Bulgarian Empire

The deployment of Bulgaria's troops is entirely a combat plan formulated for the Turkish army. There is no doubt that the Istanbul region will be the focus of competition between the two countries, followed by the Macedonian region!

The Ottoman Empire deployed 150,000 troops in Istanbul, 80,000 in Macedonia, about 100,000 in Greece, 40,000 in Albania, and 30,000 in Kosovo!

As soon as the Balkan War broke out, Bulgaria received extensive support from all ethnic groups in the Balkans. Wherever the Bulgarian army passed, people offered to help.

Oh, these are inseparable from the management of successive Bulgarian governments! Especially after Ferdinand came to power, in addition to cultural exports, the intelligence agencies also worked intensively in the Balkans, taking advantage of the contradictions between the Ottoman Empire and the local people, and wooed a group of people who were inclined to Bulgaria, creating a favorable situation for this war. Mass Basis!

As soon as the war broke out on May 4, the Bulgarian army marched forward bravely!

On the third day after the start of the war, the First Bulgarian Army shattered the counterattacks of the Turkish Army many times. The forward troops: the First Guards Division and the First Army Division had begun to encircle the city of Adriana, and the Tenth Division had conquered The city of Losengrad!

The Turkish High Command had no time to complete the reorganization of the rout. On May 8, the Bulgarian First and Third Heavy Artillery Regiments arrived at Adriana Castle, and immediately launched a fierce attack.

In this offensive and defensive battle, the mortar began to move towards the stage of history and started its legendary road!

In order to defend the city of Adriana, the Ottomans also worked hard. In addition to the fortresses all over the place, there are also dense trenches, barbed wire, heavy machine guns, etc.!

All this has contributed to the great reputation of the Bulgarian army!

Since the mortar has not yet appeared, the defense against it naturally does not exist!

Originally, the Bulgarian army was only planning to use mortars to deal with machine guns, but when it appeared on the battlefield, everyone was stunned.

When the Third Battalion of the Third Regiment of the First Guards Division was attacking the Turkish position, the heavy machine gun on the opposite side rang out crack, crack, crack....

The third battalion commander Kakashi Ivanlov immediately ordered his men to set up mortars to destroy the enemy's heavy machine guns.

Because the Ferdinand version of the mortar is really too simple, not only has a short range, but also the accuracy is not good, and then the artillery was shot flying without accident!

There was a problem with this flight, the shell flew to the Ottoman formation, and with a boom, it detonated the ammunition box of the Turkish army, and the bullets immediately began to fly randomly, leaving only a wail!

Good guy, it was obviously a miss, but the result was even better than expected. A single shell took the lives of dozens of Ottoman soldiers!

Seeing this, Kakashi-Ivanlov didn't care so much anymore. Anyway, the Bulgarian army didn't stipulate that mortars can only be used to deal with machine guns, so they simply greeted places with many people!

After several experiments, Kakashi Ivanlov found that the effect is very good. As long as it is not too far away, hitting the Ottoman position can always cause casualties to the enemy, ranging from a few people to dozens of people Man, the effect is simply not too good!

After getting this discovery, Kakashi Ivanlov immediately reported it. After repeated experiments, some people found that mortars were also effective against some of the Ottoman fortresses, and some fortresses even collapsed as soon as they were fired!

Tofu projects can be found everywhere, not to mention the decaying Ottoman Empire. Of course, most of these fortresses are just for defense against bullets, and if they cut corners, the current result is no exception!

This is much more cost-effective than using a 75mm field gun. The shell price of a mortar is less than one-fifth of that of a field gun, and its accuracy is much higher. (Nonsense, a distance of 180 meters, if you hit a fortress, as long as the direction is right, you can hit it. Of course, the accuracy is high!)

The astonishing performance of the mortar soon attracted the attention of Major General Geneva-Nicolas, the commander of the First Guards Division.

Then it was quickly promoted in the Bulgarian army!

Thanks to the decay of the Ottoman Empire, many fortifications were left over from a hundred or eighty years ago. Many places have been in disrepair and aging, and there are temporary tofu projects! (People were not prepared to defend against shells)

With the joining of this weapon, the efficiency of the Bulgarian army's siege has suddenly increased. Many fortifications that originally required field artillery can now be handled by mortars.

If one shot doesn't work, just two shots, and if it doesn't work, then three shots and four shots, it can always be done! Anyway, the Ottoman Empire stopped maintaining the fortress in the city decades ago. It was temporarily reinforced after the outbreak of the war. Don't expect it to be strong!

The Ottoman army fought fiercely to no avail. Two days later, Adrianapolis, an important military town, was occupied by Bulgaria!

At this time, the Bulgarian 9th Division had already arrived in Lureburgaz; the 6th and 11th Divisions began to advance towards the west coast of the Gelibolu Peninsula and the Sea of ​​Marmara.

Unwilling to fail, the commander-in-chief of the Turkish army, Wolf Pasha, began to gather troops to prepare for a decisive battle with Bulgaria in the Karagachi River Basin between Lureburgaz and Bunarhisar!

Not to be outdone, Popov assembled the Eighth Division, Ninth Division, Twelfth Division, Thirteenth Division, Fourteenth Division, Fourth Heavy Artillery Regiment, and two cavalry regiments, preparing for a decisive battle with the Ottomans!

On May 10th, the first decisive battle in the Balkan War kicked off!

At this time, Wolf Pasha had assembled eight divisions, about 106,000 people, with more than a thousand cannons of various types, and more than 600 heavy machine guns!

On the Bulgarian side, there are now five infantry divisions with a total strength of about 86,000 troops, more than 600 cannons of various types, and more than 800 heavy machine guns!

From a quantitative point of view, the Ottomans not only have an advantage in strength, but also in the number of artillery!

From the quality point of view, it is just reversed! The Ottoman army, which has a large number of troops, has a lot of poor quality of soldiers; let alone artillery, thousands of artillery sounds very domineering, almost double that of the Bulgarian army. If you figure out the composition of the artillery, I guess no one sees it that way!

After all, the Ottoman Empire has been operating for hundreds of years. It is very simple to collect a batch of artillery. Of course, the artillery must be a little older!

From the new artillery that has just been produced for one or two years, to the old antiques two or three hundred years ago, everything is available! Among them, the front-loading artillery occupies the mainstream, and there are too many old antiques!

Originally, it was just a matter of use, but now the front-loading weapons of the Ottoman army are the mainstream, and the breech-loading guns have not had time to popularize, let alone cannons! (During the Balkan War in 1911, none of the front-loading weapons and equipment was retired from the Turkish Army, and the oldest cannon has a history of more than 400 years)

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