Chapter 207: A Lesson in Blood

  Chapter 203: A Lesson in Blood

Snowflakes were flying, another year of winter had come. Vienna, which was wrapped in a layer of silver, turned extraordinarily pleasant in this winter.

Mei Quan Palace

Metternich reported, “Your Majesty, the British and French ministers forwarded the Ottomans’ armistice negotiation letter to the Foreign Ministry, and it seems that the Sultan’s government is preparing for the aftermath.”

This doesn’t surprise Franz, the war has been fought for a long time now, the ones who have suffered the heaviest losses are the Ottomans, followed by the Russians, and the British and French losses are just a hair’s breadth not worth mentioning.

Without strength everything is false, the future of the Ottomans contraction of the sphere of influence is inevitable, take advantage of the current British and French support, the early end of the war with Austria, contraction of troops back to beat the Greeks more in line with their interests.

Franz thought about it and said, “Follow our original plan, slowly talk to the Ottomans, first feel out their bottom line.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!” Metternich replied.

The Second Bulgarian Battle had been fought until now, and both sides were exhausted. After days of high intensity combat, the soldiers’ war aversion was increasing with each passing day, and the military morale of both warring sides was inevitably slipping.

Except for the Greeks who just joined the battle, and the Montenegrins who were overwhelmed by the victory, the rest are just holding on.

On the surface the Russians had the upper hand, but Franz knew very well that this was only a symptom, it was a lose-lose battle.

Just look at the Russian casualties, after more than four months of fierce fighting, Russian casualties have exceeded 170,000 people.

Among them, less than 60,000 were killed in battle, and the remaining 100,000 wounded, because of the lack of timely treatment and lack of medicine, less than eight layers survived.

Battlefield first aid is non-existent, the Russian army in the medical corps is a phoenix feather, they can only protect the officers of the life safety, as for the soldiers sorry, no time!

Gray livestock is worthless, wounded can only be simply bandaged, and then rely on the soldiers themselves to slowly boil.

The Russian army has not been trained in battlefield first aid, rather than bandaging it would be more appropriate to trap and tie the wound. There is no professional medical gauze, no disinfection, just find a piece of cloth and wrap it even finished.

Serious injuries not to mention, it is impossible to survive, directly counted in the war dead.

Many lightly wounded, obviously only hit by bullets in the arms, thighs and other non-vital parts of the original as long as the proper treatment of wounds can live, the same also because of the unfavorable treatment of a life.

In the Principality of Wallachia, Franz opened a field emergency hospital, is now very busy, every day the Russian wounded soldiers retired, and then the first time to run over to medical treatment.

“Medical attention” is a fancy word for cleaning wounds, disinfecting them, re-dressing them, and prescribing medicines of unknown efficacy.

The real life-saving thing is to clean the wound and disinfect it to avoid inflammation and infection, and the medicines at the back are mainly for psychological purposes, and incidentally to make money.

From the front line to the rear, lasted for several days without dying, then it is not a seriously injured person, as long as the wound does not become infected, basically able to survive.

These Russian soldiers do not know, they only saw the first aid after the death rate dropped rapidly, they thought that the hospital are all miraculous doctors.

In fact, most of these medics were soldiers who had only been trained in battlefield first aid, and Franz was using the Russian wounded as guinea pigs to exercise their professional abilities.

Drugs will depend on the situation, a penny a penny, sky-high prices of drugs is certainly a role, this point of temperament Franz still have.

Cheap drugs will not have to look forward to, either a variety of experimental drugs, or flour + vegetables manufactured.

The most effective of the cheap medicines is the tonic, which is simply a pot of herbal medicine that clears heat and detoxifies or. Unfortunately this stuff was considered witchcraft by many and most Russian soldiers were reluctant to drink it.

Besides, this medicine was not supposed to treat wounds, there was no immediate effect, and it didn’t attract much attention.

Nicholas I is still considered a good tsar, at least he also undertook the medical expenses of the soldiers, of course do not expect him to spend much money, packaged price of ten rubles per wounded, survived to pay. (Silver ruble is about half a tael of silver)

With this amount of money, naturally, it is impossible to expect any good service. Except for the few who could afford to pay out of their own pockets, most people enjoyed the simplest of treatments.

