Chapter 194: The Russians Strike Back
Chapter 191 – The Russian Counterattack
St. Petersburg
Suddenly received a declaration of war from the Kingdom of Sardinia, the angry Tsarist government exploded. Britain and France Ottoman Empire is even so, are the world’s power, Sardinia Kingdom is what?
Do you really think that Russia has fallen, any cat or dog can come over to mess things up? But due to the distance, Russia could not do anything about Sardinia.
Nicholas I coldly shouted, “Hmph!”
“Order the troops on the front line, give me a good treatment to the Sardinians, let them know that the Russian Empire is not to be lightly insulted!”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The Minister of War hurriedly replied
No one could have imagined that Nicholas I’s order in anger actually became the key to breaking the Russian army in the future and winning a great victory.
On July 18, 1852, the Russian army launched an offensive in the Caucasus, beating the Turkish army back. Limited by the terrain, the Russian army fought a lot of victorious battles, but unfortunately the battle line forward was very slow.
The Ottoman Empire also had smart people, knowing that the favorable terrain in the Caucasus could not be given up, they hoarded a large number of troops here, and when the troops on the front line collapsed, they immediately sent new troops to top them up.
The two sides engaged in a fierce fight, which could be described as not giving up an inch of ground. After paying a terrible price, by August the Russian army was forced to stop the attack.
The casualties were too great, more than half a month of fighting casualties exceeded seventy thousand, an average of more than five thousand casualties per day, but the victory is far away, the Russians can not stand.
Want to increase troops, limited by the terrain, logistical supply is a problem, able to concentrate 200,000 troops, which are the result of the early hoarding of strategic materials.
Played half a month weapons and ammunition are also consumed almost, that is, the Russian army weapons and equipment backward, only to be able to guarantee the basic logistics supply, if replaced by the British, French and Austrian troops, the logistical pressure to increase by a quarter.
The Caucasus can not break through, the Russians once again cast their eyes on the Balkan Peninsula, after such a long time of restoration, the Russian army has restored the fighting force, the total strength also rose to 480,000 people.
The allied side had even more troops, with 170,000 French troops, 20,000 British troops, 540,000 Ottoman troops, and the Sardinian army had not yet arrived, totaling up to 730,000 troops.
However, the Russians were not too disadvantaged, the Bulgarians formed an army of 50,000, Austria still helped to hold back 70,000 to 80,000 Ottoman troops, the Duchy of Montenegro mobilized 20,000 troops, plus the Greeks who were ready to stab them in the back also organized 70,000 troops.
Overall, the two sides were nearly even in terms of fighting strength, and the key to victory lay in the contest between the commanders of the two sides.
“Are all the supplies in place?” Mareshkov asked
The last Bulgarian Battle, not being able to expand the results of the battle, in addition to the sudden appearance of the French army broke their plans, there was also the fact that the logistical supplies could not keep up.
Beforehand, the Russian army had incorrectly estimated the consumption of ammunition on the battlefield, ignoring the fact that after the troops had changed their uniforms, the consumption of weapons and ammunition would also increase dramatically.
The Russian weapons and equipment backward, as an ally Franz naturally will not sit idly by. As soon as the Near East War broke out, Austria promoted a large number of new weapons and equipment to the Russians.
The Russians did not have the financial resources to change a large area, but they still purchased a number of weapons and equipment for the main force, about three infantry divisions replaced with Austrian weapons, and purchased more than 300 guns to increase firepower.
Facts have proved that these weapons and equipment is still worth the price, after the change of the Russian army’s combat effectiveness increased a lot, these main divisions are the earliest to tear open the Ottoman army defense line troops.
The battlefield fought a good fight, ammunition consumption is naturally large. Take the increased three hundred cannons as an example, just one round of flak, a ton of ammunition is gone.
Consumption of large that is a logistical problem, compared to the problem-ridden Russian equipment, the officers immediately liked the Austrian equipment, and asked for replacement equipment.
If it had been a peaceful era of large-scale procurement of Austrian weaponry, the interest groups engaged in weapons production would have been desperately opposed.
In times of war it is different, in order to this war have paid so much, Nicholas I absolutely can not tolerate someone at this time to drag their feet, strong through the military replacement requirements.
In the repair of these months, the Russians have not been idle, and one after another to replace the equipment of some troops, to the present this 480,000 Russian troops, there are already one-third of the people in the use of Ordnance equipment.
The main force in the weapons and equipment to pull together and the gap between Britain and France, even if the training is deficient, relying on the fighting nation’s will to fight can make up for two or three points.
Like the last time the kind of ninety thousand Russian main force, in the field to gnaw on 50,000 French things, now is very difficult to happen.
“It’s all in place, some of the supplies have even exceeded our prior plans, enough to support our entire army for three months of battle.” The quartermaster replied
Maeshkov nodded with satisfaction, he had enough confidence in this war. In the last Bulgarian Battle, the main force of the Ottoman army had already been heavily defeated.
Even though the number of the army hadn’t dropped now, the fighting strength had inevitably slipped. The combat power of new recruits and veterans was completely different, and the gap between the combat power of elites and cannon fodder was even more disparate.
Maeshkov said confidently, “Very well, as long as the logistics are in place, we’ve won half of this war.
The country has already approved our battle plan, and there are still three hundred thousand troops in the Ukrainian region, ready to replenish what we consume on the battlefield.
The Ottomans are not enough to worry about, the Kingdom of Sardinia is just something the British pulled together to make up the numbers, our main enemy is Britain and France.
The strategic goal of this battle is to annihilate the main force of Britain and France on the Balkan Peninsula, push the battle line to Edirne, and lay the foundation for the capture of Constantinople.
For the sake of ultimate victory, we have to do whatever it takes in this war, regardless of casualties, to tear through the enemy’s defenses and encircle the Anglo-French allied forces in the shortest possible time.
