Chapter 617 Cheap is not easy to pick up
Demal, Enver, and Talaat are known as the Three Ottoman Heroes. These three are also the masterminds of a series of genocides in the Ottoman Empire.
After the Balkan War, the Ottoman Empire finally began to face up to its domestic ethnic conflicts.
No one expected that the Ottoman Empire’s way of resolving domestic conflicts was not to introduce policies to alleviate them, but to carry out genocide.
In just two years, the Ottoman Empire used rebellion as an excuse to massacre at least 1 million Armenians.
The massacre of Greeks and Christian believers began at the beginning of the century, resulting in a total of about 1.5 million deaths.
What is particularly unacceptable is that these dead people were all Ottomans.
To attack the citizens of his own country so harshly, one can only imagine the caliber of the "Three Heroes".
After Gemal surrendered, Georgi came to Constantinople, hoping that George could hand over Gemal to Greece for trial.
“Yes, but not now.”
George agreed in principle, but would not hand over Jemal to Georgi now.
Gemal himself knows what he has done, so Jamal's surrender is conditional, one of which is that his personal safety must be guaranteed.
In order to reduce troop casualties, Yankov agreed to Gemal's request.
If George handed Gemal over to Georgi, Jemal would definitely die, and he would die in a miserable and ruined way.
Although this allowed the Greeks to take revenge, it would have a serious impact on the subsequent battles.
George comforted Georgi and waited until the war was over.
Georgi agreed, but asked that the Greeks be responsible for the guarding of Gemal.
George agreed to hand over Gemal to the Greeks for guarding. The only requirement was that he would not be killed by me.
Remember those people who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand?
Since those people were under 20 years old, according to the laws of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they could not be sentenced to death.
Princip, the gunman who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
After being imprisoned, Princip first had an arm amputated for health reasons, and was later diagnosed with tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis is a terminal disease in this era.
On the surface, the Austrians did not sentence Princip to death.
In reality, Princip's life would be worse than death.
Several of Princip's accomplices also died of tuberculosis, without exception.
As for whether he was infected in prison, it no longer matters.
After annihilating the Gemal Army, Yankov continued to advance towards the Ottoman capital.
It was the Ottoman Empire that was also unbearable to Fela, but the British once again exposed their true strength.
Unlike George, the British had laid out their plans in the Persian Peninsula a long time ago. In the 1908 Anglo-Russian reconciliation, one of the provisions divided the spheres of influence of the British and Russian empires in Persia.
After the Ottoman Empire declared war, the British army first launched operations in Mesopotamia. General Charles Townsend led 15,000 British and Indian troops to attack the Austrian army led by Noureddin Ibrahim.
Ibrahim’s army only had 10,000 men.
Faced with the British attack, Ibrahim showed weakness, defeated first and then won, and surrounded the British and Indian troops led by Charles Townsend in Kut.
Townsend organized several breakouts, but they were all crushed by Ibrahim.
The British reinforcements were also repelled by the Ottomans.
Townsend sent someone to contact Ibrahim, hoping to surrender in a more honorable way.
Ibrahim refused and ordered the British troops to immediately lay down their weapons and surrender unconditionally.
On March 2, the day after Cemal surrendered to Yankov, the British troops in Kut surrendered.
When Townsend surrendered, there were still 12,500 troops.
When George received the report, he was speechless.
Demeter reminded George that the British army seemed to be more dangerous than the Austrian army to the Russian army reinforcing Egypt.
George was convinced.
Don’t be afraid of opponents who are like gods, but be afraid of teammates who are like pigs.
So George sent a telegram to Yuri, commander of the First East India Army who was reinforcing Egypt, reminding Yuri not to believe any promises made by the British.
The First East India Army commanded by Yuri consisted of two divisions. Most of the soldiers were construction workers from East India, and the officers were Russians who immigrated to East India.
Almost all construction workers in East India come from Korea and Japan, and some come from East India and surrounding countries. They are more adaptable to tropical areas than Russians.
When he first got East India, George was still full of confidence and planned to immigrate 5 million Russians to East India within five years and build East India into the next Amur.
Now 15 years have passed and there are less than 1 million Russians in East Indies.
There are indeed many Russians who have been to East India, and there are indeed many Russians who have tried to settle in East India.
Many Russians who had purchased assets in East India fled after a winter.
Russian winters are long, cold and generally considered unsuitable for human existence.
East India has summer all year round. By Russian standards, it is also unsuitable for human survival.
The First Army of East India has a total of 36,000 officers and soldiers. Carden hopes that the First Army will go to the front line as quickly as possible to contain the Austrian attack.
The task given by George to Yuri is to guard the Suez Canal. The British army's operations have nothing to do with Yuri.
So Yuri refused to fight on the front line because of insufficient weapons. This is also true.
