Chapter 712: The Year of Decisive Battle

Compared with a few months ago, Kuwait City has changed a lot. It has become a large military camp surrounded by trenches and barbed wire. The old, young, women and children in the city have been evacuated to the city of Basra in the north, as well as the 29th Army and the Armenian Corps, which serve as the general reserve.

Thanks to the long-term accumulation, food shortages did not exist for the Ottoman Eighth Army. The road between Kuwait and Basra was not cut off, thanks to the sixteen 310mm railway guns placed in the north of the city. This railway gun is absolutely an invincible weapon in the Persian Gulf.

Normally, as the siege lasted longer, the defenders would become increasingly depressed. The soldiers only had a small amount of ammunition with them, and as the bullets were fired, they were running out of ammunition. The artillery was already few in number, and the shells were almost exhausted. Fortunately, the Kuwaiti defenders did not encounter this situation.

When a Japanese division tried to take a detour and cut off Kuwait's northern connection from the northwest, it was bombarded by the defenders using railway guns. The Japanese army's most recent war was the Russo-Japanese War with Imperial Russia, so they had a very fatal flaw, which was that they believed that the Banzai charge was effective.

Later, during the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese used suicide charges to attack the Russian-occupied Port Arthur Fortress. Under the bombardment of Russian machine guns and heavy artillery, a large number of Japanese soldiers fell to the ground and died, so that more than half of the attacking troops suffered casualties. From a tactical point of view, this battle has proved the brainlessness of the Banzai charge.

However, the Russo-Japanese War ended with the victory of the Japanese army, which once again strengthened the Japanese army's confidence in using this tactic.

The Ottoman Eighth Army was a corps that Sheffield had worked hard to build. Not to mention its training and morale, and whether it could compete with the world-renowned powerful armies, its weapons were absolutely luxurious. During the Japanese army's crazy charge, more than 18,800 Japanese soldiers were killed in one day.

The gains of this day certainly did not change the fact that Kuwait was semi-encircled by the British and Indian Corps to the south and west, but it was still possible to celebrate, even though the British and Indian Corps' position was ten kilometers away, with nearly 300,000 British and Indian Corps soldiers there.

The Battle of Kuwait now looks more and more like the Dardanelles landings that took place at the same time, with the defenders having the upper hand and the attackers dying! This is also the main feature of trench warfare in World War I.

Given the nature of the German military empire, it was still unable to reduce casualties during the attack. It was indeed a bit too much to ask the British Indian Corps, which was mainly composed of Indian soldiers, to do better than the German soldiers.

Staring at each other in the trenches was not the purpose of both sides. Britain still hoped to gnaw on this stone that blocked the road. India had plenty of people anyway, and as long as it recruited soldiers from India at all costs, Kuwait would sooner or later be unable to hold on.

This is what Sheffield is very worried about. The distance between the Persian Gulf and British India is not really far, and the British can indeed do this.

John Connor has contacted his boss via telegram and explained the situation here one by one. In fact, the slave owner does not believe in the confidentiality of wireless telegrams unless he thinks his technology has surpassed the German military.

Sheffield only said some meaningless words in the telegram, which was not enough to fill a single line of a telegram.

If there is less than one line, then the original plan will be resumed. If there are two lines, then another solution will be considered. So the meaning of this response is to continue to stick to the previous plan.

The news of the Battle of Jutland also spread throughout the Middle East. From any perspective, this naval battle caused heavy losses to the British Royal Navy. Propaganda has no effect on the current Middle East because the Ottoman Empire is a member of the Allied Powers. The Eighth Army understood that the British suffered a loss, and a big loss.

Kuwait City, Eighth Army Headquarters. John Connor paced back and forth, while the staff officers were busy sorting out information from all sides and marking the latest situation on the battle map in a timely manner.

"My friend, we are about to spend the second Christmas in this damn place. Is there no movement from the British Indian Corps in the south?" John Connor suddenly stopped. The icon on the map representing the western coastline of the Persian Gulf looked very glaring.

"Calm down, John. Can the boss still delay our wages? Although the current situation is indeed difficult, I believe that the British Indian Corps, especially the Japanese, must be even more miserable. For now, we rely on sufficient accumulation, and Constantinople and Berlin also know the importance of our guarding the river mouth. Supplies have been continuously delivered through the inland rivers. We have a complete defense system and sufficient supplies, so there is nothing to worry about." Brown answered without hesitation.

