Chapter 8 Chapter 7 1916: The Tide Turns

1916 has just arrived, and a new offensive plan by the German Chief of Staff Falkenhayn is almost mature.He believes that the German army cannot win a long-term war. The key to disintegrating the Allied Powers is to make France submit as soon as possible. To do this, "France must bleed to death."So he chose the Fortress of Verdun, which the French regard as a holy place and must stick to it, as the target, but it is not necessarily necessary to take down this fortress. The purpose is to exhaust the vitality of France and turn it into a "blood pool" for the French. ".Therefore, Falkenhayn gave this battle plan a murderous codename—Execution Place.But Falkenhayn's order to Prince Prince, the commander of the 5th Army, was: "Launch an offensive in the direction of Verdun in the Moose River area." This order was relatively vague and even vague.The crown prince logically interpreted it as having the meaning of capturing Verdun, and made an attack plan accordingly.Naturally, Falkenhayn did not mean this. If this fortress was captured quickly, the great strategy of "making France bleed out" would not be realized.The battle has not yet been fought, and the German frontline generals and the Supreme Command have misaligned their target understanding.

Since the Great War, the fall of Liege, Namur and other fortresses has made it impossible for people to defend permanent fortresses independently of field troops.The French army has dismantled the artillery of the fortresses in Verdun, Belfort and other places together with the garrison to strengthen the field troops, and established a field fortification system based on the original fortress, thus making the fortress an inseparable part of the defense line of the field army. part of.The Verdun fortress defense area belongs to the French Central Army Group. It protrudes into the German defense line and is only 12 miles away from the main German railway system. The Moose River flows through this area, dividing the defense area into east and west. Four lines of defense were set up in the Erden fortress area, with a frontal defense of 112 kilometers, defended by three French armies.

The German army's original attack time was February 12. Due to bad weather, continuous rain, snow, fog, etc., the attack time was postponed for more than a week.During this period, the defectors and captives of the German army disclosed to the French army the news that the German army was about to attack, so that the French army received assistance from 6 divisions and 6 artillery regiments before the German army launched an offensive. On February 21, the German army bombarded the first and second lines of defense of the fortress with more than 1,500 artillery pieces and mortars for 9 hours, and the narrow triangle area of ​​Brabant, Orne, and Verdun fell. With 2 million shells, the French army suffered heavy losses and the command system was paralyzed. On February 25, the German army captured the most important Fort Douaumont in a deadly battle, captured the second line of defense of the French army, and achieved a major tactical victory.The French High Command urgently dispatched Petain's 2nd Army to reinforce Verdun and issued an order to defend it.Although the German army captured the Fort Douaumont, the French defense consisted of a combination of permanent fortifications and field fortifications, so the fort was occupied, but the defense area was still able to hold on.The key lies in the connection with the rear.Pétain showed excellent organizational skills in this regard, and he took effective measures to keep the Baleduc-Verdun unimpeded, which was the only road connecting the front and the rear at that time.This route was called the "Holy Road" by the French army.The 65-kilometer-long highway is divided into 6 sections, 3,900 vehicles are organized into 175 vehicle platoons, about 9,000 officers and soldiers perform vehicle duties, and the traffic capacity reaches 6,000 vehicles per day and night.During the entire battle, hundreds of thousands of troops and countless weapons, ammunition and other combat materials flowed to the front line from this "sacred road".

From March 5th, the German army shifted its offensive focus to the left bank of the Meuse River, that is, the west of Verdun Fortress. On May 7 and 20, after three months of repeated assaults and several changes of hands, the German Garwitz Group finally occupied Heights 304 and Molt-Orme Heights respectively, which were the two main points on the defensive line of the Fortress of Verdun. an important support point. At the beginning of June, the German army had broken through the three French defense lines and was repeatedly attacking the last line of defense.At this time, the Kaiser had issued an order to occupy Verdun by June 15. On June 7, a specially formed German fort assault force captured the French fort on the last line of defense. On June 24, the village of Fleury and the Fortress of Thiaumont, the last line of defense, were also successively captured by the German Lokhov Group.However, the German attack on Verdun had reached its climax at this time. In the next two months or so, several German attacks on the Souville Fort were repelled.

