The French side, of course, was not indifferent to the capture of the Carragher Pass by the Italian troops and their entry into the Savoy region.

The French Sixth Army, first commanded by Admiral de Cassitreau, sent all three divisions of the reserve to the Savoy area. True, the general no longer left reserves, because the situation with the Italians was already clear, and their main attack was on the Savoy region.

Although the Savoy region was mountainous, even if it were occupied by Italy, it was a great threat to the south of France (just look at the Savoy region, whose mountainous terrain limited the army's operations, and it was purely military science to attack Lyon along the river valley).

But this is French territory, which must not be occupied. Therefore, the reserves of Admiral De Casiterno need to play an adequate role.

And in addition to the response of the Sixth Army, Lyon had an additional mobilization division stationed, and this was the biggest French response to the Italian offensive.

Why did France react so little to Italy's attack on Savoy?

The reason is simple, on the one hand, the Savoy region is not as important as the Nice region. The second is that there are more urgent things to deal with when you are angry, and this matter has already burned your eyebrows, so you can't rush it.

The fact that the Germans had entered northeastern France. After defeating the Belgian and British armies, the main German forces had crossed the Franco-Belgian border and advanced rapidly into the interior of France.

The main force of millions of German troops appeared in the northeast where France was in no danger to defend, which was quite a tricky thing for the French army, which was related to the success or failure of France in this war, so for the Italian attack on the Savoy region, the French army could only delay it first, and then deal with the Italians after blocking the Germans.

However, although the decision to postpone the treatment of Italy was made, it was impossible for the French to give Savoy to the Italians on the battlefield.

It should be fought or not, but the emphasis is different.

Therefore, the war between France and Italy in Savoy has not ceased at all.

"Attack."

With the roar of the leading officer, a large group of Italian officers and soldiers with rifles launched an attack on the French position on the hillside.

At the foot of the hill, mortars were constantly firing shells at the French troops in the positions.

Speaking of which, in mountain warfare, the favorite of Italian soldiers is this small mortar.

Although it has low accuracy, low range, and is not easy to aim, the ease of carrying it alone makes soldiers very fond of this artillery that can follow in their footsteps.

Mortars can be used wherever they can pass. This led to a great affection for this mortar from the Italian Army, and this led to the Turin Arsenal working overtime to build this weapon for mountain warfare.

Of course, in addition to mortars, light and heavy machine gun infantry are also very fond of it, not to mention the Makqin heavy machine gun, an absolute defensive weapon. As long as the position was defended by a Maxim machine gun, the soldiers did not have to worry about the enemy's attack at all.

However, the soldiers actually preferred the lightweight Reviri machine gun to the heavy machine gun, which could only be used for defense. The whole gun weighs only 9 kilograms, compared to the Maxim, which weighs 3-40 kilograms, the gun can be carried by one person, and it can also keep up with the pace of the soldiers and provide fire support at any time.

Although in terms of performance, whether it is the rate of fire, the range or the duration of firepower, the Revelli machine gun is far less powerful than the Maxim, but its expensive weight advantage allows soldiers to carry out more tactical cooperation around this machine gun.

So in the troops, the demand for the Reviri machine gun from the soldiers never stopped.

However, it is a pity that at present, due to the production of the gun and supply considerations, the gun can only be deployed at the platoon level. Each platoon has one strong, and a few elite infantry divisions can do two. Of course, this is in addition to the pride of the sky, the paratrooper units who are accustomed to performing dangerous tasks.

However, although there are fewer machine guns at the battalion and company level of ordinary infantry divisions, for these troops, living people can still be suffocated by urine. Pooling the use of machine guns at the battalion and company level to increase the density of offensive firepower was the favorite thing for those junior officers to do.

Especially in the Savoy Mountains, where forces cannot be deployed, the scale of the battles is relatively small, and the battles are generally mainly at the battalion and company level. The only deterrent in their hands are machine guns and mortars.

Increasing the firepower density of the attack will naturally reduce the difficulty of the attack.

