In order to ensure this large-scale counterattack possessed “impact,” the staff officers of the Britannian Expeditionary Force headquarters deliberately placed those units that had just arrived in Gaul and hadn’t yet squatted in trenches on the front line.
Only these units that hadn’t yet experienced the bloodiness of the trenches could still maintain their impact after charging out of the trenches, instead of being timid and overly cautious like those veterans.
For Second Lieutenant Archibald of the Northumberland Fusiliers of the Holy Britannia Empire, this was his first “hunt” after setting foot on the European continent.
This young gentleman from Kent on the main island wore calfskin boots that had just been waxed before the battle, tightly gripped an exquisitely crafted Webley revolver in his hand, and his armed belt across his chest was polished until it was somewhat shiny.
Behind him were dozens of soldiers who were equally neat in appearance, even having the straps on their puttees tied perfectly.
They mostly came from rural or urban middle-class families on the main island, hadn’t yet seen how big the rats in the trenches could grow, and certainly hadn’t seen the tragic sight of human bodies torn open by artillery shells hanging on barbed wire like rag dolls.
“Gentlemen! Maintain formation!”
Second Lieutenant Archibald waved the revolver in his hand. As a symbol of Britannian officers, this weapon appeared particularly unique on the battlefield.
Although it allowed surrounding soldiers to better know the officer’s location, it was also “marking” key targets for the enemy.
It’s just that no Britannian officer would refuse this shiny silver weapon that could reflect their status.
Second Lieutenant Archibald tried his best to make his voice sound majestic and full of that defiant arrogance of traditional nobility: “The Saxons have been blasted to ashes! All we need to do is walk over and occupy it like taking a stroll in Hyde Park in the capital!”
No one doubted his words.
After all, the four-hour artillery bombardment just now simply seemed like it wanted to overturn the earth’s crust, making the ground beneath their feet as soft as a pot of overcooked oatmeal.
At this moment, the winding defense line in the mud opposite was deathly silent; not even a single gunshot rang out.
The Britannian soldiers just stepped across the crater-pitted land like this. Some even stepped into huge craters because they were walking too fast, falling flat on their faces and drawing a burst of suppressed laughter from their surroundings.
“It seems the Saxons have all gone to see God.”
A sergeant whistled easily, holding a rifle with a fixed bayonet, and swaggered close to the dilapidated barbed wire.
Closer.
Fifty meters, thirty meters, twenty meters…
Second Lieutenant Archibald could even clearly see the scorched black earth blasted and rolled up at the edge of the opposite trench.
Everything was going too smoothly, so smoothly that it made him feel this war might really be as the newspapers said, the Saxon Empire was already at the end of its rope.
As long as the main force of the Imperial Expeditionary Force arrived, they would be smashed to pieces like eggs hitting a rock.
It’s just that this Second Lieutenant obviously ignored one problem.
If this war was really as the newspapers said, with the expeditionary force winning successive great victories and the enemy unable to withstand a single blow, then why did the expeditionary force retreat all the way from Arras to Rouen?
Just at the instant the first row of soldiers prepared to cheer and jump into the trench, the Grim Reaper finally snapped his fingers.
“Da-da-da-da-da-da—!!!”
A rhythmic, dull sound came from the front, and soon rang out simultaneously from multiple directions.
The veterans in the ranks immediately realized this was the sound of machine-gun fire.
It’s just that compared to that dense firing sound before, the sound of heavy machine guns this time was obviously much sparser.
The veterans immediately hunched their bodies, carefully observed the front, and then finally saw the muzzle flashes when the machine guns fired.
These were semi-buried concrete bunkers that survived the artillery bombardment. At this moment, they were like venomous snakes in the roadside grass awakened by being disturbed, finally bearing their fangs.
The carefully designed firing ports were exactly half a meter above the ground, instantly forming an extremely vicious crossfire network.
Most of the heavy machine gun positions exposed on the surface, even if reinforced with concrete, were destroyed under the bombardment of high-impact magic crystal shells.
And those firing now were the semi-buried bunkers located between the first firing trench and the second parallel trench.
These bunkers, also constructed of concrete, consisted of two levels: above ground and underground.
The above-ground part was a semi-buried concrete bunker that could simultaneously accommodate a heavy machine gun team and five infantrymen firing.
And in the underground part, there were reinforced troop shelters dug out by fortification engineers, stocked with ammunition, food, and fresh water, capable of accommodating company and platoon-level units to station.
Coupled with the fact that the Britannian Expeditionary Force’s artillery bombardment was mainly targeted at the first trench, the area between the first trench and the second trench didn’t suffer much bombardment.
So these bunkers also survived and started strafing the Britannian Expeditionary Force soldiers as they rushed out of the gunpowder smoke.
And the Saxon soldiers hiding from the artillery bombardment underground in the bunkers were now also led by their respective officers, charging toward the first firing trench along the hidden underground communication trenches…
In the expeditionary force’s attacking ranks, the sergeant walking at the very front didn’t even have time to retract that whistle before his entire body was hit by multiple heavy machine gun bullets.
He fell like a rag doll, splashing blood mixed with fragments of internal organs spilling like splashed ink onto Second Lieutenant Archibald’s shiny polished boots.
The originally neat attacking formation instantly collapsed.
The mainland soldiers without any cover were like harvested wheat in the face of crossfire, falling in swaths.
Screams, curses, and the muffled sounds of bullets drilling into flesh intertwined, instantly drowning out the heroic rhetoric from earlier.