Just as the Battle of Verdun was going on, the Russian army launched a large-scale offensive on the Eastern Front on June 4.The British and French troops also launched a massive offensive on July 1 in the West Sum River area. On August 27, Romania joined the war on the side of the Allies.Under such circumstances, Germany's operations at Verdun had lost its strategic significance.Kaiser Wilhelm II finally understood the tactical significance of Falkenhayn: not only to shed the blood of the French, but also to drain the blood of the Germans.Due to the defeat at Verdun, Falkenhayn was forced to resign on August 28.Hindenburg took over as Chief of the German Staff, and Ludendorff as Chief Quartermaster of the General Staff.Falkenhayn had asserted that Romania would not enter the war until the crops were harvested in mid-September, and now was a rare opportunity to relegate him to the post of an army commander on the Romanian front. On September 2, Hindenburg, the new Chief of Staff, gave the order to stop the offensive.At this time, the French army had regained the initiative. In August, the French army successively recovered Douaumont, Fleury, and Heights 304. On November 2, the Fort Douaumont and the Fort Vaux were captured.In this way the French regained lost positions yard by yard, and after months of dogged attack, on December 18 they reached the third line of defense and then stopped their attack.

The ten-month-long Battle of Verdun, the largest and longest battle of the First World War, was purely a war of attrition, a race for supplies between the belligerents.On this Verdun battlefield, known as the "meat grinder" or "the mill of the Moose River", a total of 120 divisions were destroyed, including 69 divisions of the French army and 50 divisions of the German army.Casualties: about 542,000 French troops and 434,000 German troops.For the German army, this battle was a failure no matter from the perspective of Falkenhayn's goal or the misunderstood goal of the crown prince.Although the former greatly consumed the opponent, he was also consumed at the same time.The latter neither occupied Verdun nor achieved a breakthrough, because with the firepower of the weapons at the time, an isolated breakthrough in a narrow area would not bring success to the attackers.Defenders can timely put the reserve team into the breakthrough area, seal the breakthrough, and carry out a powerful counterattack to prevent the tactical breakthrough from developing into a strategic breakthrough.In addition, a French artilleryman accidentally hit a German arsenal hidden in the Spancourt forest, detonating a shell containing 450,000 large-caliber artillery pieces, causing the largest explosion in the First World War.In early April, all German 15-inch and 16.5-inch guns throughout the sector were destroyed by French artillery.A French military historian has determined that these two events played a decisive role in the eventual defeat of the German army.

At the Allied Military Alliance Conference on December 6, 1915, that is, the Second Chantilly Conference, the participating countries adopted a plan for Britain and France to implement the Battle of the Somme in the summer of the following year.The plan stipulates that 3 French armies and 2 British armies jointly attack the German army in northern France.The French should attack at Peronne, Saint-Quentin, and Laon to crush the Germans in the "Noyon Salient" and the Aisne; the British should attack at Babaume, Cambrai, and Valencienne.The purpose is to defeat the German Army Group North deployed in the Arras and Lys River areas.Since the German army launched the Battle of Verdun in advance, the plan of the French army was disrupted, forcing Joffre and its chief of staff, De Castelneau, to reduce the originally planned force by 62%, but the British army's original planned input force was not enough. Change.

The British and French armies prepared for the battle for more than five months. In their offensive zone, they laid a total of about 250 kilometers of standard railways and 500 kilometers of narrow-gauge railways from the rear to the front line; built six airports ; Constructed 150 concrete sites for the construction of shelters for large-caliber artillery; dug 2,000 small wells to build a waterway network; expanded 13 rear hospitals, which can accommodate more than 40,000 wounded; A total of about 6 million rounds of 75mm artillery shells and 2 million rounds of heavy artillery shells were prepared in the division's warehouses.

The main force of the attack was the 5 armies of the British General Laurinson's 4th Army plus 1 army of the British 3rd Army, and the 5 armies of the French General Fayol's 6th Army.The reserve force consisted of 1 corps of the British Army and 4 corps of the 10th Army of the French Army.A total of 3,500 artillery pieces and 300 aircraft were invested in the battle.The defending side is the 2nd Army of the German Army Bülow. When the war started, there were only 8 divisions. The German positions consisted of three lines of defense, separated by two or three kilometers. Fortifications, traffic trenches extending in all directions.Under the position, it already looks like an underground city, with electric lights for lighting, a laundry shop, a repair shop, a medical station, and a coffee shop.

