Chapter 712: Peak Showdown
Chapter 696 The Peak Showdown
With the British pulling the strings, Prussia and Germany sat down at the negotiating table and opened protracted negotiations.
Diplomatic action, did not affect the battlefield Prussia and Russia’s peak showdown.
Forced by the severe situation on the battlefield, after giving up the Latvian region, the Prussian army had to continue to give up the Lithuanian region, the war has burned to East Prussia.
The situation continues to develop in the direction of favorable to the Russian army, the front line reports of success, Marshal Ivanov not only did not relax, but more and more nervous.
He clearly knows that behind the victory, the Russian army’s battle line is also constantly being stretched. Not only the logistical pressure is increasing day by day, the fortifications prepared in advance, this time also can not work.
If this is just, the key is that the domestic urge for a decisive battle is also getting higher and higher, the army within the voice of the war is also endless, even if there is Alexander II backing, Ivanov also felt the pressure of the heavy weight.
A military officer said aloud, “Marshal, the Fourth Army sent an urgent telegram.”
Ivanov said faintly, “Read it!”
“Yes!”
“……1 On October 18, 1880, our troops captured Puławy, annihilating 12,000 enemy troops and capturing 1,876 of them.
The gateway to Warsaw had been opened, and the soldiers were quick, in order to seize the opportunity of battle, our department decided to march first downstream along the Vistula River towards Warsaw.
The Seventh Army and the Fifth Army are expected to cooperate and to attack the Warsaw area from the north and east respectively.
……”
“With a bang, the glass of water in Marshal Ivanov’s hand fell.
He had underestimated his officers’ desire to win. Of course, there may be other forces behind the scenes, forcing him to start the duel early.
“Warsaw gateway open” such a stifling reason, Ivanov already do not want to spit, the enemy is ready to fight them in the Warsaw region, naturally, it is impossible to stop them outside.
Occupying the upper reaches of the Wisła River may seem to have gained a strategic advantage, but in fact those who understand the Polish terrain know that the endless plains of the terrain of the gentle current, not to mention the construction of dams to flood the seven armies, even if you want to wash away the downstream of the farmland is difficult.
As things stood, Ivanov could only follow the aftermath. The Fourth Army had eight infantry divisions, one police division, three cavalry divisions, four artillery regiments, and a variety of miscellaneous auxiliary forces, totaling 180,300 troops.
With so many troops, no one could easily give them up. If possible, Ivanov didn’t mind immediately shooting the guy who had made a fool of himself with those.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t do it now, and if he wanted to settle scores, he had to wait until after the war was over.
Looking at the map, Ivanov muttered: ” October 18th captured Puwawi, now it is already October 21st afternoon, even if it is two days to repair, they also set off for a day.
If the speed is fast, the Battle of Warsaw has already been fought, and chasing back is impossible.
Good Obodo, this is calculated, knowing that it is impossible for me to give up the Fourth Army, this Battle of Warsaw I can’t even if I don’t fight.”
After hesitating for a moment’s effort, Marshal Ivanov ordered, “Since the deployment has been disrupted, let’s fight in a chaotic manner!
Pass the order down, order the Seventh Army and the Fifth Army to launch the Warsaw Battle; order the Third Army and the Sixth Army, which are undergoing repairs, to immediately assemble and march to the Warsaw area.
Order the First and Second Armies to launch an attack on the East Prussia area, and the Navy to cooperate with their actions.
Order the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Armies to abandon their present defensive tasks and launch the Battle of the Southern Front.
Order the newly formed Eleventh, Thirteenth, Fifteenth, and Seventeenth Armies to take over the defenses they left behind.”
Despite not knowing what the enemy was plotting, Ivanov knew that if he was strong enough, the enemy would choke.
Launching a meeting from three directions at the same time and committing as many as two million troops, Ivanov did not believe that the enemy had the ability to eat it all in one bite.
Can not eat the situation has changed, the three general battles Ivanov does not expect to be able to win all the battles, as long as there is a battle to win, the strategy is even successful.
To put it bluntly, the Pupo Federation is so big place, any direction to get a big victory, tore open the door to the enemy’s rear, you can drive straight into.
Don’t look at the Pupo Federation stepped up the mobilization, but just put down the hoe farmers, immediately can become a qualified soldier?
Of course, the farmers of the Pupo Federation have participated in militia training, fighting strength is a little better than ordinary farmers, but there is still a big gap from the regular army.
It’s not that the Berlin government doesn’t know how to train all the people, it’s mainly because their wallets aren’t big enough. Reserve training is also costly, universal participation in the annual training expenses of one or two months, not a poor country can play.
In addition to the training gap, weapons and equipment is also a big problem. Pupo federal military industry is a self-contained system, the main force are all the general armament equipment, all on their own.
After the expansion of the army, their own military production capacity is not enough, Berlin was forced to purchase the British and French equipment. Ammunition caliber are not the same, the second and third tier troops of the PBF are in the direction of the Universal Manufacturing.
In contrast, the Russians will be much happier, the same equipment system directly from Austria to buy on the line, do not need to worry about.
