Greece’s Roman Road

On July 8, the news that Romania and the Ottoman Empire sent troops to attack Bulgaria at the same time quickly reached the Ministry of Defense, where the General Staff is located.

"This is really good news. After the two countries sent troops, Bulgaria's defeat is only a matter of time," Emmanuel said with relief, and his words were filled with undisguised joy.

After the war with Bulgaria, the Greek army paid a price of 40,000 casualties after more than 20 days of fierce fighting, even with the advantage of the defenders.

This includes more than 20,000 people from the Congolese indigenous peoples in Africa.

After the war, according to the statistics and feedback from the Macedonian Legion Staff, the overall quality of these Congolese indigenous legions was not high. Compared with the regular Greek field troops, their combat effectiveness was average.

However, in a battle that relies on trench defense, if it is purely defensive, the quality requirements of the soldiers are not high. Even Congolese soldiers with poor literacy and obedience rates can meet the needs of trench defense.

This was specifically stated in Manugianasky's telegram to the General Staff.

This information also surprised the Greek General Staff, because it means that in future wars, more Congolese soldiers can be recruited in large numbers, increasing the potential number of soldiers in the Greek Army.

After all, the current Congo, under the rule of Greece, has stable economic development and steady population growth. According to the data sent by the Congolese government, the total population of the Congo is about to exceed 30 million.

By contrast, the population of mainland Greece is just over six million.

If the mainstream mode of war in the future is trench warfare, then Greece can completely increase the proportion of Congolese soldiers in the army.

Of course, this may also be related to Bulgaria's sudden encounter with a war model such as trench warfare, and no experience in dealing with it.

According to the telegrams sent back from the front line, the Greek trench defense line was able to cope with the Bulgarian army's attack well, which may be related to the relatively "poor" of the Bulgarian army.

The number of large-caliber heavy artillery equipped in the Bulgarian Army is scarce, and most of the artillery is small-caliber field artillery, which can deal with solid fortifications and have limited destructive power, and cannot effectively kill the Greek soldiers in the trenches.

Secondly, as an agricultural country, Bulgaria has limited military expenditure, and the supply of artillery shells is naturally relatively scarce, and it cannot provide sufficient shells to the artillery.

In addition, the artillery of the Greek army, both in quantity and quality, is more than one step stronger than the Bulgarian artillery.

In the artillery battle with the Greek army, the Greek artillery had the advantage.

The Bulgarian army attacked the well-built defense line of the Greek army. In terms of artillery, a technical weapon that can cause effective damage to the enemy's trenches, it was in a backward embarrassing situation, which was also the main reason for the outstanding record of the Greek trench defense.

After the war, with the activation of the Greek state propaganda machine, the news about the Macedonian battlefield almost occupied most of the pages of Greek newspapers, and the whole Athens was immersed in an atmosphere of anxiety, and the usual lively and noisy city was obviously less. A little more relaxed and leisurely, a little more nervous and worried.

Thinking of this, Constantine said to the crowd: "Send this good news to the media as soon as possible to ease the nervousness of the people."

"After Romania and the Ottoman Empire sent troops, the Bulgarian army, which is attacking our defense lines in Macedonia, is bound to fall into chaos in the short term. This is the perfect opportunity for the Greek army to counterattack," said Armament Minister Giannis.

"Okay then, immediately inform Manu Gianaski of the news, and let the Macedonian Legion take the opportunity to look for fighters, try to maximize the results before negotiating with Bulgaria, so that in the future international negotiations, there can be more Room for negotiation," Emai Nur said to the signal soldiers in the conference room.

Due to the particularity of the political and military situation in Europe, various major powers are restraining each other. Under the current situation, the European powers are not allowed to have a war of annihilation.

According to European practice, the defeated country will usually be defeated and demanded to cede territory.

Just like after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, why did Prussia not annex France after a great victory.

Prussia is not without such an idea, but is only concerned about the opposition of neighboring powers, such as Britain and Russia.

Therefore, even if Greece can defeat Bulgaria this time, Bulgaria will only cede part of the land. In order to maintain the balance of the Balkan situation, the powers cannot tolerate Bulgaria being destroyed or dismembered.

