The battle report from the eastern front of the Balkans immediately made the atmosphere in the military and political department in Beijing solemn, and now the battle situation on the sand table, Austria-Hungary obviously has no advantage in terms of troops, one and a half corps against two and a half armies, and the Russians have one more corps, with the establishment of the Russian Empire, that is, a huge advantage of more than 300,000 troops...... The tactics of the Russians have always been to use numerical superiority to make up for the shortcomings of the other ones!

However, the entire Eastern Front is actually very limited in the areas where the two sides can devote hundreds of thousands of troops to the battle, and it is unbelievable from a military strategy point of view that the victory or defeat can be determined so quickly...... And once this news is confirmed, the situation in the entire Balkans will change dramatically, and the Russians will quickly establish military superiority.

What's more, once Austria-Hungary is unable to resist the attack from the Russian Empire, Romania and the Ottoman Empire, which were already in the position of the wall, will quickly correct their position, and no one will be willing to reach a military cooperation intention with a country that has no strength, and the war machine is the most direct verification in the Balkan Peninsula today.

At four o'clock in the morning of the next day, Qin Kai was woken up by the report of the administrative officer in a hurry, and the German side sent the latest battle report from the Hungarian Eastern Front, Austria-Hungary did suffer a big defeat, but the expectation of the situation was unexpectedly better than the original worst plan.

Archduke Conrad, commander of the Austro-Hungarian Eastern Front, was clearly a resolute executor of the German offensive strategy, albeit in the face of a military inferiority. But it is clear that Archduke Conrad was confident in the combat power of the Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht. Offensive tactics of attacking on the right flank and defending on the left flank were still formulated. On the right flank, 70,000 troops of the two armies of the Third Army were put into preparation for attacking the Dadankel Heights, which were difficult for the opponent to deploy on the eastern front, while on the left flank, in addition to the troops involved in the defense of the western front, he still invested 170,000 troops to prepare for the expected fierce attack.

However, the advance of the battle was completely unexpected by the commanders of both sides, and the plans drawn up by both sides were clearly skewed, and everything they assumed was the exact opposite of the facts, and the right flank of the Russian army was aimed at the left flank of Conrad, and the Russians believed that the main Austro-Hungarian forces should not be present in this area. Because the mountainous area west of Mukachevo was not suitable for a decisive battle of forces, and the Russians, based on this consideration, also wanted to open the front to the flank of the eastern front.

Therefore, the two armies on Conrad's right flank, which were preparing to attack, soon found themselves facing not the flanks of the enemy, but the absolute main force of nearly 2 armies, and as a result, on the first day of the war, a one-sided battle broke out. As soon as the vanguard of the 11th Army of the Austro-Hungarian Third Army entered the Dadankel Heights, there was a sudden exchange of fire with the Russian troops who had just climbed to the top of the hill.

After just 4 hours of fierce fighting. On a dozen heights around the Tanev Valley, the two sides engaged in fierce battles in almost all directions, and the battle eventually evolved from the initial 1,500 meters to a hand-to-hand combat...... And even General Ivanov did not expect the war to break out so quickly, but the Russian Fourth Army and the Fifth Army, which had an absolute superiority in numbers, directly attacked the flank of the Austro-Hungarian left flank.

Faced with the threat of being cut off from the retreat, the originally planned Austro-Hungarian offensive eventually turned into a running retreat, so that the reserve divisions of the two Russian armies did not enter the battlefield, the battle was over, and the two armies of the Third Army Corps rushed to the line of the Daveznitsa River, and the two sides fought a bloody battle in front of the two pontoon bridges built by the Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht!

One side was desperate to get out of the battle, and the other side was to take advantage of the victory to pursue, so the outcome of the battle was no longer in doubt, after nightfall, the reinforcements sent by the Archduke Conrad were still not visible, and the Russian field artillery regiment had already arrived at the front line of the fierce battle a few hours later, so the commander of the right wing of the Third Army, General Kusak, did not hesitate to order the destruction of the pontoon bridge.

The Battle of Dadankel Heights unveiled the cruel rules of war on the entire Eastern Front, the Austro-Hungarian Third Army Corps suffered heavy losses, and the main force of the corps was originally the core of the corps that was responsible for the offensive task, and the two armies that evacuated to the south of the Viznitsa River lost more than 7 percent of their troops in addition to the divisional structure, and basically lost the ability to continue fighting.

The 50,000 Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht was wiped out on the Eastern Front in less than a day, and this kind of battle damage obviously shocked a large number of Chinese soldiers in the military and political department in Beijing.

On the 20th, the commander of the Austro-Hungarian Eastern Front, Archduke Conrad, who suffered a rout on the right flank, was obviously aware of the problems in his military layout, but the battle situation in front of the Austro-Hungarian army had already made him realize another focus at the same time - it was impossible to recover the losses of the Third Army by changing strategy, and even if the forces on the left flank were transferred, it was impossible to defeat or repel the main force of the Russian army on the right flank.

The heavy victory that Conrad had hoped for was now obviously meaningless, and the Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht, which advocated an offensive strategy, did not achieve the expected results, but suffered a crisis of defeat, and the crisis came so suddenly! The overwhelming numerical superiority of the Russian army was increasingly unfavorable to the Austrians, but the belligerent Grand Duke Conrad was clearly not affected by the defeat.

