Chapter 207 "How Deserters Are Made"

After the Battle of Sofia, Montes, who escaped the catastrophe, was summoned by the London government to return to his home country. He was waiting for a day trip to the military court. This time the British were embarrassed.

Although Montes repeatedly explained that the war was lost due to the betrayal of the traitor, none of them had any effect.

If they lose, they lose, even if they cause more casualties to the Russians tactically, but everyone knows that this battle, the coalition side lost.

The culprit was that the British failed to hold the line, allowing the Russians to break through. Everyone decisively ignored the incident of being attacked by the guerrillas, and the British were embarrassed to mention it.

Oliver, who had done a good job in the rescue, was promoted to the commander of the British army. The promotion was a good thing, but Major General Oliver was not happy at all.

He still has self-awareness, the so-called success of the rescue is just a pretext, if not for the deep background, he is also to blame for the failure of this war.

If it weren't for his so-called decoy plan, an attempt to wipe out the guerrillas, the reinforcements would be stationed in various important places in advance, and the main guerrillas would not have assembled to attack from behind. In this battle, he actually killed Montes.

This kind of thing fooled the domestic bureaucracy and fooled the soldiers who were fighting, but it could not fool the officers who fought on the front line.

In this case, can he be convinced by everyone as the commander of the expeditionary force?

"Have our casualties been counted?" Oliver asked

The middle-aged officer with the bearded appearance replied: "Just a part of the statistics, the Third Army of the Expeditionary Force has a total of 6,876 people killed, missing or captured, and 2,847 people were injured.

The First and Second Corps of the Expeditionary Force, the casualties are still being counted. At present, we have gathered 11,621 rout soldiers, including 924 wounded. It is said that some of the rout soldiers and the Sardinians have withdrawn to the Macedonia region. "

This is not only heavy losses, but the expeditionary force has been crippled at all. I haven't returned to the team for half a month, so the chances of being able to return to the team are very low.

There's no way to do this. When they were defeated and fled for their lives, everyone was running around in a swarm, no matter what direction or direction.

With the defeat of the Battle of Sofia, the entire southwestern part of Bulgaria is the territory of the Russians, and it is unknown how many people can escape the pursuit of the Russians and Bulgarian partisans.

In this era, communication is poor, and the soldiers cannot speak the language. Even if they escape, it is very difficult for them to find their way back.

If the sense of direction is not strong, it is not impossible to run in the opposite direction.

Oliver patted his head. Now that the 80,000 British expeditionary force has hit him, he has more than 30,000 people left. Even if he includes the people who went to Macedonia with the Sardinians, it will not exceed 40,000.

The more important thing is that the morale of the army is completely lacking. After a long period of hard fighting, these soldiers are highly war-weary, even if it is the Third Army Corps that has just arrived not long ago.

If the combat strength of the British army was 10 before, now there is only 5 left. Without half a year of repairs, it is impossible to restore combat effectiveness at all.

But the battle is still to be fought, and the French have asked them to build a defensive line to prevent the enemy from killing from the west.

If possible, Oliver did not mind retreating all the way back to fight a battle of Constantinople. Fighting in coastal areas, they can get naval fire support, making it easier to gain an advantage.

Obviously this is impossible, not to mention the opinions of the Ottomans, the coalition forces and the Russians are still fighting hard in the Sliven area and cannot withdraw at all.

Blind retreat is likely to turn into a defeat, and the consequences will be serious.

Oliver said solemnly: "In any case, we must now block the Russians in the Kazanlak and Old Zagora areas, otherwise the coalition forces will fail in this battle.

The London government has issued a death order, and we must not cause the battle to fail because of our reasons.

I have requested reinforcements from the country, and the cabinet government has guaranteed that at least 50,000 reinforcements will arrive in two months.

After the Battle of Sofia, the Russians also suffered heavy casualties. They also need time to repair. They should not launch a major offensive in the next two months. "

A young officer questioned: "Your Excellency Commander, with all due respect, even if the Russians launch a tentative attack, I may not be able to stop it.

On the way back, we lost all our artillery, one-third of our soldiers now don't have a rifle, and without trimming, the troops would have no fighting power at all. "

This is not nonsense. If a main force of the Russian army comes over at this time, the more than 30,000 British troops will continue to run.

Oliver glared at him and said, "Colonel Fuhu, you are overthinking it. The loss of weapons and equipment has already been supplemented in China, and it will take at most half a month to make up for it.

The problem of military morale depends on everyone's efforts. Now we will not have new combat missions, as long as we do a good job of releasing the guards and wait for reinforcements to arrive. "

Passive or not, Oliver can't care so much anymore. He knew that if relying on the fortifications to defend, the soldiers could still play a part of their combat effectiveness. If you take the initiative to attack, you must write a book - "How Deserters Are Born".

...

Kraljevo, Serbia

Lieutenant Colonel Haydn, in the 3rd Battalion of the 4th Regiment of the New 7th Division of the Austrian Division, encountered a big problem, and there was a large number of rout in his defense area.

A young officer about 22 to 23 years old whispered: "Lieutenant Colonel, the British have sent a representative."

Haydn said lightly: "Invite him in."

The current situation is a bit special. Austria is maintaining neutrality in the war between Britain and Russia, but Austria is an ally with the Russians and is still at war with the Ottoman Empire, an ally of the British.

This intricate international relationship made Lieutenant Colonel Haydn very embarrassed. If this is Austrian territory, then disarm the British as a neutral country and send them back home after the war.

