"What do you think of the new battle plan, Paul?"

"Do you want to hear the truth, Captain?"

"Yes. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ”

"I think we should abandon the attack on the Kimberley, evacuate Orange and the Transvaal as quickly as possible, and while we still have a chance to leave—"

"Lieutenant!" Köllner cried out, but not angry, just a little impatient—retreat, retreat, retreat. For the last week he had been told every day that the expeditionary force should withdraw immediately from southern Africa, leaving defeat and death to the Boers - of course, Kollner did not object to this proposal, and even partially supported it, for he, like everyone else, did not intend to die for the independence and freedom of the Boer people - but what was the need to speak in his ears all day long?

"I'm not the one to make decisions, Lieutenant." He grumbled, tossed the map aside, put his hands on his waist, turned to look at his staff officer, and sighed heavily. "You have to understand that even Colonel Coster is not qualified to dictate our retreat schedule. If you have a suggestion, then you should tell Berlin. ”

"Berlin won't listen to my advice, Captain." Paul. Feng. Leto Forbeck, Körner's staff officer, shrugged his shoulders calmly but helplessly. "The Emperor and the General Staff need us to win the last battle, otherwise we would have already begun to retreat months ago."

A few months ago? No, things aren't that far away. Kearner shook his head secretly. Berlin and the Expeditionary Force did not realize until a week before the British army "liberated" Durban that they and the Boers could not win the war, and there was not even the slightest chance - according to the original plan, the Expeditionary Force and the Boer army set up a prisoner of war camp at the docks in Durban, using thousands of British prisoners of war as human shields to stop the British army's attack - Berlin thought that this trick would work, but it was useless, and the British Royal Navy warships continued to shell Durban, completely ignoring the warnings of the Boer representatives, And even after one of the shells hit the prisoner camp accurately and caused hundreds of prisoners of war casualties.

Then Durban was abandoned, and the officers and soldiers of the expeditionary force began to demand a retreat, because the British had made clear their determination that the war would not end, no matter how great the cost and how many lives were lost, except for victory and the final destruction of Orange and the Transvaal.

Of course, perhaps this attitude was only a bluff of intimidation, but none of the soldiers of the expeditionary force intended to risk confirming it, so they wished to leave the present dangerous place as soon as possible - however, the Emperor and the General Staff wanted to see the last victory.

It was madness - Kearner did not realize in the slightest that his thoughts were disrespectful to the Emperor and an affront to the marshals and generals of the General Staff - the fact was that there were 200,000 British soldiers in South Africa, and although Berlin had chosen to attack the Kimberley, with only 10,000 British soldiers and more than 1,000 American mercenaries, the British controlled the railroad and would arrive there as soon as they got the news, and perhaps at that time the expeditionary force was still trying to break through the fortifications built by the Americans.

Kearner immediately had a very bad feeling when he thought of the defenses around Kimberley City and the diamond mines, the dense trenches and barbed wire, and the bunkers and firing points buried in this network. In China, the Imperial Expeditionary Force was in serious trouble with a similar system of defenses, and the fortifications here were at least ten times more complex and fortified than the Chinese ones, and in the end, the American mercenaries were not the Chinese soldiers they trained, and the British were not the Boxers.

It is foreseeable that the victory that Berlin needs will definitely not come so easily, or it will not come at all......

"Captain, did you hear me clearly?" Leto Forbeck's call brought Kearner back to his senses.

"What?" He asked.

"Nothing." "It's just that I want to know, what do you want to hear, if you don't want to talk about the topic related to the retreat." ”

What do you want to discuss? Köllner immediately hid his pessimism - as an officer, it was time to do his duty. "Only one thing, lieutenant, how can we break through the lines of the Americans."

The question is difficult. Köllner thought it would take a while for his adviser to come up with an answer, but in reality, Leto-Forbeck didn't hesitate at all.

"We don't have to break through the defenses of the Americans."

"Why?"

"Artillery destroyed, infantry occupied." Leto-Forbeck said in all seriousness, "Captain, it is the work of the infantry to break through the defensive line. ”

"Infantry ......" Köllner suddenly found that he could not refute his staff officers: breaking through the line of defense is the work of the infantry, and has nothing to do with artillery. But he wasn't going to give up. "Yes, it is the work of the infantry to break through the defensive line, but until then artillery is needed to tear holes in the defensive line - lieutenant, do you think we can do this?"

