Chapter 322 Breaking Through the Blockade

Bomb craters, corpses, and charred vegetation. The trees in the no-man's land were blown to pieces, leaving only tree trunks without branches and leaves, as if telling people about its suffering.

Many places on the battlefield began to present a desolate scene similar to the moon's surface full of craters, the difference is that the moon is white, while the battlefield is gray.

The ground in the distance was somewhat prominent in the morning light, and some earthy brown or lime-colored bulges could be vaguely identified. They were the parapets and fortifications built by the enemy in front of the trenches to cover themselves.

Suddenly, a shrill whistle sounded, and the battle to break through the blockade began.

The battle started from the attack in the middle of the defense line. The cluster attack of the Allied forces would inevitably attract the Ottoman army to use artillery suppression, otherwise the Ottoman middle defense line might be broken.

As soon as the Ottoman army's artillery fire sounded, Shar immediately ordered the main attack force in the "sand" trench to launch an attack.

Amidst the shouts, the well-prepared French and Australian soldiers jumped out of the trenches, holding their bayonets and rushing towards the enemy's defense line through the pre-cut barbed wire.

There was no sound of artillery, and the enemy's artillery fire was temporarily attracted to the middle of the defense line.

There was no sound of machine guns either. The enemy machine gunners hurriedly took their positions, but they were completely unaware that they had been targeted by enemy snipers. After a few gunshots, they fell one by one in a pool of blood.

The backup machine gunners continued to replenish, but were soon shot down again.

The Ottoman soldiers did not even realize that it was the credit of the enemy snipers. At this time, the enemy mortars were also bombarding the machine gun positions. They thought it was the enemy's fierce artillery fire that suppressed the machine guns and made them ineffective.

Fortunately, the momentum of the French and Australian troops was blocked by the barbed wire laid by the Ottoman army on the front line, which bought time for the Ottoman army, and they raised their rifles and shot at the enemy at the fastest speed.

Amid screams, the offensive of the French and Australian troops was barely blocked.

"10 o'clock, 400 meters!" Idris reported the coordinates.

It was a machine gunner who was crouching and running towards the machine gun position. Idris noticed that he was carrying the Maxim's unique ammunition belt box.

Shen Bili did not hesitate, raised his gun and turned an angle to find the target immediately.

"Bang!" A gunshot sounded, and the machine gunner fell to the ground with his chest covered.

"Three o'clock, 250 meters!" Idris reported another coordinate.

It was an officer, who was nervously holding a phone to call, as if reporting the situation to the rear.

"Bang!" A gunshot sounded, and a bullet ended the officer's conversation in advance.

"Two o'clock, 300 meters!" There was a machine gun there spewing flames at the French army.

This machine gun position was set up very cleverly. It used logs to cover the top of the trench and then laid a layer of sand and soil like the surrounding area as camouflage, so that no one found it when observing the terrain last night.

Shen Bili obviously hesitated when he found the target.

Idris felt a little regretful. This machine gun was completely enclosed. It was like a bunker with only one firing hole exposed. The sniper could only see the flames and a little bullet line from the machine gun, and nothing else.

He shouldn't have indicated this target to Shen Billy, Idris thought, this was not a target that the sniper could deal with.

However, just when Idris was about to look for the next "possible" target, he heard a "bang" and the machine gun was silent.

Idris looked at Shen Billy in astonishment. He didn't understand how Shen Billy did it.

This was not difficult for Shen Billy. He deduced the position of the machine gunner based on the direction of the machine gun. The "hesitation" just now was not because he found it difficult, but because he was waiting for the machine gun to turn, and then the shooter would enter his shooting range.

Just when Idris was stunned, Shen Billy pulled the trigger again, then retracted his head and ordered: "Change position!"

Idris suddenly woke up, quickly put away the telescope, crouched and followed Shen Billy.

Perhaps because they had received the news in advance, the Ottoman army added barbed wire and laid mines on the battlefield, which caused great trouble for the French army's charge.

But the focus is not on these.

The Ottoman army, which was busy defending, did not notice that twenty amphibious landing ships had appeared on the sea on the other side.

They were not fast, less than 10 knots.

But the enemy's defense line was only two or three hundred meters away. In principle, it only took one minute to reach it. In fact, it took three minutes, because the amphibious landing ship could reach the highest speed and had already penetrated into place.

Then, the Ottoman army was horrified to find that there were suddenly twenty more "tanks" on the flank beach. They were shooting at themselves with machine guns while advancing rapidly. At the same time, many French soldiers jumped off the "tanks" and threw grenades to occupy the trenches.

The Ottoman 3rd Militia Regiment stationed on this section of the defense line, which was originally frightened by the French army, was suddenly attacked by the "tanks" from the flank. They screamed in panic and abandoned the defense line and turned to flee.

The amphibious landing ships continued to follow up, and they calmly harvested the lives of the enemy with machine guns as they advanced, frightening the Ottoman militias to kneel on the ground and surrender with their rifles raised.

The pressure on the main French army attacking from the front was relieved, and soon they rushed into the enemy's defense line like a tide.

At this point, the Ottoman army's flank defense line was successfully broken, and it took less than ten minutes.

The speed was so fast that when the French army quickly expanded the results along the gap in the enemy's defense line, Bahar, who was in charge of the "A" corner, did not notice the danger.

At that time, Bahar was commanding troops in the middle of the defense line to resist the attack of the French army.

He believed that the French army was desperate and the enemy had to launch such a group charge, otherwise there would be no hope of breaking through the defense line.

Therefore, Bahar excitedly shouted to his subordinates:

"Hold on, this is the enemy's last attempt!"

"They know that the end is coming and they are struggling to death."

"Victory will definitely belong to us, long live the Ottoman Empire!"

...

However, when the soldiers' morale was boosted by his shouting, a signalman hurriedly brought a telegram to Bahar, and the signalman reported with a panicked face: "Colonel, the general orders you to retreat immediately!"

"Retreat?" Bahar looked at the signalman in astonishment.

They are winning, why retreat? Besides, there is the sea behind them, where to retreat to?

"Our defense line has collapsed." The signalman reported nervously: "The general orders you to retreat to Bolayer by boat immediately, it will be too late if you are late!"

Bahar was stunned, then laughed: "This is impossible!"

He grabbed the telegram and his face changed drastically after taking a look.

The reason why he didn't know that the flank defense line had collapsed was because the troops trapped in the "A" corner were short of supplies and there were not even a few telephones on the defense line.

Sanders could clearly see the tragic scene of the collapse of his defense line, so he ordered him to withdraw by telegram.

Bahar looked at the eastern flank and sighed helplessly: "We actually lost to Charles twice, using the same tactics!"