As the bitter north winds swept across the Balkans, the opening battle of the European war was fought on the Lemberg Line......

On the Russian side, under the strong urging of Grand Duke Ivanov, the two corps of the Russian Eastern Front, which had been stagnant due to logistical supply problems, began to stretch out their heavy fists and launched a crowd-like attack on the defensive line constructed by the Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht in front of them.

On December 4, after a whole day of fierce fighting, the upper middle and western sections of the Austrian Lemberg Line became the meat grinder of the entire battlefield, and the artillery fire of both sides poured fire on the attacking troops of the opposing side without any scruples.

In just one day of fighting, the Austro-Hungarian Denkel First Army, which had just arrived at the front, had crippled a division and a half, and on the battlefield, both sides had dropped more than 5,000 corpses, in addition to at least twice as many wounded......

Grand Duke Condra stood in front of the sand table and kept an eye on the constantly changing regimental replenishment army, and on the entire front, the Russians launched more than 20 key attacks, which made him in an overall defensive posture very alarmed...... At this time, the absolute superiority of the Russians in military strength is already indisputable information, but whether the Russians have reinforcements in addition to the three army groups. For Austria-Hungary. But it's always a mystery.

This also means: In addition to the less than 450,000 troops of the First and Fourth Armies, Kondra only had about 150,000 troops in Brudman's Third Army, which was almost on the verge of collapse a week ago, but the size of the frontal Russian army had exceeded 800,000 people, and according to the prisoners' reports, there were at least 3 army groups!

But this was only a flank battle on the eastern front along the entire long Austrian-Russian border, and the forces invested by both sides could almost be called a national battle. It is completely impossible to convince Grand Duke Condela that the Russians have no other reinforcements......

On the 7th, Liu Qing, the Chinese military attache in Hungary who arrived at the front line with the German field observation mission, was a veteran of the bloody battle between China and Russia in the Twin Cities 20 years ago, or was shocked by the situation of the whole battlefield full of corpses, and the two sides actually killed more than 10,000 people from each other in just a few days, plus three times the number of wounded.

And after the investigation in the field hospital, he quickly forwarded the secret report to the country. In his opinion, it was clear that the Austro-Hungarian army had achieved far more results in the defensive battle than in the previous offensive strategy. However, since the Lemberg Line was completely a battle line built in a hurry for the city of Lemberg, and Lemberg had hardly any worthy military defense points other than small heights, and the Russians had captured at least 4 heights in the last 3 days, according to the information gathered so far, the Russians were at least twice as powerful as the Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht!

The proposal he proposed to the country was to provide humanitarian medical assistance to Austria-Hungary to avoid the mass death of the wounded of the Austro-Hungarian army, although the current Austro-Hungarian army also had a field care system, but it was simply unable to serve such a tragic war, and the increasing mortality rate of the wounded, in Liu Qing's view, may be more likely to destroy the morale of the army than the daily tragic death rate on the front line.

Archduke Condra, who had already felt a great deal of pressure in the face of the increasingly fierce attacks of the Russians, cautiously transferred the 1st Corps of the 2nd Army in the direction of Košice on the left flank and the 1st Corps of the 7th Army, which had just arrived in Miskolc, to move closer to Army Group Dankel, and this order proved to be a very correct decision.

The Russians at least deployed more than 70% of the heavy firepower of the group army on the western front, and the fierce bombardment of the Austrian army was not considered a perfect defensive line, and then the Cossack cavalry and infantry attacked the small hilltop positions occupied by the Austrians, gradually encroaching on the defense of the western front.

Just when the entire First Army's defense line was in jeopardy, the god of luck once again befell Archduke Condra, a sudden snowstorm made the offensive of both sides have to be temporarily silenced, and the sadistic storm and snow were enough to delay the fierce battle of the entire front for 3 days, and the First Army of Denkel, which had gained respite, finally restrengthened the defensive line and temporarily reorganized the scattered divisional formations.

However, it was clear that luck alone could not achieve victory, and only two days after the blizzard, the Russians again set off wave after wave of attacks, and in less than four days, under the overwhelming numerical superiority of the Russians, the Austrians lost 15 of the 21 important positions on the entire Lemberg Western Front, and the Archduke Condra, after urgent consultations with General Dankel and Grandduke Offenberg, also realized that defeat would be a matter of time.

