Chapter 520: Chapter 520: The Failure That Cannot Be Acknowledged
Colonel Albert was riding his horse, and as soon as he charged out of the trench, he was terrified by the sight before him.
Blood and corpses were everywhere. Infantrymen, with bayonets fixed, charged forward in waves like ants. They howled as they stepped over the bodies of their comrades, only to be pierced by the dense rain of bullets, leaving holes in their bodies.
Blood splattered, and screams filled the air.
Some were shot through, clutching their wounds as they fell to the ground, crawling and wailing for help.
Others were hit in the head, their skulls exploding like watermelons, spewing out shocking streams of colorful fluids.
Some had their arms blown off, kneeling down in disbelief as they picked up their severed limbs, seemingly wanting to reattach them.
...
The dense bullets still swept across the battlefield like a sieve, deciding life and death not at the hands of the Germans, but by an invisible hand suspended in the air.
Colonel Albert didn’t dare hesitate. Urging his horse to accelerate, he shouted to his men behind, "Advance!"
Having experienced the Boer War, he knew the cavalry’s advantage lay in their speed.
Only with speed they could evade the enemy’s aim; otherwise, a horse and rider presented a perfect target.
Colonel Albert kept his body as low as possible. Bullets whizzed past his head and body, and he could even feel the gust and the heat from them.
In the intervals while controlling his horse, Colonel Albert looked up to observe the direction from which the bullets were coming.
To his shock, he discovered that the German position, initially believed to be rubble, had somehow turned into several strongholds.
The enemy’s firepower was staggered.
The front row was the lowest, gradually ascending along the slope into three or more trenches. Each trench layer had countless machine guns wildly firing, creating a three-dimensional tier of bullets pinning down the advancing troops.
The entire front line, stretching dozens of kilometers, was like this, acting as the scythe of death, manically reaping lives.
This is wrong, thought Colonel Albert. Charging into the enemy’s gunfire is sheer suicide.
We should stop!
Colonel Albert turned and shouted to his men, "Retreat, immediately..."
Before he could finish, a volley of bullets struck Colonel Albert’s horse.
The horse, running at high speed, gave a miserable neigh and fell to the ground, rolling over with its immense momentum. Colonel Albert was violently thrown off, but his left foot got stuck in the stirrup and he couldn’t break free.
A dreadful scream.
Colonel Albert’s left foot was brutally torn off, twisting at an odd angle under his body, while the other end was still pinned under the horse’s corpse, devoid of feeling.
The excruciating pain nearly made Colonel Albert lose consciousness. Gritting his teeth, he retrieved his revolver from his waist, looking at the horse beside him, which was spewing blood and gasping heavily. He stretched out his trembling left hand, gently stroking its mane, comforting it in broken sentences:
"It’s okay, you were brave. You did your best!"
"You did well!"
...
With a gentle press of the gun barrel to the horse’s head, a "bang" sounded, blood splattered, and the horse exhaled its final breath, collapsing limply like a deflated balloon.
Colonel Albert looked around. Bullets fell like rain, cavalrymen were shot down one by one along with their horses, and many frightened horses caused chaos by charging into the infantry lines.
No one will come to save me, thought Colonel Albert. They have too many to save; they’re overwhelmed.
With this in mind, Colonel Albert struggled to raise his revolver to his head, using his last bit of strength to pull the trigger!
...
In the semi-buried shelter behind the front lines, Haig watched everything through his binoculars, his face solemn.
Haig was very surprised by the Germans’ resistance. At this moment, he realized one thing: the command had seriously misjudged the German defensive line, which was far from being the ruins they had imagined.
At this moment, the correct action should be to immediately halt the attack, reassess, and formulate a feasible plan or cancel the unrealistic one.
However, the boast had already been made; doing so would be tantamount to admitting defeat, to admitting his own command mistakes, and that he was less capable than Shire.
Especially the last point, "less capable than Shire," was absolutely unacceptable.
What tanks can do, cavalry must also accomplish—they had to!
Haig gritted his teeth and ordered, "Orders to the troops, continue the attack!"
"Yes, continue the attack."
The ominous sound of whistles rang out, and another batch of British soldiers climbed out of the trenches, shouting as they charged the enemy.
Unlike before, this time the cavalry and infantry attacked together, launching a rapid assault along the side of the enemy’s line by the River Somme, attempting to break through.
However, it was all in vain.
Both cavalrymen and their horses, made of flesh and blood, stood no chance against the steel rain of bullets.
After a few volleys took down the first rows of horses, their bodies formed barriers, preventing the following cavalry from advancing at speed.
Then, another wave of bullets, another wave of bodies, repeated endlessly.
The obstacles grew more until the ground was impassable.
Telegrams poured into Haig’s hands like snowflakes:
"The cavalry can no longer advance unless the bodies are cleared from the path."
"The enemy is well prepared, showing no signs of ammunition shortage."
"We cannot attack this way; it’s pointless!"
...
But Haig turned a deaf ear to it, picking up the phone to call Nivelle.
"What’s the situation?" Haig asked.
"Not good," Nivelle stammered. "The German firepower is much stronger than anticipated. We have suffered huge casualties."
Nivelle couldn’t comprehend how the Germans still had such firepower after a week of continuous shelling!
How did they do it?
Haig wasn’t thinking about how to avoid these casualties; he worried more about the news reaching the media.
"This is a military secret, understand?" Haig said coldly. "It must not be disclosed, or it will affect public confidence in victory and hence the troops’ morale."
"Understood, General." Haig’s words echoed Nivelle’s thoughts.
As long as they eventually made progress, even a small step, they could prove their attack plan was correct.
As for how many fell, that was the soldiers’ concern, not theirs.
(Note: The concealment of casualties from The Battle of the Somme is a historical fact. On the first day alone, there were over 60,000 casualties, but the British and French media remained silent about the slaughter, only publishing an optimistic and positive report in the Daily Express two days later, claiming victory on the Somme battlefield.)
After hanging up the phone, Haig stared at the map for a long while in a daze.
Without waiting for his staff to speak, he ordered coldly again, "Prepare for the next attack!"