Chapter 7 Hindenburg Line

The perspective of observers is often much more macroscopic and comprehensive than that of the parties involved, because they can see the shape of the entire battlefield.Carlson noted that the center of the Chinese line of defense had actually been lost due to Japanese artillery and air superiority, but the loss was inch by inch, which meant it was not enough to shake the whole. As a U.S. military officer with combat experience himself, Carlson was fully able to analyze why the Japanese army was ineffective in attacking.As far as the degree of fighting is concerned, the Japanese soldiers have nothing to say. Carlson even believes that there is nothing braver than the Japanese soldiers on the battlefield, which is even inferior to the Chinese soldiers.The crux of the Japanese army was mainly the lack of flexibility and creativity at the command level. The army was trained too rigidly. Soldiers would only fight according to a fixed procedure. When the procedure didn't work, they didn't know what to do.

The Japanese army's formula for attacking was the "one bomb, two bombs, three attacks".It's not that it's bad, for example, if the Seventy-Fourth Army doesn't build a solid position, it's actually effective.The problem is that they have already built protective bunkers and know how to repel your infantry after the artillery fire ceases. In this case, it seems a bit too brain-dead to continue to repeat "one bomb, two bombs and three attacks". Since modern times, Japan has been able to majestically rank among the Western powers as an Asian country because it defeated Russia in one fell swoop in the Russo-Japanese War.Once upon a time, Japan's military machine was also considered difficult to deal with by the West, but now Carlson has to say that the Japanese army is actually only third-rate-measured by European standards.

The third-rate Japanese army was able to show off its power in China, of course, because the Chinese army was even more inferior.Precisely for this reason, the tenacity of the defenders on the Songhu battlefield is also unbelievable, which fully shows that the Chinese army, which was originally weak in the eyes of the world, has initially possessed the ability to resist and even attack powerful enemies. How long the Chinese can last has become the focus of almost everyone in Shanghai.Carlson admired the tenacity of Chinese soldiers, but he did not think that the Chinese army could hold on for a long time.Among the Chinese troops participating in the war, the first batch of troops to fight were the German weapon divisions, which were the strongest in terms of the strength of the domestic troops at that time.Then came the elite main force like the Eleventh Division, and then came the fledgling secondary main force such as the 74th Army.The question is, what to do next?

Behind the Songhu defense line, new reinforcements are still arriving, but these reinforcements are obviously not the backbone of the defense.They are mainly recruits. Although the officers and soldiers are also full of enthusiasm for the war of resistance and the spirit of national self-help, their lack of experience and training is their fatal weakness.After all, war ultimately depends on strength to speak. Carlson was disturbed to see that young soldiers from various provinces drove to the front line with vigor, but within a few days, they were either bloodstained on the brown ground in late autumn, or lying in medical trucks disguised with tree branches. He was slowly sent to the rear hospital.

During this period, the number of Japanese army units that successively went to Shanghai to participate in the war had reached six divisions and one brigade, and they were equipped with a large number of artillery and tank units.At the beginning of the Battle of Songhu, the Japanese army did not fully understand China's defensive deployment in Shanghai. They only knew that the Songhu area belonged to the delta water network area, and it was inconvenient for heavy equipment to move, so they did not put too many heavy artillery on the battlefield at the beginning. In fact, the Songhu area was fully fortified before the war. From the river bank, embankment, side of the road, to villages, highlands, and even mounds, there were fortifications. Covering in the form of a bunker.With such a group of fortifications as the basis, as long as the garrison troops add more processing and dig the trenches a little deeper, a relatively strong line of defense can be formed, which is difficult for the Japanese light and medium artillery to destroy.Because the entire fortification system was constructed based on the opinions of German military advisers, the Japanese called it the "Hindenburg Line of Defense".

After suffering from the "Hindenburg Line of Defense", the Japanese High Command thought of adding heavy artillery. According to the report of the front-line combat troops, the existing road conditions in the Songhu Theater can completely use heavy artillery.In order to provide more effective fire support to the infantry, heavy artillery was the majority of the artillery units to reinforce Shanghai this time. On October 1, under the cover of superior artillery fire and tanks, the Japanese army broke through the land bridge and Liujiaxing positions, and the Chinese army gradually retreated to the Dachang line on the south bank of Yunzaobang.

Even so, the Japanese high command was not satisfied with the progress made on the front.At the beginning, the Minister of War (Lu Prime Minister) Sugiyama Moto once boasted to Emperor Hirohito that the "China Incident" could be resolved in only three months, but now that the Battle of Songhu has entered its third month, China's comprehensive resistance is not only Instead of weakening, there is an increasing trend. Top commanders are growing impatient. Iwane Matsui, commander of the "Shanghai Dispatch Force," issued a statement saying his troops would "punish the Chinese government and military." On October 7, according to Matsui's order, the Japanese army began to forcibly cross Yunzaobang.