The outbreak of the First World War was not entirely due to the competition for resources, nor was it all due to the uneven distribution of the colonies occupied by the great powers, and the subsequent rise of Germany, the United States, and Japan demanded the repartition of the colonies, and there were also other reasons for the periodic economic crises of capitalism and the sharpening of class contradictions at home, which made the imperialist countries unstable. In order to pass on the crisis, the imperialist countries have stepped up their arms expansion and warfare in an attempt to resolve the internal crisis by launching a war of aggression against foreign countries. For example, between 1898 and 1905, there were successive Spanish-American Wars, Anglo-Boer Wars, Russo-Japanese Wars, and so on, all of which were foreign wars in which imperialism shifted its contradictions to the outside in order to resolve the domestic crisis, and the outbreak of World War I was also due to this.

After the outbreak of the war, the Austro-Hungarian army first attacked Serbia on July 28, and soon broke into Bulgrade, the capital of Serbia, shelled Bulgrade, killing more than 5,000 civilians, the Serbian army immediately organized troops to resist and counterattack, the Austro-Hungarian army failed to attack but was beaten by the Serbian army with heavy casualties, and had to be forced to retreat on all fronts, and more than 50,000 people were captured.

On 5 August, the German troops on the Western Front laid siege to the Belgian fortress of Liege, which was surrounded by twelve fortresses, forming a group of fortresses that were mainly beneath the ground, except for hills made of concrete, masonry, and earth. Each fort has a retractable dome that can hold a number of cannons, up to 6 inches. There are also smaller fortifications and moats around the fort complex to connect and protect the fort complex, but these fortifications and small fortifications and moats are almost in a semi-abandoned state due to disrepair. And because of the lack of time, the Belgian army did not have time to repair these defenses after retreating here, and even the trenches connecting the fortress complex were besieged by the Germans before they could be excavated.

After the first offensive was thwarted. On the night of 5 August, the main German forces launched an assault on the Fleiron and Evogne batteries east of the Meuse, and the cavalry forced their way north of the fortress of Liège and made a detour to the fortress from the west. The Belgians held the trenches between the batteries and thwarted the German infantry's attacks in dense formations with artillery and infantry, machine-gun fire, and bright searchlights. On 6 August, the Germans dispatched airship units to carry out a large-scale bombardment of the Liege Fortress, and the Belgian army was completely unprepared for the attack from the air, and the Belgian troops stationed in the Liege Fortress group suffered heavy losses.

In the course of the battle to storm the fortress of the scorching sun. The Germans used not only large-caliber siege guns, that is, howitzers of 420 mm caliber. Moreover, the interspersed tactics were used to intersperse attacks between the fortresses of the city of Sun, which had never been used by the Germans before, and the Belgian army was powerless to stop in the face of this offensive tactic, and the entire fortress fell two days later. Eight days earlier than in history, the passage to attack France was opened.

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On August 9, the Presidential Palace of Huaguo Jingshi.

At today's regular meeting, Xiao Zhenlei asked about the war situation in Europe, and Yang Du introduced: "The main force of the German Western Front conquered the Belgian fortress of Scorching Sun yesterday evening, at the cost of about 8,000 people, and in this battle, the German army adopted offensive tactics very similar to our army, especially the deployment of heavy machine guns on both flanks to provide fire support for the attacking troops, the large-scale concentrated use of grenades, and the use of sharpshooters to shoot and kill enemy heavy fire shooters and enemy commanders!" And in this battle, the Germans also used airships to invest artillery shells from the air, as well as 420 mm siege guns. It caused great casualties to the Belgian army, and because the casualties were too large, the tactics of the troops on board made it impossible for the Belgian defenders to deal with it. Therefore, the Belgian defenders held out for less than three days, and the fortress of the scorching sun fell completely! ”

After listening to this, Xiao Zhenlei said: "The tactics adopted by the German army were left behind when I was in Berlin, and I didn't expect that they were not only popularized throughout the army, but also improved and extended. Bombing with airships is indeed a very good tactic, and if you control air supremacy, you will have the initiative, and if you can use airship bombing on a large scale to cooperate with the army's attack. It can be said that there is no disadvantage, as for the large-caliber siege guns used by the Germans. This is a siege weapon, at least our country has not made such a large-caliber siege cannon, and our terrain is also suitable for such a bulky artillery! ”

Yang Du also introduced: "The situation in the Balkan battlefield is that the Austro-Hungarian army has hit Bulgrade, bombarded the city with a large number of artillery, causing thousands of civilian casualties, and the Serbian army has organized a large number of troops to counterattack, and now the Austro-Hungarian army has suffered heavy casualties and has to retreat on all fronts, and in the process of retreating, many Austro-Hungarian soldiers have been captured, totaling about 50,000 people!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei nodded, and asked again: "What about the Eastern Front of Europe?" What was the situation of Germany and Tsarist Russia? ”

