Without being there, you really can't feel the power of large-caliber artillery.

The destructive power of large-caliber artillery is not shell fragments, but pervasive shock waves, each shell of the "Big Belta" weighs a ton, and 90 percent of the weight is high explosive, and there is no possibility of surviving a direct hit by the shells, and the surrounding soldiers will also be shocked to death by the shock wave of the shells, so the trenches of the 11th Division are full of craters in zigzag and twisted, just to reduce the damage caused by large-caliber shells.

If a fully equipped trench like the 11th Division falls into a shell of the "Big Belta", then all the soldiers in this section of the trench will die, and the logs and sandbags on the trench will not be able to carry the weight of large-caliber shells at all, even if it is a reinforced concrete structure.

The top of the fortress of Liège was more than a meter thick, and it was also pierced by shells, and then exploded inside the fortress.

In a sealed environment, the power of the shells is greater, so the small-caliber artillery is helpless to be a strong fortress, and all the shells are played down, and there are basically no survivors.

Fortunately, the German army did not have many large-caliber artillery, otherwise there would be no need to fight this battle.

While the front-line soldiers were suffering, Roque was also suffering in the rear.

The 2nd and 11th Cavalry Divisions were not much of a problem, the 202nd Division could withstand them, and the rest of the troops were very difficult, and the Canadian Corps, which had just been sent to the battlefield, was completely disabled on the third day of the war and was forced to retreat to Calais to recuperate, and they also needed time to adapt to the cruelty of the world war.

The Anglo-French-Belgian coalition fought with the Germans in the pouring rain and the sea, the sea water was red with blood, the corpses of the soldiers killed in the battle did not have time to be cleaned up, clean drinking water and bullets became the most scarce materials on the front line, the Southern African Expeditionary Force had more than 50,000 people on the front line, and needed at least 100 tons of drinking water every day, Roque called fifty trucks to deliver water to the front line, which was also ridiculed by Haig, Haig did not think that the soldiers on the front line had reached the point where even drinking water had to be specially supplied.

"For you, a soldier's life is a battle, but for me, every soldier represents a family, and the soldier's family handed him over to me to let him serve the country and gain glory, not to give me honor, which is also the only thing we can do now, soldiers are fighting on the front line, we people do a good job of logistics, if we can't even do this job, then what do we want to do?" Roque didn't like Haig's attitude of disregard for life, but unfortunately, the vast majority of the Coalition forces were now "butchers" like Haig.

In fact, there is no way, the width of the battlefield on the Western Front is only 400 kilometers, in these 400 kilometers, now the British and French forces and the German army have combined more than 4 million people, and there are 10,000 people fighting on average one kilometer, tactics are no longer important, strategy is not important, generals can not focus on casualty figures, they can only focus on organizing the defense line.

After the Southern African Expeditionary Force arrived at the combat position, it had been rushing to build fortifications, and was once ridiculed by the British and French forces.

Now the perfect fortifications have finally played a role, compared with the Anglo-French coalition army, the casualties of the Southern African Expeditionary Force are very low, the three divisions basically have reserve troops, the Anglo-French coalition army is the real casualties, Roque arrived in France during this time, there have been more than ten troops withdrawn to the rear to rest.

"The difficult environment can hone the fighting spirit of the soldiers, the flowers in the greenhouse cannot face the baptism of the scorching heat and cold, of course we have to provide the best logistics for the soldiers on the front line, but not this kind of nurse-like meticulousness." Haig's words sound reasonable, but they don't actually sound like that.

"So what's your best logistics? Our soldiers are not flowers in a greenhouse, as can be seen from the battle report, the 7th and 65th divisions have withdrawn from their positions one after another, and the 2nd Cavalry Division is still holding on. Roque reasoned with the facts, Haig's so-called "best logistics" is probably not starvation, drinking water is enough.

It had been raining since the beginning of autumn in Flanders, and when Albert I opened the floodgates, Flanders had become a vast ocean, and the groundwater was so polluted that if there was no clean drinking water, the troops would have problems.

In fact, the environment on the front line is already very harsh, and disease is also a major factor threatening the health of the troops, because the non-combat attrition caused by the infection is also recorded as part of the losses, and after the Canadian Legion arrived in France, nearly a thousand people have fallen due to disease, and the troops in southern Africa basically do not have this problem of adaptation, which has a lot to do with the strict requirements for food.

"We are also learning from the way the Southern African army is supplied with logistics, and the number of non-combat attrition in the army is decreasing, and the complaints of soldiers about logistics are decreasing, which shows that Lord Nyasaland's approach is working." Marcos Lloyd was on Roque's side, and the Canadian Legion, like the Southern African Expeditionary Force, was a guest army, and they had to help each other in France.

