Wild North America 1846

Chapter 834 New Attack

The Tang Empire, which has a strong economic foundation, also showed its wealth in the supply of the expeditionary force to Europe. Not only did the officers and soldiers have sophisticated equipment, but they also had a fixed supply of cigarettes, chocolate and sugar every month to balance the nutritional needs of the soldiers. need.

In addition to higher standards for the supply of meat, eggs, and milk for soldiers, each soldier is also provided with a ration of canned beef, pork, and fish, one for ordinary soldiers per week.

The only restriction is to post whatever is available, there is no room for self-selection.

This is undoubtedly an extremely luxury on today's European battlefield.

A large number of people have begun to starve to death in Germany, and Austria and the Ottoman Empire are not much better. The supply shortage has reached an unbearable level, and even factory workers are going hungry.

After several years of tightening their belts to supply the front line, anti-war voices within the Allied military groups have gradually increased, and the string that has always been tight can be broken at any time.

Countries such as Britain, France, and Italy also suffered from starvation from time to time, but with the help of the Tang Empire's continuous import of supplies, the situation was much better than that of the German-Austrian Alliance.

What worried them most was the mounting debt, and more and more money owed to major consortiums in the Tang Empire.

Inside Xianshou Palace
this day

Emperor Tang Yezong of the Tang Dynasty, Lord Hu Yongtang, the wartime prime minister, and more than a dozen cabinet ministers and military dignitaries met with His Majesty, and they obviously discussed important state affairs.

Inside the hall

The Holy Emperor and Taizu Richard sat high on the Nine Dragon Treasure Tower, while the Emperor Tang Yezong sat on a slightly shorter dragon chair, with civil and military officials sitting on the left and right sides.There are also officials from the Royal Secretariat standing by, responsible for recording, transmitting and other matters.

Marshal Chen Qimei, Chief of Staff of the Royal Army, introduced the current European war and security war situation in various colonies, the current strength and deployment of the Royal Army, and focused on the autumn offensive that the European Expeditionary Force will launch in cooperation with Britain and France.

Marshal Chen Qimei is the eldest son of the former Rongguo Duke Chen Chuan. After his death, the second generation Rongguo Gong succeeded him. He has been practicing in the Royal Army for more than thirty years and is an out-and-out loyal commander.

After Balabala's introduction, seeing that neither the Holy Emperor Taizu nor His Majesty the Emperor expressed anything, he continued to introduce the plans of the Royal Army Staff Headquarters.

The Allies plan to launch a new round of autumn campaigns in more than two months. The main battlefields will be the Western Front battlefield, dominated by France, and the Southern Front battlefield, dominated by Italy.

On the Western Front

The main forces of the French and Tang armies will launch attacks across the entire front, with the British army as auxiliary. The purpose of the campaign is to counterattack the German army out of France and burn the flames of war into Germany.

The five years of war so far have clearly shown how unreliable such a campaign goal is.

The Allies' greatest dependence was the Tang Empire's expeditionary force, which was being continuously imported into Europe.

It is estimated that by the time the campaign is launched in September, the total number of troops accumulated by the Tang Empire in Europe will reach 9 million to 250 million.

On the Western Front battlefield alone, there will be more than 190 million people, which together with the British and French troops will be enough to launch a large-scale battle.The reinforcements from the Tang Empire also gave the Allied Headquarters sufficient confidence.

However, through war games, the General Staff Headquarters of the Datang Empire believed that even with twice the strength advantage, it would be difficult to break through the defense lines tightly guarded by more than 200 million German troops.

Unless you are willing to pay a huge price, which means millions of casualties.

Currently, the Imperial Expeditionary Force is in close consultation with the Allied High Command to discuss the necessity of launching this large-scale campaign.

most optimistic estimate

This may push the front a few kilometers or more than ten kilometers forward, but it will never defeat the strong will of the Germans or push the Germans back.

Regarding the Tang Empire Expeditionary Corps, they believed that the Allied High Command was too optimistic in planning the campaign.

On the Western Front
The total strength of the Allied Powers is indeed superior to that of the German army, but the German army is constantly mobilizing troops from the Eastern Front battlefield. It has been proven that more than 17 German divisions have been strengthened to the Western Front battlefield.

These are German veterans who have been tempered by five years of war. Their nerves are as tough as steel bars. They hope to defeat the Germans in one fell swoop. This is obviously too optimistic.

At this time, on the Western Front battlefield, after experiencing a series of large-scale battles such as the Somme and Verdun, the Allied and Central Powers armies paid an extremely painful price, but neither achieved the slightest strategic advantage.

The stalemate between the two sides left the generals on both sides helpless in front of the combat map.

The surviving soldiers of the participating countries could only endure the torture for years in the cold, damp and foul-smelling trenches. Extreme boredom spread widely among the major participating countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Austria.

The morale of the Datang Empire's expeditionary force, which newly participated in the war, was relatively good, while the morale of Britain, France and other countries had almost dropped to the bottom.

Especially the French army, once their superiors order a large-scale battle, they may immediately face a large-scale mutiny in the army. After all, no one is willing to die in vain.

Staying in the trenches is still bearable, but taking the initiative to attack means that you will suffer a lot of casualties. This has been proved to be an iron rule countless times in the five-year war.

