The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 808 The newly bought tank was hit, hit
On the morning of July 1867, 7, the Karlsruhe-Rastatt Plain, located on the east bank of the Rhine River, on the weak flank of the Prussian army and only 14 kilometers away from Strasbourg, the supply center of the French Empire's Eastern Front, was shrouded in thick fog.

Marshal Vaillant, a favorite general of Napoleon III, stood on a makeshift wooden command platform, the lens of the gold-plated telescope reflecting the bronze gun barrels of twenty artillery battalions.

His staff officers held coffee cups and tapped their fingers on the map-covered tabletops in a slightly anxious rhythm. In the distance, three hundred and sixty 12-pound Napoleon bronze cannons were already in position, with their muzzles pointed obliquely to the east, waiting for the final order to fire.

"Let those unfortunate Prussians hear the roar of France!" Marshal Vaillant's words were full of pride - in his opinion, this was a great victory that would go down in history!

The wise and powerful French Emperor Napoleon III successfully predicted the military deployment of the Prussian General Staff. The Prussian Chief of Staff, Moltke, was obviously an office general who lacked military experience. He thought that Napoleon III would adopt a strategy of first letting the Austrian and Prussian armies consume their strength and then reap the benefits because he was afraid that the Austrian Empire would unify Germany. In fact, Prince Napoleon and Marshal Vaillant also thought so at the beginning. However, Napoleon III was too good at fighting, and he took the enemy by surprise. When General Moltke led the main force of the Prussian army to Bohemia to fight a decisive battle with Franz Joseph's Austrian army, he quietly concentrated more than 20 divisions and a huge army of nearly 30 people to launch a sudden attack on the Prussians' thin right wing!

According to reliable intelligence, Moltke was too superstitious about the role of trenches and barbed wire, and only deployed 12 divisions on his flanks. The Prussian army in Karlsruhe-Freiburg had only one army with about 4 divisions, and the defense was lax. They did not deploy tight defenses along the Rhine River. They probably did not expect the great emperor to launch an attack so quickly, so they were caught off guard and the powerful French army broke through the Rhine River in one fell swoop, and even took down the railway bridge on the Rhine River.
A decisive victory is just around the corner. The most glorious era of Napoleon's Empire is coming back!

"Boom boom boom"

Almost at the same moment, three hundred and sixty powerful bronze cannons spewed out orange-red fireballs at the same time, and the sound of shrapnel breaking through the air tore through the morning mist.

The one-hour long artillery preparation began!

The smoke clouds exploding from the Prussian positions in the distance looked like black mushrooms growing from hell. Wooden stakes wrapped in barbed wire were flying in the air, and occasionally one could see a Prussian pointed helmet blown away by the air waves.

The first wave of ten infantry divisions had already assembled. Each division was equipped with 5-8 "Emperor Chariots", and these steel behemoths were emitting a harsh steam hiss. Lieutenant Leclerc opened the hatch of the turret observation cabin and found that the pressure gauge pointer was shaking wildly in the red area. "Damn it!" he cursed, "This broken boiler will explode sooner or later. Is it worth 18 francs?"

Behind the tanks, French infantrymen in blue uniforms had formed dense rows. Each of them was in high spirits, carrying a Chassepault breech-loading rifle with a bayonet.

This scene is like Emperor Napoleon buying a tank!
When the bombardment of 360 bronze guns reached the 50th minute, red signal rockets fell in front of the Prussian positions that were overwhelmed by artillery fire.

This is the order for tanks and infantry to attack!

The drummer began to beat the rhythm of the Marseillaise, and the soldiers marched to the beat. Leclerc saw the track of a tank suddenly break, and the expensive riveted steel track was scattered like a toy. "Damn Saint-Etienne craftsmanship!" He cursed through gritted teeth, but the order had been given, and the attack must continue.

Fifteen kilometers away, in the Prussian army's underground bunker, the commander of the Fourth Army, Albrecht von Roon, was signing a telegram that was about to be sent with a fountain pen. In this headquarters converted from a former railway tunnel, the walls were covered with railway timetables marked with colored thumbtacks, and the troop transportation data for each track was accurate to the minute - it looked more like a railway dispatching station than a military headquarters.

“法军坦克集群坐标D7至F9，请求第3炮兵群交叉火力覆盖30分钟，开火时间是15分钟后！”副官将译电员抄写的纸条递给老将军。罗恩的鹰钩鼻几乎戳破纸面，他快速扫视着电报内容：“好吧，给第3炮兵群发电，让他们在15分钟后向D7至F9地区进行30分钟火力覆盖！”

At this moment, General Roan felt as if he was no longer a general, but a railway director.
The telegraph in the headquarters never stopped ticking, and the ticking sound turned into precise orders or the latest intelligence. The staff officers constantly adjusted the troop markings on the sand table based on the latest intelligence. Ron walked to the railway dispatch map and drew a circle on the Cologne-Karlsruhe railway line with a red pencil: "Let the 14th Division get on the train immediately, bring the engineering equipment for building the pontoon bridge, and arrive at the front line within three hours."

