Chapter 269: All-Out Counterattack

On July 8, the news that Romania and the Ottoman Empire simultaneously sent troops to attack Bulgaria quickly reached the Ministry of National Defense where the General Staff was located.

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

After the war with Bulgaria, even though the Greek army had the advantage of the defensive side, it paid the price of 40,000 casualties after more than 20 days of fierce fighting.

This included more than 20,000 native Congolese in Africa.

After the war, according to the statistics and feedback of the Macedonian Corps Staff, the overall quality of these Congolese natives was not high, and their combat effectiveness was average compared to the regular Greek field troops.

However, in the battle relying on trench defense, if it is just pure defense, the quality requirements for soldiers are not high. Even Congolese soldiers with poor literacy and obedience rates can meet the needs of trench defense.

This point was specifically stated in Manugianaschi's report to the General Staff.

This information also made the Greek General Staff overjoyed, because it meant that in future wars, more Congolese soldiers could be recruited in large numbers to increase the number of potential soldiers in the Greek Army.

After all, under the rule of Greece, Congo's economy is developing steadily and its population is growing steadily. According to data sent by the Congolese government, the total population of Congo is about to exceed 30 million.

In contrast, the population of Greece is only more than 6 million.

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

Of course, this may also be related to the fact that Bulgaria suddenly encountered a war mode such as trench warfare and had no experience in dealing with it.

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

The Bulgarian Army was equipped with few large-caliber heavy artillery, and most of the artillery was small-caliber field artillery. It had limited destructive power against solid fortifications and could not effectively kill Greek soldiers in the trenches.

Secondly, as an agricultural country, Bulgaria had limited military expenditures, and the supply of artillery shells was naturally scarce, so it could not provide sufficient artillery shells to the artillery.

In addition, the artillery of the Greek Army was much stronger than the Bulgarian artillery in both quantity and quality.

In the artillery battle with the Greek army, the Greek artillery had the upper hand.

The Bulgarian army attacked the carefully built defense line of the Greek army, but was in an embarrassing backward position in terms of artillery, a technical weapon that could effectively damage the enemy's trenches, which was also the main reason for the outstanding performance of the Greek trench defense.

After the war, with the start of the Greek national propaganda machine, the news on the Macedonian battlefield occupied almost all the content of Greek newspapers. The whole of Athens was immersed in a layer of worry. The usually bustling city was obviously less relaxed and leisurely, and more tense and worried.

Thinking of this, Constantine said to everyone: "Pass this good news to the media as soon as possible to ease the nervous nerves of the people."

"After Romania and the Ottoman Empire sent troops, the Bulgarian army that was attacking our defense line in Macedonia will inevitably fall into chaos in the short term. This is a great opportunity for the Greek army to counterattack," said the Minister of Arms, Yannis.

"Well, immediately inform Manugianaski of this news, and let the Macedonian Corps take the opportunity to find opportunities to expand the results of the war as much as possible before Bulgaria asks for peace, so that there will be more room for negotiation in future international negotiations," Emai Nur said to the signalman in the conference room.

Due to the particularity of the political and military situation in Europe, the major powers are mutually restrained. Under the current situation, the European powers will not allow a war of annihilation to occur.

According to European practice, the defeated country will generally be asked to cede territory and pay compensation by the victorious country.

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

Prussia did have this idea, but was concerned about the opposition of surrounding major powers, such as Britain and Russia.

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

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Thessaloniki, the base camp of the Macedonian Corps

After learning that the Ottoman Empire sent troops to seek to recover Eastern Thrace and that the Romanian army crossed the Danube and marched towards Sofia, Manugiansky was looking for an opportunity to counterattack.

On July 11, the Greek troops at the front of the defense line reported to the Macedonian Corps Staff, and the Bulgarian troops in front of them were also covering each other and breaking away from the Greek defense line.

Manugianaski, who noticed that the Bulgarian army was retreating, immediately ordered the staff to formulate a counterattack plan.

Since the war began, almost all the battles of the Greek army have been defensive. All the Greek participating troops who learned the news were full of anger and were eager to teach the Bulgarian bastards a lesson.

On July 13, 1913, all the Kingdom troops on the Greek Macedonian front received a counterattack order from the General Staff, codenamed "Greece Must Win", and more than 400,000 Greek Kingdom Army troops were ready to go.

At 6:30 a.m. on the 13th, thousands of artillery pieces fired on the hundreds of kilometers of front lines. The Greek artillery, which had accumulated ammunition for several months, threw hot steel at the Bulgarian positions frantically.

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

For the first time, the Bulgarian soldiers behind the bunkers felt the overwhelming attack of the Greeks.

The seemingly endless shrill whistles and deafening explosions, accompanied by the vibrations from the ground, hit the hearts of the Bulgarian soldiers sitting behind the bunkers hard. The overwhelming bombardment constantly stimulated the nerves of the Bulgarians.

The guy who was unlucky and happened to be blown up by the shells looked lucky. The poor Bulgarian boy, who was swallowed by fear and curled up at the back wall of the bunker, holding his head and howling hysterically and shaking his body, and making suppressed sobs, had completely collapsed.

Even if they could survive, everything that happened today would wake them up from the darkness like a nightmare.

The heart-wrenching screams in his ears made Lieutenant Yokovic hold his head and shrink his curled body tighter.

As an artillery officer, Lieutenant Yokovic's situation was much better than those infantrymen who endured fear in the recommended bunkers.

