Chapter 578 Christmas Attack

Charles felt the gap.

He suddenly became a powerless and insignificant person from the center of attention.

The officers still respected Charles, including Gamelin himself.

After all, Charles was the one who defeated the German army repeatedly and saved countless lives. He also had assets that could rival any capitalist in France, as well as countless inventions and industrial property rights.

Ordinary people could reach the pinnacle of life with just one of these, but Charles had everything. His genius was so enviable that people were crazy.

However, they in the command center were just being polite to Charles.

"Give me a copy of the review list!"

"Sorry, General." The staff officer replied, "We are busy with training, and we have only been here for a few days. We have not had time to compile a review list."

"What about the confinement list?"

"That was all improvised." The staff officer replied, "Most of them were released after a few days of confinement, and there is no list either."

"Then let's go to the confinement room to take a look."

"General." The staff officer looked embarrassed, "We suspect there are spies among them, so no one can contact them during the interrogation, otherwise..."

Otherwise, there will be suspicion of collusion with spies.

The staff officer answered flawlessly and without any hesitation, obviously an excuse that had been thought of long ago.

However, Charles was not worried, he was confident that he could break this deadlock.

The parliament was too naive. They stayed in the office all day and didn't know how cruel the war was. They naively thought that they could fully control the army, and the army was at war, just by relying on power.

...

The next afternoon, Charles sat alone in the conference room drinking coffee.

Since everyone wanted to isolate himself, he might as well keep quiet. Since coming to this world, Charles seemed to have never been as free as he is now.

But this is not true.

Charles was giving Weygand a chance to approach him alone.

Sure enough, Weygand came in with a document soon. It was a list of officers, which Charles, the commander of the army group, should know.

Weygand pretended to flip through the list to introduce it to Charles, but whispered: "Prime Minister Briand gave the order himself, and the commander-in-chief also has spies from the parliament!"

Briand?

He usually hides behind the parliament, but now he actually gave the order himself.

Charles was not unfamiliar with this name. Joffre's backer was Briand, which was one of the reasons why Joffre could stay in the position of commander-in-chief for so long despite having made no achievements in the army.

In the end, Joffre stepped down because he could not suppress it or the cost of suppressing it was too high. He thought it was not worth making such a big sacrifice for Joffre alone, so he was abandoned.

"What should we do?" Weygand asked, which was also the question Foch wanted to ask.

Charles replied calmly:

"Christmas is coming soon. In order to avoid the previous 'truce incident', I think we should launch an attack."

"But because the mutiny has just ended, we should reduce the intensity of the attack."

"Therefore, the combat goal should be mainly 'training', rather than capturing enemy positions or killing enemies."

Wei Gang frowned for a long time and didn't understand what Charles meant. What does this have to do with the current situation?

Charles said to himself: "Send what I said to the commander-in-chief, he will understand what I said."

Charles is not suitable to send a telegram directly to Foch. Although Charles has his own communication team and radio station, they are likely to have been monitored.

Wei Gang is just right to be a mouthpiece.

"Yes, General." Wey Gang responded.

At this time, he saw someone coming in from the corner of his eyes, and his tone immediately changed: "There are more than 130 officers above the rank of major. If you have anything to add, we will fully consider your opinion."

Charles said with disdain: "My opinion? My opinion is important?"

He pushed the roster in front of Wei Gang, with disgust on his face: "I don't need this, get out of my sight!"

"Yes, General." Wei Gang took the roster and walked out of the meeting room.

...

It was drizzling on the front line of the Somme River, and dense gunfire and artillery sounds were still heard on the north bank.

Since Charles led the 6th Army to push the defense line forward 5 kilometers, the situation on the south bank of the Somme has gradually stabilized.

This is not only because of Charles' victory, but also because the French army occupied several defense lines carefully built by the German army.

Reading the error-free version! 6=9+Book_Bar first published this novel.

Although these defense lines are not as good as the rear, they are far different from the trenches of the British and French armies.

Foch set up his headquarters here because the Battle of the Somme had not yet ended completely. The British troops on the north bank were still attacking the Germans, and casualties continued to increase.

The British attack was even more fierce than before.

Because Charles was able to advance the defense line 5 kilometers at the cost of more than a thousand casualties, while the British army suffered thousands or even tens of thousands of casualties every day but could not make any progress, which made Haig and even Kitchener feel ashamed.

This made Haig eager to see the results of the battle.

However, all he could do was to continue to increase the number of troops and constantly urge the soldiers to launch an attack.

Foch was not worried about these.

He sat at his desk and signed documents unconsciously, thinking about the 6th Army and Charles far away in Belgium.

Before, the parliament's "differential treatment" of Charles was still concealed, but now it was directly brought to the table from behind the scenes without even a fig leaf.

How should Charles break the deadlock?

If Charles was sidelined by the parliament, he certainly would not be able to continue to carry out anti-submarine warfare and remove the restrictions on supplies.

This means that Foch, the commander-in-chief, can only be a puppet of Britain.

Just as Foch was frowning and thinking hard about countermeasures, a staff officer handed a telegram to Foch and whispered: "Commander-in-chief, a telegram from Weygand."

Foch was stunned, looked around vigilantly, and saw that no one noticed this side before he took the telegram and nodded lightly.

He didn't even rush to read the telegram, but continued to sign the documents, even though he couldn't wait to know the content.

After the staff officer left, Foch threw the documents in his hand, pretended to take a break, and took a few telegrams to read casually.

He saw the message sent by Weygand: "Christmas attack, mutiny is initially determined, and a limited attack is launched with the purpose of training troops."

Foch pondered for a moment, then nodded slightly with a happy look on his face. This guy still has a way, and the parliament has met an opponent!

Foch glanced at the calendar on the table. It was three days before Christmas. He immediately shouted to the staff officer a few meters away: "Colonel Enes, draft a telegram to Paris. I plan to launch an attack on Christmas Eve, which will last for five days."

"But, General." The staff officer's face changed, and the others stopped what they were doing: "We have just recovered our morale. Launching a large-scale attack right away may cause a backlash..."

"I will explain to Paris." Foch interrupted the staff officer.