The battle began on June 24, and the artillery continued to bombard the German positions for a full 7 days. The artillery on the French 6th Army's position alone fired 2.5 million shells. On July 1, under the cover of aviation and heavy artillery fire, the infantry began to jump out of the trenches and attack forward.On the breakthrough front, the troop density of the British and French armies was an average of 1 division per kilometer.On the first day of the offensive, British soldiers formed several attack waves. In each wave, they were orderly, holding guns, shoulder to shoulder, and marching forward in standard drills.The German troops all hid in safe underground shelters when the opponent bombarded them, and used underground periscopes to observe the situation on the ground.After the shelling ended, when the opponent's Xu Jin barrage shot extended backwards, the German army returned to the ground position from the ground, and mounted machine guns to form a dense formation. The attackers who were walking forward kept shooting, and the effect was like cutting wheat. The same, falling down piece by piece.On the first day of the offensive, the British army alone suffered more than 60,000 casualties.The attack of the French army was beyond the expectations of the German army, so they achieved greater results. On the first day of the infantry offensive, they captured the first line of defense of the German army.The next day, the German second line of defense was taken.On the third day, the Germans counterattacked and attempted to regain their position. After being repelled by the French army, they withdrew to the third line of defense.By July 5th, when the French army had broken into the last German line of defense, the five new cutting-edge divisions sent by the German General Staff arrived in time to repel the French attack and take advantage of the time gap when the French attack appeared to seal off the German army. a breakthrough.In this way, the French army failed to develop a tactical breakthrough into a strategic breakthrough.By mid-July, the British and French troops had only wedged 2 to 7 kilometers into the German defense line.

In August, the British and French forces continued to develop their offensive, and reinforcements from both sides came one after another. The coalition increased to 51 divisions and 500 aircraft.The German army increased to 31 divisions and nearly 300 aircraft.Although Britain and France had the upper hand, the Germans’ tactical opponents adopted machine gun cluster tactics. Groups of soldiers carried machine guns and occupied bomb craters or bunkers, causing huge casualties to the opponent attacking in skirmish formation. The German army hid in the depth of the defense line. The reserve team often launches powerful counterattacks against the enemy troops that have already made a frontier breakthrough, making the opponent's previous efforts come to naught.In the first two months of fighting, the British army suffered nearly 200,000 casualties, the French army 80,000, and the German army exceeded 200,000. From September to October, the scale of the battle expanded. The British army invested in General Haff's 5th Army, and the French army invested in General Michler's 10th Army.On the basis of the original 2nd and 1st armies, the German army added a 6th army. On September 3, after the artillery bombardment, the British and French coalition forces launched a coordinated attack with 4 armies, and approached the third German line of defense again a few days later. On September 12, the French army captured Buchauvin, the last line of defense of the German army, but the follow-up troops did not follow up in time and were unable to develop a breakthrough in depth.In the early morning of the next day, the German machine gun group blocked the breakthrough, and the French army lost its fighter for the second time. On September 15, the British army invested in a new weapon-tank for the first time.Compared with the later tanks, these "cradle period" tanks are very clumsy. The body is 8.1 meters long, 4.1 meters wide, and 2.5 meters high. The temperature inside is as high as 70 degrees.Of the 50 tanks scheduled to participate in the attack, 32 tanks broke down before they reached the forward position, and only 18 tanks were actually put into battle.With a loud noise, these huge steel monsters broke through the barbed wire, flattened the bunkers, flattened the machine gun nests, and strafed violently with machine guns and artillery, as if entering no one's land.The German soldiers were psychologically shocked.With the support of tanks, the British army easily advanced 4 to 5 kilometers on the 10-kilometer-wide front in 5 hours.In the past, the price of this victory was thousands of tons of shells and tens of thousands of lives.The British achieved a tactical victory but failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough because too few tanks were invested. In October, the coalition forces launched several more attacks and invested a small amount of tanks, but they brought huge losses and insignificant results.By mid-November, due to bad weather and depleted supplies, the two sides finally stopped the Battle of the Somme.The battle lasted for nearly 