A young staff officer hesitated and said, "General, are we going to cross the Rhine? But the French tanks..." "Tanks?" Ron sneered and pulled out a test report provided by Krupp from the file cabinet, "25mm riveted armor? Our 4-pound gun can destroy it from 800 meters away!
In the artillery bunker at the front line, Lieutenant Paul von Hindenburg from Posen was crouching in a corner with his head in his hands, waiting for the endless French bombardment to end. This 20-year-old young officer was participating in actual combat for the first time, and the vibrations of the French artillery bombardment made his teeth chatter.

Corporal Adolf beside him tried to ease the tension, but his voice was obviously trembling: "Second Lieutenant, they said that our 4-pound guns can % destroy the French Emperor's Tank?"

Hindenburg did not answer because he was not sure.
At this time, the French bronze cannons finally stopped roaring, and Hindenburg quickly raised his telescope, lay down beside the trench and began to look out.

Through the telescope, the first "Emperor's Chariot" has already rushed out of the smoke. The 25mm riveted armor looks very strong from a distance, and the chimney of the tank spews thick smoke, as if it is a beast from hell.
"Hold steady." Hindenburg swallowed his saliva, "Wait until they are within 300 meters before opening fire."

Suddenly, the leading tank shook violently, and then tilted to the ground in a ball of fire - it ran over a nitroglycerin mine that the Prussian engineers had buried overnight. The steel behemoth collapsed and stopped moving, only the chimney on its back continued to spew black smoke.

"Fire! Aim at the broken tank!" Hindenburg's excited roar was drowned out by the roar of the shells being fired. Adolf's 4-pound gun fired a picric acid shell, accurately hitting the front of the tank four or five hundred meters away. The 25mm steel plate shattered like an eggshell, and various parts flew everywhere accompanied by the shock wave.
And as the tank was smashed, at least half of the people on the battlefield were dumbfounded!
That's it?

Is this the only capability of the tank that Emperor Napoleon just bought?
Can't even withstand a single Prussian shell? Isn't that too weak?

The battle was still going on. The sixty or seventy tanks that had been pushed onto the battlefield could not retreat just because one tank was destroyed. In fact, even if Marshal Vaillant ordered a retreat, the French tank knights on the tanks would not know because radio had not yet been invented! The marshal's orders had to be passed down level by level by horse-riding messengers. Before the order to retreat arrived, all the tank knights had to bite the bullet and charge forward.
"Damn it!" Tank Knight Leclerc cursed while maneuvering the tank forward.

Suddenly, Leclerc's tank shook violently - it had also hit a mine. The hydraulic steering rod in Leclerc's hand broke in the explosion, and his co-pilot's throat was pierced by the flying rivets. He died without even a scream.

No, you have to run quickly!
Leclerc had seen how a "Kaiser Chariot" was broken into pieces. He didn't dare to stay in the broken car any longer, so he quickly climbed out from behind the open cockpit. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he heard a loud noise behind him - under the bombardment of a 4-pound shell, the expensive steel-iron composite armor on the surface of the Kaiser Chariot was torn apart like paper.

Leclerc was knocked to the ground by the huge air wave, his eyes went black and he lost consciousness.

In the distance, Marshal Vaillant's gilded telescope fell to the ground. He watched helplessly as 4 "Emperor Chariots" were turned into scrap metal within minutes: some were flipped upside down by mines, and the fragments of the steam boilers caused heavy losses to the infantry following behind; some turrets were stuck and spinning in place, becoming live targets for the Prussian artillery to calibrate their firing; the worst ones fell into anti-tank traps, and the crew was blown away by a -pound shrapnel the moment they climbed out of the hatch.

The surviving tank rider, Captain Dupont, tore off his gold-rimmed military cap, tore off the "Mechanical Knight Medal" awarded by Napoleon III and threw it into the burning wreckage of the tank: "What a piece of crap! The tank we just bought was hit and it's all broken."

At this moment, eight red flares were raised behind the Prussian army. The salvo of 3 6-pound Krupp breech-loading guns under the command of the rd Army made the sky glow red. The "shrapnel rain" of picric acid shells fell and exploded like the scythe of the god of death, sweeping across the dense French army. The elite French infantry in blue uniforms and neatly lined up were swept down row by row.

Even though they were veterans of the Crimean War, the Franco-Austrian War, and the Mexican Expedition, they were as vulnerable to Prussia's industrialized killing machines as the emperor's new chariots.
Marshal Vaillant was trembling all over and his face was full of disbelief when he saw all this. It was not until the Prussians blew the charge that he turned to the communications officer and said in a hoarse voice: "Send a telegram to Paris: The newly bought tanks were hit, hit, and they were all destroyed before they even got close to the enemy's barbed wire."

(End of this chapter)