Rise of Australia

Chapter 450

On February 1917, 2, the Allied forces on the Balkan Front took the lead in launching an offensive on the southern border of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Led by 15 Australasian Expeditionary Forces, including 20 Romanian troops, 25 Serbian troops, 15 Greek troops, and 5 Montenegrin troops, a total of 80 troops are divided into two groups, for the Croatian region and Transylvani Sub-regional attack.

Among them, the Western Front has 15 Australasian troops, 25 Serbian troops and 5 Montenegrin troops, a total of 45 troops.

The Eastern Front had 20 Romanian troops and 15 Greek troops, for a total of 35 men.

The purpose of the Eastern Front is to hold back part of the Austro-Hungarian army while threatening the Kingdom of Hungary.

The western front is the main task of this offensive, advancing directly to the northwest, capturing the Croatian and Dalmatian regions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and then joining forces with the Italian army in Klagenfurt.

As long as Slovenia, Istria, Croatia, and Dalmatia can all be occupied, the Austro-Hungarian Empire will become a completely landlocked country, and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire will not be far away.

In order to ensure the smooth attack, Australasia specially transferred hundreds of bombers from the country, and at the same time, a large number of airships transported materials in the sky and were responsible for reconnaissance.

In order to deal with the good firepower of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this time Australasia specially raised nearly 2000 artillery pieces, and the intention to destroy the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire in one fell swoop has become very obvious.

With the official launch of the battle, hundreds of thousands of Balkan front troops launched a fierce attack on the front lines of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Although it was desperately resisted by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the advancement of the front line was relatively smooth. Both the Eastern Front and the Western Front achieved good results.

Among them, the Eastern Front is already very close to Sibiu, an important town in Transylvania.If Sibiu can be conquered, the flat Hungarian plain will be like fish on a knife board, which will be slaughtered by the coalition forces on the Balkan front.

The western front advanced all the way to the coast of Dalmatia, preparing to go north to encircle Zagreb, an important town in Croatia.

Although they encountered some resistance from the Austro-Hungarian Empire during this period, these armies basically did not have much room for resistance in front of the Australasian army with sufficient firepower advantages.

After two rounds of bombing, these Austro-Hungarian troops were honest.There are even some unstable troops that have been devastated by the war. After experiencing the bombing like a sky, the only thing they think about is surrender.

On March 3, the rapidly advancing Australasian army came to the banks of the Sava River, and further north was Zagreb, an important town in Croatia.

It was only after arriving here that the army felt a different intensity of resistance than before, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire built a very dense defensive position in this area, seemingly trying to block the Australasian army here.

General Thomas, who had fully fought against the Austro-Hungarian army, already knew the true combat effectiveness of the Austro-Hungarian army.

Therefore, General Thomas did not take these defensive positions established by the Austro-Hungarian Empire seriously, and still adopted the tactics of large-scale bombing and concentrated breakthroughs.

But soon, General Thomas discovered something was wrong.Obviously, the Austro-Hungarian army blocking the way ahead is very powerful.

Judging from the reaction and resistance shown by the enemy, either this is an elite army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or this is the group army that the Germans left in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

But in any case, the army in front is an elite army, an army with very strong firepower and combat effectiveness.

Although the initial tentative attack encountered setbacks, General Thomas was not discouraged, and even had some expectations.

Theoretically speaking, as long as the elite army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is taken down ahead, the Austro-Hungarian Empire will not have many cards.

The current General Thomas is not clear that this is not an Austro-Hungarian army, but a purely German army composed of 15 divisions and a German army that rotated between the Hungarian Empire and Germany.

Originally, the German group army was transferred due to two battles, resulting in a loss of about two armies.

But because of the filling of these 15 German divisions, the German army group returned to its full strength.

Both the Germans and the Austro-Hungarian Empire are very confident that this fully-managed or even somewhat over-managed group army can easily keep the Australasians out of their positions.

After knowing the combat effectiveness of the elite army ahead, General Thomas was not careless. He changed the original offensive plan to a large-scale bombing, and sent an army to outflank the enemy to try to cut off the enemy's transport of supplies to this defensive position.

At this time, the more than 200 million rounds of shells prepared in advance by Australasia came into play.Under the premise of full bombing by more than 2000 artillery pieces, these shell reserves have been supported for more than ten days.