Therefore, there was a fierce quarrel in the Allied High Command. The British had their own wishful thinking. They wanted France and Tang to be the main force, and the British Expeditionary Force to be the auxiliary.

The French army is definitely unwilling. Marshal Fu hopes that the main forces of Britain, France and Tang will join the battle to recover France's occupied territory as soon as possible and boost the national spirit.The Tang Empire Expeditionary Force is not willing to be taken advantage of, so it is working with the French to force the main force of the British Expeditionary Force to participate in the Autumn Battle.

On the other hand, the situation in Germany is not optimistic;
The Germans quickly woke up from the excitement of defeating Tsarist Russia, and they indeed won the victory on the Eastern Front.

After the Tang State joined the Allied Alliance and continuously sent a large number of troops to the western and southern battlefields, the advantage that the German army had finally won was instantly reversed.

Even if troops are removed from the Eastern Front, it will be difficult to gain an advantage in the balance of forces.

The current German economy is in extreme distress, and the supply rationing system has been implemented throughout the country for several years.

A strong German factory worker could only get 5 slices of bread and 5 grams of sugar a day, and a small piece of bad meat in name, but in fact not seen for a long time.

The supply of women and children has been halved, making it difficult to fill their stomachs with even this little food. Millions of people in Germany's cities and countryside are chronically hungry.

It is already a miracle that it can persist until now.

As for the southern battlefield planned by the Allied Headquarters, it really depends on the support of the Tang Empire.

In the 12th Battle of the Izzo River, the Italians were completely beaten back to their original shape by the German army. Now they have suffered from severe "Germanophobia", and it is the kind that cannot be cured.

If it were not for the second-line position held by the reinforcements of the Tang Empire, even the capital of the Kingdom of Italy would have been occupied by the Germans.

The purpose of planning the Central-Southern Front Campaign was to repel the German-Austrian Allied Forces, recover the occupied territory of Italy, and push the front back to the Izzo River area.

Today, on the southern battlefield dominated by Italy, the Tang Empire's military strength has reached more than 63, which is slightly more than the total number of Italian troops.

In the 12th Battle of the Izo River alone, the Italian army suffered a heavy blow from the German-Austrian coalition. The Italian army suffered more than 4 casualties, more than 21 prisoners, and nearly 30 people fled without a trace.

Almost 55 troops were wiped out in a cloud of ashes, while the German and Austrian allied forces only suffered casualties of more than 1.7 people and defeated Italy for hundreds of miles. Such a record is simply not worth looking at.

The equipment of hundreds of thousands of troops and countless arsenals and logistical supplies were all given to the German-Austrian Allied Forces, and the losses were extremely heavy.

Now, with the help of weapons and equipment from the Tang Dynasty, the Italian army has just recovered a little strength and is still in shock.

It's a blessing that such an army doesn't hold back. Do we still expect to contribute on the southern battlefield?
Richard frowned after hearing the report, but said nothing and made no clear statement.

For the time being, let the expeditionary force quarrel with the Allied leaders.Everyone wants to take advantage, so where can so many good things come from?

in his impression
It turns out that after June 1918 in history, the participating parties basically did not launch any large-scale battles. A large-scale battle involving millions of people was not just a casualty.

Take the Battle of the Somme as an example
The artillery bombardment preparations for the opening of the war included fierce bombing for seven days and seven nights, and millions of artillery shells were fired at the German positions, but the effect was not very good.

The German positions have established complete anti-artillery bunkers, coupled with barbed wire, various trap bunkers, heavy machine gun positions, and artillery positions, the defenders can completely turn a 1500-meter range into a hell of death.

That's really who goes and who dies. Tanks and planes can't break this strategic deadlock.

On the border between Germany and France

In addition to the mountainous Ardennes region, the Belgian mountainous areas, plains and hilly areas where tank troops can penetrate, have formed an endless defense line hundreds of kilometers long, with extremely dense firepower deployment.

Unless this kind of battlefield situation is crushed one-sidedly, there will be no room for tank mobile units to display, and there will be no way to bypass the flanks.

Without trenching equipment, it was even more impossible for the medium tanks equipped by the Tang Empire to cross the wide trenches and directly attack the depths of the German front line.

The British Army's heavy Mark II tank is still possible because of its large size.

Actually

The Germans have long found a way to deal with tanks. The survival rate of such thin-skinned and large-stuffed tanks on the Western Front battlefield is no more than 1/10. It is good to have 100 tanks when they go out.

Although the medium-sized tanks equipped by the Tang Empire are fast, durable, and have strong firepower, their key protective performance is indeed not very good, which is a fatal weakness.

On the European battlefield, which is well-prepared, has dense firepower and is extremely layered, the survival rate of a frontal attack is not high.

As long as you take one shell, the game is basically over.

On this cruel battlefield, thousands of cannons were blasting at every turn, shaking the ground. Even tanks couldn't stand it. The battle was unprecedentedly brutal.

Without the awareness to put hundreds or thousands of tanks on the battlefield, there would be no group armored attack.

Therefore, Richard was not very enthusiastic about launching a new round of offensive on the European battlefield, and the same was true for the Royal Army, which could be perfunctory.

(End of this chapter)