Bulgarian Empire

On July 16, 1916, the Allies launched landing operations at the three ports of Civitavecchia, Lido-Diostia, and Latina at the same time, which opened the prelude to the Battle of the Apennine Peninsula.

On July 25th, Lieutenant General Walikote was holding a military meeting in the headquarters of the Allied Forces. Although the landing operation had already begun, the battle on the front line was somewhat beyond everyone's expectations, and the Italians were much more prepared than they expected.

It's normal to think about it, after all, it involves the safety of the capital, so you can't take it too seriously! Coupled with the geographical location of the Italians, after losing their sea control, their coasts will no longer be safe to speak of.

The Allied forces participating in this campaign included:

Bulgaria: 5 infantry divisions (each infantry division has about 17,000 people), 2 heavy artillery brigades (each heavy artillery brigade has about 3,800 people, with 108 cannons of various types), 5 bombing brigades (each brigade has 36 bomber) and 6 fighter brigades (each fighter brigade has 48 aircraft), with a total strength of about 100,000;

British: 2 Canadian divisions (about 15,000 people each), 2 Australian divisions (about 14,700 people each), 1 New Zealand division (about 13,600 people), 10 Indian divisions ( Each division has about 15,300 people), 4 heavy artillery regiments, with a total strength of about 230,000 people;

French: 5 African divisions (about 14,000 people each), 1 heavy artillery regiment, with a total strength of about 72,000 people.

On the surface, the Allies have 25 infantry divisions with a total of 400,000 troops. It seems that it is really possible to divide Italy into two with strong troops, and they can choose the landing point at will!

But in fact, only the five main divisions of Bulgaria have real combat effectiveness. The other British and French colonial troops are far behind in terms of weapons and fighting will!

In the view of Lieutenant General Walikote, these five main Bulgarian divisions can sweep the twenty colonial divisions. This is not an exaggeration!

Many of the soldiers here have just joined the army, and after only a few months of short-term training, they were sent to the battlefield!

It is estimated that less than one-fifth of those who are really willing to work for Britain and France, or even less! Most people had to join the army because of their livelihood, or were directly conscripted by the colonial government, so what kind of morale did they have?

...

After the landing operation began, Lieutenant General Walicott was naturally reluctant to let the main force go to mine. There was no doubt that the British Indian Division and the French African Division were the ones who charged ahead, and even the five British Dominions Caucasian teachers are all staying behind, which is considered preferential treatment for white people.

Originally, according to the original plan of the Allied Powers, the landing in Italy was a feint attack. The main strategic purpose was to force the Italians to withdraw troops from the front line to return to Rome to create combat opportunities for the British and French coalition forces on the western front.

After all, the Italians can become a member of the great powers because of their own strength. Britain and France never thought that they could defeat the Italians with this partial division alone.

This is too unrealistic. If all the colonial troops are replaced by their main force, there may still be a slight possibility of realization.

If it is just to achieve this strategic goal, it is really not too difficult. Now the Italians are almost unable to persist. If they continue to fight, they will have to consider drawing troops from the front line.

What the Allies lost was cannon fodder troops. Neither the British nor the French cared about their lives, and they were worthless anyway.

But the Italians can't do it. Those who die are their own nationals. What's more important is that the current battle loss ratio is still a special pit of 2.2:1. On average, it takes 2.2 casualties of Italian soldiers to replace one cannon fodder. This business is very cost-effective for the Allied Powers.

No way, who told the Italians to lose both air dominance and sea dominance now? There are planes bombing in the sky and warships bombing at sea, so it's no wonder that their casualties are not big!

But now it's different,

Ferdinand ordered Lieutenant General Walicott to complete the landing operation as soon as possible, and marched to Rome or even occupied Rome, forcing the Italians to withdraw from the war. The difficulty factor increased exponentially!

Lieutenant General Walicott said cautiously: Generals, the reason why we called you here today is because with the changes in the situation on the battlefield, we have to change the combat plan we made before.

You can take a look, these are the information we have collected recently. The Italians are mobilizing the whole country. Based on their population base, it is roughly estimated that the Italians can mobilize more than 2.2 million troops.

And the Germans have recently provided a batch of weapons and equipment to the Italians, which will reach the Italians next month, and at least hundreds of thousands of Italians will be armed by then, and our mission has failed!

Not only did it fail to force the Italians to withdraw from the Western Front, but it also gave them the ability to continue to increase their troops to the Western Front. I think everyone does not want to see such a result.

Everyone read the information carefully. There is no doubt that the information is true, but some irrelevant content has been deleted, such as: the strategic supplies of the Italians can no longer keep up with the consumption, and the Italian people have begun to resist joining the army, etc. .

Therefore, the more people look at their faces, the more ugly they are, especially the French! The combat effectiveness of the Italian army is not very good, but no matter how useless it is, a sudden increase of millions of Italian troops can still change the situation of the battle!

Major General James was the first to ask: Your Excellency is right, the enemy's strength is increasing, we must revise our combat plan, and we cannot allow the Italians to complete their military mobilization!

But what do we do now? With the strength in our hands now, it is almost impossible to defeat the Italians?

The world war has just broken out, and everyone thinks that this is just an ordinary war, which can end in a year or so at most, and the preparations are not very sufficient.

The only countries that completed industrial mobilization at the beginning of the war were Germany and Bulgaria.

When the war entered 1916, the French also began to carry out industrial mobilization, followed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the British Empire, and finally the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy.

As for the other countries participating in the war, the industry can be ignored, so it is impossible to talk about industrial mobilization. Of course Belgium was an exception, the war was over from the start and there was no chance for industrial mobilization.

Before the outbreak of the war, no one thought that the industrial mobilization would continue the war, because the manpower and material resources that both sides can devote to the war have greatly increased, and the time needed to determine the outcome has also become shorter. long!

