On February 21, 1917, the allied forces of the Balkan Front took the lead in launching an offensive on the southern border of Austria-Hungary.

Led by the 150,000 Australasian Expeditionary Force, including 200,000 Romanian troops, 250,000 Serbian troops, 150,000 Greek troops, and 50,000 Montenegrin troops, a total of 800,000 troops, launched an attack on Croatia and Transylvania.

Among them, the Western Front had 150,000 Australasian troops, 250,000 Serbian troops and 50,000 Montenegrin troops, totaling 450,000 people.

The Eastern Front had 200,000 Romanian troops and 150,000 Greek troops, totaling 350,000 men.

The purpose of the Eastern Front was to hold back a part of the Austro-Hungarian army and at the same time threaten the regions of the Kingdom of Hungary.

The western front was the main task of the offensive, advancing directly to the northwest, capturing Croatia and Dalmatia in Austria-Hungary, and then joining up with the Italian army in Klagenfurt.

As long as Slovenia, Istria, Croatia and Dalmatia could be occupied, Austria-Hungary would become a completely landlocked country, and the collapse of Austria-Hungary would not be far off.

In order to ensure the success of this attack, Australasia specially transferred hundreds of bombers from China, and a large number of airships were also used to transport supplies and conduct reconnaissance in the sky.

In order to cope with the good firepower of Austria-Hungary, Australasia deliberately raised nearly 2,000 artillery pieces this time, and the intention of destroying the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire in one fell swoop was very obvious.

As the campaign began, hundreds of thousands of Balkan Front troops launched a fierce offensive on the front line with Austria-Hungary.

Although it was desperately resisted by Austria-Hungary, the advance on the front was relatively smooth, and the eastern and western fronts achieved good results.

Among them, the eastern front is already very close to Sibiu, an important town in Transylvania. If Sibiu can be conquered, the flat Hungarian plain will be like a fish on a knife board, at the mercy of the Balkan Front.

The Western Front advanced all the way to the coast of Dalmatia, preparing to move north to encircle Zagreb, an important Croatian town.

Although they were resisted by some of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, these armies had little room for resistance in the face of the Australasian army, which had ample firepower superiority.

After two rounds of bombardment, these Austro-Hungarian troops were honest. There are even some unstable armies that have been devastated by the war, and after experiencing the bombardment like a canopy, the only thing they want is to surrender.

On 1 March, the rapidly advancing Australasian army reached the banks of the Sava River, and further north was Zagreb, the Croatian stronghold.

It was only when they arrived here that the army felt a different level of resistance, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire had built a very dense defensive position in the area, apparently to hold back the Australasian army.

General Thomas, who had fully engaged the Austro-Hungarian army, had long been aware of the true combat effectiveness of the Austro-Hungarian army.

Therefore, General Thomas did not pay attention to these defensive positions established by Austria-Hungary, and still adopted the tactics of massive bombing and concentrated breakthroughs.

But soon, General Thomas realized that something was wrong. It was clear that the Austro-Hungarian army in front of it was very combat-ready.

Judging by the reflexes and resistance shown by the enemy, either this was an elite Austro-Hungarian army, or this was the army group that the Germans left in Austro-Hungarian.

But in any case, the army at the front is an elite army, an army with very strong firepower and combat effectiveness.

Although the initial tentative attack was frustrated, General Thomas was not discouraged, and even had some expectations.

Theoretically, as long as the Austro-Hungarian elite army in front of it is captured, there will not be many Austro-Hungarian hole cards.

It is not clear to the current General Thomas that this was not an Austro-Hungarian army, but a purely German army consisting of 15 divisions and a German army group alternating between Hungary and Germany.

Originally, the German army group was drawn from two battles, resulting in a loss of about two corps.

But because of the filling of these 15 German divisions, the German army group was restored to full strength.

Both the Germans and Austria-Hungary were confident that this fully staffed or even somewhat overstaffed army group would be able to easily keep the Australasian out of their positions.

After knowing the combat effectiveness of the elite army in front, General Thomas was not careless, changed the original offensive plan to a large-scale bombardment, and sent an army to outflank and cut off the enemy's transportation of supplies to this defensive position as much as possible.

At this time, the more than 2 million shells prepared in advance by Australasia came into play. Under the premise of more than 2,000 artillery pieces bombarding with all their might, these shells were stored for more than ten days.

