500,000 people sounds like a lot, but in fact, excluding the 200,000 in southern Africa, the British Army is still that "poor little army", after all, France and Germany, these army powers, have now requisitioned more than 2 million troops, not to mention the Russian Empire, which has a large population, in 1913 the Russian Empire has lost millions of troops, and now the Russian Empire's army has exceeded 3 million.

The situation faced by the Russian Empire was still relatively bad, after all, the Western Front was a British and French coalition army, and there was a steady stream of colonial reinforcements.

On the Eastern Front, the Russian Empire was alone and had to face millions of German-Austrian troops.

To be fair, no matter how black the Russian Empire, the Russian Empire's performance in the world war is still good, although the Russian Empire is losing in East Prussia, but in the Carpathians, the Russian Empire's army is still performing well, since the outbreak of the world war, Austria-Hungary has also lost 800,000 troops, of which only part of them are losses in the war with the Russian Empire, and the other part is caused by the failure of the three invasions of the Kingdom of Serbia.

The real tragedy was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had nearly half a million troops before the outbreak of the World War, while the Kingdom of Serbia used only about 20,000.

At the beginning of the world war, Austria-Hungary brazenly invaded the Kingdom of Serbia.

The Kingdom of Serbia, led by the bearded King Peter, put up stubborn resistance and crushed the Austro-Crarian attacks three times in succession, and all the elite troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been depleted and had to ask for German assistance in order to keep the pressure on the Russian Empire.

It was precisely because Hindenburg and Ludendorff had a serious disagreement with Falkingham on whether to support Austria-Hungary that contradictions within the German army gradually erupted.

Heavy snow halted the offensive on both sides, the advance of the Southern African Expeditionary Force gradually stalled, the Germans attempted to launch a counteroffensive at the end of January, also because the snow on the ground was too deep to make progress, the 11th Division failed to capture Ghent, the 2nd Cavalry Division recaptured Odenald, and the expeditionary force and the Germans finally held a solid defense along both sides of the Scheldt, and the front was again deadlocked.

By the end of January, the coalition forces of Southern Africa and the Sultanate of Najd had also launched three successive attacks on Damascus.

Since December 20 last year, the coalition forces of Southern Africa and the Sultanate of Najd have surrounded Damascus.

The coalition forces surrounding Damascus had a total of 11 divisions and 190,000 men, and the Ottoman defenders in Damascus were six divisions with a total of 85,000 men.

In order to boost the confidence of the defenders of Damascus, Colmar von der Goltz set up his headquarters in Damascus and organized the local people of Damascus to form a militia to assist the Ottoman troops in the defense of Damascus.

On 25 December, the coalition forces launched their first tentative assault on Damascus, and Martin threw in two cavalry divisions of the Sultanate of Najd, but the results were far from ideal, with the coalition losing nearly 5,000 men, not even the walls of Damascus.

On the 10th of January, on the eve of Roque's "Operation Victory Horn", the coalition forces launched another offensive on Damascus, this time with four Najd divisions and two divisions 501 and 502 requisitioned from the East Indies.

This time the casualties were even heavier, the coalition army lost 15,000 men, and once attacked Damascus, but in the end it could not withstand the joint counterattack of the Damascus army and civilians, and was forced to withdraw from Damascus.

On 28 January, just as the 11th Division was under Ghent, the coalition forces attacked Damascus again, this time with not only all the Najd Servants and East India Servants, but also the 15th and 17th Divisions of the Southern African Soldiers.

This time the coalition forces finally gained a foothold in Damascus, and the fighting was extremely fierce, and the Damascus soldiers and civilians under the organization of Colmar von der Golz engaged in brutal street battles with the coalition forces, fierce fighting broke out in every house, and most of the coalition troops were not killed or injured in the battle with the Ottoman forces, but died at the hands of the militia of Damascus civilians, which made Martin very angry.

"Nearly half of our casualties were caused by civilians, Goltz armed the entire city with civilians, women and children also had lethal weapons, they did not hesitate to fight, our soldiers are often fatally attacked when they are hesitant, yesterday my troops suffered 600 casualties, 280 were caused by women and children." Brent, the commander of the 15th Division, was heartbroken, the 15th Division was an engineering unit before, and it was normal for soldiers to engage in brutal street battles before they were accustomed to the atmosphere of the battlefield, and it was normal for them to suffer heavy casualties.

After entering the era of thermal weapons, the development of modern weapons has made the form of warfare more complicated, medieval knights need a long period of rigorous training to become killing machines, and now women and children can pose a mortal threat to soldiers as long as they have weapons.

