Chapter 415 Central Breakthrough

After the attempt to encircle the enemy from both wings failed, German Chief of Staff Falkenhayn quickly proposed another plan, which was to concentrate troops to implement a frontal breakthrough in the enemy's weak areas. This tactic was also named a central breakthrough.

The tactic of encircling the enemy from both wings was proposed by Hindenburg and Ludendorff. After the failure of the encirclement plan, Hindenburg and Ludendorff had to obey Falkenhayn's command, and the East Prussian Army and the Austro-German Allied Forces began to implement a central breakthrough.

After a series of complex comparisons and judgments, the German General Staff finally chose the core area of ​​the breakthrough as the Goerlitze area in the upper reaches of the Vistula River.

The Vistula River is a river originating in Hungary, running north through Warsaw and dividing most of the East Prussian region.

The real reason for implementing the breakthrough tactic in this area is that most of the Russian army groups in this area were annihilated, and the newly transferred Russian troops were all recruits, resulting in a relatively weak defense force in this area.

More importantly, the two new Russian army groups here had their strength greatly reduced because one of the army groups was transferred away in the previous Carpathian Mountains Campaign.

In addition to the advantage of manpower, the terrain here is also very favorable for the German army.

Because it is not a narrow terrain, the advantages of the German army's manpower advantage can be brought into play. In addition, the Vistula Valley in the north and the Beskid Mountains in the south limit the support of the Russian army, ensuring the safety of the two wings of the group responsible for the assault, allowing the German army to advance without worrying about being attacked on the flanks and back.

The German High Command, including Chief of Staff Falkenhayn, is very confident in the central breakthrough plan.

Although the current situation facing the Allies is very bad, the Germans still believe in the combat effectiveness of their army, and Falkenhayn still believes that the brave German army can solve any threat at any time.

According to Falkenhayn's plan, if the central breakthrough can be successfully achieved, it will completely eliminate the threat of Russia to Hungary and change the current bad situation facing the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In this way, the Austro-Hungarian Empire only needs to send a small number of troops to defend Italy in the west, the Balkan countries in the south and Russia in the east.

The remaining main forces can fight together with Germany, either to destroy Russia or to go south to destroy the Balkan countries, which is a good choice.

The assault force designated by Falkenhayn is the German 11th Army, and the commander-in-chief is General Mackensen.

In order to facilitate unified command and prevent any accidents after the campaign, Falkenhayn did not set up a new main attack force, but incorporated the 10th Army and 41st Guards Army of the baseline forces transferred, as well as the 6th Army sent by the Austro-Hungarian Empire to cooperate in the 11th Army, under the unified command of General Mackensen, and the rest of the army was responsible for the main attack force.

The Russian Third Army is stationed in the breakthrough area. This army has seven cavalry divisions, but most of them are newly recruited soldiers.

Even if only the German 11th Army and the Russian 3rd Army are compared, the German army has sufficient manpower advantages.

After various integrations, the 11th Army had more than 360,000 German-Austrian troops, more than 1,200 small and medium-caliber artillery, more than 300 large-caliber artillery and 100 mortars.

The Russian army also had 220,000 soldiers, but most of them were new recruits. It was also at a disadvantage in terms of artillery, with only nearly 700 small and medium-caliber artillery and a single-digit large-caliber artillery.

The Russian Third Army was mainly composed of cavalry divisions, so it was not equipped with large-caliber artillery, which also caused a more obvious gap in the strength comparison between Germany and Russia.

In order to conceal the central breakthrough tactics, the Germans even prepared a feint attack on the Western Front to attract the attention of the entire Allied Powers.

In addition, at the end of July, a considerable part of the Allied Powers' attention was on the Ottoman Empire, and even Russia sent some troops to the Caucasus, which made the Germans believe that the good time to launch a new campaign had arrived.

It is worth mentioning that the Germans used poison gas for the first time in the feint attack on the Western Front.

