More than a month later

On the outskirts of Basra

The rumbling artillery roared to the earth, and on the second day of the Battle of Basra, on the Gobi Desert on the outskirts, the defending German-Austrian troops and the attacking Tang Empire troops fought fiercely.

The rolling hills of the Gobi Desert are dotted with date palms, bringing a touch of green to the yellow Gobi Desert.

The German-Austrian positions were bombed by heavy shells, with severed limbs and broken arms everywhere, as well as blown barbed wire and collapsed trenches.

The Tang Empire Expeditionary Force had more than 86,000 troops in the Middle East, bringing together more than 26,000 local Arab tribes, plus nearly 40,000 Jordanian tribal captives. With an army of 150,000 men, it swept through Jordan and Kuwait and made its way to Basra.

Here they hit hard nails.

Hassan Datrik Pasha, who was stationed in Basra, led an army of more than 62,000 men who had urgently recruited the expansion, and together with the more than 21,000 troops of the German Desert Corps, formed a suburban defense line to block the attacking Imperial Middle East Corps.

As soon as the two sides met, they started a real fire.

After the heavy artillery bombardment, the Middle East Corps drove the Jordanian servant army to attack, and the German-Austrian defense was very stubborn, and the servant army unsurprisingly left a large number of corpses and retreated in disarray.

Again the artillery attacked, the servants attacked, and were once again repulsed.

This was repeated several times, and the casualties of the servant army troops reached more than 7,300 people, and there were already faint signs of instability.

"The Germans' defense was really tough, and these local Ottoman troops had a backbone after joining the German army, and it became more difficult to fight." Lieutenant General Zhu Guosheng put down the binoculars, shook his head and said with a sigh.

The barren Gobi Desert on the outskirts of Basra is unsheltered, with only gentle hills on which the German-Austrian forces relied to form trenches.

The experienced Germans set up their artillery positions on the anticline at the top of the hills, which could condescendingly pour artillery fire in the direction of the attack and extend the firing range.

If the armoured troops were to attack, the Germans would push their artillery up to the top of the hill and cover the armoured attacking troops with direct artillery fire, which was effective against the Anglo-French forces.

Because the tanks of the British and French forces were large in size, had many breakdowns, and moved slowly, the survival rate in the face of direct fire from the Germans was quite low, and they were simply moving targets.

After more than a day of fierce fighting, Lieutenant General Zhu Guosheng basically figured out the strength of the enemy's firepower, he held his two hands in front of his chest, stretched out his left hand and rubbed his chin to think.

He must find a weak side that is conducive to a breakthrough, open a breach, and tear through the enemy's defenses.

The brutal battles of the First World War so far have proved that in trench warfare, a frontal breakthrough inevitably bears a heavy cost of casualties.

The combination of barbed wire and trenches, combined with the combined fire of artillery and heavy machine guns, became the means of pressing the bottom of the box on the defending side.

Natural dominance, which has been tried and tested in war.

The Germans were extremely experienced in similar trench warfare and shared with their allies in the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, which was the most troublesome part.

Judging by the current front

On the frontal front, which is 13.8 kilometers wide, the enemy has invested about 28,000 troops deployed in the front-line positions, including about 7,000 German troops, who are attached to the east and west flanks.

With heavy heavy machine gun fire and accurate artillery fire, the frontal battlefield on the center line was supported.

In the rear, there are also second-line positions and fortifications relying on Basra, which are not hard bones to gnaw on.

The German nation, in order to be the most adaptable to the war, learned valuable experience from the Battle of Farden and the Battle of the Somme, and pioneered the concept of diagonal cross-fire with heavy machine gun fire, which can kill and damage the enemy's attacking forces to the greatest extent.

The British paid a heavy price of more than 60,000 casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, verifying the correctness of the German theory of firepower.

From the point of view of troop allocation and firepower allocation

The strength and weapon configuration of the defense line on the outskirts of Basra cannot even reach 1/10 of the density of the Western Front, and at best it can only be regarded as a rookie version of the European Western Front, and there is a lot of water.

However, this does not mean that the offensive problems faced by Lieutenant General Zhu Guosheng are 1/10 of the European battlefields, because his command is not the Anglo-French alliance army that regards death as home, and nearly half of the 150,000 troops are Arabs.

Its combat effectiveness is also rookie, and it cannot be entrusted with heavy tasks.

Leaving aside the captives, the armies of the allies were mainly the Montafik tribe north of Basra, which belonged to the Adnan Arabs.

Historically, they entered Iraq with the Arab conquests and settled in the Ajam Qasab region between Basra and Kufa, where they lived a free and nomadic life.