Coupled with the bombing from airships and bombers in the sky, Australasia consumed nearly 300 million shells in this defensive position alone.

Obviously, such a large-scale bombing did achieve some effect.Even the Germans with extremely powerful combat effectiveness would be afraid of the damage caused by such a large-scale artillery bombardment.

Germans are human too, and it's normal for them to have fears.After all, the Germans used to cover other countries with fire suppression and large-scale bombing, and this is the first time they have tasted the power of such bombing.

Such a large-scale artillery shell hit the small defensive position, which not only flattened the hill where the defensive position was located by several meters, but also caused a large number of casualties to the German army on the position.

On March 3, more than ten days later, the original lush hills were only left with scorched black land, and a red stream mixed with blood and various debris.

Under the cover of first-generation tanks converted from tractors, the Balkan coalition launched a large-scale offensive.

Such tanks are different from British tanks, because the main body is a tractor, and the performance is still guaranteed to a certain extent.

Although the speed is also not fast, the probability of lying down is much lower than that of British tanks.

A total of nearly 200 tanks were dispatched in Australasia, and the number of lying down was less than 20, which is less than one-tenth.

After more than ten days of bombing, the mentality of the Germans was already shaken.

Now facing a big guy who can withstand bullets, his mentality suddenly collapsed.

Apart from the first day's attempted attack by the Australasian army, the Germans saw little of the Australasian army.

However, the enemy's shells caused a lot of casualties to their own side. Some German soldiers did not know how to fight back in this situation where they could not see the enemy but were chased by the enemy.

Right now, the enemy is finally planning to attack, but the leader is a large number of steel guys.

These big guys made of steel have a good resistance to bullets, and the probability of shells hitting these guys accurately is also very low. The German army has no good way for a while.

Seeing the enemy's army getting closer and closer, the German commander had no choice but to give an order to retreat.

On March 1917, 3, the Western Front officially surrounded Zagreb, which also represented that the offensive of the Balkan Front Army had achieved more than half of the progress.

Perhaps it was because seeing that the Australasian army was about to defeat the Austro-Hungarian Empire alone, the Italians couldn't sit still and immediately launched a battle.

The Italians plan to invest at least 50 combat troops, first conquer Trento and the Innsbruck area from the north, then turn around to the east, capture Trieste in Istria, and then join forces with the Australasian army in Klagenfurt.

Even the Italian army has other ambitions. If possible, they want to occupy the entire Slovenian region, control their borders south of Zagreb, and even occupy the entire Dalmatia region.

If such a strategic goal can be realized, the Adriatic Sea will become Italy's inland sea, and Italy's interests in the Balkan Peninsula will also expand a lot.

On March 3, the Italians launched an emergency campaign and quickly surrounded the Trento area.

There were only two divisions of the Austro-Hungarian defenders stationed in this area. Under the full attack of the Italians, they were finally defeated and retreated.

The newspapers in Rome even regarded this battle as the clarion call for the rise of Italy, and the retreat of the Austro-Hungarian defenders as the defeat of the Allies.

Many media in Italy have praised the government and the army, as if Italy has won and occupied a large amount of land.

After the Balkan coalition forces and Italy launched successive attacks, Nivel also decided to look for an opportunity to launch a spring offensive to defeat the entire Allied power group in one fell swoop.

On March 3, the spring offensive was launched, and the European continent once again entered the wave of war.

As soon as the spring offensive was launched, it immediately replaced the Balkan front and the Italian front as the front with the most casualties every day.

This is actually a very normal thing. After all, the British, French and Germans invested more than 300 million troops in the spring offensive, far exceeding the sum of soldiers invested on the Balkan front and the Italian front.

As time entered April, Zagreb could not resist the attack of Australasia after holding on for more than ten days.

This also means that almost the entire Croatian region has been reduced to the occupation zone of Australasia, the Hungarian plains are already in jeopardy, and the coastal areas of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are also in jeopardy.

On the one hand, it was the crazy attack on the Balkan front, and on the other hand, it was the crazy consumption of the Italian army. Even with the support of the Germans, the Austro-Hungarian Empire could not support it for a while.

On April 1917, 4, the Italian army officially surrounded Innsbruck, and the plan of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to exchange a beautiful defensive battle for a chance of peace also became a fantasy.

　The first update of 3000 words, ask for a monthly ticket, ask for support!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)