Looking at the Cossack cavalry that appeared on both flanks, a Turkish general muttered in despair after dropping his command knife.

"Allah, have you forsaken us..."

――――――――――

The Turkish army on the battlefield had already been crushed by more than 1,600 machine guns of the Wehrmacht, when more than 20,000 Cossacks sent by Nikolai and Yudenrich came forward, although the Turkish army in the rear also thought of sending troops to support, but in the end the remaining more than 10,000 Turkish troops on the battlefield still could not escape.

Later, according to the statistics of the coalition forces, 1,600 machine guns on the defensive line opened fire at the same time, and in the more than half an hour when the Cossack cavalry appeared from both flanks, the more than 30,000 Turkish troops who launched an attack on the battlefield lost more than 13,000 people, at least half of whom died on the spot, and many of the rest were seriously wounded, and it is difficult to say how long they could survive.

After this battle, the Turkish army on the opposite side was naturally terrified, but the Russian army on the side was equally sideways to the performance of the Chinese defense army just now. After all, the more than 1,600 light and heavy machine guns that fired at the same time were completely like killing machines, and although the Slavic peoples had always been known for their bravery in history, these brave Slavs were now afraid of the light and heavy machine guns equipped by the Wehrmacht...

It was only at this moment that those machine gunners in the Russian army discovered that the M1910 Maxim machine gun in their hands actually had such power...

In fact, this is the machine gunner of the Russian army who thinks too much, it is indeed true that the power of machine guns is great, especially when you have more than 1,000 machine guns, and the opponent is waiting for you to slaughter in a dense line of skirmishers. However, the power of the machine gun is often related to the caliber of the machine gun, and the Russian army's M1910 Maxim machine gun is indeed a type of Maxim machine gun, but this derivative type fires 7.62×54 mm R ammunition.

“7.62mm…”

You must know that the Madsen machine guns equipped by the Wehrmacht are all 8mm caliber, and the Makqin heavy machine gun equipped with itself has a large caliber of 12.7mm. And if a 12.7mm caliber heavy machine gun is used against people, it can be interrupted by just rubbing the edges, as for dealing with the Mark 1 tank, which the British would only put into the battlefield in 1916?

Although the Mark 1 was the first tank to be put into combat (the Nomad was famous, but it was an experimental model), the armor of the Mark 1 was only 6 mm thick.

Ordinary guns and bullets really can't deal with the Mark 1 tank with 6mm thick armor, otherwise in the Somme battlefield, the British army would not be able to disperse the attack on a 10-kilometer-wide frontal with the support of tanks, and advance 5 kilometers in 5 hours, this result used to cost thousands of tons of shells and sacrifice tens of thousands of people to achieve. One of the tanks captured a village without firing a single shot, while the other captured a trench and captured more than 300 German soldiers―――――― of course, this is also related to the fact that the Germans saw this weapon for the first time.

However, the 12.7mm large-caliber Maxim equipped by the Wehrmacht was originally aimed at the improvement of anti-armor, and it was easy to deal with the Mark 1 tank.

In fact, this is one of the reasons why the Wehrmacht machine gunners can cause such heavy casualties to the Turkish army, under the 12.7mm caliber of the Wehrmacht Makqin, almost all the Turkish soldiers who were shot went directly to Allah, and very few survived after being shot, and those who were only wounded and did not die were mostly shot by the 8mm Madsen machine gun...

Therefore, if the machine gunners of the Russian army want to obtain the power of the Wehrmacht's machine gun array, they need not only the quantity, but also the caliber, I am afraid that they need to change it ...

――――――――――

Although the Turkish army in the Caucasus direction also had more than 200,000 troops, it lost 30,000 people at once, which was also a big loss for the Turks.

Although Turkey is also not a small country, the territory of the whole country spans three continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, but at the beginning of the war has been abolished by Britain and France in the territory of Africa, plus Turkey itself is not an industrial country, although the strength of the army is indeed good, but the weapons and equipment and army training are responsible for Germany, its own industrial strength is not as good as the former Qing Dynasty, so Turkey only mobilized more than 2 million troops during the entire European war. (It's just that more than two million were mobilized, not that Turkey has more than two million troops)

Moreover, in addition to dealing with the internal riots and the Russian army on the Caucasian front, a large part of these mobilized forces had to reach the Darnielles Strait to resist the invasion of the British and French forces, as well as Mesopotamia to resist the invasion of the British army.

This is also the reason why the Turks did not have much record throughout the European competition.

Because Turkey has been passive throughout the war, but for the Allies, as long as Turkey can block the Dardanelles, it will be fine. Because as long as the Dardanelles is sealed, it is equivalent to cutting off the blood transfusion line of Britain and France to Russia...

