Mediterranean Hegemony Road

The deployment of Bulgarian troops is completely based on the combat plan formulated by the Turkish army. There is no doubt that the Istanbul area will be the focus of the competition between the two countries, followed by the Macedonia area!

The Ottoman Empire deployed 150,000 troops in Istanbul, 80,000 troops in Macedonia, about 100,000 troops 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, and people offered help wherever the Bulgarian army passed.

Oh, these are inseparable from the management of successive Bulgarian governments! Especially after Ferdinand came to power, in addition to cultural export, the intelligence department also worked hard in the Balkans, taking advantage of the contradiction between the Ottoman Empire and the local people, to win over a group of people who tended to Bulgaria, and created a good situation for this war. Mass Basis!

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

On the third day after the start of the war, the Bulgarian 1st Army smashed the Turkish counterattacks many times. The forward troops: the 1st Division of the Guards and the 1st Army of the Army had already begun to encircle the castle of Adriana, and the 10th Division had already conquered The city of Lozengrad!

Before the Turkish high command could complete the reorganization of the troops, on May 8, the Bulgarian First and Third Heavy Artillery Regiments arrived at Adriana Fort 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 dense trenches, barbed wire, heavy machine guns, etc.!

All this has made the Bulgarian army a great name!

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

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

When the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Regiment of the 1st Guards Division was attacking the Turkish positions, the heavy machine guns on the opposite side blared clap, 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 Ferdinand's version of the mortar is really rudimentary, not only the range is short, but the caliber is not very good, and then the artillery is not accidentally shot away!

This flight caused a problem. The shells flew to the Ottomans. With a bang, the ammunition box of the Turkish army was detonated. The bullets began to fly in an instant, leaving only a wailing!

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

Seeing this, Kakashi Ivanlov doesn't care so much. Anyway, the Bulgarian army has not stipulated that mortars can only be used to deal with machine guns.

After several experiments, Kakashi-Ivanlov found that the effect is very good. As long as it is not too biased, hitting the Ottoman positions can always cause casualties to the enemy, ranging from a few to dozens. People, the effect is simply not too good!

After getting this discovery, Kakashi Ivanlov immediately reported it. After many experiments, some people found that mortars were also effective against some of the Ottoman fortresses, and even some fortresses collapsed directly after a shot was fired!

There are tofu slag projects everywhere, not to mention the decaying Ottoman Empire. Of course, most of these fortresses are just for defense against bullets.

This is much more cost-effective than using a 75mm field gun. The shell price of the mortar is less than one-fifth of the field gun, and the accuracy is much higher.

The amazing performance of the mortar quickly attracted the attention of Major General Geneva-Nikola, the commander of the 1st Division of the Guards, and then quickly promoted it in the Bulgarian army!

Thanks to the decay of the Ottoman Empire,

Many fortifications are left over from 180 years ago, many places have been in disrepair and aging, and there are temporary construction of tofu slag projects!

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

If one shot fails, just two shots, and if it fails, three shots and four shots can always be done! Anyway, the Ottoman Empire stopped the maintenance of the fortress in the city decades ago, and 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, the important military town of Adriana was occupied by Bulgaria!

By this time, the 9th Bulgarian Division had reached Lureburgaz; the 6th and 11th Divisions began to advance towards the Glibolu Peninsula and the west coast of the Sea of ​​Marmara.

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

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

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

At this time, Wolf Pasha has assembled eight divisions, about 106,000 troops, 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, 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! In the Ottoman army, which has an advantage in the number of troops, the quality of the soldiers is much worse; not to mention the artillery. Thousands of artillery pieces sound very domineering, almost twice as many as the Bulgarian army. If you figure out the composition of the artillery pieces, I guess no one sees it that way!

After all, it is a site that the Ottoman Empire has been operating for hundreds of years. It is very simple to collect a batch of artillery pieces. Of course, the age of the artillery pieces is a little bit older!

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

It was originally intended for general use, but now the front-loaded weapons of the Ottoman army are the mainstream, and the breech guns have not had time to popularize, let alone cannons!

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