On the same day, he sent a report on the Eastern Front to the chief of staff of the Imperial Staff, Borflas, and forwarded it to the Austrian Emperor...... At the most grim moment of my life, I received your letter of the 19th that was too much praise for me. I hastened to reply, suffice it to add that, as I write this letter, the battle is going on, which will determine the fate of my monarchy......

The god of fate seemed to extend an olive branch to Archduke Conrad again, and the Russian Fourth Army, after defeating the Austro-Hungarian left flank troops head-on, unexpectedly fell into a new predicament, because of the complex topography of the Tanev River valley next to the highlands, the water transport channel originally expected by the Russians was not implemented, and the plan to transport heavy equipment over the high hills was obviously completely unable to meet the needs of the two Russian armies immediately behind.

21st. General Ivanov gave an order to the Fourth Army. They were asked to immediately launch an offensive and break through the line of the Davyznica River, which was precarious in Austria-Hungary. However, the Grand Duke of Saviza was clearly not at all satisfied with such an order, and the Fourth Army had received only far less than expected transport in the previous day, and the reconnaissance of the Daviznica River that day, as well as the sudden influx of Austrian wireless telegraph messages, made him worry that Austrian reinforcements might have arrived on the other side.

It was clear that neither side had the heavy weapons to use in the battle, so for the next four days only a tentative offensive was carried out. When the Grand Duke of Saviza was convinced that the remaining transports and the men who had just arrived had reached his control, the Grand Duke of Sarza made a strategic attack completely different from that of General Ivanov, and ordered the Russian Fourth Army to cross the San River, perpendicular to the Daviznitsa River, to the west of Davzemeśl, where he could cut off any Austrian retreat west of the Guò Krakow corridor.

Of course, more importantly, he gave way to the frontal attack on the Davisnitsa line of defenses, and handed over the task of the next round of the main attack to the three armies of the Fifth Army, which had been dragged behind the flank, and the Grand Duke of Salza made it clear that he did not want his army to encounter too fierce resistance in the next attack. Now, apparently, the time has come for the Fifth Army to come into play!

The tide of battle has changed so inadvertently. Salza's Russian Third Army was not unreasonable, and in fact, when nearly 300,000 Russian troops appeared on the western side of the Austro-Hungarian right flank a week later, it did cause a tremendous pressure that almost led to a collapse, but for Archduke Conrad on the Austro-Hungarian left flank, his 170,000-strong army was given a crucial buffer period of a few days, and the reserve army group was given time to reinforce the impending collapse of the Third Army.

On the 22nd, while the Salza division was still reconnoitring the Austro-Hungarian Third Army's defensive line along the Viznica River, although the rout of the attacking forces of the Third Army could not conclude that they had encountered the main forces of the Russian Empire, Grand Duke Conrad categorically changed his original plan, and the information compiled by Qiē indicated that Austria-Hungary did not have the advantage in strength at present, but he was clearly convinced that since the right flank was on the defensive, the adventure on the left flank would be worth it and necessary.

In the early morning of the 23rd, the Austro-Hungarian First Army, which crossed the Krasnik Mountains, gave full play to the efficiency of the Austrian army's efficient military dispatch, advanced 21 kilometers north overnight, and successfully entered the plain between the Krasnik and Vistula rivers, only encountered small Russian troops along the way.

On the plain, the Austro-Crarian First Army finally collided with the defense line of the 14th Army of the Russian Imperial Rusky Third Army deployed here, and when the Russian command learned the news of the direction of the Austrian attack, in the face of the Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht on the plain, the Russian 14th Army completely lost the numerical advantage that it could rely on, and the ratio of the two sides to the battle reached 1:3, and the Austro-Hungarian cavalry division had detoured to the rear of the 14th Army, ready to cut off their retreat back to Krašnik.

Therefore, after 3 hours of fierce fighting, the Russian 14th Army had to choose between holding on to wait for reinforcements and retreating, and finally, before noon on the 23rd, the defense line of the 14th Army collapsed, and the Russian army frantically rushed out of its position to withdraw to Krasnik in the north, and was affected by the withdrawal of the 14th Army, and the Russian 13th Cossack Cavalry Division, which was protecting the supply line behind them, did not engage and withdrew directly backwards.

On the 24th, Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire respectively announced the news of the victory on the Eastern Front, and both sides announced the results of annihilating each other's 50,000 people.

In response, St. Petersburg made a very tough response, declaring that it would continue to send 800,000 troops to the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and German borders, push the war to the end, and completely eliminate any opponent who has a military threat to Serbia! On the same day, the French Brian cabinet also issued a tough statement, saying that it would increase the northeast defense line, and if Germany launched a military operation against Russia, France would not hesitate to launch a counterattack.

When the war of words and steel in European countries unfolded at the same time, the German industrial town of Bremen ushered in several new cargo ships flying the Chinese flag, and neat iron boxes were piled high on the deck, which made the German Foreign Minister Schleier who came to contact him was very surprised, as a diplomat rising in the Far East, he naturally saw a miracle from the East, and it was obvious that this must be a new technology from the Far East...... And this technology is apparently currently used only for military purposes.

Beside him, a young Chinese soldier with a slightly thin face but a tall posture calmly watched the huge fleet slowly sail in, but when he saw the red flag flying high, a trace of excitement still inadvertently swept over his face. (To be continued......)