This also caused many casualties among the British and French forces on the Western Front. These poisonous gases can not only suffocate, poison and kill people, but also cause temporary or long-term blindness and loss of combat capability.

When the Germans used poisonous gases, they all wore relatively advanced gas masks. On the British and French side, they either simply wrapped their mouths and noses with two layers of cloth, or used more complicated gas masks, which made it easier for soldiers to suffocate.

In terms of poisonous gases and gas masks, the Germans are leading in research. Australasia has not done much research on poisonous gases, but has made considerable progress in research on gas masks.

Most of the current gas mask technology of the Germans also uses activated carbon for adsorption to eliminate some poisonous gases in the air.

Australasia's gas masks also use this principle, which is still quite good for protection against poisonous gases.

Because of this, Britain and France urgently purchased a batch of gas masks from Australasia, and even Russia, which has not yet suffered from poisonous gases, is urgently seeking gas masks from Australasia.

At the same time, Britain and France were also urgently studying the use of poison gas bombs, preparing for a new round of retaliation against the German army.

While Britain, France and Russia were all attracted by the poison gas used by Germany on the Western Front, on the last day of July, Germany launched the Central Breakthrough Plan on the Eastern Front.

In order to ensure the smooth implementation of the plan, except for a small number of army commanders and army commanders, even some important division commanders did not know where their troops were going in the real central breakthrough plan, and could only obey the temporary orders of their superiors.

While the real main force launched the assault, some Russian troops also made feints in the northern region to attract the attention of some Russian troops.

This successfully paralyzed the Russians, who were not prepared for the upcoming German offensive.

When Ivanov, the commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Front, found something wrong, although he ordered to strengthen the defense of the Vistula River area, it was a bit late.

Along the Vistula River in summer, the trees are green, the grass is lush, the temperature is not hot, and the scenery is very beautiful.

But with the roar and bombardment of more than 1,000 artillery pieces of the German army, the short-lived peace in this area disappeared again, and the flames of war enveloped the entire land.

The light caused by the explosion of the shells illuminated the destroyed Russian positions and the panicked Russian soldiers who fled everywhere.

As soon as the Russian army's artillery wanted to fight back, it faced the suppression of the German army's artillery. Faced with such a situation, the Russian artillery positions either remained silent in the war or were destroyed by German artillery.

Although Russia had received some aid at this time, it was not so much distributed to each division of the Russian army on the front line.

On average, each German artillery could be allocated hundreds of shells per day, but the number of shells that a Russian artillery could fire per day would basically not exceed ten.

There was already a quantitative gap in artillery, and the number of shells was at a disadvantage, which made the Russian army lack artillery assistance and also caused the Russian army to have almost no room to fight back under the attack of the German army.

Throughout the First World War, the most effective weapons for defense were heavy machine guns and artillery. But for the Russian army, machine gun bullets and artillery shells were the easiest to consume and the most precious.

The German bombing lasted for several hours, and only in the first half an hour did the Russian artillery respond a little.

For the remaining hours, the Russian defensive positions were subjected to the fierce bombardment of German artillery, and the occasional fireworks that bloomed on the land illuminated the wailing and pain of the Russian soldiers.

This is not over yet. After several hours of bombing, the next to appear were German planes.

These Russian recruits were illiterate farmers a year ago. They were shocked by the iron birds that spewed death flints above their heads, just like the pets of the god of death asking for their lives, which damaged the morale of a large number of Russian soldiers. When they saw the German planes, they buried their heads in the trenches, fearing that the god of death would take them away.

Although it has been several years since the birth of airships and their popularity, Russia also has the first batch of aircraft.

The problem is that both airships and airplanes are too far away for ordinary Russian farmers.

They have no chance to travel in the sky on airships, and have never seen airplanes that Russia has not yet trained pilots. It is natural that they are full of awe for these things that can fly freely in the sky.

Among the major powers, St. Petersburg, the capital of Russia, is the capital of the powers with the fewest flights around the world.

This is not only because St. Petersburg is located in the icy and snowy Northern Europe, but also because St. Petersburg is too far away from the mainstream trade routes of various countries.