And this time, the Turkish Third Army Corps, commanded by Abdullah Kerim, was only 100,000 men.

Therefore, although Krim's mission this time is to capture Van City, in fact, after losing 30,000 troops, Klim has already lost the ability to capture Van City.

Not only that, but at this time, Kerim also had to worry that the coalition forces on the opposite side would attack him. Because at this time, the balance of strength between the two sides has been reversed, not to mention that after the battle just now, the officers and soldiers of the Third Army have fallen into a panic, many Turkish officers and soldiers are equipped with the Chinese Expeditionary Force, and they are full of fear of the mysterious weapon that slaughtered thousands of people in just half an hour―――――― in fact, they also have this kind of weapon, but the Turks have never thought of using a large number of machine guns in a centralized manner, even if they have never thought of having so many machine guns, Therefore, in the eyes of the Turks, the light and heavy machine guns equipped by the expeditionary force were a mysterious weapon.

In fact, it is not only the Turks who see it this way, but even the neighboring Russian army sees it this way.

You must know that although in the process of fighting with Turkey, the Russian army has also set a record of destroying tens of thousands of enemies many times, and many times the results are greater than this time, but there has never been such a smooth result as this time.

Especially when Turkey's more than 30,000 troops attacked, the Turks suffered more than 10,000 casualties in just half an hour, which has never been done in the Caucasian battlefield―――――― which is also rare and strange for the Russians, but it is no wonder, after all, the Battle of the Somme, which has the largest number of casualties in Europe, will not happen until 1916, and on that day the British suffered nearly 60,000 casualties in just one day...

――――――――――

Perhaps because the Turks were frightened by the machine guns of the expeditionary force during the attack, when the Cossack cavalry sent by Nikolai rushed forward, the remnants of the Turks were captured by the Russians without much resistance.

Afterwards, Yudenrich also ordered his troops to launch an attack on the Turkish position on the opposite side, but unfortunately although the Turks on the opposite side had less than 70,000 men left, they still blocked Yudenrich's offensive.

However, Yudenrich didn't pay much attention to this defeat, after all, they had already gained enough results today, and after losing more than 30,000 people, Krim also lost the ability to continue attacking Van City, or he would withdraw in a few days, so that Van City could be regarded as defending.

Things turned out to be as Yudenrich had expected, and within two days, after packing up, Kerim withdrew with the remnants of more than 60,000 Turkish troops.

At this point, the Battle of Van City finally came to an end.

And that night, in order to celebrate the victory of the battle, although the supplies of the Russian army have not been very sufficient recently, Nikolai and Yudenrichy still held a celebration banquet at the Russian army headquarters.

Of course, in the course of the banquet, Jiang Baili also took some of the inventory of the expeditionary force, after all, he had just arrived in Armenia, and the supplies were still relatively sufficient, and the supplies transported from the rear some time ago had not been interrupted.

In the course of the banquet, because of the performance of the expeditionary force on the battlefield two days ago, the Russian generals' perception of the expeditionary force has also changed greatly, and many Russian generals came up to take the initiative to talk with the generals of the expeditionary force during the banquet.

However, in the topic of conversation, the word "machine gun" always appears in the mouths of Russian generals...

Not only ordinary Russian generals, but at the banquet, even when Nikolai and Yudenrich found Jiang Baili with their wine glasses, they also mentioned the "machine guns" equipped by the expeditionary force...

"Jiang, I don't know if I can bring my people to visit you tomorrow?!"

As he said this, Nikolai and Yudenrich's eyes twinkled twice.

A few days ago, the power of the "machine guns" of the expeditionary force made many Russian officers and soldiers full of awe of these yellow troops from the Far East, and Nikolai and Yudenrichy were also full of curiosity about the machine guns equipped by the expeditionary force.

Especially Nikolai, the situation of the Russian army on the Eastern Front is not very good, if the Russian army took the initiative to attack German territory at the beginning of the war, then now Russia is completely on the defensive.

And even in a state of defense, the Russian army often suffers large losses.

At this time, if the Russian army can learn from the experience of the expeditionary force, it may be able to effectively improve the situation of the Russian army on the Eastern Front.

"Of course, you and your men can come to our camp tomorrow."

Jiang Baili's request for Nikolai is also indispensable.

After all, the machine gun is not a secret weapon, and there is no need to hide it. Moreover, the expeditionary force has just arrived, and it is also necessary to establish good relations with the Russian army.

Nikolai and Yudenrich seemed very happy with Jiang Baili's permission, and even toasted with Jiang Baili at the banquet. Although poor Jiang Baili is definitely not inferior to the two of them in terms of military command ability, and even much higher than the two, Jiang Baili is obviously not good at drinking...