4 months, and the two sides invested a total of 150 divisions. The Allied forces failed to achieve their goals. After spending a huge price, they only regained 240 square kilometers of land.The French lost 341,000, the British 453,000, and the Germans 538,000.This battle demonstrated the absolute military and economic advantages of the Allied Powers. Although the actual results were limited, it seized the strategic initiative from the German army. On March 11, 1916, when the Battle of Verdun on the Western Front was inextricably fought, Cadorna commanded the Italian 2nd and 3rd Army to launch the Fifth Battle of the Isonzo River.The purpose of the Italian attack was to prevent the Austrian army from being transferred to other fronts, and to echo the Allied forces on the Western Front, so as to reduce the pressure of the German army on the French army on the Verdun front.The Austrians counterattacked at several points and drove the Italians back.The battle lasted until March 29, and both sides suffered heavy losses. Konrad, chief of staff of the Austrian army, asked the German army to cooperate in defeating Italy completely and forcing it to withdraw from the war.But it was rejected, because Falkenhayn wanted to drain the blood of France on the Western Front, and at the same time believed that even if he won this battle, he would not be able to achieve the goal of getting Italy out of the war.Conrad then proposed to replace the Austrian army on the Russian front with the German army in order to transfer 9 Austrian divisions to the Italian front, which was also rejected by Falkenhayn.So Conrad decided to do it alone.He quietly transferred back the five most elite divisions from the Russian front, and planned to attack Trento from the Alps in the north. After succeeding, he quickly entered the back of the Isonzo River Italian Army Group and surrounded and wiped it out. The offensive force was the 3rd and 11th Austrian Army, commanded by Prince Eugen.Due to the harsh climate in the mountains, the Austrian army waited for nearly a month and a half.During this time, the Italians received intelligence and doubled their defenses. On May 15, the Austrian army launched a fierce attack on the Italian 1st Army under the command of the enemy Bruzzati. At first, the Austrian army made great progress, breaking through the two Italian defense lines in succession, and partly broke through the Italian army a few days later. The third line of defense, the Austrian army is about to step out of the mountains and set foot on the plains of Venice.Cadorna, Chief of Staff of the Italian Army, made a desperate move and bet all the reserves, and the Austrian offensive began to weaken. On June 4, in response to the request of the King of Italy to the Tsar for help, the Russian army launched a surprise attack on the eastern front to the area mainly defended by the Austrian army and achieved a strategic breakthrough.The Austrians were forced to draw troops from the fighting front to reinforce them. On June 16, the Austrian army stopped attacking and turned to defense on the spot.On the same day, the Italian army launched a powerful counter-offensive. From June 25, the Austrian army retreated across the board, but the Italian army failed to fully recover the lost positions. In this battle of Trento, the Italian army lost at least 147,000 people, of which about 50,000 were captured.The Austrian army lost about 80,000 people.Although the Austrian army achieved great results, it failed to achieve its strategic goals.The Italian defeat at Trento shocked the country, leading to the fall of Salandra's cabinet on 12 June and the formation of a new government under Paolo Bozzelli. On July 9, the Italian army stopped its counterattack in the Trento area and deployed troops to strengthen the Isonzo River front. On August 6, the Italian army launched the sixth battle of the Isonzo River.In more than 10 days, the 3rd Army of the Italian Army won some territory, captured Gorizia, an important military point of the Austrian Army, and improved its defensive posture.Although the results were very limited, the army's self-confidence was restored.The losses of the two sides this time were: 74,000 casualties of the Italian army and 61,000 casualties of the Austrian army. As the situation of the Allied forces improved on all fronts, Cadorna's desire to attack became stronger and stronger.From September 1916 to the end of that year, he launched the seventh, eighth, and ninth offensives in a row on the Isonzo River. Due to the dense fog and continuous rain, these three offensives only achieved partial tactical success. Win, and the gain outweighs the loss. In the three battles, the Italian army had a total of 70,000 casualties, and the Austrian army had about 50,000 casualties. In March 1916, shortly after the German army launched the Verdun offensive, France, through General Bo, the head of the French military delegation to Russia, requested the Russian chief of staff Alexeyev to request the Russian army to launch an offensive on the eastern front as soon as possible to reduce the pressure on the western front. Army pressure.From March 18th to 29th, the Russian army mobilized the 2nd, 10th, and 12th armies to launch the Battle