In December 1909, the cold fortress of Pumilel became the focus of the whole of Europe, after nearly 40 days of fierce fighting, it was obvious that the Russian Imperial Army, which had been prepared for a long time, showed the huge military superiority of the land power, and the commander General Ivanov also fully demonstrated his personal ability to control the battlefield, relying on the overall military superiority, completely eliminating the possibility of any counterattack by the Austro-Hungarian Army.

The Austro-Hungarian Eastern Front assembled three armies of nearly 800,000 troops, under the strong blows of the Russian army, but constantly forced to retreat, in the battle between the two sides, the Austro-Hungarian commander Grand Duke Condra's appearance can also be described as unsatisfactory, did not show any advantages that an efficient staff can bring, but in the continuous offensive, completely lost the morale of the army.

After full mobilization, the Russian army has gathered an astonishing strength of nearly 1.5 million troops in five group armies on the entire border line between Russia and Austria-Hungary, which accounts for almost half of the entire Russian Imperial Army, and the Russian War Department has also announced that it has completed the recruitment of 50 reserve divisions and will continue to increase investment in the northern front!

On the other hand, although the Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front was supported by Dankel's First Army, because the fighting in the Bosnian direction was far from subsided, the Serbian Army, after receiving the support of Russia, changed its previous defensive position, began to frequently attack on the line controlled by both sides, and began to increase its troops in the Herzegovia region, looking desperate to attack.

This made Austria-Hungary now have the pain of riding a tiger, and it is obviously unlikely that the Serbian army will be annihilated in the short term. Although head-to-head. The aggressive Serbia was completely unable to match their aggressive nature. However, the Serbian Army was notoriously capable of running, and Herzegovina's distance from Austria-Hungary made it more difficult to commit more troops.

For a series of reasons, when Grand Duke Condra realized that the original plan of the Eastern Front campaign was completely impossible to complete, he had less than 600,000 troops at his disposal, of which nearly 300,000 belonged to the Third and Fourth Armies, which had just suffered a great defeat. More than 100,000 Austrians were killed and wounded in 40 days, and the cold winter caused huge non-war attrition.

Following, the Russian Imperial Army, which was eyeing the tiger, was full of morale, defeating the Austro-Hungarian Army in three battles on the Eastern Front in a row, so that the Russians were highly motivated, ready to fight all the way to Budapest to completely defeat the Austrian army, General Ivanov obviously also had the ability to lead this big battle, but the Austrian army, which had fled after hearing the news, had now stopped in front of the fortress of Pumilal. and restored the already collapsed establishment.

On December 7, on the 7th battery of the fortress of Pumilal. A group of Oriental officers in field observation group uniforms, accompanied by an officer of the fortress headquarters, moved a large black wooden box into the battery observation platform, and then several of the Chinese officers crouched here, and after disassembling and reassembling the black box, a strange machine with a strange telescopic lens appeared.

The commander of the battery came over curiously and muttered two words, but he couldn't figure it out, anyway, he was authorized by the command, so he didn't bother to pay attention, and several Chinese soldiers were obviously very dignified, although the sound of the exchange of fire between the peripheral troops on both sides in the distance continued, but it never aroused their interest, until December 10, when the Russian vanguard launched an attack on the outer fortifications of the fortress, these Chinese nervously began to work!

Russia was obviously not in a hurry to conquer the fortress, and General Ivanov certainly not studied this heavily fortified Austro-Hungarian fortress for the first time, so the Russians did not rush forward to intersperse, and in the face of the Austro-Hungarian army that lost three battles, the Russians were now in high morale, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not show any momentum of counterattack in the ensuing confrontation.

On the 14th, the blocking position on the left flank of the Pumilel fortress fell, and the Russian army broke through the Austro-Hungarian defenses on the flank and inserted itself into the rear of the fortress. General Kusaneko ordered to shrink the positions on the periphery of the fortress to avoid a needless confrontation with the Russian army, and to shrink the positions to a distance of 1,500 meters around the fortress in order to give full play to the cover of the fortress's firepower.