Thessaloniki, stronghold of the Macedonian Legion

After learning that the Ottoman Empire had sent troops to retake Eastern Thrace, and that the Romanian army had crossed the Danube and marched toward Sofia, Manujianaski was looking for an opportunity to fight back.

On July 11, the front-line Greek troops all over the line were reacting to the Macedonian Corps staff, and the Bulgarian troops in front of them were also covering each other faintly, out of contact with the Greek lines.

Sensing that the Bulgarian army was retreating, Manujanaski immediately tasked the staff with making plans for a counterattack.

Since the start of the war, almost all the battles of the Greek army have been mainly defensive. All the Greek troops who have heard the news are full of anger, and they are all gearing up to teach the Bulgarian **** a lesson.

On July 13, 1913, all the Kingdom's troops on the Greek-Macedonian front received a counter-offensive order code-named "Greece must win" from the General Staff.

At 6:30 on the morning of the 13th, thousands of artillery guns fired on the hundreds of kilometers of front. The Greek artillerymen, who had accumulated ammunition for several months, frantically threw hot steel to the Bulgarian positions.

In just 2 hours, hundreds of thousands of tons of ammunition were poured on the heads of the Bulgarians.

The Bulgarian soldiers behind the bunker felt the overwhelming Greek attack for the first time.

The seemingly endless piercing whistles and deafening explosions, accompanied by the vibrations from the ground, slammed into the hearts of the Bulgarian soldiers sitting behind the bunkers. nerve.

Bad luck, the guy who happened to be bombed to the sky looked lucky instead, his heart was devoured by fear, curled up at the base of the wall behind the bunker, hugged his head, howled hysterically, shook his body, and let out a suppressed sob. Poor Bulgarian boy, has completely collapsed.

Even if they survived, what happened today would wake them up from the dark night like a nightmare.

The heart-piercing cry that came from his ears made Lieutenant Yorkovich hold his head and shrunk his curled body even tighter.

As an artillery officer, Lieutenant Yokevich was far better off than the infantry who endured fear in the proposed bunkers.

In the end, the Bulgarians, who were constantly banging their heads on the defense line of Lower Tarovs in Greece, still learned something. The machine gun positions are finally not directly on the parapet of the trench, but like the Greeks, with Specially built fire point.

The roof made of thick logs and the thick dirt above the roof gave Lieutenant Yorkovic some psychological comfort.

However, the explosion of the cannonball still made his heart feel as if it was tightly held by a big hand, and the curled body squeezed the air in his chest, causing him to open his mouth like a fish out of water, his ears "buzzing" buzzing", hearing nothing at all.

At 9:45, with the sound of the shrill signal flares, the Greek Army on the entire front started a full-line counter-offensive!

The Greek artillery fire slowly stretched back, as if it would never stop, and Lieutenant Yokovic felt that he had been through many centuries, and such torture even made him feel that he might have been shot directly into the sky by a cannonball, maybe a little more. Take it easy.

Lieutenant Yorkevich tried to stand up, then his trembling legs softened and he sat back down on the ground again.

He mechanically turned his head and looked around. The soldiers in the bunker were covered with dust, and they slumped on the ground with blank eyes. It took a while for their dull eyes to slowly recover.

The inside of the eye is still like this, and it is self-evident what the scene will be like outside. Even if the cannonball has fallen far behind, there is still a dead silence in the trench, as if the fire of the Greeks killed everyone.

After a while, there was a sound in the trenches. The recovered soldiers sluggishly obeyed the command to carry the wounded, and waved shovels to dig the collapsed simple trenches.

Because the Greek counterattack was caught off guard and it was too late to dig deeper trenches, the trenches where the Bulgarian soldiers were hiding were only a shallow layer and could not have a good defensive effect against artillery bombardment.

Everyone lost interest in speaking and just moved mechanically.

The sound of the explosion slowly faded away, and Lieutenant Victor could vaguely hear it, and there was a friction sound that he had never heard before.

Standing forcefully with his hands on his legs, Lieutenant Yokovic leaned over to the firing port in front of the bunker and looked out.

The space in front of the battle line was filled with gray smoke, the traces of shell explosions.

The Bulgarians finally noticed the increasingly loud rubbing noise, and the Bulgarian officers and soldiers who were slightly sticking out their heads stared wide-eyed at the direction the sound came from.

