Romanian Eagle

Eder returned to Bucharest after traveling around the country for more than half a month.

In this spring, the war that has subsided in Europe has rekindled. On the western front, because of the trenches, the British, French and German teams were unable to move, so both sides turned their attention to their areas.

In early 1915, the German army took the lead in launching the Battle of Mazurihu on the Eastern Front. In this battle, the Russian Tenth Army, which was the main force in attacking East Prussia, was severely damaged. The Russian army was forced to retreat to the east bank of the Neman River and gave up the idea of ​​attacking East Prussia.

The German high command made a major adjustment to the strategic plan in 1915 and decided to shift the focus of the war to the eastern front while stabilizing the western front, first destroying the Russian army, ending the war on the eastern front, and then turning back and concentrating forces against Britain and France. At the end of January 1915, the annual plan for the German-Austrian war situation was approved. Germany's strategic plan is to attack the Russian army from both the north and the south at the same time. The north wing will be attacked by the German army from East Prussia to Brest, and the south wing will be attacked by the German-Austrian allied forces in the direction of Lviv. The main force of the Russian army is in the Polish pocket.

In order to increase their military and economic potential, Britain and France also planned to implement strategic defense on the Western Front in 1915, and only conduct some partial attacks. Therefore, it was suggested that Russia should launch an offensive on the eastern front in order to contain the German army and make it unable to launch a strong offensive on the western front. Russia was ready to launch a large-scale campaign on the Eastern Front, so it agreed with the British and French suggestions and took on the task of attracting the main German army. Russia's strategic plan was to carry out simultaneous attacks in two strategic directions, the Northwest Front attacking Germany from East Prussia, and the Southwest Front attacking Austria-Hungary from the Carpathians.

In the fighting from January to March 1915, the two sides had a winner and loser. In January, the Austro-Hungarian 3rd and 4th armies first launched the Carpathian campaign on the southern flank. In February, the German 8th and 10th armies on the northern front also launched a powerful offensive against the Russian army. By April 1915, although the German army on the north flank had achieved a tactical victory, it was blocked on the Grodno line and could not advance and failed to achieve the scheduled campaign goal. threaten. Faced with this situation, the German high command decided to abandon the offensive on both flanks and take the center of the Russian front, the Gorlice area between the Vistula River and the Carpathians, as a decisive direction of assault, in order to encircle and wipe out the Russian 3rd. Army, preventing the Russian army from attacking Hungary.

In order to achieve its strategic intentions, the German army continued to increase its troops on the Eastern Front. By the end of April, the German-Austrian Army had concentrated a strong force between the upper Vistula River and the Carpathians, forming an assault corps, including 10 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry division and hundreds of artillery pieces, occupying a large area. big advantage. On the other hand, the Russian army lacked the necessary preparations. The Southwest Front had a 600-kilometer front and scattered troops. On the 35-kilometer-wide frontal breakthrough area of ​​the German army, only 5 infantry divisions with a total of 60,000 troops and more than 100 light artillery, 4 Heavy artillery, 100 machine guns.

On May 1, the German-Austrian army began a long artillery preparation. On May 2, a wedge attack was launched with superior forces on the town of Gorlice. With the cooperation of the left and right flanks, the main force of the German 11th Army broke through the frontal defense of the Russian 3rd Army on the same day. The Russian army hurriedly dispatched reinforcements of deep mobile troops, but due to sporadic participation in the battle,

They were quickly annihilated by the German and Austrian armies.

By May 4, the Russian 3rd Army had almost been wiped out, the breach was rapidly expanded, and the Russian army was forced to retreat across the board. On May 14, it retreated to the San and Transnistria lines. The German and Austrian troops took advantage of the situation to pursue and destroy them, and fought fiercely with the Russian army. On the 17th, the German army captured Jaroslaw and marched eastward across the river. On the 23rd, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, Austria-Hungary was forced to divide its forces to reject the enemy, and the offensive momentum of the German-Austrian coalition suddenly weakened. On June 15th, the German-Austrian coalition resumed the offensive and captured Lviv on the 22nd. The 52-day battle of Gorlice ended with the defeat of the Russian army. At this time, Russia's storage of military materials was running out, and it was urgently needed to be supplemented by Britain and France.

When Germany and Austria attacked Russia, Britain and France were not idle either. In addition to pulling Italy into their chariots, sending combat materials to Russia has also become their top priority. Therefore, in order to open up Russia's main external channel, the Black Sea Strait has become the primary goal.

In fact, in November 1914, Winston Churchill, the British Secretary of the Navy, proposed to use the strength of the British navy to open the Dardanelles and land at Gallipoli to take Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey expelled from the war. On the one hand, it relieves the pressure on the Russian Caucasus Mountain Front. The Golden Horn, which is controlled by Constantinople, can be directly connected to the Black Sea to support the bloody Russian team. And, I hope to open up the southern front and attack the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although this idea is quite strategic in strategy, it is too difficult to operate and has not been approved by the British government.