Only by beating them up will we be able to win this war.”
The Russian military system was somewhat chaotic, and the Tsarist government used people in a casual manner. Menshkov was originally from the army, served as a diplomatic attaché in Vienna, fought in the war against France, the Eighth Russo-Turkish War, and served as the tsar’s valet.
After retiring from the army, he joined the Foreign Ministry. He then entered the Navy, serving successively as Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Chief of Staff of the Navy General Command, Minister of the Navy, and is now an Admiral.
To be able to cross over from the Army to the Navy and become an Admiral, one might think that his superior naval talent was the reason for his exceptional promotion, but in fact it was the opposite, he was there to add to the confusion.
As a direct consequence of his entry into the Navy, Menshkov delayed the Russian Navy’s technological advances and combat training, applied the Army’s training model to the Navy, and counted himself as a gravedigger of the Russian Navy.
At this time he, an admiral, was sent to command hundreds of thousands of land forces in combat as the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force in the Balkans, which naturally would not be convincing.
Although he was from the army, but after leaving the army for ten or twenty years, his professional ability inevitably deteriorated and could not be convincing.
It would be more apt to say that he was a soldier now, rather than a politician. The Tsarist government’s hiring mechanism cast a shadow over the great war that was about to break out.
Fitzroy Somerset, Chief of Staff of the Russian Army, objected, “Your Excellency the Commander, a persimmon must find a soft one to pinch, and the easiest breakthrough to win this war is clearly in the Ottomans.
What we need to do now is to look for opportunities to cripple the Ottoman army and then come back to gnaw on the hard core of Britain and France.
Without the Ottoman army as an appendage, the less than 200,000 troops of Britain and France, we can easily finish them off.”
Maeshkov chestily explained, “If we focus on striking the Ottomans, the British and French armies will bolt when they see that the momentum is not right, and we simply do not have the ability to leave them behind at the same time.
If we can’t beat up the British and French, even if we capture Constantinople, this war will still continue.
They can send a steady stream of troops to the Balkans by sea, and this one will become a long way off.
From the outbreak of the war until now, we have paid at least 130 million rubles of military expenses, if we add the preliminary preparations for the war, our military expenses have already exceeded 200 million rubles, which is a year’s financial income of the Russian Empire.
If the war continues for a long time, our finances will be unsustainable. In terms of financial strength, we can’t fight Britain and France, even if we add the Austrians.”
Spelling financial strength, the British were invincible in this era, that even if we only look at the fiscal revenue, they were riding high. In the second echelon of the French, Austrian, Russian and Qing four countries, is patting the horse can not catch up, everyone is only six or seven layers of the British.
This gap, to countries after the completion of the industrial revolution, can slowly catch up.
“But Your Excellency the Commander, right now we don’t have an advantage, and the outcome of the war will most likely be a lose-lose situation that won’t achieve the ultimate goal.” Fitzroy Somerset said with a frown
Maeshkov shook his head and said, “We must fight even if we lose both, no matter what we must beat Britain and France to pain and force them to withdraw from the war.
If we go on as we are, are we going to fight this war for a year, two years, or ten or eight years?
Now and before is not the same, when a war, we can and the Ottoman Empire to fight for more than ten years, but now possible?
The high cost of the war has already told us that a quick war is the best option, if we delay, the price we pay will only be even heavier.”
When a soldier looks at a problem, it’s enough just to look at it from a military point of view. Politicians look at problems more from a political point of view.
Mareshkov had already overstepped towards politicians, he could care less about the losses of the Russian army, but he could not accept that this war would continue.
It was clear throughout the Russian government that the longer the war went on, the worse it would be for them. At a later stage, it would be a matter of who could withstand it better.
In order to avoid this, the best way was to use the tragic casualties on the battlefield to scare Britain and France and force them to give in.
Historically, after the Crimean War, the British interfered in European affairs, and then converged a lot, as far as possible, to avoid their own personal involvement, for the Prussian unification of the German region to cushion the foundation.
It can be said that the Crimean War was fought in favor of the Germans. After the war, Russia’s internal contradictions erupted and reforms had to be carried out, which did not come out for more than ten years; the two victors, Britain and France, also had their hearts in their mouths, and did not intervene in the unification war initiated by Prussia in the first place.
Unified understanding, the Russian army began to prepare for it. Good in this era of information transfer is not convenient, cable telegraph although appeared, but only in the big cities have, the Balkan Peninsula has not been popularized.
Otherwise, with the current practice of the Russians, their actions had not yet begun, the enemy received the news and was ready.
……
War is all about comparisons, the Russians again command confusion, but also better than the British and French Ottoman coalition, they are three-headed.
Britain and France do not give in to each other, the Ottoman Empire can only be neutral, they are afraid of a bad let Britain and France withdrew, then they are finished.
Historically, Emabule Jean-Jacques Pelissier was the commander of the allied forces and was barely able to command them in battle, now Emabule Jean-Jacques Pelissier was only one of the three main commanders.
The aftermath of this is that when there is a need for coordinated operations, they must be reported to the coalition command, and only after the three commanders-in-chief have reached an agreement, can they be carried out.
The Russians were ready to attack, but the Allied Forces knew nothing about it. The Ottoman Empire did not pay much attention to intelligence work, and all the sources of intelligence were provided by the nationals on their own initiative.
Under the bureaucratic system, much of this information was not verified and was used directly. It is a pity that the Russians also do not pay attention to the intelligence work, or else pass some false news over, can let the allied forces to suffer a big loss.
Britain and France were both over the top and had no ability to gather intelligence, and their bureaucracy should not be underestimated either, and it was directly assumed that the Ottoman Empire would solve this aspect of the problem.
(End of chapter)