of Lake Narochi.Two days of heavy Russian bombardment did little damage to the German positions.After the shelling, the Russian army began to charge intensively, and was immediately covered by the firepower network woven by German artillery and machine guns. After about 10 days of charging, the Russian army lost 110,000 people and the German army lost 20,000 people.The Russian offensive on Lake Narochi ended in complete failure. The Russian High Command felt that it was very difficult to hold a 1,200-kilometer-wide defense line. Once the German army freed up from the western front and concentrated its forces on any part of the eastern front, they could easily break through the Russian defense.The only solution was to attack first in May, forcing the Germans to change their plans with the Russians, not the other way around. On April 14, the Tsar and Chief of Staff Alexeyev, who had replaced Grand Duke Nicholas as the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, called the commanders, chiefs of staff and quartermasters of all aspects of the army to hold a meeting of the Supreme Command.The meeting decided: to launch a large-scale, pre-emptive strike against the German army in the summer; the original offensive date was postponed from the beginning of May to the end of May; among the three armies on the Eastern Front, the Western Front Army in the center will be the main attack; the Northern Front Army on the right wing Responsible for feints to confuse the enemy. If the situation is favorable, the feint will be transferred to an all-out attack; the Southwest Front Army on the left will carry out a powerful auxiliary attack to match the main attack direction. Just as the Russian army was preparing for the summer offensive in mid-May, the Austrian army launched an attack on Trento, heavy on the Creative Army.The Italian government was terrified, and the Italian king personally called the tsar, asking Russia to use the Southwest Front to relieve the pressure on the Italian army.The Russian High Command then issued an order to attack on May 31. At dawn on June 4, under the command of Brusilov, the Russian Southwest Front Army launched a full-scale assault on the 320-kilometer front, and achieved huge results within 3 days. The Russian army rushed in from the 80-kilometer-wide breakthrough. The 4th and 7th armies threw away their helmets and armor, and fled backwards.In order to wipe out Italy in one fell swoop, Conrad took away five elite divisions from here, and now he has to pay a terrible price for this. Brusilov was the best commander in the Russian army. The combat experience at that time had negated the combat method of frontal breakthrough. Even so, the actual combat still adopted an ineffective frontal attack, because the soldiers at that time faced the battlefield The impasse is hopeless.Brusilov found that the failure of the frontal attack was due to the fact that the attacking party had to assemble a large number of troops and heavy weapons in the selected area. Thanks to the means of aerial reconnaissance by aircraft, this assembly lost its concealment, and the opponent could Accurately determine the location and take corresponding measures to prevent breakthroughs. Therefore, the attacker should start preparations for the attack at 20 to 30 locations at the same time, so that the defender cannot judge the main attack direction.Using this concept, Brusilov achieved success in frontal breakthroughs and developed tactical breakthroughs into strategic breakthroughs. After the Russian Southwest Front Army approached Kovel, a major railway hub, and began to endanger the entire German defense line north of the Pripyat River, Hindenburg quickly gathered reinforcements from all directions, and General Linsingen unified command to attack the Russian army. counterattack.By the end of June, the Russian offensive weakened and soon turned to the defensive. On July 28, Brusilov launched an attack on Kovel from the south, north, and east.At this time, his troops changed from the supporting role of the original attack to the leading role. The Western Army under the command of Ewitt in the middle road was delayed at first for some reason, and later did not provide strong cooperation.At first, no one in the Russian Supreme Command had confidence in Brusilov's attack, nor did they prepare reserve troops and combat supplies for him. Speeding east on the efficient railway.The Russian army paid a heavy price and failed to capture Kovel, but took Bukovina. At the beginning of September, the Russian army gained a lot on the territory, but the offensive was at the end of its strength.The front lines of the two sides are stable on the Stokhod River, Kichelin, Zlochev, Brezhana, Galich, Stanislav, Geraten, Vorokhta, and Seretin. The disastrous defeat of the Austrian army made the Germans feel annoyed, and they felt a sense of shame for their allies.The Germans had always wanted to establish a unified command on the Eastern Front, but this was rejected by Austria-Hungary.After this fiasco, Austria-Hungary hastened to accept Germany's proposal.As a result, Hindenburg's purview extended more than 360 kilometers to the south.In order to take care of Austria-Hungary's face, another army group