Many of the casualties of the 15th Division were caused in this way, and the people of Damascus were very good at exploiting human weaknesses, often using women and children to set traps, and the soldiers of the 15th Division were unable to defend themselves, and many soldiers died tragically under the scissors of women.

Comparatively speaking, the casualties of the Servant Army units were minimal.

This is because the servant army troops are more cruel when fighting, and in the face of traps, the soldiers of the 15th Division are still too merciful, and the servant army is unscrupulous, and they will take the initiative to shoot all creatures in sight, even rats.

"Withdraw your troops, Sabah, send your troops to the top—" Martin decided to withdraw the 15th Division from Damascus, and there were some inconvenient things to report, so that the colonial servant army would be in charge, so that it would be better to get rid of the blame in the future.

Well, Martin has also fallen now, and Martin's bottom line has been lowering in order to take Damascus.

"No problem, Your Excellency Marshal, my troops will definitely take Damascus." Sabah's smirking expression was intimidating, the human weakness of the soldiers in southern Africa was unjustifiably indecisive in Sabah's eyes, and women and children were also enemies when they took up swords and guns, and they could not be treated with the slightest mercy.

In fact, compared to the servant army of the Sultanate of Najd, the servant army from the East Indies was more ferocious when fighting.

It is not quite the same as the African division in southern Africa, although the soldiers of the East Indian servant army are all indigenous to the East Indies, but the officers are all Chinese, the servant army of the Sultanate of Najd and the Damascus are all Persians, and they are still a little unable to let go of the battle, the East Indian servant army does not have the slightest scruples, and the place where it goes can really be described as "not an inch of grass", the 15th division also has to worry about whether it will accidentally injure civilians when fighting, and when the East Indian servant army attacks the building, it usually does not matter who is in the building, How many people, only if there is resistance, throw grenades first, and then summon flamethrowers, in short, how to save trouble and how to come.

As for whether there were civilians in the building, no one knew if it was burned down, and the officers and soldiers of the East Indian Servant Army were not in the mood to verify.

Damascus is actually a thousand-year-old city, one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world, historically the capital of the Umayyad dynasty of the Arab Empire, and now the capital of the Ottoman province of Damascus, known as "the garden of the earth" and "heaven on earth".

Now the thousand-year-old city is facing destruction, bandits are like combing soldiers like grates, Persians like gold, civilian families also have a lot of gold products, jewelry ornaments are simply not too much, and even furniture in the homes of the powerful is made of gold.

Now these gold have become the spoils of the coalition forces, and the European expeditionary forces for the same way of dealing with the spoils of war, the spoils of the coalition forces must also be handed over to the unified distribution after the war, the European expeditionary forces are basically half and half of the troops and individuals, the soldiers on the side of the coalition army can only get a pitiful about one-tenth, and the other tenth has to be distributed to the officers, nearly eighty percent of which is taken away by the senior echelons of the coalition forces.

After the capture of Basra and Baghdad, the coalition forces not only did not spend money, but made a lot of money, capturing as much as 15 tons of gold.

Sure enough, it was a cannon fire, and it was ten thousand taels of gold.

Damascus, as the capital of Damascus province, has a stronger foundation than Basra and Baghdad, so it will also have more seizures.

On January 31, the coalition forces had occupied 80 percent of the city, dividing and encircling the defenders of Damascus in several different areas, as well as the governor's palace where Colmar von der Gorz was located.

"Field Marshal Goltz, if you take the initiative to lay down your arms, then you can enjoy the treatment that matches your status, and your officers and soldiers can also return to their hometowns after the war, stop being obsessed, you have done your duty, you have done what you can, even if you lay down your arms, no one can accuse you-"

Outside the Doge's Palace, the coalition forces were shouting for the surrender of Colmar von der Gorz, a castle with a moat and drawbridge, defended by nearly 4,000 soldiers, and would surely suffer heavy casualties if attacked head-on.

As for the treatment that matches the status, this is not a lie, the current Europe is not the Europe of the Second World War, the surrendered officers and soldiers will not be abused, if Goltz surrenders, he will also enjoy the treatment of a marshal, and the standard of living and living environment will not decline.

Of course, the preferential treatment here is for officers, and Gortz has "von" in his name, which is a standard Junker nobleman, so it is normal to enjoy aristocratic treatment.

Ordinary soldiers, don't think about it, the German soldiers captured by the Anglo-French forces in Europe have been thrown into concentration camps, and the conditions and conditions are similar to those set up by the British Expeditionary Force in southern Africa during the Second Boer War.

This is also a familiar road, and the generals in the current British Expeditionary Force have basically participated in the Second Boer War.

It's May.,Now send a chapter.,Brothers should know what I want to do.,If there are more tickets, there will be a change at 12 o'clock at noon.

(End of chapter)