Since this year, Russia's weapons shortage has been greatly alleviated, and Constantinople finally has rifles in stock.
The rifles in Petrograd are still nervous, which is directly related to the successive defeats of the Russian army.
George felt flustered even after reading the battle report.
Loss of hundreds of thousands or hundreds of thousands can easily occur. Only the Russian Empire can bear such a huge loss.
Let’s not talk about weapons.
Although the empire's war potential is huge, it is not infinite after all.
Weapons captured by the Germans can be reproduced, but it takes 20 years for a soldier to grow up.
After the Second Battle of Lake Mazury, the losses of the Russian Empire since the outbreak of the war have exceeded 1.5 million.
How many more 1.5 million are there?
Those who are now being drafted into the army and willing to fight for the Tsar are the Tsar's base.
Sackville Carden was grateful for the arrival of the First East India Army, but was unwilling to replenish the weapons for the First East India Army.
Like the Russian Empire, Britain's weapons shortage has not been completely alleviated. Many newly recruited troops are also training with wooden sticks.
Britain must prioritize meeting the needs of the expeditionary force in France and has no weapons reserves in Egypt.
Since there are no weapons, Yuri has sufficient reasons to refuse to fight on the front line.
How can we fight without weapons? Should we spray the Austrian army to death?
Kaden hopes that Yuri will focus on Big Orange and first send armed troops to the front line to withstand the Ottoman Empire's attack.
At the same time, he promised to seek help from London as quickly as possible to replenish weapons for the First East India Army.
Yuri just haha.
When asking for help, you must have the attitude of asking for help. This is not acceptable.
"The Suez Canal is equally important to the Russian Empire-"
Carden reminded Yuri that if the Suez Canal is occupied by the Ottomans, then we are all finished.
“That’s why I came here, not Constantinople.”
Yuri concealed his true purpose.
Even without this incident, the First East India Army would not have gone to Constantinople, but would have landed somewhere in the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea coast.
Carden had no choice but to take out 5,000 rifles from the warehouse of the British Mediterranean Fleet and handed them over to Yuri.
With a gun, you can always fight, right?
No.
The Ottomans not only had rifles, but also artillery and war horses.
The First Army has nothing, so how can we fight?
While Yuri and Kaden were arguing, the British army was retreating steadily in the Persian Peninsula and was completely unable to stop the Ottoman army's attack.
Unlike the defeat of the British army, Yankov's attack on the Asia Minor Peninsula was overwhelming.
After annihilating the elite troops of the Austrian army, the Austrian army was on the second line. They were all newly mobilized recruits. They could only be used to bully the unarmed Greeks and Armenians. Facing the Russian The army is simply a piece of shit.
On March 13, Yankov defeated the Austrian 7th Army led by Ismail Enver in Bolu.
The 7th Army was hastily formed and had only more than 100 artillery pieces. It took Yankov only four hours to break through the Austrian forward positions.
Due to time constraints, the Austrian army had no time to construct a complete position, and the temporary position had no depth at all.
So after the Russian army broke through, a terrible rout occurred.
The weather has begun to get warmer in March. Since the Bolu area is a mountainous area, the snow melts a little later than in the plain areas.
The Austrian army's rout was disorderly. Enver did not even leave a rear guard behind, and the Austrian army dispersed almost in one fell swoop.
The traffic in the mountainous areas is very bad. The mountain roads are rugged and narrow, slippery and muddy. There is also snow in the sunny areas, which is as smooth as ice when stepped on.
Many Austrian officers and soldiers lost their footing and fell into the ravine during the retreat. Many more people had no way to escape because the roads were blocked, so they could only surrender obediently.
In just two days, the 14th Army destroyed 15,000 Austrian troops and captured 65,000 people.
Yankov was so weak in taking prisoners that the troops had to stay in the Bolu area for three days.
Georgi was disappointed because Yankov did not catch Enver.
This man is also one of the "Three Heroes".
It was probably the Russian army's rapid advance in Asia Minor that stimulated the British.
On March 17, just the day before the 14th Army arrived in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, British Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill sent the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps to land at Mersin to ensure that Britain's presence in Asia Minor and the Persian Peninsula interests.
What Churchill did not expect was that the British army faced not Cemal nor Enver, but Mustafa Atatürk.
In Churchill's view, the Austrian army, which had suffered repeated heavy blows from the Russian army, was at the end of its tether. All it took was a slight kick on the dilapidated house of the Ottoman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, the sick man of Europe, would collapse. collapse.
This is not the first creation of Churchill. This argument has been circulating in Europe for more than half a century. Since the 10th Russo-Turkish War, the whole world has been waiting for the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.
As the oldest empire, the Ottoman Empire has a history of more than 600 years.
There is a reason why it has remained standing for 600 years.
(End of this chapter)