was established between Fort Tarno and the Romanian border, with the Austro-Hungarian crown prince Karl the Grand Duke as the commander-in-chief, but he had to accept General Sickert, the former chief of staff of the German Mackensen 11th Army ( In the 1930s, he went to China to serve as Chiang Kai-shek's chief adviser) as his chief of staff so that the German side could control it. The summer offensive of the Russian Southwest Front Army was the heaviest blow the Austro-Hungarian Empire suffered in the war. If the German army did not invest 400,000 reinforcements, the Austro-Hungarian Empire would probably collapse.This battle prevented the Italian army from being destroyed, effectively supported the British and French allied forces who were fighting hard on the western front, and prompted Romania to abandon its neutrality and join the Allies to fight.The Austrian army suffered a truly devastating blow in this battle, with a loss of 750,000 troops, of which 400,000 were captured by the Russian army.The loss of the Russian army also reached 500,000 people.This offensive operation was the most outstanding performance of the Russian military in the First World War.Brusilov became the only person in the war to name a battle after his own name. On August 27, 1916, Romania declared war on Germany and Austria.When the news came, William II's first reaction was that the war had been lost.Romania originally had a mutual assistance treaty with the Triple Alliance, and its king was also a member of the Hohenzollern royal family, but Romania had territorial claims on its neighbors Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary.After the outbreak of the war, it was difficult to judge whether the two sides would win or lose for a while, so they stayed on the sidelines for the first two years, and now they finally joined the war under the coercion and lure of the Allied Powers.The Romanian army has about 500,000 people and is organized into 4 armies. The weapons and equipment and the quality of the officers are very poor, although the soldiers are very brave. The plan of the Romanian High Command was to attack west and north across the Carpathians and Southern Carpathians, reach the Hungarian Plain and seize the coveted Transylvania region.The Luo army put 3 group armies into the attack, but due to the dangerous defiles, supply difficulties and incompetent command, the Luo army's offensive only advanced 80 kilometers before being stopped by the Austrian army. Although Romania is a weak country, it is rich in resources, and Germany relies on it for oil and food.Therefore, Germany decided to quickly conquer it. On September 1, the Mackensen Group, composed of a mixed army of Germany, Bulgaria, and Turkey, launched an offensive on the Danube line in Bulgaria and entered Dobroga Province.The Mackensen Group marched northward in two routes, one along the Danube and the other near the Black Sea to cut off Romania's only railway line leading to the Black Sea.However, the arrival of the Russian Ninth Army temporarily blocked the German army's edge. On September 30, Falkenhayn's 9th Army, composed of 3 divisions of the German Army and 2 divisions of the Austrian Army, assembled in Transylvania and began to take over the battle with the Romanian Army.The other Austrian 1st Army, which consisted of 1 German division and 4 Austrian divisions, acted as an assist. In one month, Falkenhayn took advantage of the weakness of the Luo army and adopted a method of defeating each of them, quickly defeating three times as many troops. His own Luo army proved that although he was not a competent chief of staff, he was an outstanding commander in the field. On December 1, Aferisto commanded the Roman army to counterattack Mackensen's troops crossing the Danube, and after a little success, they were finally defeated.Under the pincer attack of Mackensen and Falkenhayn, the Roman army abandoned the capital Bucharest, and the remaining troops retreated to the lower reaches of the Selit River.After more than 4 months of fighting, Romania lost almost all of its territory. Romania's participation in the war had both gains and losses for the two warring groups. The Entente countries gained another ally, opened up a new front, and forced Germany and Austria to disperse their forces.Although Germany and Austria defeated Romania so that they could take advantage of its abundant resources and rely on the northern flank of the front on the coast of the Black Sea to obtain a relatively safe guarantee, the front was extended by 400 kilometers, just as Ludendorff said. Words: Although we were victorious in Romania, overall we were weakened. After the defeat of Serbia, the fate of the Allied forces that landed in Thessaloniki became a problem.After discussion by the heads of the Allied Powers, it was finally decided to stay as a base for future operations in the Balkans.By the end of July 1916, the Allied forces in Thessaloniki had reached 250,000, including 5 divisions of the British Army, 4 divisions of the French Army, 6 divisions of the reorganized Serbian Army, and 4 divisions of the Italian Army.French General Saray was in charge of the unified command. In August, in order to cooperate with Romania's operations, the