Cai Yi got up and walked to the map next to the wall and pointed to the map with a baton and said: "The battlefield on the Eastern Front in Europe refers to the battlefield from the Baltic Sea to the Romanian border, the German army is still mainly on the Western Front at this stage, with the largest number of troops, and the German army on the Eastern Front only deployed an Eighth Army in East Prussia, as well as the garrison of Konigsberg, a total of 300,000 people, with General Hindenburg as the commander. The Tsarist army had an absolute superiority in terms of troops, about half a million people, and Nikolai? Grand Duke Nikolayevich is the supreme commander, and the German army is now mainly on the defensive on the Eastern Front, and there is no sign of attacking, but at that time, the Tsarist side was still deploying troops and had the intention of taking the initiative to attack the German army! ”

Xiao Zhenlei looked at the map and nodded, and asked, "What about the Far East?" Are Tsarist Russia and Japan still facing off on the Russian-North Korean border? ”

The Russian-DPRK border is not very long, and on both sides of the Tumen River, which is tens of kilometers long, the two sides have gathered a total of nearly 300,000 troops, and in the past five months, the two sides have built dense pillboxes on both sides of the lower reaches of the Tumen River.

Yang Du saw Xiao Zhenlei ask about the situation in Tsarist Russia and Japan, and replied: "Yes! ”

At this time, a staff member knocked on the door and walked in and handed a piece of paper to Yang Du, Yang Du's face changed after taking it and reading it, and he immediately said to Xiao Zhenlei: "President, Japan has decided to take the lead in attacking Tsarist Russia, but they did not launch an attack on the border with North Korea, but escorted the Fourth Division and the Sixth Division with a naval fleet to land on the coast of Golubvka, which is the top-secret information obtained by the Japanese distribution of the Iron and Blood Investigation Bureau."

After hearing the news, many staff members and staff members of the president's office exclaimed in surprise, never expecting that Japan was going to make a move against Tsarist Russia first.

Xiao Zhenlei immediately got up and walked to the map of the wall to find the location of Golubovka, Golubovka is east of Vladivostok, less than ten kilometers north is Nakhodka, there is a railway to Vladivostok and Ussuriysk, once the Japanese occupy Ussuriysk, then the more than 200,000 troops of Tsarist Russia in this area will lose their support and retreat! There are only two ways to survive, the first is to surrender to the Japanese army, and the second is to enter the territory of China and disarm the Chinese border army.

After staring at the map for a while, Xiao Zhenlei lit a cigarette and thought while smoking, judging from the current stage, the strength of the Entente and the Allied Powers is basically the same, but the potential of the Allied Powers is much smaller. Therefore, Xiao Zhenlei decided to let the Allies gain a certain advantage in the early stage of the war, so that the Allies could hold out for a longer time, so he had to help the Allies. However, we must not let Japan be too arrogant, the Japanese are the kind of guy who kicks his nose in the face as soon as he is proud, and if the Japanese army encircles and annihilates 200,000 Russian troops this time, the Japanese may be arrogant and will again target China, and in the Far East, it is necessary to let Tsarist Russia have a certain amount of power to contain Japan, and the Japanese must not be allowed to have enough energy to deal with China idlely.

Thinking of this, Xiao Zhenlei turned around and said to the people in the conference room: "Find a way to leak this news to Tsarist Russia, but you must not let the Japanese know that it was leaked by our side!" Tsarist Russia has 200,000 troops on the Russian-Korean border, Vladivostok and Ussuriysk, if all these forces are surrounded and annihilated by Japan, then Tsarist Russia will have no strength in the Far East to contain the Japanese, at least not in the short term, we can't let the Japanese be too proud, if Japan fights too smoothly, maybe they will go crazy, and then attack our country, to support the Allies, mainly in the European theater, the Far East can not let Tsarist Russia lose too badly, let Japan not fight too smoothly."

Everyone nodded unanimously after hearing Xiao Zhenlei's words, the Japanese are already strong enough, if Japan defeats the Tsarist Russian army in the Far East at one time, maybe Japan will turn its guns on Huaguo, and the Japanese can definitely do this kind of thing. Later, Japan even dared to bomb Pearl Harbor, what else could they not do? Xiao Zhenlei should not take this risk, so he must make Japan have some scruples.

This top-secret information was soon leaked to the Tsarist spies in Japan, and the Tsarist spies immediately reported the information to the Tsarist Russian commanders in the Far East, because he knew that if the Japanese army chose to land there, the Russian army would not be able to hold it in any way, and if the Japanese captured Vladivostok and captured Ussuriysk, the Russian army would be defeated and lost in the Far East.

After careful consideration, the Russian army chose a strategic retreat, and the three divisions deployed on the Russian-North Korean border quietly withdrew from the border and retreated to Terekhovka, south of Ussuriysk, leaving only three or two kittens to confuse the Japanese army, and the Russian troops in Kraskino and Slavyanka also all withdrew to the north of Vladivostok to defend the fortress city to prevent the Japanese from cutting off the railway to Vladivostok after landing.

On August 12, the Japanese army did advance on the coast of Golubvka, landed, and occupied the beach with only slight resistance, and then quickly occupied Nakhodka, but what the Japanese did not expect was that the Russian army had destroyed a large number of railway tracks, making it impossible for the train to go to Vladivostok and Ussuriysk, which made the Japanese army like a punch to cotton. (To be continued) R466