"In the process of preparing for a counterattack on the Macedonian enemy, the Ottoman army raised a total of two main battle divisions, an infantry division, two cavalry brigades, four artillery battalions and an airship unit, close to 90,000 troops."

"Arranged in Skopje and Sasa respectively. The former is the largest city in Macedonia, where one-third of the population of the Macedonian region lives. At the same time, this place was also the seat of the Ottoman army's front command of the resistance to the Balkan coalition forces. Jiang Baili, who was not yet thirty years old, behaved freely in front of Liu Xian, and explained in detail the layout of the entire Macedonian counterattack.

He was not lost by the great changes in China. Jiang Baili, a military talent, has become easier to get ahead in China after the great changes, and his shining points are even more dazzling. It can only be said that talent is talent. Five years ago, his name reached the ears of Emperor Liu, and two years ago Jiang Baili entered Liu Xian's chamber.

"Sasa is a very ordinary city in Macedonia, where the Ottomans only put an infantry division and a cavalry brigade, but it is quite close to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. A hundred kilometres northeast of Sasa is Chustendil. It is an important city in western Bulgaria and is well connected by road and rail to its capital, Sofia. ”

Commander Luo reported that the Ottoman army in Sasa was equipped with at least 200 trucks. The Ottomans removed most of the mechanized vehicles from the country and threw themselves into the campaign. If the course of the battle was ideal, the Ottoman army there would only need two days to capture Chustendil and then quickly pose a threat to Sofia. ”

The whip in Jiang Baili's hand pointed back to Istanbul, "The Ottoman sultan has agreed to send the Guards Armored Brigade. It is expected that within ten days, the most powerful armored force of the Ottoman Empire will be mobilized to Skopje. The offensive here was the main force of the Ottomans. ”

"Broke four armies of Bulgaria and Serbia. There will no longer be any large-scale armies in these two countries. None of the Ottoman troops on the Sasa side needed to really enter the Sofia Basin, they only needed to threaten Bulgaria to withdraw from the fighting. The Ottomans achieved their initial goal in this counterattack. ”

"But the greater purpose of the Ottoman army was to force Serbia to withdraw from the war along with Bulgaria, which I personally consider unrealistic. It will be difficult for Serbia to withdraw from the war completely. They differed from Bulgaria in that they were too close to Austria-Hungary. Like the Negoro of Men, the Austro-Hungarian army entered the battlefield directly through their territory, and the country was completely tied to the Austro-Hungarian chariot. Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, was at least 300 kilometers away from the border battlefield, and the Austro-Hungarian army had time to penetrate before the Ottoman army reached Belgrade. ”

"The scale of this war is likely to continue to grow. It is quite possible that the naval power of Austria-Hungary will join the Aegean theater. "Jiang Baili rushed to the ball, and the Balkan war could very well turn into an all-out contest between Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.

Liu Xian closed his eyes and was silent. Jiang Baili also had the feeling he had, and it was clearly imprinted in his mind after Austria-Hungary entered the war. China is going to hemorrhage. Austria-Hungary really had to fight an all-out war with the Ottomans. Hamid II will definitely reach out to China for money and support.

In September, the Ottoman counterattack began.

The first was in the Sasa direction, where the Bulgarian army on the opposite side was less than five thousand. The Ottomans did a good job of secrecy. Bulgaria has always thought that there is an infantry brigade of less than 10,000 people on the opposite side. As a result, it was swept away by the Ottoman army. On the third day of the battle, the Ottoman cavalry had already crossed Chustendil and advanced towards the Sofia Basin. The follow-up Ottoman infantry was also dragging artillery and supplies on a train to Sofia.

In Skopje, at 3:45 a.m. on September 11, the Ottoman airship unit first flew to the Bulgarian coalition position, and the target was not the frontal line of the coalition forces, but the artillery positions, material reserves, railways, roads and bridges behind this line. A few minutes later, the new armies of the Bulgarians and Serbs tasted for the first time the power of a physical blow and sudden death and destruction. Thousands of artillery pieces were fired at the Ottoman line. Shells rained down on coalition positions. About an hour later, the Ottoman ground forces launched an attack on all fronts from the south.

