Balkans

The Russians have already shed a lot of blood with the coalition forces, and it is worth mentioning that the Ottoman army, which was the largest in number, was reduced to a supporting role in this war, and the main forces of the coalition army have become Britain and France.

In the Sliven area, the two sides were at a stalemate, and the French held back the advance of the Russians, and now every step forward had to be filled with human lives.

Because the Ottomans were not strong, they were pinned down by the Russian army with a small number of troops, and now it is 160,000 French troops against 280,000 Russian troops, and it is very difficult for the French to block the Russians, and the counteroffensive does not exist.

The commander of the French army, Aymarble Jean-Jacques Pellisier, had a headache, and in the previous battle, he used 10,000 French troops to defeat 20,000 Russian troops, which can be described as brilliant results.

It's a pity that the allies are not strong, and the Russian army only divided a partial division, plus tens of thousands of Bulgarian partisans, and pressed more than 400,000 Ottoman troops to fight, and they were able to gain the upper hand. In the face of such teammates, anyone will have a headache.

Aimable-Jean-Jacques Pellisier admitted that the Ottoman army's ineffective combat effectiveness was mainly due to the tradition of empty pay, and the actual number of people who went to battle each time was nominally two or three layers lower.

Even if it is discounted, the more than 300,000 Ottoman troops always have it, almost twice the advantage of troops, and he is drunk when he is pressed and beaten by others.

The plan could not keep up with the rapid change, overestimated the strength of the allies, and the war turned into a war of attrition.

"Your Excellency, Commander, good news from the front!" A young officer said in a deep voice

"Read!" Aimable-Jean-Jacques Pellisier said calmly

"Yes!" The young officer replied

"In the early morning of September 14, 1852, the 7th Infantry Division had an encounter with the enemy's 16th Division in the eastern area of Sliven, and after a day of bloody fighting, our troops defeated the invading enemy.

In this battle, 1,328 enemy soldiers were killed, 16 enemy soldiers were captured, several enemy soldiers were wounded, and 8 horses, 628 rifles, 28 pistols, and some ammunition were captured.

However, our army also paid a heavy price. The 7th Infantry Division suffered 1,236 casualties, including 784 killed, 652 wounded, and 196 missing. ”

Is this a victory? Aimable-Jean-Jacques Pellisier was very suspicious that the officers under his command had forgotten the concept of victory.

He also came up from the bottom, and he has long been tired of playing this little trick. Defeated the enemy? It was clear that the battle lasted until the night, and they dispersed.

If you win the battle, you can still lose nearly 200 people? If the French army had so many idiots, there would be no need to fight this war. I don't know if these people are now in the prisoner of war camps of the Russians.

Emmable Jean-Jacques Pellisier frowned and ordered: "Send someone to ask if that fool in Aurehaton is dead, and if he is still alive, give me the fastest way to report here." If you die, let the chief of staff come over. ”

"Yes!" The young officer immediately replied

Aimable-Jean-Jacques Pellisier did not believe this report, the casualties of the 7th Infantry Division should be real, and no one dared to fake these things.

But most of the brilliant results are nonsense, if the battle is really won, there will not be so few prisoners. The Russian army is not a master of death, and the French army will not slaughter prisoners at this time.

Aimable-Jean-Jacques Pellisier did not care about the outcome of such an encounter, and it was acceptable to suffer a small loss once in a while as the battlefield changed rapidly.

There is also a gap in the combat effectiveness of the French Expeditionary Force, the units with strong combat effectiveness can beat all the Russian troops, and the units with the weakest combat effectiveness are also not the elite opponents of the Russian army.

The combat effectiveness of the 7th Infantry Division is only average among the French army, and it is not surprising that if it encounters the main forces of the Russian army, it will suffer a little loss.

After a moment of contemplation, Aimable-Jean-Jacques Pellisier ordered: "Order the troops, mainly defensive, and try not to enter into a decisive battle with Russia."

All we have to do is drag them in the Sliven area, and wait for the breakthrough in Sofia to be made, and then we will fight the Russians. ”

The Ottoman army was incapable of fighting and could not make a breakthrough in the Sliven area, and Aimable-Jean-Jacques Pelisier had abandoned his plans for a decisive battle with the Russians here.

This is not France, there is no need to fight for the Ottomans, and in the opinion of Aimable-Jean-Jacques Pellisier, the priority now is to preserve strength.

They had pinned down the main forces of the Russians and had fulfilled their obligations as allies, and now it was the Ottoman army that had not fulfilled the task of cooperating, which made it impossible to carry out the battle plan, and it was not their responsibility.

After the victory of the British in the Sofia region, it is better to join forces to encircle and annihilate the Russians in front of them. Anyway, there are only more than 70,000 Russian troops over there, and 50,000 British troops plus 20,000 Sardinian troops and 30,000 Ottoman troops have an absolute advantage.

Otherwise, now he is desperate with the Russians, and even if the war is won in the end, there will not be much left of this French expeditionary force.

……

General Command of the Russian Army

Commander Menshikov did not know that he had escaped by chance. If the French had been desperate at this time, they would still have a good chance of winning.

The Ottoman army was not good at fighting, it was not possible in a frontal decisive battle, and not necessarily when it was a favorable battle.

As long as the French army is willing to suffer casualties, is willing to rush up in front of it, and knocks down the arrogance of the Russian army, these Ottoman troops will follow and fight with the wind, and their combat effectiveness will come out.

"Order the troops, give me an offensive at all costs, and it is necessary to tear through the enemy's lines as soon as possible. Don't worry about casualties, in the principality of Wallachia we have 50,000 reinforcements, and in Ukraine we have another 300,000 reinforcements.

