Chapter 1574: The Intent of the British and French Allied Forces
Chapter 1574 The Intent of the British and French Allied Forces
"In order to threaten Constantinople as soon as possible, we chose to land in Edremit, but the terrain here is a bit narrow, and when we approach Constantinople, the width of the battle line will narrow rapidly, and it is possible It was bombarded by the Mediterranean Fleet of the Allies, so although we have positioned it as one of the main strategic goals, we cannot put all the troops here!"
"For this reason, we set the secondary strategic goal to cut off the 3B railway, and to achieve this goal, we must capture Ankara, an important railway hub in central Asia Minor! Therefore, we deployed another landing force in Izmir , while serving as the flank cover of the main force, this force can also carry out an attack alone. If the main force encounters insurmountable obstacles in the process of attacking Constantinople, the main force on the northern line will fight against the south. Launch a pincer attack on the Ankara area together with the troops on the front line!" Ferdinand Foch, the French army commander in charge of commanding the battle, reiterated the battle plan code-named "Crusade" to the British and French generals present.
Although Türkiye is very weak chicken. But this time you are preparing to capture the capital of a country after all! And there is a deep "moat" to the south of the capital. There is a reason why the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ottoman Turkish Empire set their capitals here. Constantinople is a complex land and sea node that is easy to defend and difficult to attack. The French are not afraid to fight the Turks in the field, 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 no joke! And if Constantinople is really hit, the Allied forces will also enter the strike range of the Bavarian Air Force, and forcefully attack the city with naval guns and bombers. This is no joke!
Because the possibility of failure is relatively high, the French designed an alternative plan, which is to attack Ankara! Although the effect is not as obvious as directly killing the Turkish capital, if the most critical area of Turkey can be reduced to ruins and the 3B railway is cut off by the way, it will be a heavy blow to Turkey!
Moreover, there is another advantage of choosing to launch a battle in a relatively wide central area, that is, it can give full play to the mobility and equipment advantages of the Allied forces. Fight a large-scale mobile battle, and smash the Turkish army to pieces in the continuous attack and interspersed! You must know that Turkey is not the same as the European powers. Its mobilization potential is very poor. This is not only because of industrial restrictions, but also because of the population. Troops added!
You know, Turkey, a country with an area of nearly 1.5 million square kilometers, is almost three times the size of France, but its total population is only 19 million! What is this concept? Germany has 3.5 times the population of Türkiye! France and Austria-Hungary have twice the population of Türkiye! And these populations are also mixed with a large number of other nationalities! Therefore, Türkiye's conscription ability is very weak! On the European battlefield, a super-large-scale battle with 500,000 unilaterally participating troops broke out between the two sides at every turn, but for Turkey? It is not easy to concentrate more than 200,000 people on a certain front.
And if hundreds of thousands of troops are lost, it will undoubtedly be a disaster for the Turkish government!
The Bavarian Army might finally reach Asia Minor, but so what? Foch believed that before the Bavarian Army came to Turkey, the British and French allied forces under him could completely defeat the Turks! At that time, let the Bavarian Legion fight against itself in the vast Asia Minor!
Unlike the Russians who regard the Bavarian Legion as an invincible enemy, the French are more confident in their military strength. Although they were beaten violently, as a big country, how could they lose confidence because of a battle-level failure? Woolen cloth? The French army in this era is very tough from top to bottom! After receiving a large amount of aviation support and artillery support provided by the British, the French are even more confident!
The so-called sharpening the knife does not cut the firewood by mistake. In order to fight this battle well, the French did not rush forward. Anyway, they still couldn't stop the French attack after giving the Turks time to prepare, but what about giving the Bavarian Army time? The German army that landed from the Sea of Azov has spread out on the plains of eastern Ukraine. How can it be so easy to gather troops? According to the estimation of the French, it will take at least 40 days for the Bavarian Eastern Front to gather up and prepare for the war. At this time, the French may have already arrived at the city of Istanbul, and maybe they can use the British. The naval guns provided have bombarded the city, and Ankara has been taken down no matter how bad it is, and the 3B railway has been cut off. Can you Germans have time? !
Generally speaking, the strategy of the French is very good. Although setting dual goals at the same time may shake the determination of the campaign or cause some variables in the execution of orders, it is still quite good overall. The French stayed behind throughout the campaign. He is full of backhands, full of changing moves, and always has the initiative. From a strategic point of view, he 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 was indeed unaware of the French "two-headed strategy". I just thought that the French might attack Constantinople, so I ordered the troops to retreat immediately and then shrink. The retreat of the German-Turkish coalition forces surprised the French, but it doesn't matter. The French expressed that they would deal with a small number of German troops and a large number of Turkish troops. no problem.
What really exceeded the expectations of the French was the speed of mobilization of the German Legion! It is true that it is difficult to gather the Bavarian Army that has dispersed in the eastern plains of Ukraine, but the French obviously forgot that there is also a German army on the Eastern Front! This is the von Seekert army originally assigned to the Hungarians! This army is gathered together, and there are 60,000 people! If you use the Ukrainian inland river route, you can quickly reach the coast of the Black Sea, and then take a ship to Asia Minor! The concentration of this force will not exceed 20 days! They will become the core force to resist the French attack on Constantinople! That's why, the prince immediately sent a telegram to Xiao Moqi, requesting to hand over the command of this army to himself!
As for the French Southern Front Corps, the prince really couldn't pull out enough troops to stop it in the first place, but the landing point is still a certain distance from Ankara, and the one defending Ankara is the famous Kai in history. Moer, if you want to fight in the field, you are definitely not the opponent of the French, but if you defend the city, it is estimated that there will be no problem if you delay it for a while, right?
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