"Forward!" Baratieri gestured gracefully to the standard-bearer beside him. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

"Forward!" Seeing the signal from the standard-bearer, Brigadier General Dabauer Mida gave a loud order.

"Forward!" The officers shouted loudly. Driven by them, the Italian and Eritrean soldiers, who were crowded together in several horizontal columns, armed with bayonet rifles, marched slowly forward to the Abyssinian position, accompanied by military music and the roar of artillery.

Behind these soldiers, nearly 25,000 Italian soldiers began to advance at the same pace—and with the reinforcements, General Baratieri had a total of 33,000 soldiers, and he devoted the vast majority of them in this first attack, leaving only one of the most elite Alpine brigades in reserve. The general's plan was clear, to eliminate the opponent in one go and make his victory look even more brilliant.

He thought he could do this—a conclusion he had come to an hour earlier when he had led his troops into battle; When he saw the Abyssinian soldiers standing behind the ridiculous "deep trenches", Baratieri decided that victory was a simple, time-dependent matter: the strength of both sides was almost one-to-one, but one Italian soldier could easily wipe out five Abyssinian natives, and the outcome of the war was undoubted.

So, attacking on all fronts, this is his only decision.

"Stupid Abyssinians," Baratieri smiled contemptuously at his lieutenant, "do they think a few ridiculous deep ditches will stop the glorious Italian Army?" ”

"Not really." The adjutant looked at it for a moment, and cautiously reminded, "I don't see any white mercenaries." ”

"It's okay, Captain. In this battle, they did not play much. ”

Baratieri laughed happily and confidently, and turned his gaze back to the battlefield. The Abyssinian positions were covered in smoke and dust, and shells fired from the rear artillery were constantly exploding there, and until now Menelik's soldiers had not returned a single shell or bullet, but had silently and passively borne the blow.

They have been completely suppressed by artillery.

"That's it! In this way, the natives were exterminated in their positions. The general thought with satisfaction, while watching his soldiers slowly but surely approach their opponents, step by step. This battle is coming to an end.

Almost at the same moment, O'Connor came to the same conclusion. "The battle is coming to an end."

"Really, Sean?" Duncan was skeptical. Approaching 30,000 Italian soldiers, it may be a little difficult to take them out with only three mercenary brigades, or to defeat them.

"I can bet you, Duncan." O'Connor shrugged and turned to the Abyssinian warrior and mercenary commander next to him. "Tell all the artillerymen that they can only fire if they have my orders."

In the trench where O'Connor and Duncan were, and in the two trenches further back, two hundred mortars had been adjusted to pre-set parameters, and with a simple command, the Abyssinian army and mercenary mortarists could fire deadly shells into the overcrowded ranks of the Italians and send a storm of blood.

It's just that now is not the time to fire. The gates of hell will open for them only when the Italians' forward advances to within two hundred yards of the first line of trenches.

O'Connor stared intently at an inconspicuous marker of stone, his left hand slowly raised.

"Ready ......" is still a hundred yards.

"Ready to ......" fifty yards.

"Ready to ......" ten yards.

"Fire!" In O'Connor's sight, the first row of Italian soldiers had finally crossed the stone, so he waved his left hand down without hesitation. This order was immediately conveyed to the ears of the mortatrymen, and the catastrophe of the Italians began.

With a shrill whistling, the first round of shells flew over the heads of the Italian soldiers in the front row and exploded in the middle of the attacking ranks, and of course as in any battle in the age of hot weapons, large swaths of the victims fell to the ground, while human limbs flew into the air; At this moment, as if silk had been cut by a sharp blade, the tightly knit queue of Italians was broken.

The blow was so sudden and ferocious that it was so unexpected that the officers and soldiers of Baratieri were all stunned and panicked - even the general himself was stunned, and it took several seconds to recover. "Where are the Abyssinian cannons?"

"I can't see it, Your Excellency the Governor." Captain Gutuso replied frantically. All he could see was a few dozen cannons deployed behind the Abyssinian positions, but they did not fire at all - the smoke and dust created by the Italian artillery near the trenches concealed the smoke trail of the mortars firing - he believed that the attack was coming from other directions.

