Chapter 1574： The intentions of the British and French forces

Chapter 1574 the intention of the British and French forces

"In order to threaten Constantinople as soon as possible, we chose to land in Edremit, but the terrain here is slightly narrow, and when approaching Constantinople, the width of the battle line will quickly narrow, and there is also the possibility It was bombarded by the Allied Mediterranean Fleet. Therefore, although we positioned it as one of the main strategic goals, we could not hold all the troops here!"

"For this reason, we set a secondary strategic goal to cut off the 3B railway, and to achieve this goal, we must conquer Ankara, an important railway hub in central Asia Minor! Therefore, we deployed another landing force in Izmir. , While serving as the flanking cover of the main force, this force can also carry out a separate attack. If the main force encounters an insurmountable obstacle in the process of attacking Constantinople, the main force on the northern line will fight with the south. The troops on the line launched a pincer-like offensive against the Ankara area!" The French army commander Ferdinand Foch, who was in charge of this battle, reiterated the battle plan of the battle codenamed "Crusade" to the British and French coalition generals present.

Although Turkey is very weak. But this time you are after all preparing to conquer the capital of a country! And there is a deep "moat" south of the capital. The Eastern Roman Empire and the Ottoman Turk Empire set their capitals here for a reason. Constantinople is an easy-to-defend and difficult-to-attack complex node of land and sea. The French are not afraid to fight against the Turks, but if they attack the city by force , Then we must consider the attitude of the Allied Mediterranean fleet deployed in Constantinople. The 350MM and 305MM heavy naval guns on these battleships are not a joke! And if it really hits Constantinople, the Allied Forces will also enter the Bavarian Air Force's strike range, with naval guns and bombers forcibly attacking the city, this is no joke!

Because the possibility of failure is relatively high, the French devised an alternative plan, which is to attack Ankara! Although the effect is not as obvious as that of directly killing the Turkish capital, if the most critical area of ​​Turkey can be broken into ruins and the 3B railway can be cut off by the way, then it will also be a heavy blow to Turkey!

And choosing to start the battle in the relatively wide central part has another advantage, that is, it can give full play to the mobility and equipment advantages of the Allied forces. Fighting a large-scale mobile war, the Turkish army was torn apart in the continuous offensive and interspersed! You know, Turkey is not the same as a European power. Its mobilization potential is very poor. This is not only because of industrial restrictions, but also because of its population. The troops are replenished!

You know, Turkey, a country with an area of ​​nearly 1.5 million square kilometers, is almost three times that of France, but its total population is only 19 million! What is this concept? The population of Germany is 3.5 times that of Turkey! The population of France and Austria-Hungary is twice that of Turkey! And these populations are also mixed with a large number of other ethnic groups! Therefore, Turkey's conscription capability is very weak! In the European battlefield, the two sides broke out at every turn a super-large-scale battle with a unilateral participation of 500,000 troops. But for Turkey? It is not easy to concentrate more than 200,000 on a certain front, and if hundreds of thousands of troops are lost, it is undoubtedly a disaster for the Turkish government!

The Bavarian Legion may eventually be able to reach Asia Minor, but so what? Foch believed that before the Bavarian Army came to Turkey, his British and French forces could completely destroy the Turks! When the time comes, let the Bavarian Legion fight with itself in the vast Asia Minor!

Unlike the Russians who regard the Bavarian Legion as an invincible enemy, the French are still more confident in their military strength. Although they were beaten up, how can they lose confidence as a big country because of a battle-level defeat? What? The French army of this era is very tough from top to bottom! After receiving a lot of aviation support and artillery support from the British, the French are more confident!

The so-called sharpening of knives and not chopping wood by mistake, in order to fight the battle, the French did not rush forward. Anyway, they gave the Turks time to stop the French attack, but what about the time for the Bavarian Army? The German troops who landed from the Sea of ​​Azov have dispersed on the eastern plains of Ukraine. How can it be so easy to gather troops? According to the estimates of the French, it would take at least 40 days for the Eastern Front of Bavaria to gather together and prepare for the war. At this time, the French may have already come to Istanbul. Maybe they can use the British. The provided naval artillery shelled the city. No matter how bad it is, it has been taken down to Ankara and cut off the 3B railway. Can you Germans have time? !

In general, the French did a very good strategy. Although they set dual goals at the same time, they may shake the determination of the campaign or produce some variables in the execution of orders, but overall it was quite good. The French stayed in the entire campaign. Full of backhands, full of changes, always mastered the initiative, from a strategic point of view can score 80 points, but the only problem is that there are some deviations in the estimation of the opponent.

At the beginning of the French landing, the prince did not realize the French "two-head strategy". I just thought that the French might attack Constantinople, so I ordered the troops to immediately retreat and then shrink The retreat of the German-Turkish troops surprised the French, but it’s okay. The French said they would deal with a small amount. There is nothing wrong with the German army and the large number of Turkish troops.

What really exceeded the expectations of the French was the speed of movement of the German Army! It is true that the Bavarian Army that has dispersed in the eastern plains of Ukraine is difficult to gather, but the French obviously forgot that there is also a German army on the eastern front! This is the von Seckert army originally attached to the Hungarians! This force is gathered together, and there are 60,000 people! If you use the Ukrainian inland river route, you can quickly reach the Black Sea coast, and then take a steamer to Asia Minor! The time for this unit to gather will not exceed 20 days! They will become the core force to resist the French offensive in the direction of Constantinople! This is why, the prince immediately sent a telegram to Little Moqi, requesting that the command of this force be transferred to himself!

As for the French Southern Front Corps, the prince really couldn’t draw enough troops to stop him in the first place, but the landing point was still a certain distance away from Ankara, and it was the famous Kai who defended Ankara. Moll, when it comes to field combat, it is definitely not the opponent of the French, but if you defend from the city, it is probably okay to delay for a while, right?

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(End of this chapter)