This series of factors add up, it means that as long as the Russian army tore down their defenses, the rear of the newly formed troops is difficult to block the Russian army’s front.
Ivanov hadn’t adopted this strategy before, mainly to hedge his bets. Advantages on paper existed only on paper, and the war would have to be fought to be known.
In his opinion, instead of risking a duel, it was better to play steadily and press step by step, gradually depleting the enemy’s strength.
……
As soon as the Russian army acted, the Prussian army naturally followed. It was not easy to mobilize the enemy, Mauch naturally could not give up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The only regret was that the enemy had stretched the battle line too long, and the limited strength of the Prussian army made it impossible to take care of all three battlefields at the same time.
In a sense, this tactic is also in response to “Mauch is good at concentrating superiority and the enemy duel”. The three fronts of the war, the concentration of superior forces in the duel is tantamount to suicide.
The division of troops to take care of the three battlefields also played right into the Russians’ hands. Now is already the era of hot weapons, the sky and airship detection, even if the use of troops is powerful, but also subject to the strength of the constraints.
In order to make up for the disadvantage of insufficient troops, Mauch had to carry out military deployment on the one hand and urge the Berlin government to speed up the mobilization speed on the other.
I can’t worry about the quality for now, but I want to get the quantity first. The new recruits have no combat power, but they can be used as cannon fodder, and can be used to buy time at critical moments.
……
The Russians are going to fight, and all eyes in Europe are on the Russian-Prussian battlefield. In order to collect information about this world war, the Austrian air force was busy.
If it were not for the fact that air defense weapons are not powerful these days, with low hit rates and high costs; and that the Austrian military observer missions are too numerous and easy to be discovered; it is estimated that the following commanders wouldn’t mind creating a few accidents.
This is a small problem, running to the top of people’s heads to collect information, did not get knocked down that has been very face, can still expect people to welcome not?
Vienna Palace, looking at the deployment of troops on both sides of the Prussian and Russian sides, Franz confused, completely unaware of what is going on. Summarized in one word – chaos, both the Russian army, or the Prussian army are very chaotic.
“Albrecht, can you see their deployment?”
After hesitating for a few moments of effort, Albrecht replied with some difficulty, “Your Majesty, the Prussians and Russians are going to have a showdown.”
Seeing Franz’s expression, seemingly unsatisfied with this answer, Albrecht continued to explain, “Your Majesty, the total number of troops invested in this war has set a historical record.
No one has the experience of commanding millions of troops at a time, and in the early stages the Russians were steady, and the frequency of troop movements was not too high.
Now that there is going to be a decisive battle, both Prussia and Russia are rapidly mobilizing their troops, there are too many troops involved, and a certain amount of confusion is inevitable.”
This answer enlightened Franz, famous generals are also ordinary people, even if their personal ability is strong, they cannot guarantee that the people under them are equally so strong.
The mobilization of millions of troops involved too many aspects to be accomplished by the commander alone, and required the cooperation of all departments.
Due to the inconvenience of communication, there is often a delay in the transmission of orders from the commander to the troops below.
The army was fine, receiving orders that could be carried out immediately, the logistics department was not. No matter how big a deal it was, the supplies from the warehouses could not be followed to the localities in a day or two.
Even the most powerful dispatching officer could not change the backwardness of the means of transportation. Constrained by logistics, troops naturally could not run too fast.
In case there was another change and the logistics got lost with the troops, it would be over.
This kind of thing is not unheard of, now both Russia and Prussia are considered to have learned a lesson, and very much emphasize the cooperation between the combat troops and the logistics department.
Of course this is only a secondary factor. Now the Russian and Prussian armies have different degrees of confusion, the main responsibility still lies in the General Command.
The commanders had never had the experience of commanding a battle of this level, and a lot of past experience was no longer applicable here, and confusion arose.
Franz asked with concern, “So, our army also has these problems?”
Albrecht nodded, “Our commanders don’t have this kind of experience either, and if they take the risk of commanding millions of troops in a battle, chaos is inevitable in the early stages.
The whole world has no experience in this area, in comparison we are quite good, we organize millions of reserves to train every year, it’s barely a large-scale troop mobilization.”
This was something that really couldn’t be helped, experience was something that needed to be accumulated. Austria has less than a million active troops, where to accumulate this kind of experience?
There was nothing Franz could do about it except to learn from the military deployments of Prussia and Russia. You can’t just pull in a few million reservists and have a national exercise, can you?
Not to mention how much money it would cost and how much material would need to be consumed. Just thinking about mobilizing millions of troops at once would be terrifying.
If we really do it, it is estimated that all of Europe will be scared. In case of bad luck, there’s no chance that it would directly escalate to a continental war.
This aspect of the European countries are very sensitive. Perhaps it is too many losses, or too many lessons learned from the past, only one country began to mobilize, the neighboring countries will strengthen the vigilance. If the relationship is not good, it will follow the mobilization.
Unwarranted tensions, increase the smell of smoke on the European continent, destroy good neighborly relations, is not what Franz wants to see.
(End of chapter)