Of course, McMahon did not doubt his subordinates for many years. He also knew that his subordinates would not dare to cheat on such things. He was just intimidated by the number of artillery pieces that Prussia had.
Before the invention of aviation weapons, artillery was always the god of war. The most important thing about a country's military strength was the quantity and quality of its artillery.
France has always been one of the countries that attaches great importance to artillery construction. This is a fine tradition established by Napoleon I. When he swept across the European continent, he relied on his three-piece axe.
The artillery bombarded, the infantry fired steadily, and the cavalry outflanked! Just these three axes, due to his unpredictable use, caused countries all over Europe to suffer.
But Napoleon III obviously did not have the talent of his uncle. Before preparing for the Franco-Prussian War, this guy could be said to have completely clicked on the wrong technology tree!
Obviously they should invest heavily in artillery breech-loading technology, but they ignored this and invested a lot of money in the upgrade of rifles and heavy machine guns.
Of course, it is also possible that the Prussian breech-loading needle rifle during the Austro-Prussian War stimulated him, so he has been looking for a weapon that can defeat the Prussian army's tactics.
Unexpectedly, Bismarck was much more cunning than him. After the Austro-Prussian War, he immediately stopped the technological upgrades of rifles and heavy machine guns, and completely stopped this technology tree.
Instead, all limited funds were invested in the research and development of cannons, allowing Krupp to develop a new rear-mounted field steel cannon.
This kind of cannon has a fast rate of fire. After all, it is rear-loaded. Its rate of fire is four to five times faster than that of a front-loaded cannon!
Another point is that the pure steel cannon has good structural strength, longer range and more accuracy!
There were obviously only sixty Krupp steel cannons, but in actual combat there were actually two hundred cannons. The French commander did not know the details and really thought that the Prussian army was equipped with two hundred cannons.
As a result, McMahon once again miscalculated the enemy's strength!
"The main battlefield is indeed on my side! Your Majesty made a miscalculation. Your Majesty made a miscalculation. He was deceived!"
"Xiao Letian and Steinmetz staged such a scam. They tricked His Majesty into investing heavy troops on the Western Front. In fact, their main attack direction is on my side!"
"Damn...damn, what should I do..."
Just when McMahon was in a dilemma, suddenly the roar of artillery was heard in the distance. Prince Carl's vanguard finally appeared on the outskirts of Walter, and the armies of both sides suddenly fell into an artillery battle.
After walking out of the headquarters, McMahon climbed up to the tall wooden tower and looked at the distant battlefield with a telescope. At this sight, he knew that something was wrong.
"Sure enough, I was not lied to. The enemy's artillery is indeed over-equipped!"
Within his sight, his own forward position was covered in gunpowder smoke, clouds of explosions bloomed one after another, and the defensive position was in chaos.
The French artillery was also counterattacking, but they did not expect that the enemy's artillery range was far enough. As long as the French artillery position exposed its target, it would usually be suppressed by the enemy's intensive firepower in five minutes.
The French army, which was fighting hard, launched a tenacious counterattack. These veterans of the Northern and Southern War were not vegetarians. They crawled forward and took full advantage of the Saspor rifles to counterattack the Prussian army in the wilderness.
The French troops lying on the ground reduced their targets. They used engineering shovels to create horizontal shooting bunkers, and mounted their rifles on them to start counterattacks.
The overall quality of the Saspor rifle was slightly better than that of the Mauser. When the two sides began to shoot at each other, the Prussian army began to suffer a large number of casualties.
Facing the French counterattack, the Prussian cavalry regiment quickly attacked and soon strangled the infantry. Then the Prussian infantry charged forward and cooperated with the cavalry to stab the bold French troops to death one by one on the battlefield.
McMahon closed his eyes in pain and said excitedly, "We are outnumbered! There are too many enemies...Looking at the number of artillery equipped, the enemies are definitely far more than 100,000!"
"We cannot let the veterans of the empire die in vain... pass on my order to retreat while fighting, return to the Vosges Mountains, and assemble at Chateauneuf!"
The order to retreat began to be conveyed to various ministries. The retreat of a regiment of 30,000 to 40,000 people was not an easy task. There must be troops at the rear at the front to block the Prussian attack, and people at the rear had to take away the baggage and destroy the position.
Soon, thick smoke was burning in the command camps of various ministries. This was because the French army was burning various confidential documents and materials.
The logistics department was counting supplies. Important munitions had to be taken away, while some cumbersome food, tents, etc. were burned by fire.
Soon a fire broke out in the small town of Volta, and the retreating French troops even set fire to private houses.
Some engineers even rushed onto the railway bridge in an attempt to blow up the connection between the east and west banks of the Rhine!
At this time, the Baden garrison on the other side stopped working. Although these German soldiers were regarded as garrison, because they were fighting in their hometown, what they were protecting was the property of their hometown!
They fought bravely for their homeland without fear of life or death. Many of the French engineers killed in several charges were dead, and corpses were floating on the Rhine River.
In the end, the French army had no choice but to give up blowing up the railway bridge and turned south!
These Baden defenders took the opportunity to attack the west bank, and actually established a small defensive position on the west bank of the railway bridge, and finally protected this strategic location.
The 40,000-strong army retreated to the south like a bereaved dog. The army at the rear fought and retreated. The veterans used their lives to block the attack of the "100,000" army. They could not even take back the bodies of their comrades who died on the battlefield.
The Chinese military officers who were watching the battle on the edge of the battlefield were all dumbfounded. The knuckles of their fingers holding the telescope were pale.
"Oh my God! Why are these French people so reluctant to fight? Nearly 40,000 troops fought against 30,000 Prussian troops, and they were retreating steadily?"
"Is this the strongest army in the world?"
"Record all this and hold a summary meeting immediately after the truce. This battle was so interesting!"
The two thousand elites Xiao Letian brought were not just for going to the battlefield to kill the enemy, he also wanted to train these officers in actual combat skills.
Many military school students are assigned to various units of the Prussian Army. When there are combat missions, they also participate in the war. When there are no combat missions, they are students.
It is a rare opportunity for all officers and cadets to be able to personally observe this great battle that changed the pattern of Europe!
Ye Qiu and Pang Chaoyun were members of the night attack commando team yesterday, but today they turned into hungry military students.
This Battle of Walter taught them a lot of knowledge that was not taught in textbooks!
Click, click, click... The cameras brought by the officers and cadets recorded everything about the war, and these precious historical materials will be preserved in Chinese museums for a long time!