The Bulgarians who kept hitting their heads and bleeding on the defense line of Lower Tarovs in Greece finally learned something. The machine gun positions were finally not directly set up on the breastwork of the trench, but had specially built firepower points like the Greeks.

The roof built with thick logs and the thick soil covering the roof gave Lieutenant Yokovic some psychological comfort.

However, the explosion of the shells still made his heart feel like it was tightly grasped by a big hand. His curled up body squeezed the air in his chest, making him open his mouth like a fish out of water, his ears "buzzing", and he couldn't hear anything at all.

At 9:45, with the shrill sound of the signal flare, the Greek army on the entire front began a full-line counterattack!

The Greek artillery fire slowly extended backwards, as if it would never stop. Lieutenant Yokovic felt that he had gone through several long centuries. Such torture even made him feel that maybe being blown up to the sky by a shell might be a little easier.

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

He mechanically turned his head and looked around. The soldiers in the bunker were covered with dust, and sat on the ground with lifeless eyes. It took a long time for their dull eyes to slowly recover.

If this was the case inside the eye, it was self-evident what the scene outside would be like. Even though the shells had fallen far behind them, the trenches were still dead silent, as if the Greek artillery fire had killed everyone.

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

Because the Greek counterattack was unexpected, there was no time to dig deeper trenches. The trenches where the Bulgarian soldiers hid were only shallow and could not provide a good defense against the bombardment.

Everyone lost interest in talking and just moved mechanically.

The sound of the explosion slowly faded away, and Lieutenant Victor could vaguely hear a friction sound that had never been heard before coming from the front.

Lieutenant Yokovic stood up with both hands on his legs and leaned over to the firing port in front of the bunker and looked out.

The space in front of the front line was filled with gray smoke and dust, which was the trace of the shell explosion.

The Bulgarians finally noticed the increasingly loud friction sound. The Bulgarian officers and soldiers who slightly poked their heads out stared at the direction where the sound came from with their eyes wide open.

Soon, the Greek army, which they had long been familiar with, wearing khaki uniforms full of spots and blocks of color and no aesthetics, slowly appeared in their field of vision.

"Greek armored vehicles?" Lieutenant Yokovic was not unfamiliar with armored vehicles.

Armored vehicles are no longer a rare thing. The armies of European countries have more or less some armored vehicles modified from civilian cars and serving in the army.

Although he didn't know why the Greek armored vehicles made a harsh metal friction sound, knowing what these iron boxes were still made him feel a lot more at ease.

Outside the eyes, the Bulgarian officers who also knew armored vehicles also began to loudly tell the soldiers who had never seen such equipment and were a little agitated what was on the other side.

The officers' actions worked. Armored vehicles are not rare. The Bulgarian army also has equipment. The armor is not thick, and the Maxim machine gun can effectively penetrate them.

And their wheels could not cross the trenches. With this understanding, the Bulgarian soldiers quickly felt relieved.

The regiment machine gun squad commanded by Lieutenant Yokovic had 8 Maxim machine guns. The machine gun squad, which was divided into two teams like the Greeks to form crossfire, was enough to block an entire front line, becoming a death zone that was difficult for Greek infantry to cross.

However, facing the death metal storm swept by 8 machine guns, the Greek armored vehicles were still advancing slowly except for a series of sparks from the front being hit by bullets.

"How is it possible?! How thick are the Greek armored vehicles?"

"Damn it! Hurry up and take down that firepower point!" The Bulgarians were terrified here, and the Greek army was a little furious.

At this time, in order to achieve the offensive effect, the Macedonian Corps used only dozens of armored vehicles for this counterattack.

76 armored vehicles, scattered in the attack width of the infantry division of about 4,000 meters, were not many, but when facing the Bulgarian infantry positions head-on, the armored vehicles that slowly approached no matter how they fired gave the Bulgarian soldiers a great psychological shock.

At this time, the four armored vehicles in front of the two firepower points of the Bulgarian army were obviously unable to completely cover the infantry following behind. The Greek infantry company commander, who was suppressed by machine guns and could only shrink behind the armored vehicles, had to carefully follow the armored vehicles, hit the hatch at the rear of the fixed fighting room for replenishing ammunition, and then shouted to the rear, "Enemy machine gun fire point found, request support."

Before anyone could reply, a shell hit the front armor of an armored vehicle on the right 30 meters away, and shrapnel flew everywhere, which made people worried.

Just as the armored vehicle on the right was hit, the two field guns in the rear noticed the conspicuous muzzle flame of the machine gun and immediately opened fire. One 75mm shell missed by several meters, and the other hit the machine gun firing point on the left. Mud mixed with broken wood flew more than ten meters high.

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

One of the two firing points had been blown up, and the next one was his turn!

"Where are the artillery? The artillery quickly killed the Greek armored cars!" Victor could only hope that his field guns could kill all the remaining Greek armored cars like before.

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

As the armored vehicles approached a distance of 300 meters, they cleared the last machine gun points of the Bulgarians in the hundreds of meters of defense width. At the last moment of his life, Lieutenant Yokovic was deeply imprinted with the dazzling fire of the Greek artillery.

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

When the Greek armored vehicles ignored the bullets and used their indestructible bodies to overwhelm their heads, the Greek infantry who followed these bodies jumped into the bunker and collapsed.

At 11:28, less than three hours after the Greeks launched the attack, the Macedonian Corps Command received a report from the front that the three divisions attacking head-on had broken through the Bulgarian army's simple defense line and were continuing to attack deep into the Bulgarian army.