London and Paris are the most popular stops for round-the-world voyages in Europe, followed by Berlin, Rome and Vienna.

The Germans did not have many planes, only a little over 100 at most. And these planes were relatively simple, and the main attack method was a machine gun loaded on the plane.

However, although the planes did not cause a large number of casualties to the Russian army, they caused a serious psychological burden on the Russian army.

Many Russian soldiers even developed a war-weary and war-fearing mentality. If the Russian commander had not urgently dealt with several deserters who wanted to escape from the battlefield, the Russian army might have collapsed.

On August 1, the German-Austrian coalition began to officially implement a breakthrough. At the forefront was a German cavalry division, waving sharp sabers, and when the Russian soldiers just stuck their heads out of the position, they had already accepted the gifts they sent.

Under the combined punches of the German army, the Russian Third Army quickly collapsed, and the military law and the supervision team could no longer control them.

The Russian army fled in chaos, and some Russian soldiers who were scrambling to escape abandoned almost all of their equipment in order to reduce their load.

When Ivanov, the commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Army, learned of the defeat of the Third Army on August 2, the German army had already occupied favorable terrain in this area.

Ivanov acted quickly. He immediately ordered the Russian troops on both sides of the Goerlitze area to drive the German troops that had broken through back to the west of the Vistula River at all costs and defend this area.

Under Ivanov's order, a large number of unprepared Russian troops rushed to the front line and launched a suicidal cluster charge against the Germans.

You know, this German 11th Army was not only equipped with a large number of artillery, but also hundreds of heavy machine guns, as well as forbidden weapons such as poison gas.

The Russians launched a group charge, which was simply a group of people charging together. Under the dense machine gun fire and artillery bombardment of the German army, this was tantamount to letting the Russian army line up to die.

In just two days, the German army's breakthrough in the Goerlitze area not only did not shrink, but became larger and larger.

Even if the Russian army was full of corpses on the Vistula River and the Beskid Mountains, it could not stop the German army from advancing.

The red Vistula River proved the cruelty of this battle, which also made the residents around the river afraid to eat fish for a long time.

Speaking of the Germans' poison gas bombs, there was a surprising episode in this charge.

After the British and French forces suffered heavy losses in the Western Front, the Germans quickly decided to use poison gas bombs on the Eastern Front to make the Russians suffer.

The poison gas used by the Germans at this time was suffocating chlorine, which was three times heavier than ordinary air.

When releasing poison gas, a special team is needed to determine the wind direction. When the wind force and wind direction are suitable, the cylinder cap containing poison gas is opened, and groups of yellow-green smoke are entangled together, floating above the ground, and blown forward by the breeze.

But the gas-releasing troops obviously did not consider the sudden change in wind direction, which caused the gas that was rolling forward to be suddenly blown back to the German position by the changed wind direction.

After the gas entered the trench along the ground, it quickly spread in the German position, causing many unprepared German soldiers to suffocate and die painfully.

According to secret statistics of the Germans, this gas accident caused the death of hundreds of German soldiers, which was an extremely serious accident.

In order not to affect the morale of the army and prevent the army and the people from doubting the safety of such a taboo weapon, the German General Staff chose to keep it strictly confidential.

This real historical event was not disclosed until many years after the end of World War I.

Of course, this accident did not affect the German army's large-scale use of gas.

The day after the accident, the German army used gas again on the Eastern Front, causing great suffering to the Russian army.

Coupled with the dense firepower network of the German army, the Russian army that filled the gap suffered more than 100,000 casualties in two days, and the Russian army's southwest front was in danger.

It is worth mentioning that the Germans' high-profile use of poison gas caused the price of gas masks to soar.

While Britain, France and Russia purchased gas masks from Australasia, they also began to develop their own gas masks.

The current market price of gas masks has doubled, but the purchase orders from Britain and France are still in short supply.

That's all for today. I'm not feeling well. I'm going to take a break.