Time is like water, passing in the smoke of artillery fire in Europe; As the blazing July draws to a close, the warring sides have been fighting for three months in this vast land. And for the Entente, the sky above them was already a heavy haze.

On the battlefield of the Eastern Front, the five armies that Grand Duke Nikolai had worked so hard to assemble were defeated again and again under the ferocious blows of the three and a half armies of the German-Austrian coalition. Since the terrain of the Eastern Front was much wider than that of the Western Front, it was difficult to construct a strong and continuous trench position; Coupled with the stupid, stupid, black and rough attributes of the Russian army, they were completely vulnerable in the face of the heavy artillery of the German and Austrian army. By the time the German infantry had finished preparing for the artillery fire, the Russian soldiers in their earthy grey uniforms had no fighting spirit to resist. "The Russians jumped out of the trenches, discarded their guns and ran back, gray fur hats and unbuttoned coats swaying in front of them until there was no one left. They fled like a flock of sheep in utter confusion. A large number of Russian soldiers were caught in front of the second barbed wire, where they were killed or captured. This was stated in the German army's field report afterwards.

Only in those places where there are woods, or hills, will the shelling not work, and there will be real fighting. However, in the case of the strength has been weakened by Yanzhòng, the Russian army has long lost the qualification to compete with the world's first-class army. Grand Duke Nikolai constantly drew reserves to launch counterattacks, but all these troops could do was cover the retreat of the front-line troops. After another week of fighting, the 9th Army on the southern flank of the Russian army and the 5th Army in the north suffered heavy losses under the blows of Xinglu. On average, each division can muster less than 4,000 officers and men. Less than a month has passed. The heavy Russian army cluster assembled in Poland was reduced by nearly half; More than 200,000 prisoners of war were sent to the rear by the Germans to work as coolies. The trenches were filled with countless dead and wounded soldiers, and a large number of Russian soldiers who had been forcibly recruited deserted. Warsaw, the core of Poland, was already close in front of the eyes of the German army.

Compared with the smoke and clouds of the Polish battlefield, what attracted the attention of the whole world was the battle situation that broke out in Paris.

On 25 July, the German infantry, with unparalleled artillery support, finally swept away the thick and continuous trenches on the outskirts of Paris, and began an all-out fierce battle with the French defenders in the city. Although the Germans inflicted nearly 50,000 casualties on the French outskirts, which had become crumbling and crumbling. The fierce and difficult course of the street fighting in the city was also difficult, but the strong belief in conquering Paris was integrated into the blood of every German soldier who participated in the attack, so that they could spontaneously launch a decisive charge and move forward bravely without the encouragement and encouragement of the officers. The eagerness and determination of the whole German people to occupy Paris and defeat France once again is incomprehensible to the nation that has not been overwhelmed by the European powers for centuries, and the Kingdom of Prussia has worked hard in the cracks, and finally has been crowned emperor by Wilhelm I in the Hall of Mirrors of Versailles. In order to be able to completely solve this evil threat entrenched in the western part of the empire. The German soldiers were all reluctant to die; As long as the team can win, even if it is a martyr for it!

July 30th. The Germans swept through the eastern part of Paris with a frenzied and furious offensive, leaving the most prosperous civilized city on the European continent in ruins. In order to keep their national hopes and national symbols, the French army also played a real fire, Xia Fei urgently dispatched a large number of troops to aid the garrison in Paris, and the commander of the city defense, Gallieni, called on the French officers and soldiers to live and die with the position, and not to give up an inch of land to the German invaders.

Just when the French and German armies were fighting bloody battles in the city of Paris, Italy, which had been watching the silence before, suddenly jumped out. The French government, which had moved south to Bordeaux, issued a strongly worded ultimatum to meet the territorial claims of the Roman side within 36 hours, or else it would be war!

Although the current state of war in the French army was extremely severe, it would undoubtedly be worse for them to open a front in the south; However, the Italians' ultimatum to the French government to cede the southern coastal provinces was impossible for the French government to accept. On 1 August, Bordeaux did not respond to Rome after 36 hours, and Italy declared war on France. Not only were the Entente people angrily condemning Italy's move, but even a large number of neutral countries expressed their contempt and condemnation. The headline on the first page of the Washington Post of the United States sarcastically wrote, "The skinny and obscene bandit now finally has the courage to stab the exhausted warrior in the back." The Dutch Rotterdam Morning Post was even more merciless, denouncing Italy as "the lowest type of viper". Italy's first 100 million lira (£4 million) bonds on the New York Stock Exchange were rarely appreciated even at a time of the Allies' successive victories, and American cowboys said they would rather buy French government bonds, whose credit was already in jeopardy, than have anything to do with these many treacherous men.