"I can't." Leto Forbeck's answer was still clean. To strengthen his persuasive powers, he brought over a map that had been thrown aside by Körner a few minutes earlier - it contained a sketch of the Kimberley's fortifications, based on the "black general" Piette. The report of Cronye's scouts is not accurate, but at least it can be used as a reference - explaining, "As we already know, the Americans built five trenches outside the Kimberley, and then laid eight barbed wire. If our infantry wanted to break through to it, they would have to first open passages above the outermost two layers of barbed wire, then fight the Americans for the first trench, and finally strike in depth along the communication trenches connecting the two trenches......"

"That's true." Köllner nodded.

Leto Forbeck ignored the interruption. “…… To achieve this goal, we need to invest a large number of soldiers, but in reality we have only 8,000 men - 4,000 Boer militia, 4,000 Imperial soldiers. The Kimberley's British soldiers and American mercenaries combined were three thousand more than us, and even if the exchange ratio of the battle reached one to one, we would not be able to complete the task. And as an attacker, our losses will be higher. ”

"But our artillery has an advantage." "It's a good thing we dragged the 150mm guns to this place, and not all of them at Leddy Smith......, as you suggested," Kollner stressed.

Leto-Forbeck almost laughed: Körner's emphasis was more of a death throes than a counterattack. He knew the same problems as Körner, and of course every senior officer of the expeditionary force knew: "It would take us weeks to strike a breakthrough in the middle of the Kimberley defenses with just a few dozen pieces of artillery, and before that the British reinforcements had arrived." Besides, we don't have so many shells. ”

Köllner sighed. Berlin thought it had chosen a soft persimmon for the expeditionary force, which, unfortunately, was in fact an iron plate, although it was indeed the thinnest of the three iron plates in southern Africa.

"It doesn't look like we have a chance at all." He was discouraged.

"Not exactly." Leto-Forbeck said that "it was not impossible to break through the fortifications of the Americans. One way is to select good soldiers to form assault troops, equip them with weapons that can be used in the trenches, such as American light machine guns, sapper shovels, one-handed bombs, explosive packs, use the night or other suitable cover to launch surprise attacks, infiltrate the trenches, engage in close combat with enemy troops, disrupt their deployment and movement, and destroy defenses and fire installations......"

As he stated his vision, his voice grew louder and louder. Leto Forbeck looked a little overexcited, so Kearner had to interrupt him. "Lieutenant, this doesn't seem like a job we can do right now, no one has that kind of training without the weapons you need. And ......"

Leto Forbeck knows what he wants to say. The marshals and generals of the General Staff, I'm afraid, would not like such unconventional tactics. Crisp uniforms, shiny leather boots, neat queues, bayonets, the German soldiers they wanted to see should be like this, not a bunch of barbarians covered in mud, wielding sapper shovels in hand-to-hand combat with enemy soldiers in the trenches.

Now it was Leto-Forbeck's turn to sigh - the General Staff would not like his idea, and certainly they would not like his other idea: from the very beginning, he was vehemently opposed to regular face-to-face combat with the British. As the weaklings of this war, the Boer army should neither hold on to the city nor attack it, but should be active in mobilizing the British to attack, forcing the British to exhaust their strength, become exhausted, and show their flaws in the search for targets. Then the Boer army could look for opportunities to attack the weak points of the British: a small scattered force, a transport hub, an important but lacking center of supplies, an empty military base. While this tactic still did not give the Boers a victory, it did cost the British much more - but now, because of Berlin's insistence, they had to attack a heavily defended city.

It's bad, it's a tragedy - but for now, Leto-Forbeck can only hope that before a new war comes, the General Staff will learn a little lesson and change the tactics of the army. Of course, he also hoped that in the next war he would be given a command position in which his tactics and ideas could be carried out, not elsewhere, preferably in Africa, a paradise where he could freely exercise his talents.

"Next ......"

"Paul." Just like just now he brought Kearner back to reality, and Kearner called him back, "Our order is coming. ”

Leto Forbeck took a deep breath and looked at the soldier who was passing the order. "Attack time?"

"Five o'clock in the morning." (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )