The Sun Never Sets In Spain - Chapter 141

It can be seen that the Austro-Hungarian Empire is already very impatient, asking for the ultimatum of Venecia and Lombardy only left Italy with 8 hours of response time.

And it was distributed in the early morning. On the 13th, the node got stuck in the early morning and launched an attack.

However, the invasion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was as early as expected by Italy, and it was impossible for them to advance quickly.

At this time, the total number of the Italian army has reached 340,000, of which only a small part is stationed across the country to prevent landings and rebellions.

The number of remaining mobile units is 265,000.

It is not uncommon to be able to complete the conscription plan drawn up 2 months ahead of schedule.

In terms of quantity alone, if Britain does not count the colonial forces, the Italian army is the fourth stable European army, second only to Russia, France, and even the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

However, the combat effectiveness of this newly recruited recruit is really doubtful. Although Italy, as a European country, does not lack guns, it is only lacking guns.

The recruits recruited the other day only sent a Vitelli rifle and threw them to the front line.

While waiting for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to declare war, some of the recruits cooperated with the veterans and were on standby at any time to prevent Austria-Hungary from suddenly coming over.

Another group of people are training shooting not far away.

Rotate every time.

Therefore, Italy said that it has stationed 180,000 troops in Veneto, but a considerable part of them are not in a state of combat readiness, and the combat effectiveness in a state of combat readiness is also very limited.

Only the 60,000 veterans who were urgently drawn from the vicinity of the city of Rome were truly worthy of the First World War.

But what is the level of these 60,000 veterans, the two previous battles in Rome have already been shown.

The Italian army was so disrespectful that even the commander of the Austro-Hungarian army, Marshal Benedek, who had served as the commander-in-chief of the Austrian army in Italy, gave an impromptu speech before the morning attack.

He told his staff and the two companies acting as vanguards: “Italy is a thin thief. Spain has broken his knee, and all we have to do is put a kick on his ribs and let him He can no longer covet other people’s pockets.”

When Benedek uttered these bold remarks, he could mobilize only 90,000 troops.

Use 90,000 to attack hundreds of thousands… Can you ever beat it?

The answer is simple. It can be done on flat ground, but not on the Italian-Austrian border.

In this battle, Austria-Hungary is not only at a disadvantage in terms of numbers, but also at a disadvantage in terms of weapons.

The Wendell rifle they used was a new model designed in 1867. It was a rear-loaded rifle made by the brothers after learning from the pain.

The performance is pretty good, and it can be used in this era.

It’s a pity that the Italian opposite them has a better rifle.

The prototype of the Italian Vitelli 1870 is the Swiss-made Vitelli 1869, which is a degraded version of that gun — the Swiss Vitelli is an 11-shot continuous rifle. When they came to Italy, they changed it to a single-shot because it was a waste of bullets. .

I have to say that from the current perspective, the changes in Italy are quite prescient.

If the recruits were to fire 11 rounds indiscriminately, the Italian army might degenerate to medieval level in a short period of time.

However, even if this most important advantage is obliterated, the airtightness and stability of Vitelli 1870 are better than Wendell. Simply put, if one reliability is 100, the other is 75.

Of course, it is not without shortcomings, Vitelli’s power is a little bit smaller…but it is only slightly smaller, and it is harmless.

If these rifles were handed over to the French, they would be able to beat Austrian-Hungary from a condescending position.

But the Italian target is too crooked. If most recruits ask him “what is your exact shooting distance?”, he will probably answer “on the forehead”.

Fortunately, the junction of Trento and Veneto is extremely high.

If you climb from the east, you will see the huge Dolomites in front of Austria-Hungary. There are 18 peaks over 3000 meters in this mountain range.

And to the west, what they have to face is the Setecomuni Plateau, the terrain is also not flat, not to mention that most of the plateau is in Italy.

It is easier to attack the Austro-Hungarian Empire from here, but the other way around is difficult.

Under such extremely favorable geographical conditions, the effects of the Austro-Hungarian artillery fire are relatively limited, and people who want to fight can only rush to the front for infantry operations.

The Italian army was able to show off their tattered shooting skills calmly, shooting two rounds if they missed a shot, and always hitting people.

In this kind of battle against the hills and idiots, the offensive of Austria-Hungary was really repelled.

The battle lasted for two days, each of which left more than 1,000 corpses. Apart from robbing a few useless mountain peaks, the Austro-Hungarian Empire got nothing.

…

On October 15th, Europe basically learned the news that the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Italy. The big guys only sweated the fate of Italy at the beginning, and quickly put this matter behind.

After all, Italy has not only exposed its weakness, but also has problems with its diplomatic strategy.

At the same time, there were conflicts with all the neighboring countries around, and it was right to be beaten up.

The British did not even go to Austria-Hungary and say, “You can’t continue to bully the poor Italians” because they knew it was useless.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire does not have any overseas interests and is one of the few countries that can completely ignore the British.

Obviously, the two sides of Italy and Austria may be in the mountains for a while, and people don’t care about this kind of boring battle.

At this time, the Europeans were concerned about two battlefields, one was the Western-Italian battlefield, and the other was the French-Prussian battlefield.

Alfonso said before that he must fully fulfill his ally’s obligations, which makes people look forward to it.

You know, after 60,000 Italian troops around Rome were taken away, the numbers of Spanish and Italian troops were almost the same, both were about 50,000.

The 50,000 people in Italy must not beat the 50,000 people in Spain. This is a consensus.

In other words, as long as Spain wants, they can now take the initiative to open up a battlefield in the center line, take the sacred land of central Italy, and cut off the connection between the north and the south of Italy by the way.

At that time, eating most of Italy will be a matter of course.

However, since the day the statement was issued, the Spanish slogans have been loudly shouted, but the actual actions have not been at all.

People can only cast their eyes on the battlefield of the popularization of law.

As a considerable part of the army was drawn to the Prussian border with Austria, Prussia’s combat effectiveness has declined.

This allowed France to fight them again and again without a rapid collapse.

But now it has reached a limit.

France loses more and wins less, just for the sake of the political situation, keeping an inch of the ground on the surface.

And Prussia is also happy to continue bleeding them at the border, without any further intentions.

But the balance of power maintained at a high price will not last long after all.

As the overall situation of the Western-Italian battlefield has been set, a beheading blow to France is also about to come.