The Bulgarian coalition was caught off guard, they had previously been fighting by an Ottoman army that was holding down the front line in Skopje, and the Ottomans were trying to hide their battle plans. In the past few days, they have been very 'shrinking' in the face of the Bulgarian coalition forces. Hundreds of artillery pieces and a large number of munitions reserves were destroyed by the bombing of airships, barrels of gasoline stained the sky red, and a large number of cars were surrounded by explosions before they could start. The Ottomans had already made a clear reconnaissance of the situation of the Paspansa coalition forces these days. It didn't start before, but now it's like thunder. At least 100 spies attacked the telephone lines and wires of the Bulgarian coalition forces. For a time, the transportation hubs and command liaison of the Bulgarian coalition forces were greatly damaged, and the troops fell into chaos.

The Ottoman Guards Panzer Brigade took advantage of the situation and attacked fiercely as the blade force of the whole army. Soon broke through the coalition lines from several major sections.

After breaking through the coalition lines, the Ottoman army quickly penetrated into the hinterland of the Bulgarian coalition forces. Among them, the main force of the Ottoman army, the main force of the Guards Armored Brigade + a main battle division, with a force of 35,000 troops, quickly advanced towards Kachanik. It is the headquarters of the Pablo Cypriot Coalition and the Quartermaster Quartermaster of the Palest Coalition Army. With the Bulgarian 7th Army in charge, and two divisions of the Bulgarian 4th Army could be attacked along the way, and if Kachanik was captured victoriously, the entire Bulgarian army would cease to exist.

The other main battle division, relying on a tank battalion in its own hands - only an armored brigade, twenty-four tanks, twelve armored vehicles, ten self-propelled guns, rammed directly into the Serbian 5th Army. Two hours after the start of the general offensive, the airship unit was re-active above the heads of the Bulgarian coalition forces.

For the Baosai coalition army, whose front was broken and the army command was not in good contact, at this time, their air defense forces had been weakened to the lowest point. Even if it's dawn now. The Ottoman airship forces were again able to only roam the heads of the battered coalition troops, using their strength to the fullest.

First, it was a sudden blow. What's more, because many internal 'rats' bit off the telephone line, the command and liaison fell into chaos.

Radio stations are invented for many years. But that thing has always been a valuable thing, don't think that it can be sent to the battalion and company level troops casually, even if it is the Chinese National Defense Force and the British and German armies, the radio station can only be assigned to the brigade level.

The strength of the Bulgarian coalition forces has been stalemate in Skopje for some time, and their command and contact are all telephone contacts, and now the telephone is suddenly unusable, which is an absolutely heavy blow to the Bulgarian coalition forces. Their artillery, in particular, was significantly affected.

And when the cooperation between the arms of the Bulgarian coalition army is completely lost, what will they use to block the armor of the Ottoman army?

So. On the third day after the start of the battle, when the Ottoman army in the Sasa direction rode on horseback and drove a train to Sofia, the units of the two armies of the Bulgarian coalition front completely collapsed. This unit, which is mainly composed of new recruits, is united with patriotic passion, and it is not that it is not unbrave, but their combat effectiveness is far from being able to match their patriotic enthusiasm.

Flesh and blood cannot stop the torrent of steel, as evidenced by the encounter between Tsarist Russia and the Americans more than a decade ago. So the Bulgarians and Serbs, no matter how fiercely they resisted, the more they died. But the words are retracting. These hot-blooded young men from Bulgaria and Serbia should die directly on the battlefield rather than being taken prisoner and ravaged by the Ottomans at will.

If the Ottomans had captured an Austro-Hungarian prisoner, they would have treated it like an Italian prisoner of war. The Geneva Conventions were strictly observed, although none of the Ottoman Empire was a signatory. But if the Serbs and Bulgarians were caught, the Ottoman Empire would be a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. They'll just be a scrap of paper.

This is the difference between a strong country and a weak country! This is the true 'convention' of the jungle world!

When the Ottoman Guards Panzer Brigade entered Kachanik on the fifth day of the counterattack, the two Bulgarian armies completely collapsed. Three infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade of the Bulgarian 7th Army, which was guarding Kachanik, were annihilated and more than 30,000 people were captured. When the headquarters of the Bulgarian coalition fled from Kachanik, there were less than 5,000 remnants of the army under their control.