"The boss once said that when the number of people reaches a certain level, the invisible pressure is indescribable. I used to think that was just an exaggeration, but now that I know that there may be 300 million people in British India who can come here continuously, I finally understand what this feeling is like." John Connor was already a little irritated and said in a low voice, "The battle line is stable now. With the ability of the British Indian Army, as many people as come will die, but it can't go on like this forever."

"Yes, we must consider the potential impact. The British are really crazy and send Indians here continuously. This is really a troublesome matter. I remember a few months ago, the boss mentioned a place like India in a telegram. It's like a person lying under the wheels to blackmail, pretending to be a victim and not thinking that he is responsible at all. The boss said there is only one solution, which is to start the car and crush him to death." Brown shrugged, but still hesitated, "I just don't know if now is the time."

"That's right. I want to start the car and crush the blackmailer right now. We only have one chance! We will use the motorized army to carry out long-range attacks, and at the same time launch a full-scale counterattack against the British and Indian Army's positions. We will wipe out all the British and Indian Army besieging Kuwait City at once." John Connor turned his head and gestured at the situation on the map, "Given the current situation, I don't know how many Christmases we will have to spend in the Persian Gulf."

Brown also reluctantly admitted that after the Battle of Kuwait began, the two had tried to take advantage of the British Indian Army's instability to test the quality of this opponent. After launching a small-scale charge against the enemy on the opposite side, they never launched an attack again, but dug trenches one after another on the spot, staring at each other across the trenches, occasionally firing small cannons at the enemy, and this situation has continued to this day.

"Is it like a bulldozer? Maybe we should study this matter with General Zidselayan." Brown stood there thinking for a moment and then spoke.

Zidselayan was the commander of the 29th Army Armenian Corps, the general reserve in Basra. Of course, Basra was still home to almost all of the Eighth Army's motorcycles and trucks.

There are currently three armies defending Kuwait, namely the 26th Assyrian Corps, the 27th Greek Corps, and another corps composed of Armenians, numbered the 28th Army.

During the First World War, 1916 is considered to be the year that determined the direction of the war. In that year, several fierce battles broke out between the Central Powers and the Entente, including the Battle of the Somme and Verdun. After a year of accumulating strength, the two sides began an unprecedentedly brutal fight.

"You can write anything in your reply to Kuwait, but it must not exceed one line of telegram paper." Sheffield said to Jesla, "War is something that makes people grow. If both sides still retained a kind of aristocratic stupidity at the beginning, now that they have been fighting for more than a year, this stupid aristocratic spirit should have awakened. I am not slandering European countries. In this respect, they are not even as good as the Ottoman Empire."

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This kind of telegram with less than one line of letters was very rare in the telegram exchanges with Kuwait. When the slave owner communicated with Kuwait, he used plain text telegrams. Sheffield was a bit talkative and usually used several pages of telegrams to ask Kuwait about everything and ridicule the strength of the British Indian Army.

I believe that British intelligence officers who monitor the radio will feel very happy when monitoring Kuwait, as the workload is too low.

Sheffield knew from the very short telegram sent by John Connor that the Kuwaiti defenders had already started to counterattack. At the same time, the reply also expressed approval. From this point of view, the important battle regarded by the two major military camps in history as the decisive year will start from the Persian Gulf in the Middle East.

The slave owner suddenly felt a huge sense of historical responsibility. At present, the Allies were still in a relatively advantageous position, except that the Italians had made little progress. The members of the Allied Powers were either occupied nationwide or part of their territory. It was obvious who was taking advantage.

If the first important victory in the decisive year starts from the Persian Gulf, it will undoubtedly have a huge boost to the camp. But if this is really the case, Sheffield seems to have a sense of presence in the eyes of the British.

The slave owners were caught in a dilemma, but fortunately, at this important turning point in history, there were always people who were willing to take the blame. Because of the defeat in the Battle of Jutland, Britain decided to withdraw part of its naval forces to defend its homeland. In 1916, Britain began to withdraw its troops from the Dardanelles landing, admitting the failure of this amphibious landing.

At the same time, news came that Churchill, as the First Lord of the Admiralty, had to resign from his position as the First Lord of the Admiralty because of the failures in the Battle of Jutland and the Dardanelles Landing. This was an explanation for these two battles that frustrate British citizens.

(End of this chapter)