The Austro-Hungarian knight, who had a wealth of combat experience, apparently had an unusually strong heart, and allowed the Russian Army to complete the siege of the fortress of Pumilel on the 20th, and on the same day, he summoned the 140,000 senior officers of the Austro-Hungarian Army who remained behind in the fortress to issue a battle order to defend it, and his battle order could be reduced to one sentence - never to evacuate any batteries.

In the early morning of the 24th, Liu Qing, the Chinese military attache who stayed on the front line of the fortress, sent a secret telegram to the country to unveil the offensive and defensive battle of the fortress, General Ivanov was obviously ready to completely defeat the Austro-Hungarian Army, Salza's Fourth Army and Rusky's Third Army appeared around the fortress, he predicted that although the battle was damaged, the Russians still deployed more than 500,000 troops around the fortress, in fact, Liu Qing still far underestimated the determination of the Russians to strike at Austria-Hungary!

Half an hour after the telegram was sent, the general attack of the Russian army began, to Liu Qing's expectation, the Russians put on a full-scale offensive posture that completely surprised him, the No. 8, No. 5, and No. 1 batteries on the front and flanks were attacked by the Russian army at the same time, and the Russian army, which was in high morale, did not seem to pay attention to the trenches and positions made up in front of the fortress at all!

Dense platoon artillery fire rang out on the Russian position, and a series of black smoke rising from the Russian artillery position 5,000 meters away could be clearly seen from the telescope, but Liu Qing almost didn't need too much thought to immediately judge the scale of the Russian army's heavy firepower - 80mm howitzer group, and the whistling shells continued to cross the fortress defense wall, raising a series of explosive fires inside and outside the city.

However, the Russians did not come up with any more weapons of mass destruction, and after less than three hours of artillery preparation, Rusky's Third Army launched its mechanics almost without scruples, and with three red flares lifted into the air, a large number of Russian troops shouted "Ula" and jumped out of the trenches and rushed to the Austrian outlying positions a few hundred meters away, and they were greeted by stormy artillery fire from fortress batteries, firing holes, and ground positions.

Liu Qing carefully observed the battle between the two sides through the binoculars, and carefully recorded the events that took place on the battlefield...... And a day and a half at most. His records are then carefully proofread and sent to Budapest in the rear. It is then forwarded to the country. The battlefield experience here, which has been exchanged for countless blood and human lives, must be deeply understood by colleagues at home...... Of course, the several celluloid film cameras that were working intensively on the observation post of the fortress's main battery would show more important information to the country after the war.

Even if he had enough expectations and predictions, the scene unfolding in front of Liu Qing's eyes still shocked him, the Russian army's artillery preparation obviously did not play any role, and the 80mm howitzer may be a sharp weapon to deal with field fortifications. However, it was simply not possible to destroy the fortified gun emplacements, and even the semi-solid formula on the perimeter of the fortress was not at all afraid of the bombardment of howitzer high-explosive shells.

And when the core battery of the fortress began to counterattack, the huge 305mm fortress gun showed a huge power that no one could look at directly, the shells weighing 350-400 kg, at a distance of several thousand meters, the shooting on the fixed battery was completely target training, and every shell that smashed into the crowd of people smashed into the Russian army made an earth-shattering explosion. At the same time, a long and terrifying passage of corpses was immediately carved out of the Russian ranks. Or even more terrifying explosion rings, where fragments of corpses flew through the air with the air of the explosion, and the lives of dozens or hundreds of people were immediately ended.

Then, the huge hole in the Russian army's offensive tide was immediately filled by the crowd of people from behind, and a large number of small-caliber field guns fired from various temporary artillery positions in the fortress smashed the Russian attacking troops into thousands of holes, and the large-caliber army cannons were also pulled to shoot flat fire, and every shell made a bloody alley in the Russian army.

The attack along the San River valley, the Russian attack was mercilessly bloodbathed from the fortress, although it has an absolute advantage in numbers, but in the face of the dense heavy fire in the fortress, even if it can advance to the front of the fortress in the overwhelming shells, the heavy machine gun barrage sprayed out from the fortress fire point mercilessly harvests the lives of anyone who dares to surpass!

The fierce battle on the 24th was a one-sided massacre, and by nightfall, General Rusky had to stop his attack and retreat to his starting position, facing staggering losses...... More than 8,000 people were killed and more than double that number were wounded in a single day, but the position was not advanced even an inch.