It is a pity that Serbian sovereignty still belongs to the Ottoman Empire. If the British do not cooperate, Lieutenant Colonel Haydn does not know whether to force them to disarm or to expel them.

After a while, a somewhat embarrassed British officer came in, and Lieutenant Colonel Haydn said, "Nice to meet you, Colonel Daniel, what do you need to drink?"

Colonel Daniel replied politely: "Thank you, the coffee is good, it's better to have some pastries."

It can be seen that his stomach has protested again, and the sound of "gurgling" sounded, reminding him that it was time to eat.

Lieutenant Colonel Haydn shrugged and said, "Sorry, I don't have any pastries here, but I do have bread, cans, and beef jerky. Would you like some?"

This is the battlefield, and even though in Kraljevo, the Austrian army did not have the luxury to supply pastries.

Colonel Daniel said honestly: "Bread and cans are fine."

When they ran for their lives, they were all carrying very hungry beef jerky, and now they were all about to vomit, so it would be good to have bread at this time.

Lieutenant Colonel Haydn ordered: "The guard will make Colonel Daniel a cup of coffee, and bring a piece of bread and two cans."

Both are soldiers, and the communication between soldiers has always been straight.

After a pause, Lieutenant Colonel Haydn said the conditions: "Colonel Daniel, you have two choices:

Or, according to international practice, as a third-party neutral country, we will disarm you, and the latter issue will be communicated by the London government and Vienna, and you will be repatriated to your country after the war.

Or, you leave now, and I can pretend I didn't see anything for the sake of friendship between the two countries. You are leaving Kosovo now, and it is still too late to cross back from Macedonia. "

He doesn't want to have a conflict with the British at this time. There are a lot of British soldiers entering the Kraljevo area. If they can't deal with it in time, it is likely to cause trouble.

Colonel Daniel replied without hesitation: "We choose the first option, the Russians have occupied the Kosovo region, and our back road has been cut off.

We agree to be disarmed, but you must provide us with status-matching treatment and guarantee that we can only be repatriated after the war. "

Lieutenant Colonel Haydn was a little dumbfounded after hearing Daniel's words of nonsense. He finally understood why such a person would stray into the Kralevo area.

Where is this mistake, it is simply running here on purpose.

The war lasted for almost a year, and the British participated in the war for more than half a year. After fighting for such a long time, the troops have not been rotated, and it is natural for everyone to be a little bit more war-weary.

The treatment of British Army soldiers in this era is not high. Looking at the logistics supply, we know that if they have status, the bureaucrats of the logistics department would not dare to be so chaotic.

Compared with the navy, they were raised by stepmothers, and their treatment was less than one-third of that of navy soldiers. This discriminatory treatment naturally aroused their dissatisfaction.

Now that everyone is war-weary, it is natural to find a way to escape this war. It is not advisable to be a deserter in the first place, which is subject to military law.

With the defeat of the Battle of Sofia, their chance came. This time it was a full-scale defeat, and I would definitely have to run for my life.

If you run back, you will inevitably have to go to the battlefield later. If you surrender to the Russians, the bears have a bad reputation in this era, and they are afraid of being slaughtered.

Besides, being a prisoner of war is disgraceful, and Mao Xiong is an enemy, and they have no chance to win treatment if they surrender.

At this time, some smart people thought of a way to go to a neutral country to be disarmed, and then wait for repatriation to the country after the war.

Not only escaped the war, but also did not have to worry about being liquidated at home. It's normal to panic on the battlefield, and who knew that the Austrians occupied Serbia?

Anyway, the London government didn't send a document to inform them, so everyone could pretend to be confused and say they didn't know, and they could infer that it was a normal retreat, and then strayed into Austrian territory.

The bureaucrats of the London government must recognize that this is in line with the regulations. They rely on this set of mechanical rules to protect their own interests. Naturally, it is impossible to break them easily.

In fact, not only did the British do this, but even some people in the Sardinian army ran over, but because they had hatred with Austria, not many people ran over.

As for whether it will bring trouble to the London government or affect UK-Austria relations, it is not within their scope of consideration.

Anyway, the Austrians must treat them well, which is a bargaining chip with the London government.

In order to be more convincing, they also found a step and insisted that the Russians had occupied the Kosovo region and cut off their way of return.

Lieutenant Colonel Haydn thought about it and said, "Yes, but all British soldiers must sign the agreement.

Make sure you entered Kraljevo by mistake, because the Russians cut off the way back and you lost logistical supplies, so you asked us for help. "

After changing the rhetoric, everyone's face was taken care of. It also changed the term for disarmament. In the future, Britain and Austria will not have conflicts over this issue.

Colonel Daniel complained: "There is no problem, then Lieutenant Colonel Haydn please provide us with supplies as soon as possible. Along the way, we have not eaten a ton of normal meals for several days."

Lieutenant Colonel Haydn asked: "Yes, how many people do you have, I will send someone to send you a batch of supplies immediately."

Colonel Daniel replied: "There are 1,531 people in total, including 426 Sardinian soldiers, all of whom must be treated equally, and 62 wounded who need to be treated.

There should be some troops behind, and this number may continue to increase in the future. You'd better prepare more supplies. "

It's not that an individual escaped, it's just that the officers and the soldiers ran away collectively, and they ran so fresh and refined.

Lieutenant Colonel Haydn nodded and ordered people to prepare supplies. In any case, let's stabilize these British soldiers first.

Lieutenant Colonel Haydn had no opinion on Daniel's request for loyalty. Anyway, the London government would pay for them.