Marcos Lloyd is still very smart, France now has a total of four field hospitals, two were built by the Southern African Expeditionary Force, and the other two were formed by France in the style of the Southern African Expeditionary Force, but they have not yet been put into use, and the number of doctors and medicines is also seriously insufficient, and the wounded of the Canadian Army also need to be treated in the hospitals built by the Southern African Expeditionary Force, so it is not bad for the Canadian Legion to have a good relationship between Marcos Lloyd and Roque.

"I didn't say that it was wrong to send water, it's just that it will increase the burden of logistics, our logistics supply is already very tight, and now we should reduce the burden of logistics work, for which it is understandable that the soldiers on the front line endure some difficulties." Haig argues that delivering water can be done by dozens of trucks, and it doesn't take much trouble.

What's more, Roque used the trucks of the 11th Division to supply water to the front-line troops, which had nothing to do with the British Expeditionary Force, although these trucks were paid for by the British.

At Roque's insistence, the British War Department set up a logistics base in Dover for the Southern African Expeditionary Force, and the supplies needed in Southern Africa were sent directly from Dover to Calais and then to Ypres and Etretta, where the recuperating troops were located, without going through the British Expeditionary Force Command.

Étreta is a seaside city where the recuperation units of the British Expeditionary Force are located, and it is intriguing to choose this place, if the Anglo-French forces fail at the front, then the British Expeditionary Force can withdraw to Britain at any time.

"Don't quibble, it's just a few dozen trucks, it won't add much logistical burden, you don't realize the importance of drinking water, it's understandable not to pay attention to drinking water, and now you have realized the importance of drinking water, but it's a crime to still not pay attention to drinking water." Roque is welcome, Haig's stubbornness stems from a sense of superiority in his heart, southern Africa is a reckless world for Europe, how can the civilized world be wrong.

So there must be something wrong with Southern Africa.

Haig has been to southern Africa and has a deep understanding of southern Africa, but his deep understanding does not mean that he acknowledges that southern Africa has more potential than Europe, but on the contrary, it will be counterproductive, causing Haig's antipathy towards southern Africa to deepen.

Roque didn't expect Hague to change his attitude, people like him would die even if they put the facts in front of them, but fortunately there were more intelligent generals in Britain, Marcos Lloyd and Smith Dorin were good, the Canadian Legion and the First Army were also learning from the armies of southern Africa to dig trenches, provide clean drinking water, build separate toilets, increase the number of doctors and nurses in the troops, some measures had an immediate effect, some took longer to see the effect, and in general everything was improving.

On October 25, the Battle of Ypres was not over, and the Ottoman Empire finally entered the war.

From the end of the Second Balkan War, the Ottoman Empire began to gradually increase its troops in Basra and Damascus.

In fact, the increase in troops is also an arms race, with more than 100,000 troops concentrated in barracks around cities, logistical pressure increasing day by day, troops eating and consuming horses, and astronomical numbers every day, and hundreds of thousands of young and middle-aged people gathered together, and the slightest accident may cause serious consequences.

As the number of troops gradually increased, the logistics began to be overloaded, and the Ottoman generals also noticed that Port Elizabeth was increasing their troops, and they had to be forced to increase their troops in order to gain a greater advantage, after the Ottomans had increased their troops to Damascus and Basra respectively, and were preparing to attack Damascus and Basra at the same time after entering the war.

Now that Port Elizabeth has more and more troops, Basra's troops have lost their numerical advantage over Port Elizabeth, and the Ottomans can only send a part of their troops from Damascus to Basra to cope with the increasing number of garrisons in Port Elizabeth.

"The condition of the troops is not good, Ali's troops are seriously undertrained, and the recruits who have just been drafted into the army also need more training, and if the war breaks out now, the casualties of the troops will be very heavy." Donne's responsibilities were enormous, and the oil in Port Elizabeth was becoming more and more important to the Allies, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as a lifeline.

With the increase of machinery and equipment, countries pay more and more attention to oil, during the Second Boer War there were few taxis in the world, some time ago during the Battle of the Marne, Gallieri casually organized thousands of taxis from Paris, which fully proves that the popularity of automobiles is increasing.

Relatively speaking, the Anglo-French army is not equipped with many cars, and the southern African army is estimated to be equipped with more cars than the Anglo-French army combined, the role of automobiles is becoming more and more important, more and more ships and locomotives use internal combustion engines, and the world's demand for oil has been increasing.

"Our situation is not good, the situation of the Ottomans is also not good, Ali's intelligence says that the Ottoman troops can't even do a single shot, they are not a modern army at all." Martin had faith in the armies of southern Africa, having seen millions of legions fighting in France, and it was really not good to look at the Ottoman troops in Basra.