In 1546, in a fierce battle with the Ottoman army led by Ayaspasha at Basra, they slaughtered Arab tribes and finally left only one branch, the Bani Saeed tribe.

Therefore, the Montafic tribe had a blood feud with the Ottomans.

Historically, the tribe belonged to the Shabib family of the Prophet's Bani Maiaruf and is today the largest tribal confederation in Basra governorate.

In 1910, it had about 80,000 families and 30,000 cavalry, and now a few years later, the tribe has grown even more.

Its tribal rulers, the Satun family, were Sunni and were connected through Kuwait City, and the Tang Empire's Middle East Corps promised to allow the family to rule Basra after defeating the Ottoman rulers.

It was under such attractive conditions that the Montafic tribe sent troops to help the Middle East Corps defeat the corrupt and brutal feudal rule of the Ottoman Empire.

But these Arab cavalry are not good at attacking fortifications, and they are also cannon fodder.

Your own family knows your own affairs.

Lieutenant General Zhu Guosheng knew that if he wanted to break the defensive line of the German-Austrian coalition army, he would eventually have to rely on the sharp attacks of the Tang Empire's own armored divisions, and the rest would be all in the mirror.

Think about it

He decided to use his ace light armored division to tear a large gap in the left flank of the battlefield and completely crush the enemy's defenses.

The order was given quickly, and the artillery fire behind the position roared again, and a dense number of shells smashed into the enemy's position, and a flash of fire flickered.

The field artillery of different calibers equipped by the Tang Empire is all new artillery with hydraulic reset technology, which has a fast rate of fire and fierce firepower.

The Middle East Corps had an abundant supply of artillery shells, and the munitions boats could deliver ammunition close to the battlefield along the convenient river of Basra to ensure offensive firepower.

Judging by the scene

The German-Austrian forces have been under constant artillery fire, and if they dare to expose their artillery positions, they will soon be destroyed by the roaring artillery fire.

Lieutenant General Zhu Guosheng knew that the enemy must be hiding some artillery positions, and he was ready to suddenly take them out at a critical moment and take them by surprise.

But he also has his own hole card, that is, the T-1 "Gray Wolf" that is about to attack on the left flank, is converted into a light tank, commonly known as the Type 96 tank.

The Type 96 T-1 tank, nicknamed the "Gray Wolf", was officially named by the military of the Tang Empire, and was first successfully developed and equipped with troops in 1896.

The Gray Wolf armored vehicle was originally an open combat vehicle, surrounded by a ring of steel armor about 1 meter 1 high, and a crew of four people.

With a total weight of 5.12 tons and an off-road speed of up to 23 kilometers per hour, the tracked chassis is light and flexible, with good durability and strong off-road ability.

After more than 20 years, the Gray Wolf light tank has been continuously improved in use, resulting in an improved version, with a light turret and a machine gun, increasing its weight to 6.325 tons, and making it more reliable.

In particular, the "gray wolf" tank is equipped with a 6-cylinder high-horsepower diesel engine, which is more powerful, and the off-road speed reaches 36 kilometers per hour, which is a speeding steel monster on the battlefield.

The heavy shelling lasted a whole hour before it came to an abrupt end.

A sharp whistle sounded, and a new round of all-out offensive began.

On the frontal main battlefield

The Muntafic soldiers charged the Jordanian Servant Army at gunpoint, and the ragged soldiers rushed out of their positions and attacked the enemy like a tidal wave.

The Jordanian servant soldiers had guns only for those in front, firing five rounds each, and the soldiers in the back followed only empty-handed.

Those in front fell, and those in the back picked up their rifles and continued to charge.

They can also pick up corpses on the battlefield and load weapons, and can only move forward without hesitation, and those who retreat will be mercilessly shot by the machine guns behind them.

Attacking on the right were the Montafik soldiers, who were slightly better equipped, at least each with a gun.

Attacking on the left were the soldiers of the Tang Empire Expeditionary Force, all of whom wore steel helmets and leather boots, and launched an attack in full gear.

View from above

On the 3-kilometer-wide left flank front, more than 3,600 soldiers of the two attacking regiments basically formed a loose offensive formation in a company, and quickly pressed towards the enemy's position.

Between the companies, there was a sufficient gap left for thirty or forty meters wide.

At this moment, the roar of the rear engines was heard, and the ground could be felt trembling, and nearly 20 light tanks came from the rear at high speed, plunging into the offensive gap.

These Gray Wolf light tanks were very fast, quickly rushed past the ranks of the scattered attackers, and approached the front of the enemy position in just three or four minutes.

This sudden move caught the enemy off guard and caused chaos in the German positions.

