ps: The second is to ask for monthly passes and reward support

The Germans defeated the Anglo-French forces on the Western Front, occupied Paris, and completely drove the Russian regiment out of East Prussia on the Eastern Front, but the Austro-Hungarian army did not fight well in Serbia and Galicia.

Archduke Ferdinand, commander-in-chief of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, although he grew up in the barracks and had good military qualities, was better at waging a war than fighting one. His pre-war plan was to send a large army to quickly crush the Serbian army, and Archduke Ferdinand did not pay attention to the Serbian army, which lacked artillery, automatic weapons, and transport, and he estimated that the Austrian army would soon occupy the Serbian capital and avenge his wife Sofia. At the same time, Archduke Ferdinand sent a large number of Austrian troops to Galicia to launch an offensive against the Russian army.

Archduke Ferdinand, who sent to Serbia to the cheers of the citizens of Vienna, was obviously overconfident and overestimated the fighting power of the Austrian army, believing that the Austrian army, with its modern heavy artillery units, was as brave and fierce as the German army, but when he divided the six armies of Austria-Hungary into two equal lines, he actually had no chance of victory.

When Ferdinand sent Potiorek to the Serbian front as commander of the army group and Conrad as commander to Galicia to resist the Russian attack, the defeat of the Austrian army was inevitable.

Potiorek was competent as Bosnian governor-general, but had been terrified since failing to protect Sofia, the wife of Archduke Ferdinand, from being assassinated by the Serbian "mafia". He was apprehensive and cowardly, fearing that he might also be assassinated by the Serbian mafia. He knew those mafia members. Many of them are young people suffering from tuberculosis, and they are dying anyway, the meaning of life. It is to carry out assassinations, even suicide attacks. Young people who are not afraid of death are terrible, so Potiorek refuses to appear in public in the barracks, and commands remotely in Sarajevo, far from the battlefield, which makes the command of the Austrian army often out of reality.

In August 1914, facing the war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. Bulgaria to the east remained neutral, and Potiorek's three army groups could only attack on the northern and western borders of Serbia. In these two directions, the Danube, Sava and Drina rivers become natural obstacles. These rivers are so shallow that large warships are simply useless and can only be crossed by small boats or rafts. Across the river, there is the Serbian mountains. It was very hot season. Mosquitoes are rampant, poisonous snakes are rampant, the environment is harsh, and people can easily fall ill.

The Serbian commander was sixty-one-year-old Radomir. General Putnik, a veteran of combat experience, is seriously ill. Before the war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, he was treated for illness in Bad Grebel in Austria-Hungary and was captured by the men of Archduke Ferdinand.

Radomir. General Putnik thought that the Grand Guild of Ferdinand had executed him. Archduke Ferdinand's subordinates also advised him not to let the tiger return to the mountain, but he did not expect Archduke Ferdinand to be a real nobleman. He said: "We are soldiers, I will send you back to Belgrade (the capital of Serbia), see you on the battlefield, I will personally take the army to Belgrade to get your head." ”

Archduke Ferdinand not only asked him to return to his country, but also arranged for a special train to take him back to Belgrade. Sixty-one-year-old General Putnik returned home and became Chief of the General Staff of Serbia, where he was sick and sometimes bedridden, and his poor health forced him to direct the campaign against Austria-Hungary in his bedroom or on the train.

At the beginning, the Austro-Hungarian army was about 400,000 men, and at the time of the general offensive, the three Austro-Hungarian armies were about 900,000 men, which was greatly outnumbered by the 450,000 troops of Serbia.

The Serbian army had 240,000 field troops, only 600 artillery pieces, and most of them small-caliber artillery, and they did lack artillery, automatic weapons, and rail transport, so General Putnik decided to engage in a delayed battle and mobilize the enemy to fight in the terrain that was most advantageous to him. Fortunately, many of the Serbian troops had undergone combat training in the Balkan War, had rich battlefield experience, and were fighting on their own soil, so the Austrian army did not march smoothly after entering Serbia.

On 12 August, three Austrian Army groups, including nineteen divisions, invaded Serbia. Potiorek went so far as to keep a corps of troops and carry out mission policing missions throughout Bosnia, especially strengthening the security of Sarajevo to ensure his own security, and he wasted two corps to pursue the Negorians who were familiar with the terrain of the cottage.

After analyzing the Austrian offensive, Putnik stationed some troops along the rivers on the Austro-Hungarian and Serbian borders, taking advantage of the crossing of the Austro-Hungarian army, harassed them, and sent cavalry and infantry to fight guerrilla warfare. At the same time, the main Serbian army was assembled in an arc formed by the confluence of the Drina and Sava rivers.

At the beginning of the war, General Putnik lured the enemy into depth, and the Serbian army continued to retreat under the attack of the Austro-Hungarian army until it was a defensive area suitable for Putnik's tactical needs.

