Chapter 620 The fight begins
Ferdinand is in his prime, and even if Elizabeth has a chance, it will be a long time later.
George's top priority is to win this war for the Russian Empire -
Speaking of the Russian Empire.
Even George did not notice that after Polis became king of Bulgaria, his feelings towards the Russian Empire had quietly changed.
After the marriage of Polis, Catherine and Anne did not return to Amur immediately. Anne accompanied George in Constantinople, and Catherine was waiting to have her grandson in Adrianople. The family seemed They all forgot about Amul and were happy and reluctant to miss Shu.
Annie is okay. Wherever George is, Anne is.
Ekaterina's feelings have completely shifted from Amur to the Kingdom of Bulgaria.
Amur is just George's fiefdom.
Bulgaria is a kingdom belonging to the Yuriev family.
These are completely two concepts.
After learning the whole story of the Second Balkan War, Catherine felt very aggrieved by her eldest grandson and asked George to help Boris recover the money that the Kingdom of Bulgaria lost in the Second Balkan War. territory.
To ensure the stability of the Balkan Alliance, George will definitely not do this.
But George will not wrong his son. He will safeguard the interests of the Kingdom of Bulgaria as much as possible within his own capabilities.
After confirming this, Bosnia and Herzegovina has nothing to do with the Kingdom of Serbia.
Even further, when Peter dies, it is hard to say whether the Kingdom of Serbia will exist.
Brushinov spent the past winter preparing for an attack on Bosnia and Herzegovina.
As soon as George signed the 11th Army's combat plan, Brusinov couldn't wait to launch his army into the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
After the Battle of Belgrade, Conrad did not reorganize the Sixth Army and the Eighth Army, but the newly established Ninth Army was used to defend the direction of the Kingdom of Serbia.
Falkenhayn returned to his penalty position. After all, he could not just watch the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so Brusinov faced not only the Austrian Ninth Army, but also Otto von ·The German 14th Army led by Bülow.
The 14th Army was composed of 6 German divisions, and the Austrian 9th Army was composed of 7 infantry divisions, a cavalry division, and an artillery division.
Since almost all divisions of the Austrian army were understaffed, the troops commanded by von Bülow only had 200,000 men, which was also a huge gap from Brusinov.
Von Bülow's advantage was that he could organize the defense using the defense lines built by the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the war.
However, this line of defense was not stable because Conrad almost never considered defense before the war and focused solely on offense, so the line of defense was not perfect.
Von Bülow knew very well that Brusinov would launch an attack once spring arrived, so von Bülow spent the whole winter building defenses.
On April 5, 400,000 Russian and Bulgarian troops, under the command of Brusinov, launched an attack on the German-Austrian coalition.
Almost on the same day, the Russian coalition forces, under the command of Vasily, also launched an attack on the Mackensen Army.
According to convention, the Russian army's attack also started with artillery bombardment.
In the artillery battle last winter, the Russian artillery performed well, causing huge losses to the German and Austrian forces, and once forced the Austrian army to the point of abandoning its position and fleeing.
The condition that Falkenhayn agreed to send more troops to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was that all front-line troops must obey the command of the German commanders, and the Austrian generals were in a subordinate position.
Conrad also didn't want to hand over command.
However, the situation was stronger than the people. After considering everything, Conrad accepted Falkenhayn's request.
The news spread back to Vienna, and the old emperor's patience with Conrad finally reached its limit, so Conrad was dismissed and sent to Isonzo to deal with the Italians.
Luigi Cardona was still very tenacious and launched the Second Battle of the Isonzo River in February this year.
This time Cardona finally regained some dignity, occupied a small city, defeated the 20th Austrian Division, and caused 45,000 casualties to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
However, generally speaking, the battle lines have not changed significantly, and both sides are still in a state of anxiety.
This attack finally allowed the Allies to regain some confidence in the Kingdom of Italy. It seems that the Italians are not to be bullied by everyone.
It’s not that Italians can’t fight. The key is whether they want to fight or not.
In North Africa during World War II, an Italian army wanted to surrender to the British army, but was rejected by the British army.
Providing surrender but not being accepted is the most direct humiliation to Italy.
The Italians, who knew their shame but became brave, took the initiative to attack the British army and defeated the British army.
This time the British army finally accepted the surrender of the Italians. Also in the Battle of Volgograd in World War II, the Italians became the only Allied force to break through the encirclement. During the breakout process, Italian soldiers even engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Soviet army.
Miraculously, the Italians won again.
So the Italians have similar personalities to the Russians. Unless they are forced into a desperate situation, the Italians will not know how much potential they have.
Vasily still attached great importance to Mackensen. The artillery bombardment and air force bombing lasted for three full days before ground troops were launched into the attack.
The German position was greatly damaged. Mackensen commanded the troops to launch a counterattack in the ruins. In order to repel the Russian attack, the German army once again used poison gas bombs during the battle.