But when the captain looked to the left and right, he saw nothing.

"Damn, find out where the enemy artillery is!" Baratieri shouted. It was only during the time he searched for the enemy's artillery that at least a thousand shells fell in the attacking ranks. His Excellency, the general, who had just thought that he was about to win, was now flustering—how many cannons did the Abyssinians have?

It seems too late to pursue this question now, and the part of the forces that was shelled is rapidly collapsing. Even without binoculars, Baratieri could clearly see that the soldiers were scurrying around like headless flies, some running forward, others turning around and running back. Although some of the officers tried to salvage the situation, it was to no avail.

"Your Excellency the Governor, what should we do?"

Balatieri struggled to calm himself down. "You can't retreat now...... Go on the offensive! Accelerate the troops...... Let the soldiers charge! "This seems to be the only way, no matter how many artillery the Abyssinians have, as long as the infantry rushes into their positions, they will become useless." Engage in melee combat with enemies. Menelik would never let the artillery fire on his own soldiers! ”

Now, however, despite the apparent proximity, he had actually lost contact with the troops in front of him. The only thing Baratieri could count on was that his soldiers would show the courage and wisdom of the soldiers of the ancient Roman Empire and take the initiative to charge.

The Italian officers and soldiers did not disappoint their generals. After an initial burst of panic and hesitation, a frenzied roar erupted in the middle of the crowd, and then, the front line of about 8,000 soldiers suddenly picked up speed and rushed bravely but haphazardly towards the enemy's position.

They soon approached the first, unfinished, trench. In front of the trench, the mercenaries made a gentle slope not too high with the dirt they had shoveled up—the roaring Italians rushed up the slope without hindrance, rushed to the trench, and then stepped over the empty trench—but at the moment when the first soldiers crossed the trench, thousands of heads emerged from the second trench, fifty yards away.

Without wasting any time, the mercenaries opened fire.

Rifles, automatic rifles, carbines, submachine guns, and "Browning potato diggers" hidden in fortified bunkers, every weapon on the position fired heavily at the targets that rushed up. Italian soldiers who have just crossed the trenches, Italian soldiers who are crossing the trenches, Italian soldiers who have just rushed up the gentle slope and are preparing to cross the trenches...... Everyone, all of them were exposed to the rain of bullets, and they could only helplessly let the bullets hit them.

No one is immune to such an environment. Hundreds of Italian soldiers fell like scythe-cut wheat, many fell straight into the trenches, but many more continued to rush up and then again to be knocked down by the terrible suffocating fire.

The corpses piled up in the trenches slowly but surely grew, just as they had done when they had charged a few minutes earlier.

Even though he was a veteran of the battle-hardened "Redwoods", Baratieri was terrified as he watched his soldiers slaughter as if they were helpless at the hands of the enemy. "Stop attacking!" The general shouted hysterically, "Retreat!" The whole army retreats! ”

Retreat, although extremely undignified, was the only way to avoid the massacre of the troops. Balatieri had completely lost faith in winning the war, and he only wanted to lead the remaining soldiers back to Asmara safely. Now, of course, the general felt that he had finally figured out the question of why Menelik would allow his soldiers to go to Axum to celebrate Christmas......

"Your Excellency the Governor, we are surrounded!" Captain Gutuso's panicked voice suddenly reached his ears. Baratieri looked to his left, where tens of thousands of Abyssinian soldiers were rushing towards the position, and then he looked to his right, and the same. Finally, he turned to look behind him, where the camp he had built when he arrived early in the morning was on fire, and thousands of cavalry rushed out of the smoke.

"Traps." It wasn't until this moment that he understood what was really going on.

But it was pointless—louder cannon fired, and Baratieri felt explosions everywhere around him—and Menelik's large-caliber field artillery finally broke the silence. And their opening was also a signal that the Abyssinian army began to charge.

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PS:There's been a lot of things lately.,And it's always not connected to the starting point.,So the update is very slow.,But tomorrow will start to resume normal updates.,I'll make up for the missing chapters as soon as possible (to be continued,If you want to know what's going on,Please log in to the WWW.QIDIAN.COM,More chapters,Support the author,Support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )