Chapter 1596 Turning Southeast 2

Chapter 1596 Turning Southeast 2

Therefore, Xiafei is now wondering, what will happen if his armored division does not go back, and then chooses to go south and attack Bichel, an important city east of Eskisehir? There is a railway connecting Ankara, which is an important channel for the transportation of Turkish troops and personnel. If this section is captured, it will be equivalent to cutting off the retreat route and logistical supplies of the Turkish troops in Eskisehir. And if you capture this transportation artery, then continuing eastward along the railway and river is Poratler, the western gateway of Ankara!

If there are railways and waterways, the supply problem of the British can be greatly improved. By then, it may be easy to capture Ankara. So what if the Turks are prepared? Turks are not Germans, just confront them head-on!

Therefore, that night, Xiafei contacted Lord Allenby, the commander-in-chief of the British Army on the Southern Front, and asked whether it was feasible to lead his troops south, bypass the rear of the Turkish Army, and then attack the Turkish Army in front of and behind the British Army. .

"If your troops can move south quickly, it will undoubtedly have a subversive effect on the entire war situation!" Lord Allenby wrote in his reply.

The British welcome the French's help with both hands. Until now, Lord Allenby has been carefully using the military power in his hands. It's not that he doesn't have the vehicles and fuel to organize a quick attack, nor does it mean that he doesn't have the vehicles and fuel to organize a quick attack. British tanks were overwhelmed. (Although there are indeed many repeated repairs along the way) However, the current situation is far from the limit. Lord Allenby's plan is to capture Eskisehir. After severely damaging the main force of Turkey, they then rushed directly to the city of Ankara and cut off the 3B railway in one fell swoop. But now, it seems that I don’t have to worry so much!

Of course, from the side, this is tantamount to announcing the failure of the Constantinople strategy formulated by the French. The spearhead of the attack was broken in this way. When they rely on infantry to climb to the gate of Constantinople, it is estimated that The right one is the Bavarian Legion, which has more than 6 figures. Looking at the consistent performance of the Bavarian Legion, it is estimated that the British and French combined forces can't do it!

"The battle will inevitably be prolonged, but if the 3B railway can be cut off, then at least we can drag hundreds of thousands of Bavarian legions in Asia Minor, right? Coupled with the troops still stranded on the Eastern Front and the Balkan Peninsula, Bavaria I'm afraid it will be difficult to get to the Western Front." Lord Allenby thought in his mind.

On the next day, Joffre led his troops to evacuate southward and disappeared from the sight of the Germans again. On the third day, the information about the battle was sent to France. Before sending the battle report, Xiafei was worried that the failure of this battle would shake the French government's confidence in the Asia Minor front. But what surprised him was that instead of blaming Joffre and his men, the French government sent a third batch of troops to continue to reinforce the Asia Minor theater.

Afterwards, Xiafei figured out the reason for this incident.

Although his armored units were badly repaired by his Bavarian counterparts, the French army on the front did a good job. In the offensive battle, the battle loss ratio between the French army and the German army was almost maintained at around 1:1! This is quite a difficult achievement. In fact, on the Western Front, the average battle loss between the French army and the German army was about 1:1.5. When the Bavarian Army marched westward, the loss ratio between the two sides even reached 1:2.2! At its best, it was only 1 to 1.2. And now, being able to achieve a 1:1 exchange ratio really makes the French High Command feel very gratified... Therefore, the French believed that continuing to fight in Asia Minor was a very good deal.

In fact, there are reasons why the French can achieve such an exchange ratio. First of all, General von Seeckt's troops defending Bursa were transferred from the Eastern Front. This troops was pulled to Asia Minor just after they were relieved of the siege. Although some equipment was assigned to them, it was obviously difficult to equip nearly 60,000 people at once, so the equipment was worse than that of the ordinary German troops on the Western Front. At the same time, the defense time in Bursa was not long enough, and the fortifications were not complete enough.

Another aspect is that the French army has a great firepower advantage. Although there are no tanks to rush into the battle, their artillery is fierce. They put a bunch of navy's 152MM naval guns, 120MM naval guns and 102MM naval guns on the army's gun mounts and pulled them to the front line. Can it be used as a suppressive artillery piece without being too powerful? The French even used a small number of 152MM naval guns as flat-firing artillery during the attack, which can all be used against light cruisers! How could a hastily constructed defense line be able to block such an artillery bombardment? !

After getting the "inside information", General Xiafei was also a little bit dumbfounded. He knew what was going on on the battlefield. He was the kind of person who, regardless of dancing for fun now, would be careful about cheating in the future... It will be difficult to overwhelm the opponent with the first move advantage and time difference, once the Bavarian Army completes its adjustments. And if the Allied Powers cannot achieve even one strategic goal, it will be completely in trouble...

In less than three days, the British and French armies completed the campaign adjustments. In addition to his own armored division, Joffre also drew another division from the troops surrounding Bursa as backup. Then head southeast. At the same time, the British also postponed the attack, giving the Turks the illusion that they could still defend themselves, allowing Turkey to invest more troops. In France, the third batch of supporting troops totaled about 2 armored divisions and 6 infantry divisions. After gathering, you can board the ship from Toulon Port at any time.

However, what the Allies did not expect was that at the same time that the British and French forces were adjusting, the Allies were also adjusting their deployment. On the day Joffre ordered his troops to turn southeast, Ruprecht simultaneously sent a telegram to Turkish Chief of Staff General Liman von Saunders and Kemal, asking them to immediately shrink their troops near Ankara and return to their original positions. Build a line of defense to prepare for defense, and require frontline troops to prepare to shrink the defense.

Regarding the order of the nominal commander-in-chief of the Balkan-Turkish theater, Kemal finally chose to implement it, and General Sanders put forward his own opinion: "If we allow the British troops to continue to advance instead of blocking them, then they will It will soon penetrate deep into the heart of Turkey, and its political and economic impact on Turkey will be quite bad. Therefore, I recommend that the troops continue to resist at all levels."

Therefore, Sanders suggested dividing Kemal's troops into two parts, with light troops providing support, leaving behind the inconvenient baggage and heavy firepower to defend Ankara.

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