To perform an operation to remove shrapnel from inside a wound, for example, one could not even think of it without a hundred rubles. Too few people could afford such operations, and the prices were naturally high.

Originally Franz was prepared to outsource first aid on the battlefield, but considering that the risks on the battlefield were too great, and the Tsarist government refused to spend a great deal of money, naturally the negotiation failed.

With such a terrible casualty rate, even if the rear is constantly replenished, the army’s fighting strength will inevitably be affected.

Theoretically after treating these wounded and rearming them on the battlefield, all of them veterans will have stronger fighting strength.

Unfortunately, the Russians have a serious bureaucratic style, did not do a good job of the ideological work of the soldiers, most of the wounded soldiers are reluctant to re-enter the battlefield, and there are even people who bribe the medical staff to delay the recovery time.

This was the case for the Russians, and it was even worse for the allied forces on the other side. The Ottoman Empire could not afford to provide medical care, even if it was a homefront battle.

The British casualties were not considered large enough to attract attention at home, and the angel who had pioneered first aid in the field had not yet arrived at the front.

Without battlefield first aid, it would be left to God or **** to bless.

This is why the British and French commanders, forced the Ottomans to be cannon fodder. In order to reduce the casualty rate, they can only die the death of a friend of the road.

The lessons of the Near East war, Franz naturally had to learn from the past.

These messy rotten things, Franz has long had the General Staff summarized, the battlefield cases down to every commander.

Logistical lessons learned, all government departments are also a handful of copies, but also organized the relevant professional knowledge training to learn, in short, the same thing can not happen in Austria.

In order to better implement these issues, the Austrian government has been in the logistics sector to implement the leadership and directly responsible for the dual responsibility system, which link has a problem, then the relevant responsible person together on the court martial.

Franz said cautiously, “His Excellency the Field Marshal, the General Staff as soon as possible to finalize the final westward battle plan, this time we are in a race against time.

The army must take Munich within a week, within a month it must control all of Bavaria, and within two months it must sweep through the South German region.

If time is on our side, we will also have to extend our tentacles into central Germany and occupy favorable terrain to lay the foundation for the future.”

The terrain of the German region is complex is: the North German region is a plain, with an average elevation of less than 100 meters above sea level; the Central German region is mountainous, consisting of highlands running east to west; the southwestern Rhine Fracture Valley region is flanked by mountainous terrain, with steep valley walls; and the South German region is the Bavarian Plateau and the Alpine Mountains.

This inconvenienced Austrian military operations, and the best option for a quick victory was to attack along the Danube, where all problems were not considered problems.

The challenge came in case the enemy blocked the river, and the challenge of attacking overland to sweep the 100,000 square kilometers of land was less of a challenge.

It was a good thing that these areas were well developed and that the South German region was a plateau not a mountainous area, otherwise this task would have been impossible to accomplish.

(Remarks: A plateau is a vast area above five hundred meters above sea level with flat terrain that can have some undulation)

“Yes, Your Majesty!” Marshal Radetzky replied in a bottomless voice

……

While Austria was making its final preparations, Napoleon III made his decision – to increase his troops.

There was no way around it, Napoleon III entered this war not only because of France’s interests in the Near East, but also to gain political prestige.

If he let the Russians win, his throne would be destabilized. The French people were not patient, and if they could not be satisfied with the results, another revolution was not out of the question.

If it were not for the sudden political crisis in London, the British and French forces would have marched into the Crimea by now.

While the army had not moved, the navy had long been in action. From the end of November 1852, the British, French and Ottoman navies kept shelling the Russian port cities along the Black Sea coast, causing thousands of casualties to the Russians.

Those who dared to stay in the face of unbridled British and French shelling were warriors. Obviously such warriors were few and far between, and large numbers of Russians fled inland.

St. Petersburg.

Upon receiving the British and French shelling of the coastal areas, Nicholas I became really angry. It was outrageous that Britain and France were so shameless as to fire directly at civilians.

Civilian casualties were nothing, the problem was that hundreds of thousands of refugees had now been added and were waiting for relief from the Tsarist government.

It’s a good thing that the Ukrainian region is a food-producing area, or else human tragedy will occur again. No, it has already happened.