Jiang Baili is like this, although Zhang Shaozeng and others are much stronger than Jiang Baili in terms of drinking, they are not much stronger, so in the middle of the night, Jiang Baili and Zhang Shaozeng and others were carried back by the soldiers of the guard battalion, as for those old hairies? ――――――After Jiang Baili and the others left, these old hairy people continued to drink at the banquet...

By the next morning, when Jiang Baili and Zhang Shaozeng still had some headaches, Nikolai and Yudenrichy had already arrived at the garrison of the expeditionary force with Baratov and other generals as if they were fine.

Looking at Nikolai and the others, who seemed to have nothing to do, although Jiang Baili and Zhang Shaozeng were still having a headache because of yesterday's excessive alcohol intake, they also had to admire how much this group of Russians could drink...

"I really don't know how these guys were born, and they can drink so much..."

After feeling so emotional, Jiang Baili took Nikolai and others into the garrison of the expeditionary force.

Although yesterday Yudenrich and the others claimed to have a comprehensive visit, Jiang Baili knew very well that Yudenrich and they were here for the machine guns, so after taking them on a rough tour of the camp of the expeditionary force, he took them to a divisional machine gun battalion.

In the heavy machine gun battalion, 24 12.7mm caliber Makqin machine guns are neatly placed in the square of the camp, while nearly 100 soldiers of the machine gun battalion are carefully maintained.

Seeing the arrival of Jiang Baili and his party, these soldiers stood up one by one, but Jiang Baili just waved his hand and asked them to continue their work.

After the soldiers continued their work, Jiang Baili motioned to Nikolai that they could visit as they pleased.

Nikolai and Yudenrich were not polite, and with a wave of their hands, Baratov and other generals behind him had already stepped forward to "visit" carefully. As for Nikolai and Yudenrich, they walked to the nearest heavy machine gun to take a closer look, and only turned back after half a ring.

"Jiang, the caliber of your machine guns seems to be much larger than ours."

"Of course." Jiang Baili nodded. "The average Maxim machine gun is 7.62mm, 7.92mm or 11.43mm caliber, but we are equipped with a 12.7mm caliber, which should be the largest caliber of all Maxim machine guns..."

The caliber of the Maxim machine guns of this era, including the British Vickers, the Russian Type 1910 and the German MG08 Maxim machine guns, did not exceed 8mm. Only the Wehrmacht is equipped with Makqin, which not only exceeds the caliber of 11.43mm, but even reaches the caliber of 12.7mm.

And Nikolai and others were taken aback when they learned that the caliber of the Makqin equipped by the expeditionary force reached 12.7mm, after all, before the "tank" appeared, the world felt that 7.62mm was enough, after all, they were only dealing with living people.

Since there are doubts, Nikolai and the others naturally asked, but Jiang Baili didn't know how to explain this problem, after all, there was no "tank" in this era, and in the end, Jiang Baili could only tell Nikolai that this was specially requested by Yan Guang, and he didn't understand the reason very well...

Although Nikolai and the others were not satisfied with this answer, looking at Jiang Baili's expression, Nikolai and the others also knew that Jiang Baili was not lying, and in the end they could only let Jiang Baili go.

After visiting the heavy machine gun battalion, Jiang Baili took them to visit a nearby infantry battalion.

In the infantry battalion, Nikolai and others were surprised to find that in the expeditionary force, each infantry squad was actually equipped with a Danish Madsen light machine gun, and a rough calculation showed that an infantry division of the expeditionary force was equipped with at least more than 500 light and heavy machine guns, and the sum of the three infantry divisions was more than 1,600.

More than 1,600 units, this number is probably more than the number of machine guns equipped by all the Russian troops on the battlefield on the Eastern Front...

“……… No wonder..."

――――――――――

After visiting the machine guns, Yudenrich and others visited other units.

Because of Yudenrich's careful observation this time, they really saw a lot of relationships that they didn't see last time, and the results of the visit also made the poor Russian generals envious...

Not to mention anything else, in terms of the cost of forming troops alone, one infantry division of the expeditionary force can top five infantry divisions of the Russian army. Fortunately, Yudenrich and the others soon learned that there were only three units like the Expeditionary Force in the entire Wehrmacht, and there were only thirty remaining Class A infantry divisions of the same specification, and they were also inferior to the Expeditionary Force in terms of equipment, otherwise the worries of Yudenrich and the others would probably turn to the Expeditionary Force.

After the visit, Yudenrich and others, who returned to the headquarters, while summarizing the results, also paid a lot attention to the "machine gun" that they didn't care much about.