With a look of fear in their eyes, the German officers desperately shouted for the soldiers to come out of the anti-artillery holes and hurry into position, and the heavy machine-gun crews were immediately in position.

The German soldiers, staggered by the artillery fire, staggered into the trenches, and the heavy machine gun crews carried the machine gun components and hurriedly entered the position, and the time was too short.

Generally speaking

It takes at least 10 minutes for the infantry to attack beyond the open field and reach the firing range of five to six hundred meters from the forward position.

In this gap, well-trained German soldiers were ready to defend.

Unexpectedly, these hateful Orientals did not play their cards according to common sense, and they reached the door in just three or four minutes.

The light tanks approached at a rapid pace, quickly approaching within 200 meters, then slammed the brakes to slow down and began to use their guns to take out heavy machine gun points at close range.

One shot at a time, it's as easy as eating and drinking.

The tank shells blew the German heavy machine gun crew into parts, and then the tank crew operated the machine guns and began to suppress the fire of the German troops in the trenches, and the dust was flying.

These tanks, approaching the front of the battle line, slowly advanced, stopped at a distance of more than 100 meters, and began to act as a suppressive heavy machine-gun fire point.

The Germans on the left flank were completely stunned, unable to raise their heads under the close-range fire, and could only hide in the trenches to survive.

Those German soldiers who dared to raise their guns to fight back were soon covered in blood splashed, and the corpses like blood sieves fell weakly, and the heavy smell of blood permeated.

The soldiers of the expeditionary force who launched the charge soon arrived, and they quickly flew over the tank with their guns to within 50 meters, and then quickly fell down and threw out the grenades.

The black-pressed grenades rained down into the trenches, splattering flesh and blood mixed with gray and black dust, making the battle even bloodier.

The soldiers of the expeditionary force then approached the trench with their guns, quickly replenished the guns of the German soldiers who could still move, and then jumped into the trenches one after another, sweeping the remnants of the enemy.

Seeing through the binoculars that the soldiers of the expeditionary force successfully occupied the left flank trenches, Lieutenant General Zhu Guosheng smiled with relief, and then ordered the reserve troops to continue to invest in troops, rapidly expand and tear a big hole.

The trucks in the rear also went up, and they took out the rails and laid them on the trenches, allowing the Gray Wolf light tanks to cross the trenches. Continue to storm the second-line positions of the German troops.

The attack of the Imperial Expeditionary Force is like a raging storm, leaving no respite for the enemy.

More and more soldiers poured into the enemy positions, and the sound of gunfire and shouts of killing resounded.

The German-Austrian defensive line outside Basra finally collapsed, and the enemy ran everywhere in the mountains.

At this time

It was time for the cavalry of the Montafic tribe to put on a show, and tens of thousands of cavalry covered the past, and with the tank troops, the sky was dark.

The main force of the southern front led by Lieutenant General Zhu Guosheng broke through the Basra defense line of the German-Austrian army in two days, and the remaining four days cleared the remnants of the enemy in Basra.

In this battle, 17,300 German-Austrian troops were killed and wounded, nearly 40,000 were captured, and the rest fled.

The Middle East Corps suffered more than 11,000 casualties, of which 80% were Jordanian servants, more than 2,000 casualties among the Montafik tribes, and 623 casualties among Imperial soldiers, including 249 killed in battle.

The casualties were mainly due to the frontal offensive and the ensuing urban battle in Basra, which was an inevitable loss.

The victory in this battle greatly boosted the Entente bloc and was hailed as a "vital victory" and "exciting good news" in the Middle East theater.

The Allied High Command sent a commendation order, commending the Imperial Middle East Corps in enthusiastic terms, hoping that it would make another meritorious service.

This time

The Montafik tribesmen are marching into Basra in a big way, while the officers and soldiers of the Middle East Corps are in a revelry.

They looted the homes of the nobles, wealthy merchants and wealthy men of Basra, piled up mountains of gold, silver, and antiques and loaded them into trucks and transported them to the docks.

In addition, there were young and beautiful Arab women, and thoroughbred Arabian horses were loaded with boatloads to the city of Fubo, Sana'a and Kuwait, and it was all money.

The army also sent troops to sweep the surrounding towns and towns, scraping the ground like a squire, including historical artifacts, scriptures, carpets and women.

In any case, the empire is no longer ready to expand its influence into the two river valleys, and Basra will be handed over to the Montafic tribe in the future, according to the agreement.

Nearly 90,000 families of the tribe and more than 300,000 people are migrating to Basra on a large scale, also to make room for the new powers.

Otherwise, how can so many people be settled? (End of chapter)