On 16 August, Putnik commanded the Serbian army to counterattack, taking the initiative along a thirty-mile front on the Yadar River.

The Austrian army began to fight very smoothly, Archduke Ferdinand thought that the Serbs had only to flee for their lives, so he transferred the Second Army to Galicia to deal with the Russian ** team, but he did not expect the Serbian rout to suddenly turn its guns, and hundreds of thousands of Serbian troops launched a charge against the Austrian army, like a flood, at that time, the Austrian army pursued the Serbian defeated army all the way, and the light troops advanced, and the heavy artillery troops were still far behind and did not follow.

For a time, the Serbian army was still numerically superior, and the Austro-Hungarian army panicked and met the battle, and the offensive collapsed. After 12 days of fierce fighting, both sides suffered heavy casualties, and sometimes it was a completely white-knuckle battle, with more than 50,000 deaths in the Austro-Hungarian ** team and more than 80,000 casualties in Serbia.

The surviving Austrians desperately fled back to the Drina River.

Putnik seized the opportunity to attack the Austrian left flank, and the Austrians quickly broke up and retreated, suffering heavy casualties. By early September, Putnik's First Serbian Army had crossed the Sava River and counterattacked into Bosnia, which Austria-Hungary had occupied. The intention was to cut off the logistical supply lines of the Austro-Hungarian Sixth Army led by Portiorek.

Archduke Ferdinand, unaware of the serious blow inflicted by the Serbian army on Potiorek's troops, had long since taken a train with Conrad to the fortified city of Przemyšl in Galicia. Upon learning of the defeat of the Austrians, he ordered Potiorek to transfer a corps of the Second Army from his Danube defense area to reinforce the Austro-Hungarian forces facing the Serbian army.

Potiorek telegraphed back: "I need the entire Second Army. ”

But Archduke Ferdinand believed that so many troops were not needed to deal with the Serbs. It took two days for reinforcements to arrive on the battlefield. Too late to do Potiorek any help. Only a desperate rearguard fight was able to get the Austrians out of it.

Potiorek commanded the Austrian army to return to their homeland on 1 September, while the Serbian army paid a staggering price in the typhus epidemic infected by the Austrian army, which lasted for a long time, with more than 70,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians killed.

After the two Russian army groups marched aggressively towards Galicia. Archduke Ferdinand didn't have time to pay attention to Portiorek and turned all his attention to the Russian army. Because tens of thousands of Cossack cavalry of Tsarist Russia not only attacked East Prussia, but also killed Galicia.

The Cossack cavalry was fierce and savage. They usually rode purebred Don hippos and carried shining sabers and rushed into the enemy army like a whirlwind. They were already feared in Europe when they were defending against Napoleon's army, and they had an old folk song. Manifest their lives:

Our glorious land

Not with a plough to plough

Our land is ploughed with horses' hooves

glorious land

It was planted with Cossack heads

Quiet Don River

Young widows are decorated everywhere

Our father

The quiet Don River is full of orphans

The rolling waves of the Don River are the tears of my father and mother

Tens of thousands of Cossack cavalrymen carried sabers. When charging together, the scene was still very scary. If, however, the Austro-Hungarian army had been more patient and had been able to stand by like the German Eighth Army in Hindenburg, and meet these outdated brute cavalry with heavy artillery and machine guns, then the "Cossacks are coming" would not be terrible. The speed of 600 rounds of machine-gun ammunition per minute was enough to sweep these Cossack cavalry away from the garbage heap of history.

But. Archduke Ferdinand was impatient, he was in a hurry to repel the Russian army. And then go to the Serbs for revenge.

Initially, the war situation was also very favorable for Austria-Hungary. Glacia begins at the Danube, fifty miles east of Vienna, and the Carpathians form an eight-hundred-mile arc to the southeast of Romania, and its width varies from seven to two hundred and thirty miles, with the middle about seventy miles, and there are neither natural roads nor large river basins separating this obstacle. Austria-Hungary had seven railway lines leading through the mountains to Galicia, which could be effortlessly defended and provided support and logistics, or blockaded if necessary. To the north of the Carpathians are the heavily fortified cities of Krakow, Przemyšl and Yarosław, which are guarded by the Vistula and San rivers.

In other words, if Archduke Ferdinand wanted the Austro-Hungarian army to dig trenches and fight defensive battles, the onslaught of the Russian "steamroller" would not be able to break through these trenches. But Archduke Ferdinand mistrusted Conrad's judgment that Russia had not yet fully mobilized its manpower and was vulnerable to attack. His military strategy was also inclined to take the initiative, launching from Galicia to quickly capture the railway line between Warsaw and Brest-Litovsk, which Germany had voluntarily abandoned, which were easy to attack and difficult to defend.