The inefficiency of the Russian bureaucrats was on display at this time. In the face of the influx of refugees, local officials did not take effective measures and very mechanically waited for orders from St. Petersburg.

The consequences were naturally serious. St. Petersburg was so far away that before the Tsar’s order came down, the famine rebellion had already broken out.

It couldn’t be considered a rebellion, these people didn’t rebel, they just went around grabbing food, they hadn’t attacked the city yet.

Suppressing the rebellion on the bureaucrats rare efficiency, the Ukrainian region there are still a lot of Russian troops waiting to reinforce the Balkan battlefield, now used to suppress the rebellion is naturally not a problem.

The unorganized riots of the starving people were extinguished just as they started.

Naturally, Nicholas I didn’t know about it, and probably would never know about it, and no official would be so idiotic as to bother His Majesty the Great Tsar with such a trivial matter.

Nicholas I questioned: “The enemy has been attacking our coastal cities for so long, don’t you have the slightest solution? What’s the Black Sea Fleet doing, how come it hasn’t played any role at all!”

The Minister of the Navy whispered, “Your Majesty, the Black Sea Fleet was greatly wounded in the battle with the enemy, and with only a few small ships left, it is no longer capable of fighting.”

The expression “greatly wounded” was very conservative, perhaps it would be more appropriate to use “wiped out”. Facing the siege of the British, French and Ottoman navies, the Black Sea Fleet was simply powerless.

Originally, the Ministry of the Navy thought that hiding in the harbor, there are fortress guns cover, the enemy is not dare to kill over. However, it was never expected that these “advanced” fortress guns could not be used properly.

Since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Black Sea coast is no longer a threat to foreign enemies, the Tsarist government’s corrupt bureaucrats naturally is to save as much as they can, the shore guns have become the appearance of goods. Either the product of the last century, or the product of the last century, and more shoddy products.

After some trial and error, the British and French Navy launched an attack, the Black Sea Fleet struggled for a while, then heroically sacrificed.

There is nothing to be ashamed of, the British and French navies joined forces with no country in the world can resist, the Black Sea Fleet did not surrender to the enemy, it is already enough to illustrate their valor.

The main thing is that there is no chance of surrender, it is simply finished. Ever since Mareshkov entered the Navy, the Russian Navy has been standing still for decades and is now two eras behind the enemy.

(The ruthless man who dared to use the army drill code to drill the navy)

“Hmph!”

Nicholas I let out a cold shout to show his displeasure in his heart.

Foreign Minister Karl Worcel opened his mouth and persuaded, “Your Majesty, we can only give up these cities for now after what has happened, as long as we can conquer Constantinople and blockade the Bosphorus, this kind of thing will never happen again.”

At this moment the tsarist government’s desire for Constantinople increased once again, and they felt once for themselves the terrible consequences of losing their sea power.

Nicholas I nodded, not really angry that the Black Sea Fleet was finished. He had expected this outcome since the day Britain and France entered the war.

What really made him angry was the fact that the coastal defenses were so untenable that they hadn’t caused a single problem for the enemy, and that the government bureaucracy was so corrupt to such an extent.

Problems being problems, this was a time of war, stability at home trumped everything, and Nicholas I could not afford to purge the bureaucratic ranks at this time.

“Have the losses been tallied?” Nicholas I asked with concern

“Your Majesty, just a preliminary count, our strategic materials hoarded in the coastal areas are ten to one, about three hundred thousand people have been displaced, and the direct economic loss exceeds two hundred million rubles.” Finance Minister Aristoteli Rod replied with a trembling voice

Obviously, Arestanlilord didn’t expect the people underneath to dare to be so bold, even if their warehouses where they hoarded strategic materials were exposed, the enemy couldn’t have hit them so accurately ah?

Even if it was a fixed target, the Navy’s hit rate was not high, and to blow up all of their material warehouses was not something that could be done in a short period of time.

Do you really think that the enemy’s shells don’t cost anything?

Nicholas I sneered and said, “Check, send people to give me a strict investigation!”

Even if they can’t be moved now, isn’t there another word for settling scores? The Tsar was a very vindictive person, and by memorizing these issues first, there would be plenty of time to settle them in the future.

(End of chapter)