Chapter 156: Charles's Troops

Charles's troops were divided into two parts, each with about a thousand men, commanded by Estiny and Browne respectively.

They did set out from Charles' tractor factory, with tanks, sidecars, troops and ammunition all loaded onto a train bound for Paris.

But the spies didn't expect one thing: train carriages were easily replaceable.

The train entered the Paris train station, where the carriages were secretly divided into two parts and then hung behind different locomotives.

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

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

The landslide was artificially created to make everyone, including Joffre's headquarters, think that the troops would not arrive in time, so that they could not cause trouble.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on the train blocked by the landslide, and no one expected that Charles' troops had arrived at their destination and were deployed in an orderly manner.

Estiny was responsible for attacking the Andrusi area.

He rushed to the battlefield in a sidecar and looked in the direction of the enemy with a telescope. The enemy in front was not prepared at all. There were only a few insignificant barbed wires and wooden fences on the entire defense line. No one could be seen outside. Estiny guessed that the enemy should be hiding in the trenches.

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 he didn't hear that there were artillery reinforcements coming!

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

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

The infantry colonel was even more puzzled. What does this have to do with the Paris City Defense Command?

He went into the sentry post with doubts and answered the phone. Then his eyes widened and he looked at Estiny outside in surprise.

After coming out, the infantry colonel seemed to have changed into a different person. He was so nervous that he couldn't speak clearly:

"Are you...Charles' troops?"

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

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

"Colonel Estiny!" Colonel Klopp straightened his chest: "What do you want? I mean, how should we cooperate with you?"

"You just need to watch, Colonel Klopp!" Estiny replied coldly: "You don't need 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.

Estiny was not arrogant, but he knew that joint operations were not suitable for joining untrained troops. They would only turn joint operations into chaos.

Tanks drove up one by one, and with the rumbling sound of the engines, they lined up in a wedge shape in the rain to prepare for the attack.

There were not many tanks, a total of 36, the organization of a tank battalion.

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

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

To attack the enemy by surprise, you must use speed to defeat slowness. Every minute wasted will give the enemy one more minute of preparation time.

The tanks rumbled with infantry in the mud and water, and the tracks rattled, bringing up pieces of mud and water.

There were large and small craters everywhere on the ground. They were nightmares for CA-1 and "Saint Chamon", but they were nothing for tanks with fully enclosed tracks like "Mark 1".

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

Five hundred meters.

The tanks rolled over the rotting and smelly corpses left on the battlefield, and it burst out black and green liquids with dark red and black blood, and the air was instantly filled with a suffocating stench.

The soldiers were so choked that their stomachs were churning.

But they knew that this was a matter of life and death and they could not be careless, nor should they be affected by external factors.

Therefore, even if they were 120% unwilling, in order not to change the formation, they had to step into the filth full of flies and maggots.

Four hundred meters.

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

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

The war was about to break out...

Three hundred meters.

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

Estiny acted decisively 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 red in the rain and fell back into the trench.

The gunshots alerted the German soldiers, and they immediately popped up from the edge of the trench and raised their rifles.

However, they were obviously frightened when they saw the tanks suddenly appearing in front of them, so that the gunshots stopped for a while before they started.

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

Estini knew that those were German K-bombs, which could not penetrate the tank's frontal armor.

"Speed ​​up!" shouted Estiny.

The infantrymen who received the order waved the signal flag several times in front of the tank's observation hole, and the tank made a "rumbling" sound and started to move forward at full speed.

It didn't take long for the German artillery shells to come over. It was a German 77MM caliber artillery. There were only a dozen rounds. Most of them landed behind the tank, and only a few landed near the tank.

Estini secretly said that it was a fluke that the German 105MM howitzer was deceived by Charles into the La Forks area, otherwise the loss would be inevitable.

At a glance, he saw several soldiers falling to the ground after being hit by stray bullets. Estini shouted: "Hide behind the tanks and maintain the offensive line!"

Now is not the time to jump in and shoot. This move is tantamount to seeking death under the enemy's intensive firepower!

It wasn't until the tank crushed the barbed wire to the ground and approached the German defense line for more than thirty meters that Estini 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 the grenades from their waists and skillfully threw them towards the enemy's defense line with all their strength.

Some soldiers also took a short run-up behind the tank and then threw it. Their movements were natural and coherent. The grenade crossed the tank in a graceful arc and was thrown into the enemy's trench. It was obviously not the first time they had done this.

Although the German soldiers did not know what was thrown at them, they still felt the danger and screamed and ran away.

"Boom! Boom..."

A row of rugged smoke rose up from the trench in a burst of explosions. The French soldiers shouted and rushed over the tanks with rifles with bayonets in their hands!

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