For ordinary soldiers, their home, country, and world are too far away from them and have little to do with them. Only wealth and women can better stimulate their desires.
Especially for the cavalrymen of the Sultanate of Najd, they are generally uneducated and do not speak English. They can only charge in battle and numbly obey orders from their superiors. They cannot even exchange trophies, each worth ten pounds.
A gold pocket watch can be exchanged from their hands for only three to five shillings most of the time.
The road to Ankara is not smooth. It is piled with snow. There may be Ottomans lurking in the woods on the mountain waiting for an opportunity to attack the troops. You must be careful when fighting in the mountains. Sometimes gunshots can even cause avalanches. There are mountains on the cliffs.
The snow is so thick that I don’t even know where the edge of the road is. There is an abyss beneath my feet. If I step on the ground, I will be doomed.
Hank is now a standard colonial soldier. He orders the guide to walk at the front of the team, and the servants who monitor the guide are Hank's troops at the end of the team.
When passing through a mountainous area near Akaya, the troops were attacked by rebels. A rebel army with only a dozen people fired at the troops who were trekking on the ridge. Two guides were shot and killed, and one Najd Sudan
The soldiers of the national servants were injured, and the rebels seemed to hate the guides recruited by Hank even more. Most of the shooting was aimed at the guides.
Because the rebels were relatively far away and separated from the troops by a ravine, the troops were unable to attack directly. However, this did not trouble Hank. There were a large number of precision shooters in the Muscat Pirates, and the troops also carried them with them when they set off.
Equipped with heavy machine guns, mortars and grenade launchers, these are all powerful weapons against the rebels.
There were only a dozen rebels in total. They were hiding in the forest on the ridge opposite the ravine. The heavy snow gave them the best protection. The rebels also knew how to make use of the terrain. They also wore white clothes to increase confusion. From a distance, they looked like
There is no way to detect the rebels hiding in the forest.
However, this does not trouble the precision shooters of the Muscat Pirates. The precision shooters use Lee Enfields equipped with scopes and carefully adjusted. These rifles have high accuracy. At a distance of three hundred meters,
The impact points are distributed within a diameter of 15 centimeters. For future sniper rifles, this accuracy is still very rough, but don't forget that it is only 1915, and this accuracy is already very accurate.
In a snowy environment, due to severe sunlight reflection, ordinary people cannot find a target the size of a target at a distance of more than 100 meters.
This is not a problem for observers holding binoculars. It is unwise to look for muzzle inflammation when shooting in a snowy environment. Snowflakes stirred up by the muzzle airflow when shooting are easier to distinguish. The rebels do not understand this. They are looking for
The bunker was still very rough, and after the precision shooters launched a counterattack, the gunfire quickly became sparse.
It wasn't very dense originally.
At this time, the grenade launcher was finally ready for battle. Compared with precision shooters, grenade launchers were more efficient at dealing with such targets. The two grenade launchers fired more than a dozen grenades, and the gunfire stopped completely.
Several soldiers from the Najd Sultanate followed the guide around and brought back several Lee Enfield rifles that were badly worn and whose accuracy could not be guaranteed at all. There were nameplates on the butts of the rifles. These rifles were all produced in Nyasaland.
"We won't kill one of our own -" Major Marjorie frowned. Since the outbreak of the World War, accidental injuries to friendly forces have occurred from time to time. Similar tragedies have also occurred in the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force.
During the Battle of the Dardanelles, the attacking Anzac Corps was bombarded by the Mediterranean Fleet, which was simply possessed by the gods.
"No, these are all Ottomans. During the North African War, the Ottomans purchased weapons from Nyasaland. These Lee Enfields are probably the ones." Hank's eyes were blazing, and the rifling of several Lee Enfields was almost worn.
Ping, even in southern Africa, they are among the eliminated. The weapons equipped by the servant army are all eliminated by the regular army in southern Africa, and their quality is much better than this.
Relying on this kind of weapon, the rebels were able to hit people at a distance of more than 100 meters. Those rebels also had good shooting skills.
"Then shall we continue to move forward?" Marjorie felt relieved. It was normal for the British and French allied forces to accidentally injure friendly troops. If they were killed, they could only consider themselves unlucky. The murderer would not be punished in any way. This was a sign of war in itself.
part.
But if it is a servant army that accidentally injures a friendly force, the consequences can be big or small, mainly depending on the identity of the person who was accidentally injured. If it is also a servant army, the murderer will not be punished in any way. If it is a British-French coalition force, the consequences will be
It can be serious.
"Why move forward? We have been attacked. According to the order just issued by the headquarters, all Ottomans within ten miles of our location will be sent to concentration camps." Hank smiled cruelly, and within a radius of ten miles, all Ottomans were sent to concentration camps.
A circle of miles is about fifty square kilometers. Hank cannot do this at all and needs the cooperation of the local garrison.
