"Every hour, even every minute, a monster called war is devouring a huge amount of life. In the fortress area of ​​Lviv, the opponent's artillery consumes our manpower in pieces. And inside the fortress, the Austrians killed us little by little like a dull knife cutting meat! It was not until the end of the battle that we realized that we didn't know how to capture a modern fortress!" After the war, even the commander-in-chief of the battle, even the battle commander-in-chief Alekseev admitted that the attack on the fortress of Lviv was a failed move.&1t;/p>

At the same time, on the side of the Allies, the prince and his staff have been paying attention to the offensive and defensive battles of the Lviv Fortress, and there are also a group of tasks from the Western Front. General Farkinhan came to watch the battle as a representative of the Prussian military in order to accumulate experience in how to capture a fortress in the future. To be honest, in this plane, the German army did not have the experience of conquering a fortress established by a powerful country. Compared with a truly strong fortress, the Scarlet Fortress is just like that.&1t;/p>

Although there is no offensive and defensive battle in this plane (when the prince was in the Western Front, the German army broke through the two wings of the Verdun Fortress. The fortress faced the danger of being isolated, so the French chose to withdraw from the fortress area.) However, the French still established a solid fortress system in other areas such as Belfort. This made the German army on the Western Front a little tricky.&1t;/p>

After all, Fakinhan is the Minister of War and the General of Infantry, and he is also a veteran. So when the prince is free, he will discuss the views of both sides on the war with Fakinhan. In particular, the prince of this plane does not want to fight another battle similar to Verdun meat grinder. It consumes too much and is not worth the loss.&1t;/p>

"If possible, I hope the Western Front will not be born in similar situations to the Lviv Fortress Battle." The prince said to Farkinhan. "You must remember one thing, if you cannot achieve a decisive victory within a month, then stopping the battle immediately is undoubtedly the best choice."&1t;/p>

"Your Highness, what do you mean is that it is irrational to attack the fortress on the Western Front?" Farkinhan frowned. Although he realized the difficulties of the tough battle, he still thought that the prince's view was too pessimistic.&1t;/p>

"The battle of attack is similar to a war of attrition, but it is not a war of attrition. A simple trench attrition can achieve a very good exchange ratio through tactics and the quality of the troops. But the battle of fortresses is different! Even if you concentrate 3 times the force and 4 times the artillery, and even if you think you have blocked the other party's supply channel with artillery, you still have the possibility of failure in this battle! Especially on the Western Front, where the opponent's troops are extremely dense, the traffic conditions are very good, and you can support quickly. Believe me, Ma Jinhan, you would rather crawl in field trenches than try to capture a key fortress through a battle. This temptation is like an apple in the Garden of Eden. It looks good, but it is very fatal!" The prince said seriously.&1t;/p>

This is definitely not an exaggeration! On the Eastern Front, in history, the Russians could have captured the Fortress Przemier in four months, from November 9, 1914 to March 22, 1915. It took a full 133 days to capture the fortress without support without support. The battle was almost carried out under the best offensive and defensive circumstances, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was defeated for so long! What if it were the Western Front?&1t;/p>

"Don't believe in the advantages of troops and equipment in your hands. The facts prove that these things are not easy to use in front of the fortress area. First, the reason why a place wants to build a fortress must have a great geographical advantage. It may be condescending, it may be that it has strangled several roads, or it may be that the front is very narrow. In short, building a fortress in a certain place will definitely give the defense the advantage!"&1t;/p>

For example, the Verdun Fortress in history was next to the mountains and the front was very narrow. Before the Battle of Verdun, there were 4 positions in total, two of which were built on the northern branch of Mount Maas and the northeastern branch. It can be said that it is condescending and difficult to conquer. The first line is released and passes through the woodland. Moreover, the distance between the defense lines is very large, with sufficient depth to delay time and consume opponents.&1t;/p>

Looking at the entire fortress, all important positions and support points are in deep ditches, mountains or forests. The permanent fortifications and field fortifications are combined, and the defense line is more than 15 kilometers. Not to mention equipment, just this deployment has already won half of the French!&1t;/p>

It was not that the Germans did not know this, and they also made quite sufficient preparations for this battle. Before the battle began, the French army had actually transferred many fortress defenders and equipment to other areas. The fortress area was unprecedentedly weak, and the Germans also concentrated several times of their troops and equipment!&1t;/p>

Before the battle, the French had only three armies in this fortress area with an outer diameter of 45 kilometers and a 120 kilometers front defense front, which was divided into the east and west banks by the Maas River. Among them, two armies were stationed on the east coast, six divisions had 338 artillery pieces (including 152 heavy artillery pieces). One army was stationed on the west coast, two divisions had 294 artillery pieces (including 94 heavy artillery pieces). In the south of the fortification area, there were 3 divisions' reserves.&1t;/p>

And what about the Germans? In order to capture this fortress, they concentrated the most elite Fifth Army, commander of the German Crown Prince. They also drew 17 divisions from the reserves of the 25 divisions on the Western Front! If we look at the strength of the troops, the German army's strength is three times that of the French army!&1t;/p>

As for firepower, the German army concentrated 12oo artillery and 2o2 heavy mortars! And the number of heavy artillery is much better than the opponent! For example, among the 85o artillery deployed in the assault area, the number of heavy artillery is 49o! And there are 29 38ommm and 42ommm heavy artillery to support the operation! If we talk about the number of front-line artillery, the German army can use three times that of the French! In order to ensure the quality of the artillery, the Germans actually equipped the artillery with 168 gun-protecting aircraft and 14 observation balloons....&1t;/p>

In terms of offensive forces, the Germans also boldly innovated. Each battalion was equipped with an engineer company, and a brigade could be divided into a flamethrower company. In the main attack direction, there were a total of 39 engineer companies and 8 flamethrower companies additional strengthening, and subsequent divisions were also equipped with sufficient blasting equipment and explosives.&1t;/p>

In order to ensure the huge consumption of the battle, the Germans did a good job in logistics. The Germans invested 26 military engineering companies and 20 railway companies with a total of 20,000 people to build temporary railways, and each division was equipped with a field railway.&1t;/p>
Chapter completed!