Chapter 675: Attacking Charleroi
I have something to do today, so I only have one chapter. Sorry.
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After the Paris incident, Charles flew to Namur that morning.
It must be said that the closed cockpit gave Charles great convenience. He slept during the few hours of flight, and ate some cakes prepared by Camille for lunch after waking up.
According to Camille, there were a lot of food sent by neighbors at home, but Charles did not intend to touch it, nor did he let Camille and Deyoka touch it. Instead, he asked Laurent to distribute the food to the guards, all of it.
These foods were not trivial when supplies were scarce.
Although the guards had expanded to a regiment at this time, and the things that could be distributed to each person each time were not much, it was also a considerable fortune in the long run, so the guards were all grateful to Charles.
However, this was actually because Charles was worried that the spies would poison him and his family.
This was not difficult. The source of the gifts was too complicated, and it was possible to send a time bomb.
From this perspective, Charles thought it was a good habit to give gifts to the guards. This will make the spy realize that poisoning or tampering with the gift will not work, and it is not only useless but may expose himself, so he will not choose to do so.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, the plane landed smoothly at Namur Airport.
Charles took a car and arrived at the headquarters more than half an hour later.
This is one of the disadvantages of setting up the headquarters in Namur Castle. Namur Castle is located on a hill, and it is difficult to build a temporary airport for takeoff and landing.
Tijani is busy in the command, telegrams and documents are flying all over the sky, and staff are running back and forth, as if a battle is going on.
Charles knows why, and he has issued an order to Tijani, who is responsible for the preparations for the penetration of the Ardennes Mountains.
Of course, this is confidential, and only Charles, Gallieni and Tijani know it.
All the staff know is that the next target is Charleroi, and everything they are doing now is to prepare for attacking it.
Seeing Charles coming in, Tijani stepped forward and saluted and took him into the meeting room.
"Albert I implemented a wartime rationing system in Belgium." Tijani sat in front of Charles with a thick stack of documents, and said jokingly: "He said everything should be done according to French standards, but everyone knows that the 'France' he mentioned refers to 'Charles'."
Charles smiled slightly.
Belgium and the Netherlands maintain logistics trade, and the port of Antwerp receives supplies from all over the world. People here are not yet at the point where France is starving.
Albert I did this more to suppress the capitalists who were ready to move in the country through the wartime rationing system.
Of course, there was another intention: to try to improve the food of Charles' troops.
Tijani handed the documents to Charles one by one, and said casually: "This is the change of equipment of the First Armored Army, this is the reconnaissance situation in the Ardennes Mountains, and the strength and deployment of the German army in Charleroi..."
Charles opened the documents and checked them one by one.
The change of equipment of more than 20,000 people in the First Armored Army was very smooth. Except for the submachine gunners, the infantry basically replaced the German G98 and K98 rifles.
They were original rifles captured from the German army, and 400,000 were captured in the Hasselt penetration alone.
Albert I selected 30,000 rifles in good condition and handed them over to the First Armored Division.
Twenty thousand of them were used for equipment, and the other ten thousand were used for supplements.
(The two pictures above are G98 and K98 respectively. G98 has reliable performance and higher accuracy, but the gun body is too long and not convenient to use in trenches, so the gun body was shortened and K98 was developed in 1908)
The smooth replacement was also thanks to the shortcomings of the Lebel rifle. Most soldiers found it difficult to adapt to its center of gravity change, so they had no objection to the replacement of Mauser. Instead, they were happy to accept it because of Mauser's excellent performance.
The only ones who had objections were the more than 2,000 people in the Tijani troops who had been equipped with the "Garand" rifle. They were used to semi-automatic rifles, and now it was a nightmare to go back to using bolt-action rifles.
"Many people have doubts about the change of equipment." Tijani said: "They don't understand why we should switch to German rifles at this time, and we don't have unacceptable supply problems."
Tijani didn't know how to explain. He couldn't tell the soldiers that the troops would be inserted from the Ardennes Mountains.
Charle gave an excuse: "We seized a large number of German rifles and ammunition but couldn't use them, but there was a shortage of ammunition in the country."
Tijani raised his eyebrows.
This is the only explanation, although it is still a bit far-fetched.
Charle just casually flipped through the reconnaissance situation in the Ardennes Mountains. It was just a matter of opening mountains and blasting roads.
Not long ago, Charles also asked Marc to modify and assemble an engineering vehicle: using the chassis of the "Charle A1", adding a bulldozer to become a bulldozer, or adding a few booms and pulleys to become a crane.
With these equipment, the speed of building roads and bridges will be much faster.
"How do you plan to attack Charleroi?" Charles closed the file and looked at Tijani.
This is the issue that Charles is most concerned about at the moment.
Tijani raised his chin towards the document and answered:
"The Germans in Charleroi only have two infantry regiments with more than 5,000 people. Do we need to consider how to fight?"
"I heard that they are ready to surrender and even deserters have appeared."
"I believe that as long as our troops get there, the Germans will abandon the city and flee!"
Charleroi is an isolated city, and a considerable number of the German troops stationed there are retreating deserters with low morale.
Once the First Armored Army of Charles approaches, they are likely to lose the will to resist and flee.
However, Charles asked back: "General, where do you think they will escape if they abandoned the city?"
Tijani replied: "Of course, it's evacuation to the mountains..."
Tijani suddenly realized his mistake, he stared at Charles blankly, and then showed an awkward smile on his face.
Another meaning of the German army's withdrawal to the mountains was that many people would hide in the Arden forest.
The plan of the First Armored Army was to intersperse along the Arden forest.
This made the German defeated soldiers think that the First Armored Army entered the forest to chase them, so they fled all the way.
In the end, the interspersed plan of the First Armored Army is likely to be brought to the German army in advance by these defeated soldiers, resulting in the failure of the entire plan.
Tijani stared at the map for a while and said in embarrassment: "But we can't seem to stop the Germans from escaping into the mountains..."
"The 6th Army, General." Charles interrupted Tijani's words: "The Germans in Charleroi thought we would attack with the First Armored Army, but we surrounded the 6th Army and entered the forest first Cut off their back path.”
Tijani immediately understood and hit the other side with another move.
And it was found a perfect excuse for the troops to enter the Arden Mountains. At that time, the infantry of the 6th Army would be able to enter the forest first to pave the way and build bridges for the First Armored Army.