We only need to win, and the Russian Empire has been waiting for this victory for almost two hundred years, and nine generations have fought for it.

Now Constantinople is less than three hundred kilometers from us, and there will be no one to stop us from tearing through the enemy's lines. ”

Menshkov said passionately, as if this was not the headquarters, but the podium, and he was giving an exciting speech.

How much are the Russians willing to pay for the sake of Constantinople? No one knows this question, but it's a different way to ask it.

Was it worth paying millions of casualties for the sake of Constantinople? The answer of the Russians is: worth it!

From the first Russian-Turkish war to the present, the Russians have paid more than a million casualties for this fortress city, have they wavered?

Menshikov knew the determination of the tsarist government that victory must be achieved.

The small goal of this Russian-Turkish war is to take Constantum, lock the Bosphorus. The highest goal is to occupy the lands along the two straits and turn the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea into Russia's inland seas.

Casualties, from the very beginning, were not in the minds of the tsarist government. As long as the war was won, tens of thousands of casualties and hundreds of thousands of casualties were paid, and in the eyes of the tsarist government, this gap was only a number.

Lieutenant General Bourde questioned: "Your Excellency, Commander, now that we have done our best, if we increase the intensity of the attack any longer, it is likely to leave an opportunity for the enemy."

Everyone knows the combat effectiveness of the French, and we can only rely on the superiority of our forces, except for a small number of elite troops that can compete with them.

In the area around Sliven, on this front of more than 100 kilometers, we do not have an absolute superiority in troops, and in many places the enemy has an superiority in troops.

Now we have the upper hand, and it is the Ottomans who are not strong. If you blindly attack the French position, you will consume a lot of strength.

If we don't take precautions, if the French suddenly break out into a sneak attack, we will probably suffer a small loss. At that time, these Ottoman troops, with low combat effectiveness, are likely to deal us a fatal blow. ”

Menshkov shook his head and said, "General Bourde, you are worrying too much. The French were indeed very strong, but they were too few troops.

Attacking the French army now is fighting with them for attrition. The French are not gods, and they will collapse if they suffer heavy casualties.

I said that if you inflict three thousand casualties on them every day, in less than a month the French will collapse.

With more than 100,000 casualties, it was really worth winning this battle.

If we don't defeat the elite troops of the French and instead bully the Ottoman rabbits, even if we kill all these hundreds of thousands of rabbits, this war will still continue. ”

The arm can't reach the thigh, and the coach asks for an attack, so naturally he can only fight. Anyway, the dead were gray cattle, and there was no need for them officers to charge into battle.

……

On the battlefield of Sofia

Unbeknownst to Montes, the French allies had given him the burden of victory, and now he was counting on a breakthrough on the battlefield of Sliven to beat the Reservoir Dogs.

As for commanding the army, crushing the Russian army in front of you, and then going to copy the back path of the Russians and win this battle.

It's such a difficult thing, let's let the allies do it! In Montes's opinion, the fighting force in his hands was 50,000 British troops, plus a maximum of 20,000 Sardinian troops, and the Ottomans could not count on them at all.

There are also more than 70,000 Russian troops on the opposite side, and there is also a Bulgarian partisan army, the combat effectiveness of the guerrillas is not worth mentioning, it is estimated that it is half a pound and eight taels with the Ottomans, and the two just cancel each other.

With 70,000 against 70,000, even if you win, you have to lose a lot.

Montes is only here to rely on his exploits, but not to ask for trouble. The bureaucrats at home don't care, their contributions on the battlefield are only judged by the results.

To put it simply, it's how many enemies are killed and how much price is paid. The French in front of them are deeply encircled, and they can play a 1:1.3 exchange ratio, and they are now 100,000 to 70,000, and they must play more beautifully.

The partisans were not taken into account by the London bureaucracy and could not be counted in the war record, they recognized only the regular army.

Before the Russians, Montes was still very confident. After the fight, that confidence was gone. In terms of overall combat effectiveness, the British army does have an advantage, but this advantage is not obvious.

At least 50,000 British troops can't defeat 70,000 Russian troops, and if the Russian troops on the opposite side have not changed their outfits, then with the advantage in firepower, it is not impossible to do it.

Before the rearmament, the range of the rifles used by the Russian army was only 200 yards, while the range of the British rifles exceeded 1,000 yards, and the British rifles were at least 30 percent faster in terms of rate of fire, and the advantage in artillery was even greater.

(Note: 1 yard equals 0.91 meters)

Historically, in the Crimean War, the Russians suffered a great loss of equipment and were brutalized by the Anglo-French forces.

Now it's different, the redressed Russian army has caught up in firepower. It was these troops that fought against the British in the early stage, which directly made Montes overestimate the strength of the Russians.

Based on this judgment, Montes made the decision to attack in a limited way and consume the strength of the Russians first. To put it simply, it is to command the Ottoman army as cannon fodder, rush to the front and fight the Russian army, and the British as the warlord.

On the surface, there was no problem, but in fact he ignored the fact that such a battle was actually helping the Russians train their troops.

An army wins a battle and becomes a veteran; After winning three or five battles, you become an elite. This is how the elite divisions of this era are played.

Successive victories increase not only combat experience, but also confidence and morale.

The Ottoman army, which was in front of the enemy, was sending experience to the Russians to help them complete the upgrade.

Fortunately, the commander of the Russian army, Fitzroy Summerset, did not notice this either. Otherwise, he transferred all the Russian troops to rotate several times, and the Russians had to add an elite division to come out.

Then there is no need for the British to fight the next battle, although their training is stricter than that of the Russians, but the elite troops can not be built by training, but also through the baptism of blood and fire.