"Then what are you waiting for? The nearest city is Akaya. According to the data, there are tens of thousands of people. It must be less than ten miles away from us." Marjorie laughed. This order from the headquarters is really in line with the frontline officers and soldiers.
Feeling satisfied, Marjorie seemed to see wealth waving to him.
A city with tens of thousands of people is not small in Asia Minor. Although the Ottoman Empire was founded 450 years ago, its economy is still very primitive, its industry is not developed, and it mainly relies on agricultural production. The population in the city is not large.
Only the rich and nobles lived in cities, while common people lived in the countryside.
When Constantinople was captured, legend has it that the occupying officers and soldiers, including the Second Cavalry Division, all made a fortune. The servants of the Sultanate of Najd did not catch the opportunity to make a fortune in Constantinople. Now the opportunity has come.
The garrison in Arkaya comes from the 15th Division of the Kingdom of Italy. The troops of the Kingdom of Italy are not good at fighting, but it is still suitable as a garrison. There is a battalion of the 15th Division in Arkaya. After knowing the purpose of Hank and Marjorie's visit,
, the commander of the garrison, Alejandro, was simply crazy with joy. When he first arrived in Akaya, he wanted to attack the rich people in Akaya, but there was no enough reason.
"It's hard to imagine that the people who are most hostile to us are the Ottoman civilians. The rich or nobles are more docile. They don't care who rules them, they only care about whether they can keep their property-" Alessandro fully cooperated,
The poor have nothing to lose, except their own lives, while the rich have more ties and worries, so they can only compromise.
But can compromise and compromise ensure the safety of your family and property?
Don't be naive. The Allies want to conquer the Ottoman Empire. Politicians care about national interests. The officers and soldiers of the Mediterranean expedition are waiting to make a fortune. Their houses in their hometowns need more decorations. Cyprus and Port Elizabeth need more workers. Beirut and Port Elizabeth need more workers.
The transformation of Damascus has also begun. It is impossible to make the enemy put down the butcher knife through humiliation, unless he is willing to give up all his wife, daughter and property.
"Then let's start. Follow the orders issued by the headquarters and put everyone in Akaya into the concentration camp." Hank's heart is as strong as iron. The Ottomans in Akaya are going to be unlucky. This is their inevitable fate after giving up resistance.
.
Don't blame Hank for being ruthless. It is the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that is winning now, so the Ottomans can only suffer the consequences. If the Ottomans win the final victory, then today's Akaya will be tomorrow's Los Angeles or Johannesburg. Then
At that time, the Allies would also not let the southern Africans off easily.
Considering that cleaning up the Ottomans in Arkaya was a poor job, Hank and Alessandro also divided the entire city. The central city of Arkaya belonged to Hank's troops, and the surrounding areas belonged to the garrison of the Kingdom of Italy.
Qiao Li's troops had no chance to get involved in Akaya, but the villages around Akaya were all owned by the servants of the Najd Sultanate. Everyone was very satisfied with the overall distribution result.
It was the Ottomans who were dissatisfied, but no one cared about them.
While a large number of Ottomans were being imprisoned in concentration camps, a fierce battle was raging thousands of miles away in Verdun.
After Pétain implemented the rotation of the frontline troops, the morale of the troops was greatly improved, and the officers and soldiers became more brave in the battle against the Germans, to the point of risking their lives.
You have to be brave. Now that the world war is going on, everyone knows that there is no way out. Killing the enemy is the only way to win. Those pacifists who opposed the war before the war have also given up their illusions. It has only been a year since the world war broke out.
Many, both sides involved in the war have suffered millions of casualties. This bloody feud can only be resolved by completely killing the enemy.
As time went by, the weather gradually became more favorable to the French army. Artillery shells fired by the French and German troops melted the snow and made the ground muddy, making the German offensive more and more difficult.
On the west bank of the Meuse River, there is a ridge called "Le Motte Ome", which means "dead man" in French. Pétain concentrated his artillery on the ridge and violently bombarded the German positions. The German artillery also
Being suppressed, the war situation became increasingly unfavorable to the German army.
At the end of February, more and more French troops arrived in Verdun. The top German army held a meeting. Kaiser Wilhelm II, Chief of General Staff Falkenhayn, and the commanders-in-chief of several army groups attended. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss
There was no need to continue the Battle of Verdun.
By the end of February, the Battle of Verdun had been going on for two months. At the beginning of the war, the French army suffered heavy casualties, and the German army sang a song of victory.
As the war progressed, the French defense line stabilized due to Pétain's efforts, and some sections of the defense line began to counterattack, causing German casualties to rise sharply.
By the end of February, the French casualties reached 121,000, and the German casualties were approaching 100,000.
(Scroll down for an explanation of whether any of Rock’s troops have been demobilized——)