In addition, at present, the French army has very little support firepower at the battalion and company level, and basically relies on rifles. It needs to be said here that the French company level is called an infantry squadron, although it also has four platoon level squads, but then it comes to the peculiar place. The squad has two platoons (we call them semi-formed platoons), and one platoon has two infantry squads. (1 officer of 14 soldiers in the first squad, 13 soldiers and 1 officer in the second squad)

The entire infantry squadron (company), in addition to the rifles, had only pistols for the officer's self-defense.

True, at present, with the exception of Italy, the infantry company level of all countries is based on riflemen. If you want a support weapon, you need to be at least battalion level.

Therefore, the French defenders, who were originally defending favorable terrain in the mountain warfare, were suppressed by the attacking Italian army. What's more, the much-anticipated Saint-Etienne 1907 heavy machine gun on the French position was torn to shreds by mortar shells, and the morale of the French army was reduced at a visible rate.

This heavy machine gun has excellent French origins, and after the advent of Maxim, France decided to build its own heavy machine gun, so an air-cooled heavy machine gun class was born. It has to be said that this design is one step ahead of the current water-cooled popularity.

Of course, the consequence was that the machine gun was not very good, although the soldiers did not rate it well, but its original French origin made the War Office close to it, so this machine gun appeared in the hands of the French army.

However, it is a pity that compared with the Italian army, which has trained in the use of machine guns and anti-machine gun skills, the current French army's use of machine guns is not a little bit worse.

Set up the machine gun at the top of the position, it is difficult not to hit it, who made it so conspicuous. As a result, the Saint-Etienne 1907 heavy machine gun, which had not been fired for long, was forced to be reduced to a spare part state by the mortar gunner.

The French, who had no point of fire, were immediately suppressed by the attacking Italian army with Leverry machine guns, so that the defenders of their positions could not raise their heads. And taking advantage of the fact that the opponent was suppressed, the attacking Italian officers and soldiers rushed to the trenches with a faster speed.

"The enemy is coming."

When the defending French soldiers saw the Italian officers and soldiers approaching the trenches, they immediately exclaimed in trembling voices.

Then the two sides threw grenades at each other, and a grenade explosion sounded inside and outside the position.

However, when it comes to grenades, Italy uses the same wooden-handled grenades as Germany, and we will not say much about their advantages and disadvantages. As for the grenades thrown by the French army, they are a product of another era, and we can call them a variant of bombs thrown by grenadiers (interested book lovers can go to Bilibili to see how strange it is).

Then after an explosion, the unhung soldiers on both sides entered a bloody white-knuckle battle.

However, in the eyes of Cosenz, the battle was over, because the second wave of attacking troops was already halfway there, and the third wave had already set off, and the French troops defending the position had no chance of turning the tables.

It was also true that after waiting for the second wave of attacking troops to rush into the position, the French officers and soldiers, who were struggling to support it, could not hold it out. Some of them surrendered to the Italians, while others fled in all directions. Thus the position fell into the hands of the Italian army.

However, Cosenz did not show a happy expression at the victory in front of him, because there was nothing to be happy about when a battalion attacked a company of French troops.

And for him, the purpose of this French army here was clear, it was to delay their time.

They wanted to hold back their 18th Army and slow down their advance towards Annecy.

Although he knew the purpose of these French troops, there was no good solution to this. It was only possible to gnaw away the positions of the French army step by step.

Speaking of which, although the equipment of the French army is not suitable, there is nothing wrong with the tactics, taking advantage of the mountainous terrain of the Savoy region, and blocking them layer by layer, so that their progress is slow.

Although the towns of Moderriena, Aigbel, and Darbini have been captured one after another, Annecy and Gremobour, which are vital to Savoy, are still in the hands of the French army, as long as these two places are not captured, then the French army can fight at any time and stop whenever they want, which will put the Italian army in the Savoy area at a strategic disadvantage.

Therefore, in order to change this situation, Prince Filiberto, who is the commander of Army Group North, sent the 18th Military Region to seize Annecy in the north, and he will lead the main force of Army Group North to attack the more important Gremobul.