introduction
The Tang Dynasty poet Cen Shan once described the scene of the desert march in the "Marching Horse River To Send Out the Division to the West", "The general Jinjia does not take off at night, the army marches in the middle of the night, and the limelight is like a knife face." Throughout the ages, wars have been cruel, and its emergence has meant the departure of countless lives and the brokenness of countless families. The contradictions between the various forces accumulate to the end, and usually rely on war to completely solve each other's problems. The winner can write everything, and the losing party will be suppressed to the lowest level of dignity and has no autonomy.
There were many reasons for the outbreak of The Second World War, among which the contradictions in Germany also intensified the formation of the war, and because it was unable to maintain the normal development of the country, it had to embark on the road of militarization of the national economy. This war, which involved almost all the countries, was an unprecedented large-scale war, lasting a long time and the final casualties were quite tragic. And the next thing to tell is the most brutal one in World War II. 150 people mysteriously disappeared and were found 3 years later still in the trenches, still carrying weapons. So what's going on?
01
Germany participated in both world wars, and after both defeats, it completely lost the opportunity to compete for the world's number one power, and brought indelible pain to many countries in the world. The scale of the First World War was slightly smaller than the second, when it was actually a struggle between two forces, the Allies and the Allies. Germany faced a menacing british and French country, and even so, Germany relied on blitzkrieg to quickly gain the upper hand in the early stages.
Unfortunately, with the input of troops from various countries, the war began to become stale, and Germany did not win as quickly as expected. In 1914, the war was still going on, especially on the western front of the European battlefield at that time, Germany and France formed a confrontational trend, no one could help anyone, only the roar of bombs and bullets every day, although the losses of both sides were not small, but the battle could not end quickly for a while.
02
Erich von Falkingham, then a German general, made a proposal for a strategy of intensifying attacks against France. As its own forces increased and its firepower became stronger, france had to increase its troop input if it did not want to lose. There was also a big gap in the number of soldiers between the two sides, and in the end it would only be France that consumed all its troops and eventually lost, and Germany won the battle. With the permission of the commander-in-chief, Erich von Falkingham chose the Verdun fortress on the Meuse Heights as a German point of fire and began the onslaught.
Verdun is very special in its geographical location, it is the most important road from Germany to Paris, and has always had the title of "Paris Key". So in 1916, the most famous Battle of Verdun broke out here, and it was also the most crucial turning point of the battle. After this battle, Germany slowly began to lose.
03
Germany wanted to occupy the town quickly, and France naturally would not allow this to happen, so the two sides continued to invest troops and weapons in Verdun, Germany alone sent thousands of fighters and tanks, and France also invested a lot of materials in this battle to resist. The two sides fought in Verdun for several months, from 21 February to 19 December 1916. It was also the most tragic battle in the First World War, with 250,000 deaths and more than 500,000 wounded, so it also earned the title of "Verdun Meat Grinder".
During this ten-month period, the French 137th Infantry Regiment died in order to defend France. In addition to those who died, a large number of soldiers went missing, and the bodies could not be found or the bodies could not be identified. For the 150 mysteriously missing people in this infantry regiment, the French formed a team to find their tracks in the third year after the end of the war. Eventually, investigators found that these people were not actually missing, but had been in the trenches, maintaining the state of fighting with weapons on their backs.
epilogue
According to the analysis of the surrounding environment, it may be that a bomb was encountered at that time, resulting in a large amount of mud being blown out to be buried, and eventually died in the trenches. It can be seen that the casualties caused by this battle are extremely heavy. Zhang Yanghao wrote in "Hillside Sheep Tong Cares for The Ancients" that "xing, the people suffer; death, the people suffer", in fact, no matter what the direction of the war, the ultimate victims are the common people. Therefore, all should cherish the hard-won peaceful life.