Soon, the Greek Army that they were already familiar with appeared in their field of vision, wearing a khaki military uniform full of spots and colors that were not aesthetically pleasing.

"Greek armored vehicles?" Lieutenant Yokovic is no stranger to armored vehicles.

Armored vehicles are no longer a rare thing. The armies of various European countries have some armored vehicles modified from civilian vehicles and served in the army.

Although he didn't know why the Greek armored car made the harsh metal rubbing noise, knowing what these iron boxes were, still gave him a lot of peace of mind.

Outside the eyes, the Bulgarian officers who also knew the armored car also began to shout out what was on the other side of the soldiers who were a little disturbed by the fact that they had never seen such equipment.

The actions of the officers had an effect. Armored cars were not unusual, and the Bulgarian army also had equipment. The armor was not thick, and the Maxim machine gun could effectively penetrate them.

And their wheels could not cross the trench, with this knowledge, the Bulgarian soldiers were quickly relieved.

There are 8 Maxim machine guns in the regiment machine gun detachment commanded by Lieutenant Yokovic. Like the Greeks, the machine gun detachment was divided into two teams to form a cross-fire. It was enough to block an entire front line and become an insurmountable death zone for the Greek infantry.

However, in the face of the death metal storm swept away by eight machine guns, the Greeks' armored car was still advancing unhurriedly, except that the bullets hit a string of sparks on the front.

"How is that possible?! How thick are the Greeks' armored cars?"

"Damn it! Hurry up and get rid of that firepower!" The Bulgarians were terrified here, while the Greek army was a little furious.

At this time, in order to play an offensive effect, the only dozens of armored vehicles of the Macedonian Legion were also used for this counter-offensive.

The 76 armored rulers are not many in the infantry division's attack width of about 4,000 meters. However, when facing the Bulgarian infantry position at this time, no matter how they fired, the armored vehicles that were still slowly approaching were given to Bulgaria. The soldiers were greatly shocked.

At this time, the 4 armored vehicles in front of the 2 firepower points of the Bulgarian army were obviously unable to completely cover the infantry following behind. The company commander of the Greek infantry company, who was suppressed by the machine guns, could only hide behind the armored vehicles. He could not carefully follow the armored vehicles. He knocked on the hatch at the rear of the fixed combat compartment for refilling ammunition, and then shouted to the rear "found enemy machine gun fire, request support".

Before anyone could answer, a shell smashed into the front armor of an armored vehicle on the right from 30 meters away, and the shrapnel flew everywhere for a while, making people worried for a while.

Just as the armored car on the right was hit, the two field guns in the rear noticed the conspicuous muzzle flame of the machine gun and fired immediately. One 75mm shell was fired a few meters away, while the other hit the fire point of the machine gun on the left. , The soil mixed with broken pieces of wood splashed more than ten meters high.

"75mm field gun?!" Lieutenant Yokovic exclaimed, the hardness of the Greek armored car was obviously beyond his imagination.

One of the two firepower points has been blown up, and the next one is yourself!

"Where's the artillery? The artillery quickly kills the Greek armored cars!" Victor can only hope that his field guns can kill all the remaining Greek armored cars like just now~www.wuxiax.com~ .

Learning from the wooden stakes placed by the Greeks in front of the trenches, even if they were not destroyed by the overwhelming shells, they could not stop the advance of the Greek armored vehicles. The Bulgarians could only watch the wooden stakes being knocked down in despair.

As the armored car approached to a distance of 300 meters and cleared the last machine gun point of the Bulgarians on the defensive width of these hundreds of meters, Lieutenant Jokovic was deeply imprinted in his mind at the last moment of his life. The Greek artillery burst out. of dazzling fire.

The Bulgarian soldiers, who had long been covered by shelling and shattered their will, and who fought only under the pressure of officers and group behavior, finally lost the last bit of courage.

After the Greeks' armoured cars defied bullets with their indestructible bodies over their heads, the Greek infantrymen who followed these bodies jumped into cover and collapsed.

At 11:28, less than three hours after the Greeks launched the attack, the Macedonian Corps headquarters received a report from the front that the three frontal attacking divisions had broken through the simple defense line of the Bulgarian army and were continuing to attack the Bulgarian army in depth. .