1At the end of the 9th century and the beginning of the 20th century, western capitalist countries began to transition to imperialism, which resulted in a wide range of irreconcilable contradictions.

Think about it, too. The whole world is like a big cake. The cake ingredients in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania have all been divided up by western powers, but some powers are still eating small cakes, while some powers are still eating big ones.

Fist is the capital of speech. Whoever has a hard fist has the right to speak.

Naturally, I want to eat more when my fist is hard, so I clamor to share the cake, so both sides can only fight for the cake.

But if only two people want to share the cake, although they can only eat small pieces and can't afford to turn over the big waves, there are too many people who want to eat the cake.

In order to run away from others and let ourselves eat more, we can only unite with others, which is like the cake was originally divided among six people, but if three people run away, only three people will share the cake, and we will eat six more people anyway.

Similarly, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy formed a triple alliance against Russian Empire and France. Russia and France are naturally not fools. Since people form a team, they can't be stupid.

In order to fight against triple alliance, these two countries began to form a team, successively pulling Britain, Belgium and the United States into their own camp, and then forming an allied country against the Allies.

Now that the team is finished, let's fight.

So the world war I broke out, and the two sides officially kicked off.

One of the famous battles was the Battle of the Somme, with casualties on both sides exceeding 1.3 million. However, a strange phenomenon appeared at that time, that is, the German soldiers in the battle were shouting to the British soldiers: Don't come and die.

What's going on here? Let's take a look together.

German soldier: We are innocent. They attacked us from 1965438+February 2, 20061to1965438+February 200619. Germany and France invested more than 100 divisions, which opened at the gates of Verdun, France.

Of course, the meat from this meat grinder is the life of a soldier.

However, when the battle of Verdun was in full swing, almost at the same time, the banks of the Somme were not calm. This is a battle fought by the British and French allied forces in the Somme region of northern France in order to break through the German lines and repel them to the Franco-German border.

So from this perspective alone, Germany is passive, Britain and France are active, and even German soldiers can shout that we are innocent.

In this campaign, Germany invested 67 divisions, Britain invested 54 divisions and France invested 32 divisions. Of course, Britain and France are allies, which means that Germany has to face 2 1 more divisions than itself.

That doesn't seem shocking enough. Let's talk about specific soldiers first.

At that time, in Europe, a division was generally 6.5438+0.2 million (the military systems of western European countries are different, and 6.5438+0.2 million is the approximate average), which means that Germany invested more than 800,000 people in this war, while the British and French allied forces invested more than 6.5438+0 million people.

On both sides of the somme river, nearly 2 million soldiers are crowded here. What a spectacular scene!

In this battle, another extremely powerful weapon was put into the war, that is, the tank, the "Mark I tank" adopted by Britain, became a beautiful landscape at that time.

It was after seeing the power of tanks that both sides applied tanks to actual combat, which led to the death of millions of soldiers in this battle.

According to later statistics, there were nearly 420,000 British casualties, nearly 2 1 10,000 French casualties and nearly 630,000 German casualties, which means that there were nearly 654,380+0.3 million casualties on both sides in this campaign.

The somme river is almost dyed red.

British soldier: War is cruel, and we don't want to fight. As we have said, this battle was launched by the British and French armies to break through the German lines, but this does not mean that the German soldiers are innocent. On the contrary, it is the chief culprit in provoking the war after all.

Judging from the casualties on both sides of the war, it seems that Britain, France and Germany are both losing, but in fact it is not the case at all. There are so many British and French troops than German troops, with the help of tanks, but the casualties are similar. It is still a little shameful to say that the British and French Coalition forces are.

What is even more humiliating is that in this campaign, the British and French allied forces made great efforts and only advanced the position of 5~ 12 km. What is even more exasperating is that the allied forces of the two countries failed to break through the German defense line from beginning to end.

So, is Germany the winner of this war?

Of course not, because although the Germans resisted the British and French allied forces and even defeated the strategic objectives of the allies in this battle, it was only a battlefield, and the defeat of the Germans in the southwest front also made the allies gradually grasp the initiative of the war.

In addition, the war had a greater impact on Britain, because it directly led to the change of the British government cabinet, and David Lloyd George was appointed as the new British Prime Minister.

It is worth noting that after David became prime minister and reorganized the cabinet, a young man also entered the cabinet. He was the famous British Prime Minister Churchill in World War II. Of course, this is another story.

So from the British point of view, they don't really want to fight this war, but in the process of the rulers competing for interests in the name of the country, the lives of soldiers are just dirt after all.

Germany shouted to the British soldiers: retreat, don't come to die. In order to break through the German blockade, the British and French allied forces came and went in the Somme. It took several months for the bodies of British and French soldiers to advance 12 km to the German position. There are bodies everywhere, and everyone is tired. They all want to end this bitter battle early.

In fact, the positions of Britain, France and Germany are very close, and both sides can almost smell the aroma of each other when eating. After living together for several months, although the soldiers lived in different camps, they still got along well.

Especially seeing a familiar person fall down every day, this scene can easily make a person nervous breakdown.

When 1.3 million soldiers fell in succession in this battle, how many soldiers alive can withstand such an impact?

Therefore, in this war, the warring parties who can only fight to the death of World War I have produced feelings similar to "mutual appreciation."

So when the British soldiers had to obey the orders of their superiors to attack the German positions regardless of their lives, the German soldiers shouted loudly and advised the British soldiers to retreat quickly and not to die again.

However, in spite of this, the British and French soldiers rushed forward regardless. Although the German machine gunner didn't want to, he did not hesitate to pull the trigger when the British and French soldiers attacked.

On the one hand, it is an order, on the other hand, it is a favor. How should these soldiers choose?

Therefore, the somme river was also called "hell" at that time.

The Battle of the Somme was the battle with the largest number of participants and the largest number of casualties in the First World War, which was even more cruel than the Battle of Verdun, known as the meat grinder.

But even in the cruel war, we can still see the good side of human nature.

We are now living in peacetime, and that wartime can only be found in books. It is precisely because of the cruelty of war that we need to cherish the good life now, don't we?

References:

Battle of the somme, history of the first world war, etc.

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