Chapter 322 Breaking through the blockade
There were bomb craters, corpses, and charred vegetation. The trees in the no-man's land were blown to pieces, leaving only tree trunks with branches but no leaves, as if telling people about their suffering.
Many places on the battlefield began to present a desolate scene similar to the surface of the moon covered with craters. The difference was that the moon was white, while the battlefield was gray.
The ground in the distance was somewhat protruding in the morning light, and some earth-brown or lime-colored bulges could be vaguely made out. Those were the parapets and fortifications built by the enemy in front of the trenches to protect themselves.
Suddenly, a shrill whistle sounded, and the battle to break through the blockade began.
The battle started with an attack on the middle section of the defense line. The Allied forces' clustered attack would inevitably attract the Ottoman army to use artillery suppression, otherwise the Ottoman middle section of the defense line might be breached.
As soon as the Ottoman army's artillery fire sounded, Charles immediately ordered the main attack force located in the "Sand" trench to launch an attack.
Amidst the loud shouts, the French and Australian soldiers who had been prepared jumped out of the trenches, with bayonets pointed, and rushed towards the enemy's defense line through the barbed wire that had been cut in advance.
There was no sound of artillery fire, and the enemy's fire was temporarily drawn to the middle section of the defense line.
There was no sound of machine guns. The enemy machine gunners hurriedly took their positions, but they were completely unaware that they had been targeted by enemy snipers. After a few gunshots, they fell one by one in a pool of blood.
The backup machine gunners continued to move up to replenish the force, but were soon shot down again.
The Ottoman soldiers did not even realize that it was the enemy sniper's credit. At this time, the enemy mortars were also bombarding the machine gun positions. They thought that it was the enemy's fierce artillery fire that suppressed the machine guns and made them ineffective.
Fortunately, the French and Australian army's charge was blocked by the barbed wire laid by the Ottoman army on the front line, which bought time for the Ottoman army to shoot at the enemy with their rifles as quickly as possible.
Amid screams, the French and Australian offensive was barely blocked.
"10 o'clock, 400 meters!" Idris reported the coordinates.
It was a machine gunner who was crouching and running towards the machine gun position. Idris noticed that he was carrying the Maxim's unique ammunition belt box on his back.
Billy Shen didn't hesitate, raised his gun, turned the angle and immediately found the target.
"Bang!" A gunshot rang out, and the machine gunner fell to the ground, covering his chest.
"Three o'clock, 250 meters!" Idris reported another coordinate.
It was an officer, who was nervously making a call on the phone, apparently reporting the situation to the rear.
"Bang!" A gunshot rang out, and a bullet ended the officers' conversation prematurely.
"Two o'clock, 300 meters!" There was a machine gun spewing flames at the French army.
This machine gun position was set up very cleverly. It used logs to cover the top of the trench and then laid a layer of sand that was the same as the surrounding area for camouflage, so that no one noticed it when observing the terrain last night.
Billy Shen obviously hesitated when he found his target.
Idris felt a little regretful. This machine gun was completely enclosed, like a bunker with only one firing hole exposed. The sniper could only see the flame and a little bullet line from the machine gun, and nothing else.
He shouldn't have indicated this target to Shen Billy, Idris thought, this was not a target that a sniper could deal with.
However, just as Idris was about to look for the next "possible" target, there was a "bang" of gunfire, and the machine gun went silent.
Idris looked at Billy Shen in astonishment, he didn’t understand how Billy Shen did it.
This was not a difficult task for Shen Billy. He deduced the position of the machine gunner based on the direction of the machine gun. The "hesitation" just now was not because he found it difficult, but because he was waiting for the machine gun to turn, and then the shooter would enter his shooting range.
Just as Idris was stunned, Billy Shen pulled the trigger again and fired, then retracted his head and ordered: “Change position!”
Idris suddenly woke up, quickly put away the telescope, bent down and followed Shen Billy.
Perhaps because they had received the news in advance, the Ottoman army added barbed wire and laid mines on the battlefield, which caused great trouble for the French army's charge.
But that’s not the point.
The Ottoman army, which was busy defending, did not notice that twenty amphibious landing ships had appeared on the sea on the other side.
They were not going very fast, less than 10 knots.
But the enemy's defense line was only two or three hundred meters away. In principle, it would only take one minute to reach it, but it actually took three minutes because the amphibious landing ship could reach the maximum speed and had already penetrated into the position.
Then, the Ottoman army was horrified to find that there were suddenly twenty more "tanks" on the flank beach. They were advancing rapidly while firing machine guns at themselves. At the same time, many French soldiers jumped off the "tanks" and threw grenades to occupy the trenches.
The Ottoman 3rd Militia Regiment stationed on this section of the defense line, which had already been terrified by the French army, was suddenly attacked from the flank by "tanks". They screamed in panic, abandoned the defense line and turned to flee.
The amphibious landing ships continued to follow, and as they advanced they calmly harvested the lives of the enemy with machine guns, scaring the Ottoman militia into kneeling on the ground in groups, raising their rifles and surrendering.
The pressure on the main French force attacking from the front was relieved, and soon they poured into the enemy's defense line like a tide.
At this point, the Ottoman army's flank defense line was successfully broken in less than ten minutes.
The speed was so fast that when the French army quickly expanded its victory along the gap in the enemy's defense line, Bahar, who was sitting in the "A" corner, did not notice the danger.
At that time, Bahar was commanding his troops in the middle of the defense line to resist the French attack.
He believed that the French army was desperate and the enemy had to launch this kind of group charge, otherwise there would be no hope of breaking through the defense line.
Therefore, Bahar excitedly shouted to his subordinates:
"Hold on, this is the enemy's last attempt!"
"They know the end is near and they are in their death throes."
"Victory will definitely belong to us, long live the Ottoman Empire!"
…
However, when the soldiers' morale was boosted by his shouting, a signalman hurriedly brought a telegram to Bahar, reporting with a panicked look on his face: "Colonel, the general orders you to retreat immediately!"
"Retreat?" Bahar looked at the signalman in surprise.
They are winning, why retreat? What’s more, there is the sea behind us, where can we retreat to?
"Our defense line has collapsed." The signalman reported nervously: "The general ordered you to retreat to Bolayel by boat immediately. It will be too late if you are late!"
Bahar was stunned, then laughed: "This is impossible!"
As he said this, he snatched the telegram, took a look at it and his face changed drastically.
The reason why he didn't know that the flank defense line had collapsed was that the troops trapped in corner "A" were extremely short of supplies and there were not even a few telephones on the defense line.
Sanders could clearly see the tragic scene of the collapse of his defense line, so he ordered him to withdraw by telegram.
Bahar looked toward the eastern flank and sighed helplessly: "We actually lost to Charles twice, using the same tactics!"
(End of this chapter)
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