Bulgarian 2nd Army first took the offensive and wanted to occupy the Kavala coast area of ​​Greece. On September 10, the Allied Forces launched an offensive. On November 19, the Serbian 1st Army broke through the defense line of the Bulgarian 1st Army and conquered the Monastir Pass, which is an important transportation hub in the Macedonian Mountains. , this group army may be wiped out. Greece remained neutral, but Britain and France were not satisfied with Greece's neutrality. On July 6, 1916, they announced an economic blockade against Greece and demanded the complete dismissal of pro-German elements who held real power in the Greek military. In mid-September, Britain and France supported Vinizelos to form a "provisional government". At this time, a new cabinet under the orders of the Allied Powers was formed in Athens. In October and December, the Entente countries urged the Greek government twice to surrender its fleet or bombard Athens.Under a series of persecutions, the Greek government gave in every step of the way, and was finally put on a chariot by Britain and France, officially declaring war on Germany. Turkey's "Napoleon" - Enver did not have a clear plan for the Turkish army's 1916 battle. He believed that the outcome of this war was not determined by the Turkish battlefield, but in Europe.He suggested to Falkenhayn that the excess Turks be sent to the Isonzo or Galicia fronts, but Enver's ideas were quickly disrupted by the pre-emptive actions of the Russian Caucasus Corps. Considering the end of the Battle of Dardanelles, the Russian army will soon transfer the vacated troops to the Caucasus, which will exacerbate the seriousness of the situation.Therefore, the Russian army decided that instead of passively waiting for a heavy punch, it would be better to take advantage of the opponent's heavy punch before it formed a heavy punch. On January 10, 1916, the Russian Caucasus Army launched the Battle of Erzurum. After a month of fierce fighting, it severely damaged the 3rd Army of the Turkish Army and entered the military base Erzurum Fortress. The Turkish Army retreated 70 to 100 meters to the west. kilometer. On April 1, after receiving reinforcements, the Russian army took advantage of the victory to launch a second strike, and captured the military town of Teblazon on April 5.The Turkish army was not discouraged after losing two consecutive battles. They frequently mobilized troops and launched a powerful counterattack in the May Mahathon area by surprise on May 30. The Russian army retreated. It was not until early July that the Russian army stabilized the situation. On August 5, the 2nd Army of the Turkish Army attacked again in Organot and defeated the Russian army face to face. The fighting continued until the first ten days of September. Due to the sudden severe cold, the two sides stopped their combat operations and prepared for the winter.From the severe winter to the beginning of the spring of the following year, both sides turned to defense. When the British Townsend column was besieged in Kut, the British army successively sent reinforcements to relieve the siege. By April, 22,000 people had been lost, and all the reinforcements were repelled by the Turkish army.At this time, the Russian High Command proposed a rescue plan to the British, but they took the opportunity to play their own small calculations in the plan. The British feared that the Russians would take advantage of it after the war and refused it. At the same time, they asked the Russian army to attack the Turkish army. rear, in order to relieve the plight of the besieged British army.So the Russian Baratov Cavalry Army rushed to help at a snail's pace. On April 29, 1916, 12,000 people in the British Townsend column were forced to surrender to the Turkish army.At this time, the Russian rescue force had just captured Hanakin. On July 2, the 6th Army of the Turkish Army took advantage of the victory to attack the cavalry army of the Russian Army Baratov, defeated it, and recovered Hamadan. After the Battle of the Dardanelles, Falkenhayn persuaded Enver to organize an expeditionary force to attack the Suez Canal in order to contain more British troops there.German lieutenant colonel Kress commanded 2 divisions of the Turkish army and 1 German and Austrian technical artillery team to march towards the Suez Canal.At this time, Morey, the commander-in-chief of the British army stationed in Egypt, was deploying defenses in the Suez Canal area, but he soon realized that it was better to take the initiative to attack than to simply defend, so he led his troops to the Sinai Peninsula. In early August, the Turkish Expeditionary Force began to attack the British positions in Romani and Catia, but was deftly repulsed by Morey.By the end of 1916, the British army had crossed the desert of the Sinai Peninsula, occupied Arish, where the Turkish expeditionary force had voluntarily withdrawn, and then captured Maghaba, completing the strategic goal of defending the smooth traffic of the Suez Canal.The results of the Turkish expedition were not good, but it also achieved the goal of holding a large part of the British army firmly in the Suez Canal, preventing them from being transferred to the French front.