In January 1915, the British government accepted Nicholas II's request and decided to adopt Churchill's proposal to launch a new front in the Dardanelles.

A total of 62 warships and a large number of auxiliary ships were involved in the battle between Britain and France, and Admiral Sackville Carden, commander of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, was assigned to command the battle. The fleet began shelling the Dardanelles on 19 February.

On March 18, 1915, 16 warships attempted to forcibly break into the narrow channel of the strait, 8 warships triggered mines, and the ships hurriedly retreated. (4 more than in history)

On land, the Turkish troops abandoned their positions and retreated inland in the event of a sudden attack. The British assault troops rushed to the coast without encountering resistance. At this point, the moral advisor Otto von Zanders had insight into the other side's planned Gallipoli landing battle, and quickly mobilized the army to the theater. The Turkish army dug into the trenches, established a strong defense system based on the complex terrain of the peninsula, and assembled artillery units there.

When the British and French troops were preparing to expand their victory, the Turkish soldiers who were hiding in the positions opened fire together, catching the British troops who were climbing the cliff by surprise.

On March 3, 1915, the first round of the Allied landing operation failed, and General Carden was also sent back to England as a wounded.

After discovering that the strait could not be captured by the navy alone, it was judged that Gallipoli must be captured by the army in order to gain control of the Dardanelles. The Allies assembled an expeditionary force hastily in Egypt and the Greek Islands, and 78,000 soldiers from England, New Zealand, Australia, India and France arrived in the theater one after another. Its main force consisted of the Australian and New Zealand troops in Egypt at the time, the ANZAC. British War Secretary Herithus Kitchener appointed British Army General Ian Hamilton, known as the Poet General, to command the campaign.

Against it was the new Turkish Fifth Army, led by von Zanders, with 84,000 men. When the Allied expeditionary force arrived, the troops had already been surpassed by the other party, the Turks were condescending, and their firepower was overwhelming.

According to the plan, the British and Anzac troops landed from two different landing points on the same day, and the British team landed from Helices Point. Before the British landings, the Anzac first landed on the beach further north near Gabatipe.

On the night of April 25, 1915, after the cover fleet was preparing for artillery fire, the Allied forces launched a simultaneous landing operation. Since most of the Anzac soldiers were not trained to land at night, coupled with their ignorance of the terrain of the peninsula, they mistakenly landed in an unnamed bay (now Anzac Bay) north of the target. On the same day, British and Indian troops came under heavy Turkish fire at Heliss Point. The French landed across the strait, on the Asian side of Dardanelles, but retreated the next day to join the British. Despite the establishment of a beachhead, the landing army was simply unable to deploy its troops effectively, and in fact fell into an unstable and difficult to defend foothold.

The Turkish army, under the command of Colonel Mustafa Kemal, responded violently. After a night of melee, both sides suffered heavy casualties. The 16,000 Anzac soldiers who had landed were trapped in temporary shelters under the suppression of Turkish artillery fire. In the following days, the two sides fell into a stalemate.

On May 1, 1915, Turkish troops launched a massive counterattack against a landing site on the southernmost side of the Allied forces. During the battle, the British battleships Goliath, Triumph and Majesty were sunk in succession. As a result, the British evacuated a large number of ships, so that the landing force lost naval support and lost its firepower advantage.

From May 6 to 8, 1915, the Allies attacked Krishia with heavy casualties and ultimately failed. On the 19th Turkey launched a counter-offensive along the entire Anzac front. Soldiers were killed in a series of suicide charges. The Anzacs were unable to capture their intended hill target and were trapped in a thin position no more than 400m from the beach to the front.

With the advent of summer, corpses are scattered all over the slopes, bringing diseases such as dysentery, diarrhea and enteric fever. Non-combat attrition of Anzac soldiers on the peninsula continues to increase due to unpleasant weather. However, in order to win the operation, the Allies deployed 3 divisions of British troops to the peninsula.

At the same time, von Zanders is also gathering the Turkish army, preparing for a new round of attack.

In fact, in February, Ottoman received information that the British and French troops planned to land at Dardanelles. Due to the uncertainty of the time and place in the news (someone almost forgot), Osman did not pay attention. In the chaos of the Ottoman intelligence system during the war, and the news that was too startling and bold at the time, 500,000 British and French troops were planning to land on Dardanelles and attack Istanbul.

Of course, these messages were all provided by the Romanian King Eder, who was hiding behind the scenes. This was to weaken the strength of Britain and France in the war, so that the two countries could not have too much control over Romania after the war. In Eder's post-war plan, the Balkans and Eastern Europe must have Romanian influence, both for Romania's economy and for its national strength.