Soldiers are needed to fight, soldiers need weapons and food, workers and farmers are needed to produce weapons and food, and workers and farmers are conscripted into the army to fight.

While unprecedentedly large manpower resources were directly thrown into the battlefield, at the rear, the manpower required for war production also increased to an unprecedented degree.

The era in which only soldiers and some artisans were actively involved in previous wars, while most people were just bystanders, is gone forever. Most people serve the war directly or indirectly.

Now the industrial mobilization of the Italians has not been completed, and their comprehensive national strength has not yet fully exploded. Once they are allowed to complete the mobilization, disasters for the French will come!

As a French major general, James naturally wants to avoid all this happening. As long as this goal can be achieved, even if the entire coalition army is now wiped out, he doesn't care!

Well, Valicot knew that the reason he was looking for was not sufficient. As long as he calmed down and thought about it, he would find that it was almost impossible for the Italians to complete full mobilization.

The granaries of the Italians are in the south and Sicily. Now Sicily has fallen, and the south is not less visited by the Allied Navy.

At least now, a large part of the food supplies of the landing forces of the Allied Powers are selflessly contributed by the Italians!

In order to alleviate the food crisis, Italy has started a large-scale land reclamation campaign, and the corner land that was previously overlooked has also been developed.

In this context, how is it possible to continue to mobilize? Now the Allies can't come up with so much food to support them!

The authorities are obsessed with the bystanders. For Major General James, he can no longer calm down and analyze. Even if there is only a slight possibility, he can't take risks!

After all, no one can guarantee whether the Italians will come to a desperate gamble. As long as they break through the French defense line, their food problem will be solved!

Since the French are so cooperative, Lieutenant General Walicott will naturally not explain things out of the way. I saw that he said with confidence: It's very simple, continue to feint the other two routes, and gather troops to storm Civitavecchia!

Now the Italian army in the port of Civitavecchia has five divisions, with a total strength of less than 70,000 troops. As long as we attack with all our strength, they will not be able to stop them at all!

Since Lido-Diostia is the closest to Rome, the Italians have deployed ten divisions there, with a total strength of about 130,000 troops.

Latina is similar to Civitavecchia, and the Italians have also deployed five divisions. It is okay to land from here, but it is not conducive to our follow-up operations.

The Italians still had fifteen divisions in Rome, and although most of them were mobs, we were still not sure of defeating them before Italian reinforcements arrived.

Therefore, in addition to attacking Rome, we have another option - to cut off the north and south arteries of the Italians!

After we occupy Civitavecchia, we can choose to attack Rome in the south, or we can choose to attack in the northeast to pick up the railway. Before the main force of Italy arrives, we can blow up at least hundreds of kilometers of railways!

In this way, in the next few months, the transportation between the north and the south of the Italians can only be transported by horses. If their troops on the western front do not retreat, they may be hungry!

Walicott still didn't say anything, and now that the Italians have been killed, this is also related to the dispute for the right to speak.

Britain and France can not dispute the dominance of attacking Italy, but they will definitely jump out to fight for the military dominance of defeating the Italians and making them surrender. After all, this is related to the distribution of interests after the war, and it is also related to the distribution of the right to speak in the Mediterranean Sea in the future. question.

Once the Italians are defeated under the leadership of Bulgaria, Bulgaria will have an advantage in the distribution of the interests of the Allied Powers in the Kingdom of Italy in the future.

For Britain and France, this is definitely not what they want. Perhaps France is unable to mobilize a large number of troops from the country for the sake of local security. It can choose not to fight, but John Bull will definitely jump out.

After all, the British have not exploded with all their strength, and they still have spare energy. It is not a problem at all to mobilize another two to three hundred thousand troops from the country!

Now that everyone is eyeing the Kingdom of Italy, it is only logical that Lieutenant General Walicott chose to conceal his purpose.

Anyway, no one now thinks that a mere 100,000 Bulgarian troops and 300,000 colonial troops can make the Italians surrender. As long as Walikote has created the established facts, it is impossible for Britain and France to deny it.

Although he didn't know what kind of medicine was sold in Walikote's gourd, Major General Winston felt something was wrong based on his military intuition. When did the Bulgarians become so impartial?

Major General Winston questioned: Your Excellency, our troops may be insufficient, right? Once the Italians react, we may not be able to resist their counterattack?

Walcott smiled and said: General Winston, you are worrying too much! Don't forget that our mission is only to contain the Italians and force them to send troops from the front line back to the country!

Anyway, as long as the landing is successful, everyone's first task is to destroy, and this is not our homeland, so what is there to worry about?

I firmly believe that destruction is far easier than construction. In just a few days, we can deal a serious blow to the Italians!

Unless we are lucky enough to conquer Rome, I don't think it is necessary to stick to it. If the Italians want to regain their lost ground, let them do it!

The big deal is to catch their coastal cities and continue to attack, which can also achieve our strategic goals!

...

After exhausting all his efforts, Walicott finally managed to persuade everyone to agree to his plan. As long as the first step is successful, the rest will be easy!

Valicot believes that as long as they see the hope of conquering Rome, even if it is for their own interests, they will cooperate with them in the future!

Taking the credit for defeating the Italians alone, I believe that few people can resist the temptation. This is enough for everyone to be promoted collectively, even if there are some exceptions, it will not change the overall situation!

The British and French officers who were assigned to the colonial troops were not doing very well in the country. Now they have the opportunity to make great achievements and make a comeback. Anyone who dares to cause sabotage will be against them!

After all, many things cannot be said on the table, these are unspoken rules! Even most of the middle and lower level officers and soldiers don't even know that such a thing is going on!

...

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