This time the Russian army was prepared. All soldiers participating in the attack wore gas masks, and the attack was not affected by the poison gas.
What Vasily didn’t expect was that the Russian armored fighting vehicles, which were not stopped by the poison gas, were helpless against the poor traffic environment.
In order to prevent the Russian army from attacking, Mackensen dug an artificial lake in the upper reaches of the Tisza River and created an artificial flood when the Russian army attacked.
Vasily was caught off guard and lost 60 armored fighting vehicles.
60 armored fighting vehicles, almost equivalent to half an armored division, made Vasily heartbroken.
Due to the surge in the river water, the Russian offensive was forced to stall, which gave Mackensen the opportunity to reorganize the defense line.
Similar to Vasily, whose attack was frustrated, Brusinov's attack was also not smooth.
Due to his absolute superiority in strength, Brusinov ordered his troops to launch a full-scale attack on the German army from Serbia and Montenegro.
Von Bülow was experienced and participated in both the Masurian Lake Battles. Von Bülow won Falkenhayn's trust with his outstanding performance in the two Masurian Lake Battles, so he came to Bosnia.
Faced with Brusinov's superior force attack, von Bülow did not fight head-on, but fought and retreated, hoping to lengthen the supply line, disperse Brusinov's forces, and find Brusinov's loophole.
In order to prevent the Russian army from relying on war to support war, von Bülow also implemented a fortified wall and cleared the country. All water sources in the retreat area were polluted, and all residents were evacuated. Von Bülow even ordered the burning of residences in the retreat area to avoid Used by the Russian army.
Facing such an opponent, Brusinov felt very uncomfortable. He couldn't find a good way for a while and could only push forward steadily.
George was not in a hurry, and while patiently organizing logistics, he reminded Brusinov not to underestimate the enemy and step into von Bülow's trap.
George was also very patient with Vasily. Mackensen became famous in the Battle of Warsaw and was equally difficult to deal with.
If the Russian army underestimates the enemy and advances rashly, the tragedy of the first Masurian Lake will definitely happen again.
Now the battles are all taking place in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although von Bülow's response is no problem, he still has to face pressure from Vienna. The old Austro-Hungarian emperor certainly does not want to see the Russian army in Austria-Hungary. The empire is wreaking havoc.
While Brusinov patiently dealt with von Bülow, the Russian Navy, which had been stationed at the Corfu Naval Base, under the command of Peter, launched an attack on the Austrian Navy huddled in the Adriatic Sea. .
After completing the combat mission of cooperating with the 14th Army, the three battleships of the Mediterranean Fleet returned to Corfu again to join the Baltic Fleet.
The fleet now commanded by Peter consists of five super-dreadnoughts and two dreadnoughts. The total number of warships is nearly a hundred, making it the most powerful fleet in the Mediterranean.
The four "Joint Forces" battleships of the Austrian Navy have also been put into service, but their combat effectiveness is questionable because the Austrian Navy has not been tested by war for 50 years.
Before the entire 18th century, Austria did not have a navy. It was not until 1867 that the Austro-Hungarian Empire established a navy.
In the Austro-Prussian War, the Austrian Navy defeated the Italian Navy in the Battle of Lisa. After that, the Austrian Navy never participated in the war.
In 1911, the first ship of the "United Forces" class, the "United Forces", was launched. Within the next two years, four battleships of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were successively launched and put into service. The home port was located in the southwest of the Istria Peninsula. Pula.
Pula is over 700 kilometers from Corfu and only 100 kilometers from Italy.
After the war broke out, the battleships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy did almost nothing and stayed in Pula. On the contrary, the submarines of the Austro-Hungarian Empire frequently attacked and made some gains.
A month ago, an Austro-Hungarian submarine sank an Italian Kingdom troop transport, killing 870 people.
The attack occurred within the British defense zone, thus triggering mutual accusations between Britain and the Kingdom of Italy.
When the Kingdom of Italy entered the war, the Adriatic Sea was divided into 11 defense zones. Britain, the strongest, was responsible for 4 of them, France was responsible for 3, Italy was responsible for 3, and Greece leased Corfu. After being given to the Russian Mediterranean Fleet, the Russian Mediterranean Fleet was also assigned a task.
Since Corfu is located at the entrance to the Adriatic Sea, the Mediterranean Fleet is only responsible for the defense of this area.
When the Kingdom of Italy entered the war, the reinforcements from the Baltic Fleet had not yet arrived in the Mediterranean. The Russian Mediterranean Fleet had to take care of the Ottoman direction, so it was not assigned many tasks.
After the arrival of reinforcements from the Baltic Fleet, the Russian Navy suddenly became the strongest fleet in the Mediterranean, which caused dissatisfaction with the Kingdom of Italy and France.
Both Italy and France hope that the Russian Navy will assume more regional defense tasks.
Peter didn’t want to defend, he just wanted to attack.
(End of this chapter)