“Get down! Everyone get down!”
Second Lieutenant Archibald rolled and crawled into a crater. That exquisite peaked cap had long flown to who knows where, and his face was full of foul-smelling muddy water.
He raised his head in terror, looking at those hidden bunkers continuously spewing tongues of fire in the distance, his mind completely blank.
This was different from what he learned in the military academy! And also completely different from what the superior officers said before the battle!
“Charge through! Don’t stop in place! Stopping means death!”
But Second Lieutenant Archibald at least knew one thing—at this time, it was a battle of will; they had to charge into the Saxons’ trench, otherwise, when the other side reacted, they would be used as targets in No Man’s Land.
These Britannian noble officers, including him, also showed their courage at this time, taking the lead one by one to lead the teams jumping into the first firing trench.
And the first batch of soldiers closely following them also forcefully charged through the heavy machine gun blockade and jumped into the trench one after another.
“We’re in! We’re in!”
Second Lieutenant Archibald’s back slammed heavily against the cold, wet mud wall. He panted heavily, his heart about to jump out of his throat; what surged into his heart was a kind of ecstasy of surviving a disaster.
As long as they reached the trench and had cover, they could calmly continue to attack!
“Quick! Set up guns! The Saxons are going to counterattack immediately!”
He wiped the mud off his face and shouted to the soldiers beside him: “We must hold this trench!”
Hearing his words, the expeditionary force soldiers scrambled to find firing positions.
However, the next second, everyone froze.
Because this trench seemed to have quite a few differences from the trenches they built themselves…
Normal trenches, to facilitate the defenders’ shooting, would have stepped “firing platforms” dug out on the side facing the enemy.
Soldiers standing on them could just lean on the edge of the trench to open fire, and there would also be a platform for storing ammunition at chest level.
But the problem was, these firing platforms were facing the Britannian position.
The trench wall facing the Saxon position was at least a head taller than this side, and it was built straight and smooth, without any structures that could assist climbing.
This meant that the Britannian soldiers who jumped in were like falling into a huge beast trap.
If they wanted to shoot outward, they had to cling to the slippery mud wall like monkeys, or step on their companions’ shoulders—and this was highly likely impossible to do.
“These damn Saxon barbarians…”
Second Lieutenant Archibald looked desperately at that high wall, finally understanding why there were fewer Saxon soldiers in this trench than they imagined.
Because this was a trap, a grave pit specially used to bury the “victors.”
Just after Second Lieutenant Archibald and the others realized they could only continue to attack along the narrow communication trenches, several hidden tunnel entrances deep in the trench were violently kicked open.
Dozens of dirty, disheveled Saxon soldiers rushed out like evil spirits.
They first took down multiple expeditionary force soldiers with “bang-bang” gunfire, then didn’t even reload their rifles, just charging up with bayonets fixed.
And some soldiers who had lost their bayonets pulled out sharpened entrenching shovels, heavy pickaxes, and that kind of homemade wooden club studded with iron nails.
Leading the way was an older sergeant major. He didn’t even wear a helmet; a dirty bandage was wrapped around his bloodstained head.
He didn’t say a word, swinging the entrenching shovel in his hand with its edge ground like a blade, and directly hacked at the Britannian soldier closest to him.
“Crack!”
That young private who didn’t even have time to raise his gun had a burst of blood mist erupt from his neck, and his head slumped limply.
“Kill!!!”
The narrow trench instantly turned into a slaughterhouse.
This was not a gentleman’s war at all; this was the most primitive, most barbaric hand-to-hand combat.
No tactics, no command, only teeth biting throats, fingers gouging eye sockets, shovels splitting skulls.
Second Lieutenant Archibald was frightened stupid by this bloody scene.
He raised that beautiful revolver, trembling and wanting to pull the trigger, but a small hand covered in mud suddenly reached over from the side and fiercely gripped his wrist.
The sudden severe pain made Archibald scream, and his pistol also dropped into the mud.
He turned his head in terror, meeting a pair of bloodshot, emotionless gray eyes.
That was a young Saxon private, who looked quite a bit younger than him, but that face had a beast-like ferocity.
The other party didn’t have any hesitation, headbutted his nose bridge, then pulled out a short knife from his waist that seemed to be used for cutting meat, and stabbed fiercely into the lower abdomen of this Kent gentleman.
Warm liquid flowed down his thighs, and the light in Second Lieutenant Archibald’s eyes rapidly dissipated.
In the last moment before his consciousness disappeared, what he saw was not glory, but that gray sky, and that young “barbarian” who was pulling the knife out of his stomach.
But the resistance of these Saxon soldiers was ultimately futile because there were simply too many Britannian soldiers pouring into the trench.
They were like a flooding river breaching a dam; even if the water flow in front was smashed by the reefs, the huge waves behind would still mercilessly crash up and finally submerge the reefs completely…
More than ten minutes later.
The first trench finally became completely quiet.
This place had already become a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. The yellowish-brown mud was dyed black-red, and severed limbs and shattered internal organs could be seen everywhere.
Although the Britannian Expeditionary Force paid a heavy price, they finally gained a foothold.
But immediately after, the main artillery group and railway guns behind the Saxon position, which had been silent for days, finally opened fire.
The whistling shells flew over the three trenches and finally landed on the side of No Man’s Land closer to the Britannian position.
The continuous artillery bombardment not only killed a large number of Britannian soldiers who were in No Man’s Land but also formed a “wall of fire,” cutting off the second echelon soldiers further back.