On 3 August, the first 12 Italian divisions crossed the western border of the Alps and launched a long-planned attack on the French troops stationed there. According to the plan of the Italian high command, they would eliminate the French garrison brigades on these borders in a matter of days, and then go straight to the southeastern coast of France, which was barely defended. However, military observers around the world were stunned that four French divisions, which were composed of reservists, were not fully manned, and they had achieved an unprecedented brilliant victory. In the scouting and tentative charge of the small French troops, a large number of Italian troops were crushed at the touch of a button; The soldiers fled backwards like frightened sheep, and many of them threw their rifles, bullets, shovels and other military items to the ground and surrendered to the French army after firing a few shots into the air. In the first two days of the battle, the Italians lost more than 10,000 men, and unlike the German and French armies who were familiar with the bloody battles in Paris, their true casualties were less than 1,000, and the rest surrendered outright and became prisoners of the French!

France's victory on the battlefield in Italy boosted the morale of the Allied troops. After three months of continuous fighting by the Allies, they finally ushered in a hearty victory; The losses of the French army in the service were less than a few hundred, and such exaggerated battle losses set a new record, which even the Battle of Tannenberg two months earlier could not be compared. Seeing that the allies were so angry, both Germany and Austria-Hungary were furious; For a moment, messages of condemnation and urging flew like snowflakes from Berlin and Vienna, and then all the pages were piled up on the desk of the commander of the Italian Army, Admiral Cadorna. Unable to accept this result, the Italians staged a massive demonstration in the capital, where the portrait of Cardolna was sold out and then burned to ashes by the angry crowd in the Roman Forum!

There was a strong condemnation at home and abroad, and Cardolna was anxious. He put the blame on the commanders of the front-line troops, and after successively replacing a large number of officers, he ordered the troops to launch another offensive in an attempt to save face from previous defeats. However, in the face of the strong defense of the French army, the Italian army was again bloodied; Not only did they not gain an inch, but in some areas they were even broken through by the counterattacking French troops, becoming a salient deep into the Italian position. After receiving the battle report from the southeastern border, the commander-in-chief of the French army, Xia Fei, no longer had any worries; The loss of the southeastern border did not materialize, and he could confidently and boldly concentrate all his forces and fight to the death with the Germans in the city of Paris.

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The Italian army was at its best, but its navy had achieved some success. the boot-shaped Apennine Peninsula, which almost divides the entire Mediterranean Sea in two; Italian naval vessels were able to sail lightly into the eastern Mediterranean to conduct combat reconnaissance, sinking Allied merchant ships one after another. In conjunction with the activities of German submarines operating in the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal channel of the Entente countries was almost interrupted for a time.

To resolve the situation, Britain and France responded swiftly. A group of patrol ships and gunboats belonging to the British Mediterranean Fleet were urgently sent to the Red Sea to hinder the hunting of German submarines as much as possible; At the same time, the main force of the French navy stationed in Toulon also set sail and joined forces with the main force of the British Mediterranean Fleet to carry out combat cruises in the Mediterranean. In the face of the heavy artillery cluster of the Entente countries, the Italian light ships that came out to mix did not have any idea, so they could only flee and turn in at an overload speed, far away from the other party's sight.

"We must form a joint fleet with our allies, otherwise we will not be able to seize control of the Mediterranean!" At an operational meeting, the Chief of Staff of the Italian Navy, Lefehr, spoke about the current imperative of the Italian Navy. Their two Counts of Cavour-class battleships had just been on sea trials for two months, and they had no hope of defeating the French fleet at all. However, the reality is far from being as simple as you can think of it. For a long time, the Italian and Austro-Hungarian navies were imaginary enemies of each other; The bond between the two sides in the Battle of Lissa has not been resolved until today, nearly half a century later, because of a territorial dispute between the two countries.

As for the Turks, who were forcibly dragged onto the pirate ships by Germany, they also did not have good relations with Austria-Hungary and Italy. The Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia in 1908 made the entire Ottoman Empire full of anger against Austria-Hungary; Italy is also not a good type, and its desire to covet Libya, which belongs to the Ottoman territory, has long been known to everyone. As soon as the meeting began, the negotiations were stalled by endless bickering and name-calling. (To be continued......)

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