However, Liu Qing still saw some threats from the Russians in the battle that day, and he clearly saw the engineering units mixed with the Russian assault force from the observation position...... However, in the face of a permanent fortress like the Phumirel Fortress, combined with field fortifications, sending sappers to the battle line is almost a point of no return.

General Ivanov was clearly unwilling to accept such a defeat, and late that night, the attacking units that had been demoralized during the daytime were replaced, and the Third Army brought in new troops, using night infiltration tactics with engineer blasting, trying to break directly into the core positions of the fortress, but ...... The large area of infantry minefields laid by Austria-Hungary became a nightmare of the night.

In the darkness of the night, in the tracer shells of heavy machine guns and the skyrocketing fire of artillery bombardment, although a large number of corpses were thrown along the way, the attack troops of the 10th Army of the Russian Third Army still managed to take advantage of the gap between the three batteries in the northeast and rush to the core position.

However, there is no offensive passage around the core position at all, the traps that are several meters deep and the firepower points around the traps make up for it, so that the offensive passage has become a sea of corpses and blood, and the engineering units in front of the breakthrough have no chance to play at all, they are drowned in the corpse pile, and after 3 hours of fierce fighting, the first batch of Russian troops stepped on the corpses of countless colleagues and touched the outer wall of the fortress.

It's just that the battle has come to an end, as the searchlights on the fortresses on all sides suddenly turned on, and the countless shooting holes on the fortresses sprayed a barrage of desperate bullets, and the screams of the Russian army that night almost exceeded the sound of shooting on all sides of the fortress...... When the dawn of dawn rose, the entire fortress battery was densely covered with Russian corpses!

During the day on the 25th, the Russian army actually launched another attack, but the result of the offensive could not achieve anything, even superficial, except for the needless huge casualties, and those teams of honest and docile Russian peasants charged forward with numb expressions under the leadership of the officers, and their lives withered in the storm of bullets and shells.

The heavy machine guns of several Austrian batteries in front of the breakthrough were overheated in a large area during the continuous operation, and even watering could not continue to fire, so that the barrage of spray slaughter had to be suspended, but it did not affect the Austrian army to usher in a long-lost victory at all!

On the 26th, the Russian army made a desperate bet, transferred 35 regiments, divided into 6 waves, and rushed like a wave, and the cycle began, and the disabled troops were immediately withdrawn and reorganized, and they were put into the offensive again, and the waves of the Russian army's impact rushed like a wave of anger, and then another wave smashed in front of the fire of the Austro-Hungarian army. On the evening of the 26th, the Russian army finally stopped its offensive.

In the telegram sent that day, Liu Qing expressed full shock at the fact that the Russian army was able to maintain the offensive in such a dense firepower, and at the same time put forward his thoughts to the country -- if the Chinese army were to capture the fortress of Pumilel, it would have become very difficult to attack under the conditions that the foreign army's firepower had now become machine-gunned.

As a footnote to Liu Qing's question, it was the loss of the bloody three-day offensive of the Russian Third Army, in which the Russian Imperial Third Army suffered a demoralizing blow, in the bitter cold wind, more than 40,000 corpses were piled up under the fortress, and the number of wounded among the Russian troops who withdrew from the offensive position also exceeded this number, and the Russian army died more than 20,000 people in the late night attack on the 25th, and only double-digit survivors remained in the huge majority of regimental units involved in the attack.

A few days later, in the "Pumiler Tactical Study," which was assembled from the report sent back by Liu Qing on the table of the General Staff Department of the Ministry of Military Affairs in Beijing, it clearly revealed to the Chinese soldiers that the offensive will be the most arduous war in the face of modern fortifications!

However, Qin Kai did not pay too much attention to the offensive and defensive battles of the fortress that day, the offensive and defensive battles of the fortress were almost the most contradictory problems of this era, and the Russians did not make any predictions in this regard, so defeat was inevitable, but the brutal tactics advocated by the Russians, and finally led to such an astonishing battle loss, which made him establish his determination to fully combat this big trouble.

On the same day, another important news from Shanghai made Qin Kai very excited! (To be continued......)