The Ottoman army did not continue the pursuit. Otherwise, they would have been able to completely annihilate the remnants of the Baosai army. The Ottoman army needed to block Kachanik, and the Guards Panzer Brigade needed to turn around and move south to sweep the Bulgarian coalition forces that had been completely divided but were still resisting. In the past few days of fighting, the total number of casualties of the Guards Panzer Brigade was only 300, 500 casualties, 15 tanks, 11 armored vehicles, and 57 trucks. Can you see their results? The Bulgarian 7th Army was completely swept away by the Guards Panzer Brigade. The main battle division who followed the action together didn't get a chance to shoot a few more shots!

In a telegram to Beijing sent to Beijing by the adviser to the Chinese military delegation accompanying the operation, he said: "The bravery and strength of the Bulgarians cannot be underestimated, even surprising. But our losses in this battle were very, very small, and it was only because of the high power of the tank groups of the attacking troops. ”

This level of armored force offensive has been carried out on the battlefield of Tsarist Russia and North America in that year, I don't know how many times. There is no breakthrough in the theory and concept of war, and apart from more confirming the correctness of the defense in great depth, there is no representativeness. For the Europeans, watching such a low-armored attack of the Ottomans was not as important in value as the anti-tank cone.

But such an attack was devastating for the Bulgarian and Serbian armies.

The bad news of Chustendil had already left Bulgaria busy, and the complete defeat of the Bulgarian army in Skopje added fuel to the fire of the panicked Sofia. The Ottoman army from Chustendil was approaching the edge of the Sofia Basin, but the Bulgarian government had no soldiers to stop their advance. King Ferdinand I had no choice but to send a delegation to negotiate with the Ottoman army and send a request for an armistice to the Ottoman government in Istanbul!

As planned, the Bulgarians could not afford to be devastated in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, which is home to 45% of the country's large industrial enterprises and 60% of the country's industrial output. Machinery, metal manufacturing, metallurgy, textiles, rubber, chemicals and papermaking, three-quarters of the country's printing industry is also concentrated here. Agriculture is well developed in the suburbs. And it is the country's railway and highway hub, although Ferdinand I's rule is relatively stable, he can't withstand such twists and turns. Faced with the danger of destruction, Bulgaria had no choice but to compromise!

The victory was a great encouragement to the Ottoman Empire during the war.

Now that Italy has declared war on the Ottomans, and Austria-Hungary has also declared war on the Ottomans, how can the Ottomans not feel heavy pressure in the face of the war between the two major European powers?

Even Sultan Abdul. Hamid II called on the Ottoman people to take action to defend their country in the Turkish newspaper, and the enemy and the enemy cannot be changed. The Italian fleet blocked the Aegean Sea, Istanbul's once busy port became an airport, and the prices of all kinds of goods rose one after another, if it were not for China standing up and expressing its support for the Ottoman Empire's 'self-defense counterattack', if it were not for the Persian Kingdom to stand up and express its support, Istanbul would definitely not be so quiet.

It's all waiting to be developed. Was it the Ottoman army that was quickly defeated by the Austro-Hungarian army? Whether the two sides are evenly matched, or the Ottomans won, everything needs to be determined by the outcome of the war!

Now the Ottoman ace army swept away the combined Bulgarian and Serbian forces, and very easily forced the Bulgarian kingdom to withdraw from the war, like a shot in the arm, and quickly restored Abdul. Hamid II is weakening in confidence. The whole of Istanbul has gone crazy, there are signs everywhere proclaiming the victory of this battle, and everywhere there are flags proclaiming the Ottoman army! The Ottomans, who had become weak and frightened because of the successive entry of the Italian and Austro-Hungarian powers, suddenly became 'strong' as if they had eaten the Ten Great Tonic Pills!

Beijing Xiangshan.

"Your Majesty, this is a message from the Ottoman Sultan." Xu Xilin, director of the confidential department of the chamberlain, handed the telegram from Istanbul to Emperor Liu with a forbearant expression on his face.

"Honorable Emperor of China." Abdul. Hamid II spoke in a very deferential tone, it was not written to Emperor Liu, but to Emperor Liu's son, Emperor Liu, Jr. (To be continued.) )