The three battlefields of the Eastern Front, the Western Front and the Isonzo River are interrelated. One move affects the whole body, and changes in any one battlefield will trigger a chain reaction.
To be specific, the Eastern Front is divided into the Northern Front, where the Russian Empire and Germany confront each other, and the Southern Front, where the Russian Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire confront each other.
The Western Front was also divided into Verdun, dominated by the French army, and the Somme, dominated by the British army.
The battle on the Isonzo River will continue, and the Kingdom of Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire will be unable to open a new battlefield before the winner is decided.
The calm in the Balkans is very strange. After the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Austro-Hungarian Empire jointly defeated the Kingdom of Serbia, they did not expand their results in the direction of the Balkans.
The territory of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans was divided between the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy. After the fall of the Kingdom of Serbia, the Kingdom of Italy and the Russian Empire were unable to open a new battlefield, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not dare to attack the Balkans.
If the Kingdom of Bulgaria and the Austro-Hungarian Empire drive away the troops of the Kingdom of Italy and the Russian Empire entrenched in the Balkans, they will have to face the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force occupying the Asia Minor Peninsula. Guess what will happen then——
Rock didn't even expect that the deterrent power of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force was so great. It's no wonder that Haig was obsessed with the troops in the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force who were good at fighting.
Also in mid-May, the British War Department secretly sent a new weapon to France to prepare for the upcoming Battle of the Somme.
This new weapon is the legendary "special mobile water tank" prepared to be sent to Russia. It also has many alternative names, including: Land Cruiser Water Tank Water Tower.
Before the outbreak of the world war, Rock promoted tanks produced by Nyasaland Military Industrial Group to Winston.
But the price of Nyasaland tanks is too expensive. For the British Army, which lacks funds, tanks are obviously not as economical as rifles. However, a series of military weapons produced in southern Africa are indeed easy to use, so under the leadership of the Ministry of War
, Britain began difficult research on tanks.
Compared with Nyasaland's "Ranger", the British tank is absolutely huge. It is 30 feet long, eight feet wide, eight feet high, has a crew of eight, and is equipped with two Hotchkiss Navy six-pounders (57 mm).
) rapid-fire guns, four vehicle-mounted large-caliber heavy machine guns produced in Nyasaland, weighing an astonishing 28 tons.
Considering the level of the engine at this time, the "water tank" weighing 28 tons can only creep forward at a speed of four kilometers per hour under the most ideal conditions.
The weirdness of the British is undoubtedly revealed in the design of the tanks. British tanks are actually divided into male and female. The male tank is the one just stated. The magnetic tank changes the rapid-fire gun to a heavy machine gun. This is probably from Nyasaland.
Inspired by armored vehicles.
Some of Nyasaland's armored vehicles are equipped with vehicle-mounted large-caliber heavy machine guns and some are equipped with 40mm grenade launchers to adapt to the needs of different situations.
Compared with Nyasaland, which has accumulated thousands of "Rangers", the British "Water Tank" has only produced 49 units so far. During the process of arriving at the front line, 31 units experienced various degrees of malfunction.
Only 18 tanks participated in the battle.
After Roark knew this situation, he could only do nothing. The stubborn British were as stubborn as the rocks in the pit. The "water tank" developed by the British cost more than Nyasaland's tanks. Now it is estimated that the British are too.
Riding a tiger but unable to get off, they always have to be beaten to death in the face of reality before they learn to change.
In any case, the wheel of history does not depend on individual will, and the Battle of the Somme broke out as expected.
Before committing the ground troops to attack, Haig ordered the artillery to bombard the German positions on the front of the Somme for five days. Haig had 1,500 cannons in hand at this time. On the 18-mile-long British Expeditionary Force front, an average of
An artillery piece joined the battle at 17 yards. The day after the bombardment started, it also started to rain on the Somme. It rained heavily for three days at a time. No one knew how long it would last, so the bombardment was suspended and was not resumed until three days later.
The artillery of the Expeditionary Force fired 1.5 million rounds of artillery shells at the German positions. By the time the infantry units went into attack, it was already June 7. The artillery bombardment reached its climax on the morning of the attack. A total of 200,000 rounds of artillery shells were fired. Every square meter of the German positions was
A ton of shells fell.
Not surprisingly, there were more than one group of shells with problems. Quite a few shells did not explode. Some people estimate that at least one-third of the shells were duds. Most of the shells that exploded normally were shrapnel, which could not penetrate German bunkers.
, the post-war investigation report stated that the Irish should be responsible for this, because the Irish in Dublin held the Easter Uprising in April, and it took the British government a week to suppress the uprising. The post-war investigation report believed that the Irish people in Dublin were responsible for this.
