"Remember, don't go alone at any time, and don't leave the stronghold 300 meters away, maybe behind a sand dune, behind a dilapidated house, behind a wood, there is a Turkish gunner, and of course a German gunner, who will use a rifle with a telescope to take out anyone who is lonely. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 When Tony first came to Sirte, a fellow villager told him about his combat experience.

Although the successful breakthrough of the armored cruiser Prince Albert caused the Italian Navy to suffer heavy losses in both face and substance, the Italians still relied on their strong naval power to complete the blockade of the western side of the Dardanelles! Under the cover of the main fleet, the Italian minelayers began to carry out offensive minelaying, and several thick minefields completely blocked the western entrance of the entire Dardanelles! In a short period of time, it may take a lot of effort for the Prince Albert to come out.

Not long after the Italian Navy began its operation, the Italian Army also began to try to extend its area of control to the entire coastal area from several isolated landing sites. But no matter how small Libya is, it has thousands of kilometers of coastline, which is a lot of pressure for the first wave of more than 30,000 Italian Army personnel. However, what is surprising is that what should have been considered an "armed march" by various countries turned into a real disaster in the hands of the Italians.

The first disaster occurred in August 1901. The Italian Army, having occupied Sirte, decided to send two battalions of about 1,200 men to the south to Mir, an important outpost for access to the Jufra Oasis, where a full 1,500 Italian officers and men with four guns were headed, supported by about two cavalry companies.

According to their intelligence, there were only a few hundred Arab tribal cavalry here, half of whom did not even have guns, only scimitars and spears. However, this careless Italian cavalry ran into a force that had never been seen before in history - the carriage troops!

"We set off, everything went according to the pre-made plan, and in addition to the weapons and equipment we had with us, tents and other various supplies, we brought three times the daily consumption of fresh water. The cavalry opened the way in front, and two battalions of infantry advanced on both sides of the road, with artillery and supply teams in the middle. ”

"However, we underestimated the difficulty of moving in the rocky desert area, the hot climate made us very slow, and we were exhausted by the short distance of a dozen kilometers, but this was only a small problem compared to what we encountered later. Thirty kilometers after we left the city of Sirte, the local cavalry began to appear in our business, and they hovered around the edge of our field of vision on horses or camels, and our cavalry rushed to try to finish them, but they were easily evaded. ”

"As time went by, we became more and more uneasy, more and more cavalry appeared on our side, they even approached us only more than 400 meters away, we tried to shoot with rifles, naturally we couldn't hit, and when we were ready to use artillery and machine guns, they ran away from us."

"These annoying creatures hovered around us like wolves that smelled fishy, and even attacked us with a small warp weapon that, of course, had little accuracy at a distance of more than 400 meters, but it annoyed us. Our cavalry managed to catch a group, but the opponent's rifle equipped with a burst of fire easily wiped out all of our cavalry, and it was only then that we realized that the situation was somewhat unexpected! ”

"Soon, a large number of cavalry appeared on our flanks, and their movement was relatively slow compared to ordinary cavalry, so that we could calmly deploy our defenses. We began to unfold, and two sparse skirmishers were very open. All the infantry companies formed a ring of fortifications with machine guns as the core, and we had already thought about the possible situation against the opposing cavalry, and had made a plan, but it soon became clear that our plan did not work at all in the face of the opponent's attack! ”

"Lots of wagons! I've never seen so many four-wheeled carriages, and they're still on the battlefield! If it had been somewhere else, I would have thought it would have been a joke, but when the other side showed their fangs, we had a disaster! ”

"At least 40 wagons came into view, and a few of them were parked 2 kilometers away, presumably equipped with some kind of curved artillery, and it took them a short time to deploy them, and then we heard a rapid shelling from a distance! Cannonballs can even be caught with the eye, and they fall from the sky in deadly arcs! Even before the first shell hit, their guns had already fired several times! ”

"A dense rain of bullets fell on our positions, and that was at least the projection of more than 4 artillery batteries! We were caught in a fire. Then, the remaining wagons arrived less than 800 meters away from our battle line, and through the smoke we suddenly found that the rear wagons of those four-wheeled carriages were carrying machine guns, and at least 30 machine guns were firing at us at a distance of 800 meters! God, we have only 12 machine guns in our two battalions! ”

"Our artillery was suppressed or destroyed at the first time, two of the four 75mm guns were destroyed, the other two were suppressed, and the machine gun vitality of the Turks, or rather, the Germans, quickly shattered our defenses, but even so, we managed to resist the attacks of our opponents, and killed and wounded at least 2,000 people. In the end, our troops were unable to stop the Turkish cavalry charge, and I was lucky enough to escape. And this vital piece of information was delivered! An Italian cavalry officer who narrowly escaped after the war wrote in the report.

On the whole, the officer's account is generally in line with the basic facts, but he describes in some detail the German-Turkish fighting style in this battle, the continuous suppression and reconnaissance of the reconnaissance cavalry, then the suppression of both near and far fire by mortars and machine guns carried by wagons, and finally the charge of the cavalry with a large number of sabers and pistols.

However, the alleged resistance of the Italians was not true, and the whole battle was ...... 15 minutes from the beginning to the end. Then two battalions of Italian troops, after paying the price of 300 casualties, the remaining 1000 people surrendered! Only a small number of cavalry went.

"Italy sent 30,000 men, but in North Africa there wasn't even a splash!" This is how the British newspapers describe the actions of the Italians!

The second is more ~~~! Ask for subscription, ask for tips~~~! (To be continued.) )