Persian Empire 1845

Chapter 651 Crossing the Danube (Part 2)
Before the morning mist had completely dissipated, hundreds of boats suddenly appeared on the Danube, laden with Russian soldiers, rowing desperately toward the south bank. Leading the charge were the Tsarist Guards, adorned with ornate helmets and dark green uniforms! They were proud, they were elite, and they became the most conspicuous targets.

"Fire!!"

With a command from the Ottoman army positions, rifles, machine guns, and rapid-fire cannons that had been waiting for a long time instantly spewed out deadly flames!
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Rat-a-tat-tat-tat—!"

Bullets rained down on the river. Wooden boats were easily pierced and shattered, and soldiers who fell into the water struggled in the icy water before being swallowed by the swift current or struck by bullets, their faces turning crimson. The Guardsmen displayed astonishing courage; even as their comrades fell one after another, they continued to shout "Hurrah!" and row with all their might, even returning fire with their rifles to the opposite bank.

But courage seemed so pale in the face of the dense hail of bullets. Many boats became floating coffins before they even reached the shore. The river was stained a pale red, and corpses and broken planks drifted downstream.

Despite suffering heavy losses, some Russian warships managed to reach the mudflats on the south bank. The surviving Guardsmen and grenadiers jumped off their ships, treading through the mud and over the bodies of their comrades, howling as they launched a charge, attempting to seize the beachhead and open a path for the following troops.

What awaited them was an even more brutal test. The Ottoman army not only laid out a dense line of trenches, but also pre-positioned minefields, barbed wire, and crossfire points on the beachhead.

"Boom! Boom!" The landmines detonated one after another, blasting the charging Russian soldiers to pieces.

Crossfire from the flank fortresses and the frontal trenches, like the scythe of death, reaped lives in droves.

The beachhead had become a veritable slaughterhouse. Layers upon layers of Russian soldiers' corpses lay piled high, as wave after wave of attacks crashed against the Ottoman army's formidable defenses, shattering them to pieces. The elite Guardsmen had bled to death that day; their pride and lives were buried on this muddy riverbank.

Russian artillery on the north bank attempted to suppress Ottoman fire to support the crossing troops. However, Ottoman artillery had already marked their pre-selected firing zones and launched a fierce counter-fire. Hundreds of cannons from both sides bombarded each other across the river, shells whistling and crisscrossing in the air, explosions flashing everywhere, shaking the entire Danube River as if it were the end of the world.

As night fell, the deafening sounds of artillery and gunfire gradually subsided. The Russian army's forced crossings in the Zlatitsa and Sveshtov directions cost them more than 12000 dead and wounded, but they only managed to occupy a few insignificant, isolated small beachheads on the south bank, and were unable to break through the Ottoman army's main defense line.

Night fell over the Danube, but the atmosphere in the Russian command post on the north bank was even more somber. By the light of candles and gas lamps, Lieutenant General Nikolai Stoletov, commander of the Russian 9th Army responsible for the main offensive in the Zlatitsa region, had a grim face. The casualties of over ten thousand men, so numerous since the Crimean War, had returned.

"General, the Turkish defenses are much stronger than we anticipated. Their firepower, especially the positions of their flank fortifications and machine gun emplacements, is extremely cunning. Our frontal assault has resulted in heavy losses."

Stoletov slammed his fist on the table: "Great losses? Does that mean His Majesty the Tsar's orders can be disregarded? The strait is right across the water! We must cross this damned river!"

He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, his eyes scanning the map: "A frontal assault won't work, so let's try another location. They can't possibly turn the entire Danube into an impregnable fortress." The next morning, at a ferry crossing on the lower reaches of the Danube, where the river was relatively wide and the current was gentler.

Just as the morning fog was at its thickest, the river was once again teeming with boats. This time, the Russian troops had learned their lesson. They didn't use the conspicuous large ferries, but instead relied heavily on small sampans and rafts; some soldiers even clung to logs, attempting to swim across. They also stopped waving flags and maintained as much silence as possible.

However, they underestimated the Ottoman surveillance system. Observation posts set up on the high ground along the riverbank quickly detected the anomaly on the river using telescopes and the latest acoustic detection devices.

As the first group of Russian boats struggled to reach the middle of the river, Ottoman machine guns and rifles, concealed in the reeds and camouflage fortifications along the bank, suddenly opened fire, bullets sweeping across the water. Simultaneously, artillery positions behind them unleashed shells, exploding into columns of muddy water in the river's center.

The river crossing once again devolved into a one-sided massacre. The small sampans were blown to pieces, and the soldiers clinging to the logs sank in the explosions. The river was once again stained red.

Meanwhile, on the main battlefield of Zlatitsa upstream, General Stoletov adopted his chief of staff's advice and changed tactics. He no longer pursued a broad-front assault, but instead concentrated all the army's heavy artillery, including dozens of powerful siege howitzers, and launched a devastating two-hour bombardment on a narrow section of the Ottoman defenses.

The deafening explosions continued unabated, completely engulfing the position in smoke and dust, leveling the surface fortifications layer by layer. After the shelling ended, the Russian army, with three regiments in dense skirmish lines, launched an assault on the seemingly razed position. They believed that under such intense bombardment, there could be no living creature left.

However, when the Russian soldiers rushed to the mountainside, countless dark gun barrels suddenly emerged from the scorched soil and ruined fortifications!
"For the Sultan! For the Empire! Fire!" The Ottoman commander, covered in dirt and with his ears still ringing, roared hoarsely.

The surviving Ottoman soldiers crawled out of the ruins and unleashed a barrage of fire on the densely packed Russian ranks with rifles, machine guns, and even grenades. The Russian soldiers at the front fell like mowing grass.

"How could they still be alive?!" a Russian army major exclaimed in disbelief as he looked at the scene before him.

The battle devolved into the most brutal close-quarters combat. Relying on their numerical superiority, the Russian troops surged up the high ground, engaging the defenders in hand-to-hand combat. The defenders suffered heavy casualties, but the remaining soldiers fought on, clinging to shell craters and the ruins, refusing to retreat.

Just as the position was about to crumble, a fresh battalion of Ottoman troops arrived in time and launched a counterattack from the flank against the Russian forces that had stormed the high ground. At the same time, the machine guns of the flank fortresses roared again, cutting off the reinforcements of the Russian troops.

The Russian troops who stormed the high ground were surrounded. After a fierce hand-to-hand battle, most were annihilated, with only a few escaping. The Russian offensive on the position ended in failure once again.

(End of this chapter)