The uprising affected Britain's domestic military production.
This conclusion was unacceptable to the Irish, but it was a relief for Rock and Winston, because of this report, neither Rock nor Winston had any responsibility.
Due to the strong opposition of the Anzac Army, the British Fourth Army was the main offensive division. The commander was Henry Rawlinson, who had been fighting in France since the outbreak of the World War. Inspired by the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force and the German Army, he had his own ideas about infantry and artillery coordination.
understanding.
In Henry Rawlinson's vision, infantry and artillery coordination should be carried out in a perfect way, rather than the messy offensive line of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. Before the Battle of the Somme was launched, Henry Rawlinson organized troops to practice formations.
In Henry Rawlinson's order, the attacking British troops should line up in a neat formation, and the distance between the soldiers should be as close as possible, because this will give the soldiers a sufficient sense of security. The soldiers of the Fourth Army were all soldiers after the outbreak of the World War.
The newly recruited soldiers have not yet adapted to the French battlefield environment.
In addition to the soldiers being as close as possible to each other, Henry Rawlinson required the attacking troops to set off at a constant speed at a predetermined time, and to maintain an equal distance between the teams. "The attack must be like a wave, one wave after another, never ending."
The speed must be one hundred yards every two minutes, neither faster nor slower, following the barrage formed by the shells, so as to create continuous pressure on the Germans.
It's hard to say whether the Fourth Army's attack put enough pressure on the Germans, but it gave the German machine gunners enough opportunities.
Because too many shells failed to explode, the machine guns on the German position were almost undamaged, and the barbed wire fence in front of the position was not even completely destroyed.
Before the Fourth Army launched its attack, observers noticed this situation and issued a warning to the headquarters, but Henry Rawlinson ignored it. Haig had done some work in the past few months. He ordered the troops to dig 11 holes under the German positions.
Tunnel, trying to replicate the advantages of the British Expeditionary Force in the new autumn offensive. The British Expeditionary Force laid 700 miles of telephone lines before the war. In order to prevent damage from bombardment, these telephone lines were buried underground. This is indeed
It works to a certain extent, but once the line is interrupted, it also brings huge difficulties to the communication soldiers who brave artillery fire to repair the telephone line.
In addition to telephone lines, the British Expeditionary Force also laid 120 miles of water pipes to provide sufficient water to frontline troops. 400 aircraft were also deployed to the airport to form 20 aviation wings, most of which came from the UK.
, this was Kitchener's last act of trust for Haig.
In the previous agreement between Kitchener and Rock, Southern African pilots were only used for home defense and would not participate in France's war. In order to support France, the War Department had to train a large number of pilots. These pilots were all truck drivers, and they had some skills.
Regarding the basics of driving, it is easier to become a pilot than a novice with no experience.
At 7:20 in the morning on June 7, Haig ordered the detonation of explosives buried under the multi-faceted fort on Hawthorn Ridge. The violent explosion caused the water of the Somme to commotion as if it were boiling, and rocks on the ground flew up to 100 feet high.
, a mountain of smoke and dust appeared at the explosion site.
Contrary to Haig's expectation, neither the five-day shelling nor the explosives planted in advance had the desired effect.
The problem with the quality of the artillery shells was one reason, and the strong fortifications built by the German army before the war was another reason.
While the British Expeditionary Force was working hard to prepare for war, the German troops were not idle. The German position on the Somme River on the other side of the British Expeditionary Force consisted of three trenches. The width of the entire defense line was more than five kilometers. Below the position, the German army built a deep
The 30-foot underground city consists of a series of reinforced concrete caves and corridors for hiding soldiers. The underground city has electric lights, running water, and a ventilation system. Unless it is directly hit by a large-caliber artillery shell, it will not be harmed at all.
The positions built by the German army were so complete that even if a small section was occupied by British troops, the German army could seal off this section of the "underground city" and use phosgene to kill the British troops who invaded the bunker.
Phosgene is the latest research and development result of the German army, replacing chlorine as the poison gas used by the German army.
After a violent explosion, the officers and soldiers of the British Fourth Army left their starting position, formed a neat and dense formation according to Henry Rawlinson's requirements, and attacked the German position at a constant speed of one hundred yards every two minutes -
This is simply not like an attack. It seems more appropriate to describe it as a parade. The attacking British troops thought that no one could survive such intensity of shelling and bombing. They had no idea what they were about to encounter. A British
The officer told his men: You don’t need to carry rifles, just carry canes. When you board the German positions, you will not find any living creatures, not even a living mouse.
The first day of the attack resulted in 60,000 British casualties, of which 20,000 were injured. This was the darkest day in the history of the British army.
(The real chapter 818 is here, brothers, don’t dislike it——)