In the end, no decision was made on a strategic retreat, because Archduke Condra was obviously not willing to allow the Russians to cross the line of defense, and the Austrian reinforcements would gradually arrive at the front line within a week, which would be enough to make up for the losses in military strength, and he fully understood the meaning of a war of attrition!

It's just that plans obviously never catch up with the rapid change of circumstances...... In the early hours of December 16, what had been worrying Kondla finally came true, and the flank of Dankel's First Army, which was already in danger, highlighted the troops of the Russian Imperial Rusky's Third Army, and the other side directly threatened the rear of the First Army from the direction of Uzhhorod, and if the Russians were allowed to break through the weak defense line on the flank, the Austro-Hungarian Eastern Front Army would be in a situation of being attacked on its back.

With the appearance of the four armies of the Russians on the battlefield, the military strength of the entire Austro-Hungarian Eastern Front has completely fallen in favor of the Russians, and Kondra had to order the whole army to prepare for the retreat in an organized manner.

Just when Grand Duke Condra was desperate, the 13th Corps of the Second Army, which had arrived earlier from the direction of Kosice, and the 18th Army of the Seventh Army, which had just arrived in Miskolc, appeared on the battlefield and launched an attack on the Russian Third Army, which was ravaging Denkel's corps, from both flanks, which set a crucial point in time for the retreat of the Army on the Eastern Front.

From December 17th to 19th, known as the worst three days of the Austrian battlefield on the Eastern Front, Grand Duke Condra ordered his troops to resist step by step and wanted to retreat from the fortress of Pumilel, but the retreat immediately turned into a rout, and the Russian army that followed the attack harvested the Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht like mowing grass, and in just three days, on the collapsed Lemberg Line, the separate armies lost contact with each other, and part of the army was abandoned to ensure the interests of the entire corps.

In the next 2 days, the fortress of Pumilel ushered in a flood of rout, and even an elegant Grand Duke of Condra fled into the fortress with a face on his face, and the huge turret on the fortress finally inspired the defeated Austro-Hungarian commander!

There is no doubt that the perfect Phumirel Fortress is a weapon platform for the full display of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's proud heavy artillery armament, the entire fort complex covers an area of 15 square kilometers, and has been repeatedly renovated over the past two decades, and the Austro-Hungarian General Staff has always hoped to create a sufficient buffer zone in the face of the Balkan conflict on the Eastern Front.

The fortress of Pumilel is the product of this strategic thinking, of course, this approach is obviously not contradictory to the Austrian army's tactical concept of advocating the offensive, the powerful Russians, has always been a headache for Austria-Hungary, even in the era of the Three Emperors Alliance, Austria-Hungary is still wary of Russia from the longest border in the north.

This can be called the most advanced and largest fortress on the entire Hungarian Eastern Front, the Austrian army deployed two regiments of fortress artillery, with a total of 12 heavy mortars of more than 240 mm caliber and 24 heavy howitzers of 150 mm caliber.

The layout of the fortress is even more perfect, with 5 core main batteries and 12 auxiliary batteries, forming a huge firepower depot in a ring shape, and the batteries arranged in the form of arrows ensure that the enemy in any direction will be covered by the fire of at least 3 or more batteries, and they are all equipped with lifting armored turrets and giant cannons that can rotate at a large angle of 270 degrees!

As for the heavy machine guns purchased from China, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Czech Arsenal, they are all over almost any firing point in the fortress, and the fortress walls are as thick as one and a half meters, which can withstand the bombardment of fortress guns of the same caliber.

After the defeat of the Battle of Austria-Hungarian Lemberg on September 11, part of the remnants of the army retreated into the fortress of Pumiger, and brought a large number of field guns to the fortress, which were distributed to various support points, which brought great casualties to the later attacks of the Russian army.

The Scarlet Dawn has finally begun!

Neither of the warring parties, nor even the whole of Europe and the Americas, could have predicted what a terrible war it would be. (To be continued......)