Combined with the bombardment from airships and bombers, Australasia consumed nearly 3 million shells in this defensive position alone.

It is clear that such a massive bombing did have some effect. Even the Germans, who were extremely powerful in combat, would have been afraid of the damage caused by such a massive artillery bombardment.

Germans are human beings, and it is normal for them to be afraid. After all, it was the Germans who had previously suppressed and bombed other countries in a large area, and now it was the first time that they had tasted the power of such bombing.

Such a large number of shells were smashed towards the small defensive position, which not only flattened the hill where the defensive position was located by several meters, but also caused a large number of casualties to the German troops on the position.

More than ten days later, on March 14, all that remained of the lush hill was charred black earth and a red stream of blood and various debris.

Under the cover of tractor-converted first-generation tanks, the Balkan coalition launched a large-scale offensive.

Such a tank is not different from the British tank, because the main body is a tractor, and the performance is still guaranteed to a certain extent.

Although it is also not fast, the probability of lying on the ground is much lower than that of the British tanks.

In total, Australasia dispatched nearly 200 tanks, less than 20, or less than a tenth.

After more than ten days of bombing, the Germans' mentality was already shaken.

Now that he is facing a big guy who can resist bullet strafing, his mentality suddenly collapses.

Aside from the first day of the Australasian army's attempted attack, these Germans did not see much of the Australasian army.

However, the enemy's shells caused a large number of casualties on their own side, and some German soldiers did not know how to fight back in this situation where they could not see the enemy but were chased by the enemy.

At the moment, the enemy finally has the intention of attacking, but it is a large number of steel guys who are in the lead.

These large men made of steel have a good resistance to bullets, and the probability of shells hitting these guys accurately is also very low, and the German army has no good way to do it for a while.

Seeing that the enemy's army was getting closer and closer, the German commander had no choice but to give the order to retreat.

On March 17, 1917, the Western Front officially encircled Zagreb, which also represented that the offensive of the Balkan Front army had been more than halfway completed.

Perhaps because seeing that the Australasian army was about to defeat Austria-Hungary alone, the Italians couldn't sit still and immediately launched a campaign.

The Italians planned to commit at least 500,000 combat troops to conquer Trento and Innsbruck from the north, then turn east and capture Trieste in Istria before joining forces with the Australasian army at Klagenfurt.

Even the Italian army had a different kind of ambition, and if they could, they wanted to occupy the whole of Slovenia, control their own border south of Zagreb, and even occupy the entire Dalmatian region.

If such a strategic goal can be achieved, the Adriatic Sea will become an inland sea for Italy, and Italy's interests in the Balkans will expand considerably.

On 19 March, the Italians launched an urgent campaign and quickly encircled the Trento area.

The Austro-Hungarian garrison in this area had only two divisions, and under the all-out attack of the Italians, they were defeated and retreated.

The newspapers in Rome even saw the battle as a clarion call for the rise of Italy, and the retreat of the Austro-Hungarian defenders as a rout of the Central Powers.

The Italian media hyped the government and the army as if Italy had won and had seized a large amount of land.

After a series of attacks by the Balkan coalition and Italy, Nivel also decided to look for an opportunity to launch a spring offensive to crush the entire Allied bloc in one fell swoop.

On March 25, the Spring Offensive was launched, and the European continent once again entered the wave of war.

As soon as the spring offensive was launched, it immediately replaced the Balkan and Italian fronts as the front with the largest number of daily casualties.

This is actually quite a normal thing, after all, the British, French and Germans invested more than 3 million troops in the spring offensive, far more than the Balkan and Italian fronts combined.

As the time entered April, Zagreb could not withstand the attack of Australasia after holding out for more than ten days.

This also meant that almost all of Croatia had been reduced to the occupation of Australasia, the Hungarian plain was already in danger, and the coastal areas of Austria-Hungary were also in danger.

On the one hand, there was a frantic offensive on the Balkan front, and on the other hand, the frenzied attrition of the Italian army, and Austria-Hungary, even with the support of the Germans, was somewhat unsupportable for a while.

On April 7, 1917, the Italian army officially surrounded Innsbruck, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire's plan to trade a beautiful defensive campaign for a chance at peace became a pipe dream.

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(End of chapter)