group that combines the ground and underground parts and is suitable for circular defense is built.The ground part is armored or reinforced concrete machine gun fortifications and artillery fortifications, and the underground part has several floors, including command post, personnel rest room, food storage room, drug storehouse, ambulance station, power station, filter ventilation room, etc.

There are passages between the fortifications and electric vehicles. The weapons in the shooting fortifications are specially designed and installed.A total of about 5800 permanent fortifications for various purposes were built throughout the defense line, with a density of 15 per kilometer of front.The roof and walls of the strongest reinforced concrete fortifications are as thick as 35 meters, and the armor of the armored tower is as thick as 300 mm, both of which can resist two direct hits from 420 mm mortars.Anti-tank obstacles within the line of defense mainly include anti-tank trenches, cliffs, cliffs, and metal and concrete piles.And reinforce it with minefields.Anti-infantry barriers are generally metal stakes or wooden stakes and barbed wire.Some areas have also set up electrified barbed wire.

The solidity of the Maginot Line was not known to the Germans, but it was conceivable, and because of this, Hitler himself did not like this plan formulated by the German Army Chief of Staff. [

Army Chief of Staff Erich von Manstein was a genius commander.He found that the Maginot Line was divided into two sections.One section is on the German-French border.The other part is on the border between France and Belgium, and there is a blank area in the middle.Therefore, he came up with his strategic concept: the main spearhead of the German offensive should be placed in the center, not on the right.With powerful armor.Carry out a major assault on the strategically decisive breakthrough --- the Ardennes Forest.This is a shortcut to break into France when it is unprepared, and it can cut off the connection between the northern and southern allied forces, divide and encircle the British and French allied forces, and quickly destroy France.

But Walter von Brausch, commander-in-chief of the German Army, refused to pass on Manstein's plan to Hitler.Manstein put forward his strategic concept: the main spearhead of the German offensive should be placed in the center, not on the right.With a powerful armored force, carry out the main assault on the strategically decisive breakthrough --- the Ardennes Forest.This is a shortcut to break into France when it is unprepared, and it can cut off the connection between the northern and southern allied forces, divide and encircle the British and French allied forces, and quickly destroy France.

But Walter von Brausch, commander-in-chief of the German army, refused to pass on Manstein's plan to Hitler and transferred him to the command of the 38th Infantry Corps.However, Manstein took the opportunity of Hitler to meet the new army commanders and directly stated his views to Hitler.

Hitler "understood very quickly like an elf" to Manstein's statement, and said that he personally fully agreed with Manstein's opinion.The next day, Hitler summoned Army Commander-in-Chief Brausch and Chief of Staff Halder and ordered them to immediately formulate a new battle plan based on Manstein's proposal.Although Brausch and Halder vehemently opposed Manstein's suggestion that its so-called secret passage was a crazy hypothesis that would expose the best of the German armored forces to a French flank attack and possibly lead to a global attack. The army is gone.But under Hitler's pressure, the two army chiefs caved.As a result, Halder, Chief of the Army General Staff, was ordered to redo the combat plan based on Manstein's suggestion.

On February 1940, 2, Hitler approved a new battle plan roughly the same as Manstein had envisioned.The German General Staff dubbed the plan "Operation Sickle".In the entire Wehrmacht, apart from Hitler, Manstein and himself, almost no one had confidence in this plan.

为实施挥镰行动，德军统帅部进行了周密的部署。投入西线作战的总兵力为136个师(其中包括10个装甲师、4个摩托化师)、2439辆坦克、3700架飞机，另有运输机600架。

On February 1940, 2, the German army launched an attack across the board from the Netherlands to France. First, it dispatched more than 25 aircraft to attack 3000 major airports in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, and wiped out hundreds of aircraft from the Allies on the ground. The airborne troops belonging to the group landed at strategic points in the rear of the Netherlands and Belgium, and seized important bridges, ferries, airports and defensive support points with lightning speed. The fortification of Eben Emaar, the fortress of Eben Emaar, enabled the main force of the German army to quickly pass through the Maas River and break through the Liege defense line.

On February 2, the German armored forces made full use of the violent bombing of the air force to plunge the enemy into extreme chaos and panic, broke through the Dutch defense line, and joined the paratroopers who were airborne in the capital Rotterdam. On the same day, the German army captured Rotterdam. The destroyer fled to Britain. On March 28, General Winkelmann, the commander-in-chief of the Dutch army, announced his surrender. From this moment on, Hitler with a mustache sacrificed his devil's sickle and waved it to Britain, France and the whole of Western Europe. (To be continued..)

〖∷Update fast∷∷Plain text∷〗