And what's even worse is that the Austro-Hungarian empire's army is on a par with Tsarist Russia. Before the war, Russia from its senior spy Alfred? Colonel Raeder learned of Austria's valuable military secrets, and he systematically betrayed his country even before he was appointed head of the Austro-Hungarian Army Intelligence Service.

Archduke Ferdinand demanded that the German Eighth Army launch an offensive from East Prussia, and he was convinced that when the Austro-Hungarian army reached the Bug River, the Germans would definitely act. Archduke Ferdinand was anxious to crush the Russian army, and he wanted to return to Serbia as soon as possible and let the blood of the Serbs comfort his dead wife, but this strong idea eventually ruined the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Because Ferdinand rashly sent thirty divisions, forming three army groups, to march on Lublin on 22 August, which was almost the entire essence of the Austro-Hungarian **. At the head of the procession were hussars in colorful uniforms, eager to kill the Cossacks, a colorful relic of the nineteenth century.

Nikolai of Tsarist Russia. General Ivanov placed the Gosat cavalry in the rearguard, arranged in several wide corridors separating the four Russian armies, in order to lure the Austrian troops into positions where the flanks of the Russians would be exposed.

This strategy of defense in depth was well suited to Russia's vast territory, and Ivanov's strategy was only slightly different from the measures used against Napoleon. When the Cossacks were seen by the invaders, they turned to the east and galloped eastward, so fast that they could not be overrun by the Austrians, who were in pursuit and lured into a dangerously exposed position. By 25 August, the Austro-Hungarian army had penetrated deep into Poland, and the horn of death was sounding on them.

General Ivanov of Russia, and his associate, Commander Alexey. Brusilov, Nikolai. Rusky and the Bulgarian-born Radko. Dmitriev is a brave and fierce general. Brusilov attacked the right flank of Austria-Hungary, forcing it to retreat into Galicia. The Russian army pursued closely and reached Lemberg, the industrial and commercial center of Galicia, and entered the city on 3 September.

Brusilov then divided his forces and sent his left flank to quickly block the Carpathian Pass in case the Austrians retreated, and sent his central forces and right flank straight to Przemyšl. At the same time, General Rusky's army effectively wedged itself between the fleeing Austrian Third Army and its domestic bases.

At Rava Ruskaya, the main railway junction in Galicia, west of Lemberg, General Dmitriev's army put pressure on the Austrians, forcing them to rush to the Serbian support of the Second Army, which had already been battered continuously, but this thin, unreliable force arrived too late.

The combined flank attack of the Russian army drove the Austrians back to the Carpathian line, leaving more than 150,000 poor Austrians in Przemysh, as turtles in the urn.

For Austria-Hungary, it was a catastrophe that brought it to ruin. At this time, the German army was engaged in a decisive battle with the British and French armies on the Western Front, and Schlieffen focused on his right flank "Iron Hammer", and on the Eastern Front he left only one army group, so he retreated to East Prussia.

In this battle, the armies of the two declining empires, Austria-Hungary and Tsarist Russia, launched a decisive battle, and the result was a great defeat for the Austrian army, with heavy casualties and basically a collapse. Archduke Ferdinand broke through with an army of less than 50,000 men, and then sent constant telegrams to Kaiser Wilhelm II for help.

When the Russian army entered the city of Rzemyšl, most of the inhabitants inside could not stand up. Hunger has made them skinny, and some have starved to death and turned into living skeletons. Therefore, war is extremely cruel to the common people, regardless of whether the war is just or unjust.

When the Russian army captured the city of Rzemyšl, Brusilov cut off a long and wide strip of Austrian troops through the province of Bukovina, captured Chernivtsi, the capital of Galicia, and then directed the army towards Hungary.

General Ivanov's victory in Galicia exposed Silesia to the Russian invasion.

Because the Silesian plain, which led directly to Berlin, the heart of Germany, Wilhelm II was furious and restless, and at this time the Germans had occupied Berlin and completely driven the Russian army out of East Prussia, Schlieffen felt that he had to act, and he had to act quickly.

On 28 September, a specially formed German Ninth Army, led by Hindenburg, traveled by train to reinforce the Austro-Hungarian army. At this time, the army of Archduke Ferdinand was stable, so the German army and the Austro-Hungarian army united and launched a major counteroffensive against the Russian army on the Eastern Front, that is, the Battle of Galicia!

At the same time, on the Western Front, having stabilized the situation in Paris, Moltke Jr. began to command the German First and Second Armies to storm Verdun and methodically deliver troops and artillery to Antwerp, Belgium, preparing to destroy the fortress of Antwerp! At this time, Wilhelm II was still convinced that the war would be over before Christmas 1908 and that Germany would be victorious!

Brutal battles of life and death are about to be staged between millions of troops. After receiving this information, Song Xiaofei was even more convinced of his judgment that "this war will be a protracted war," and sent Liang Shiyi, vice minister of foreign affairs, to bring a diplomatic mission to visit European countries and promote China's military products. (To be continued......) u