Iron Cross Fire

Since Russia suffered a defeat in Tbilisi, their initiative in Georgia has been increasingly threatened, and they may be surrounded at any time.

But they are still attacking on the Polish front, and withdrawing from Georgia at this time will undoubtedly increase pressure, so the superiors do not allow the garrison in the Caucasus to withdraw.

The consequence of doing so will undoubtedly lead to the Russian army in Georgia being surrounded, but the Russians don't care. They still have tens of millions of people who can be pulled to the front line to fight. The lives of tens of thousands of people are not worth mentioning, not to mention that they are not even a standing army.

However, the Russian Caucasus Front is very anxious and orders the Russian army on the mountain to attack the main force of the coalition forces to the south in an attempt to force them to retreat.

The coalition forces also responded. Several divisions in the west marched north to delay the Russian army there; several divisions in the east were withdrawn to support the central part to defend against the attack of the Russians in the north.

The coalition forces in the central part will continue to advance under the cover of friendly forces, waiting for an opportunity to break through the enemy's defense line in the mountains, and then endanger the entire Russian army's rear.

On April 14, the offensive began. The battle between the two sides was extremely fierce. The Russian army launched a fierce attack in the east to drive out the Turkish army there.

But those Turkish troops had already retreated, leaving only a few reconnaissance teams to observe the enemy's movements, and the rest all slipped behind the mountain.

The Russian commander was very angry when he learned that he was shocked by such a few people, and beheaded all the captured Turkish reconnaissance teams.

But this could not cover up his failure, and he was soon ordered to be dismissed.

The newly appointed commander could not convince the public, and faced with the extremely steep Caucasus Mountains, it was almost certain that he would find it difficult to launch any attack.

The main location of the battle between the two sides was in the central part, where the largest army was concentrated.

The Russian army took the lead in launching an attack in the north, attacking the coalition forces from a high position.

At first, the attack was very smooth, and with tacit cooperation, the stationed Turks were gradually driven out.

Unfortunately, the stamina was insufficient, and the Turkish army that reacted immediately mobilized artillery for bombing, and the Russian army without shells had to passively accept the bombing.

In this case, insufficient productivity is of course the primary issue, but scattered use is the problem of the military.

To give a simple example, most of the Russian troops do not have enough artillery shells, and they will be bombed after they run out of them.

And being bombed early or late is the same, except that there will be a little more loss.

Then why not distribute artillery shells uniformly, and simply not supply a division with artillery shells, so that it becomes a thorough infantry division;

Concentrate the saved artillery shells on a few troops, so that at least there will be a local advantage, at least one place is not bombed.

It is better to lack everything than to lack most of them. Similarly, it is better for all troops to be bombed than for most of them to be bombed. Many people understand this truth, and there must be people in Russia who understand it, but they are not the ones in power at present.

Kust, who is confronting the Russian army at this moment, naturally understands it. He knows Russia's weaknesses and their strengths.

In counterattack, Kuster asked all troops to use artillery immediately to regain lost ground and gradually concentrate assault forces in the center.

Release the reconnaissance troops to find out the enemy's deployment and judge the enemy's intentions.

Not long after, a large amount of information was transmitted to the command center like a sea.

It took only ten minutes for the Turkish intelligence department to sort out all of this and come up with a rough layout of the Russian army.

Kuster looked at the intelligence in his hand. Although it was the result of the soldiers' field survey, he always felt it was unreliable.

For this reason, he specifically asked the Germans to distinguish the true from the false and decipher the Russian intelligence.

However, the results obtained by the Germans were not completely consistent with those of Turkey, at least they had nothing to do with each other.

The two intelligence networks said completely different things. The Germans said to go north, and the Turks said to go south.

After a few seconds of long thinking, Kuster finally felt that the old German comrades were reliable, so he adopted their intelligence.

Although the Turkish intelligence minister was a little dissatisfied, he did not show it, because he drank too much yesterday and did not recover until today.

While the minister was still resting, the front line had already started, and the assault troops were also rapidly adjusting.

The armored battalion that had only four tanks before was strengthened, and now it has eight; various advanced weapons were also delivered one by one, enough to equip six divisions.

It happened that the Allied forces had a great success in the Gallipoli War, and four divisions of the Turkish army were transferred back. They formed an army, but there was no commander.

Kuster thought about it for a while and decided to let his eldest son Vasa be the army commander.

But Vasa was just a colonel. He could be a division commander in Turkey, but it was a bit difficult for him to be a corps commander.

For this reason, Kuster asked Enver to promote Vasa to major general.

He thought that he alone was not enough to intimidate Enver, so he brought up William II to fool him:

"Brother Enver, the organization (the German Emperor) has made a decision. Vasa will be the commander of the army."

Enver didn't believe his nonsense, but he didn't dare to speak out for the sake of William II's face.

While he was thinking, he suddenly thought of a talent.

This talent was evaluated by Churchill as "cats and dogs that hinder the army", but was called "the savior of Istanbul" by the locals.

Yes, this person is Kemal, the father of Türkiye later.

This time Kuster kept his mouth shut, not because he had no excuse to find fault, but because he thought Kemal was a capable person.

As a politician, Kuster has always been pursuing interests and laying a solid foundation for future actions; but he is also a soldier. If he looks at Kemal, who is also an outstanding military strategist, with an upright eye, all the evaluations are almost positive.

In addition, Kemal's ability is far stronger than other Turkish generals, and he also wants to meet Kemal, so he did not object, and there is no reason to object. Instead, he should thank Enver for finally not transferring some useless people.

As long as Kemal arrives, Kuster can interfere in the future Turkish politics.

But Kuster did not intend to get rid of Kemal, but wanted to fan the flames and pull him up, so that if the Allies did not lose the war again, Turkey could become a strong supporter of Kuster.

There is no need to worry about whether it will succeed. If there is no external interference, the position of the future father of Turkey will sooner or later belong to Kemal, not to mention with help.

There is still doubt about whether he can help Kuster, but as a pioneer in anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism, Kemal must help his brother, right?

Of course, he is still an officer under the Habsburgs, and cannot be considered an anti-feudal figure.

But Kemal was also an officer under the Ottomans at this time. This sick man of West Asia is much more corrupt than the Habsburgs, and can no longer be considered an anti-feudal figure!

In short, if we don't compare them, they are still quite similar.

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