Nikolai, in particular, after returning to the command, even sent a telegram to his nephew Nicholas II, who served as the commander-in-chief of Russian troops on the Eastern Front, detailing everything that had happened on the battlefield a few days earlier, as well as his own opinion on the use of "machine guns".

It's a pity that perhaps because of his ill feelings for Nicholas, Nicholas II hated the house and the U, and in the end, Nicholas's telegram was like a stone in the sea.

In fact, even if Nicholas II attached importance to Nicholas's telegram, it was useless, because Russia's current capabilities, after the blood transfusion line in the Dardanelles Strait was cut off, it was already very difficult to support the current troops on the Eastern Front and in the Caucasus, and there was no ability to equip any "machine guns" at all, not to mention that machine guns and rifles are not the same, machine guns are very bullet-hungry, and large-scale equipment of machine guns cannot be supported by Russia's current industrial capacity.

However, the fact that the Russians did not pay attention to it does not mean that the Germans did not pay attention to it.

The first battle of the expeditionary force is naturally impressive, but at present there are too many important battlefields in the world, and there are several that are not inferior to the Caucasus, not to mention the two largest battlefields on the Eastern Front and the Western Front.

Therefore, the first victory of the expeditionary force only set off a wave of jubilation at home, but did not attract worldwide attention.

But...

Others don't pay attention, but that doesn't mean that Germans don't pay attention either.

Because in real history, the Germans originally attached great importance to the development of the "machine gun", and although there was a stern light afterwards, the Germans only attached second importance to it.

Of course, none of this is important, the most important thing is that there is a large presence of Germans in the Turkish army, and these Germans are all over the country, serving as advisers to Turkey, and even ......... Commander...

For example, in the Battle of the Dardanelles, which is currently second only to the Eastern and Western Fronts, the supreme commander of hundreds of thousands of Turkish troops was L. von Zanders from Germany.

Similarly, there were quite a few Germans in Abdulakerim's Third Turkish Army, and these Germans were the German observer missions in Turkey.

So naturally, what happened on the battlefield a few days ago fell into the eyes of the Germans.

Unlike the terrified Turks, the Germans who saw this scene were extremely excited, because everything that happened on the battlefield gave the Germans a great inspiration and brought the Germans closer to the application of machine guns.

Everything that happened on the battlefield was quickly transmitted back to the country by the Germans, and on the telegram the Germans focused on evaluating the power of the "machine gun", as for the expeditionary force, the Germans did not evaluate it much, after all, a few days ago it was mainly the "machine gun" that exerted its power, and the expeditionary force did not show much performance...

――――――――――

The telegram he sent to the Russian emperor was sunk into the sea, which made Nikolai's mood very depressed for a while, but it didn't take long for Nikolai to cheer up again, after all, the situation in Russia is very critical now, and Nikolai, as the Grand Duke of Russia, must cheer up.

And the end result of the reinvigoration was that Nikolai was ready to launch an offensive in the Erzurum region.

As an important new force in the Caucasus, Nikolai also began to think about the use of the expeditionary force. Of course, before using it, Nikolai also asked Jiang Baili when the Chinese side would be able to send the second batch of expeditionary forces?

As far as Nikolai is concerned, if the Chinese side can send more expeditionary forces, then Nikolai will be more certain of victory.

And Jiang Baili was very embarrassed about Nikolai's problem, because the most difficult thing in the country now was not the problem of troops. You must know that the Wehrmacht has ninety-nine infantry divisions, and although three have been dispatched, ninety-six remain.

The most difficult problem now is the logistical problem, after all, there is currently only one Trans-Siberian railway connecting China and the Caucasus.

But even so, Jiang Baili still sent a telegram back to China, after all, more troops also represent greater merit.

Jiang Baili's telegram was quickly answered, but it was Cai Ye who replied to the telegram. In the telegram, Cai Yi first congratulated Jiang Baili, and then told Jiang Baili that the second batch of three infantry divisions was already being prepared, and it was expected to arrive in the Caucasus by the end of the year or the beginning of next year.

As for where Yan Guang himself is now? Because the telegram was not safe, Cai only told Jiang Baili that Yan Guang was now inspecting the garrison of a newly formed new army called the "Armored Division"...

"Panzer Division?"

Looking at the telegram, Zhang Shaozeng and the others were a little confused, but Jiang Baili himself was thoughtful.

And if it was the British who saw this telegram, maybe it would have been a little more insightful...

"Speaking of which, the little nomads in Britain should be about the same..."

Inside the garrison of the armored division, looking at the steel monster that kicked up a puff of smoke and dust, Yan Guang muttered from the stands.

(To be continued)