Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 539: Jerusalem Millstone
"Da-da-da, da-da-da."
Dense and repetitive sounds continued to ring out, and with such sounds, there were always several, even dozens of Spanish soldiers who fell on the road of charge, never to get up again.
It was September 1, 1625, and ten days had passed since Maurice led nearly six divisions of troops to attack the Jerusalem defense line again.
During these ten days, Morris did not fail to work hard, but as Spanish soldiers equipped with only five-round magazine rifles and grenades, they also encountered the same problem as the Ming soldiers under Manila: in order to avoid heavy casualties from the enemy's machine guns during the charge, they had to spread out their formation. However, the density of the troops decreased, and the weakness of insufficient firepower of individual soldiers was completely exposed. The consequence was that they could not take the city after charging, and repeated charges were simply a waste of soldiers' lives.
Of course, Spain has control of the sea and can continuously bring in heavy artillery and shells to continue plowing the land inch by inch. But there are still more than 20,000 Spanish soldiers in Jerusalem who have been cut off from all supplies. How long can they hold out?
"Sir, the casualties of our army yesterday have been counted."
"Read it."
"Yes, yesterday our 15th and 16th divisions attacked the enemy's defenses, with a total of 1,236 soldiers killed, 2,565 wounded, and 768 missing."
"That means another multi-infantry regiment is gone. What are the results of the battle?"
"We have captured a small hill seven kilometers west of Jerusalem, with a relative altitude of thirty-three meters. Our artillery officers have conducted on-site surveys and calculations. If we set up cannons here, we can strike some of the artillery positions behind the enemy trenches."
"Praise God, this is really the best news in recent days. Well, I won't say more. The Medical Department is working hard to treat the wounded, and the Logistics Department is rushing to collect meat locally. With such a difficult battle, we must let our soldiers eat better. In addition, arrange a guard team. I will go to that high ground to check it myself tomorrow morning."
"yes!"
The adjutant turned around to carry out the order, and Morris covered his head with his hands, lost in deep thought.
In fact, he had a chance to win on August 12, when he led the 11th and 12th Divisions to the outskirts of Jerusalem, a day before Richelieu finished building the defense line.
As an excellent commander who had led troops in battle since he was 17 years old, and spent more than 90% of his 40-year military career in fighting with fewer troops, Maurice was much better than Richelieu in terms of battlefield intuition and on-the-spot command. In the battle on the 12th, neither side had any formal fortifications, and they fought hard for a whole day. As a result, he led 30,000 troops to beat Richelieu's 50,000 troops back step by step. When the advantage was the greatest, he was less than 500 meters away from the enemy's trench digging site!
But at this moment, the heavy machine guns in the Spanish army almost went on strike at the same time: there was no water in the cooling cylinder of the water-cooled heavy machine gun!
After all, Morris was an old-fashioned officer who had not received formal training. When commanding the battle, he did not consider the problem that the water-cooled Maxim heavy machine gun consumed a lot of water in the summer desert. The battle on the 12th was extremely fierce, and the number of bullets fired by each machine gun was extremely large, which naturally consumed a lot of water. As a result, at the end of the battle, the logistics support soldiers could not guarantee that each heavy machine gun could have a timely water supply!
What about the Ottoman side? Thanks to the fact that the time travelers here are specialized in materials, their heavy machine guns are air-cooled like the later Hotchkiss heavy machine guns. If the barrel gets too hot and the metal sheet can't cool it down, they just replace the barrel.
Therefore, on the 12th, when the battle reached a critical moment, most of the Spanish machine guns almost simultaneously misfired, unable to provide fire support for the charging comrades. However, the enemy's machine guns were able to fire continuously... The morale of the two Spanish divisions, which had fought for a day, suddenly collapsed. If it had not been for Morris's proper command, the entire army might have collapsed that day.
In short, the Spanish lost more than 3,000 men in the battle on the 12th, and many more were injured. Morris had no choice but to retreat and rest in Gaza, and only after receiving support from the 12th to 15th divisions did he regroup and move forward again.
On the 18th, the 12th to 15th divisions arrived. On the 20th, in accordance with Philip's order, Frederick transferred two more divisions from the Alexandria front. So far, the Spanish had gathered eight divisions and more than 110,000 people outside Jerusalem.
However, at this time, Richelieu had already completed the digging of the trenches outside Jerusalem and was still working on the second circle of trenches.
Starting from the 22nd, Morris deployed all eight divisions and began to attack the enemy's defense line. However, the Spanish army, which lacked submachine guns and light machine guns that allowed individual soldiers to carry large firepower weapons quickly, was unable to completely break through the enemy's defense line.
After nearly ten days of fierce fighting, the Spanish had lost more than 20,000 soldiers, with more than 10,000 seriously injured and more than 20,000 slightly injured. In addition, the commanders were even more worried about the missing persons: nearly 7,000 missing persons, in addition to those who were directly smashed to pieces by heavy artillery during the charge, and those who died near the enemy trenches and had no time to evacuate their bodies. The rest were probably captured or surrendered in front of the enemy.
Anyway, out of a force of more than 115,000 people, excluding artillery and logistics personnel, the actual combat personnel were only about 106,000 to 107,000. After ten days, the casualty rate was close to 50%! It was because the battlefield was too large that, except for the senior commanders, the middle and lower-level officers and ordinary soldiers could not see the overall situation, otherwise this army would have rebelled long ago.
However, it was not possible to continue like this. The casualty rate was really too high. As a result, soldiers from all military camps and divisions began to realize something: this generation of Castile people did know how to fight. But at least in terms of obedience, they were far inferior to the Japanese soldiers in the early 20th century - those were fools who could continue to charge at Port Arthur even though the death rate was over 90%!
"Sir, although it is the unshirkable responsibility of every believer of the Lord to recover the Holy City, and those who die on the charge to recover the Holy City will surely be received by the Lord in heaven in the future, I still can't help but say that the commanders of the 19th and 20th divisions in Jerusalem are really assholes. We are fighting so hard outside, why don't they cooperate and rush out to attack us from both sides! In the past ten days, I haven't seen any noise from inside the encirclement!"
"Yes, sir. We have seen your hard work. You have done everything you can to minimize the casualties of soldiers. However, many times, the Lord's tests for us believers are harsh, so harsh that we really cannot complete them!"
"Sir, on the way to the meeting today, I was stopped by several soldiers for questioning. No, that attitude was not questioning at all, but interrogation. They asked me if the commander was going to use their lives as stepping stones to obtain a higher title. Maldita Sea! What did His Highness Rudolf instill in these soldiers when he was alive!"
"..." After a long silence, Morris sighed helplessly as he looked at the officers below who were expressing their war-weariness in various ways and languages. "Order the entire army to temporarily stop the attack for three days. The entire army should rest and reorganize, and rush to treat the wounded."
"Thank you for your kindness, Your Excellency!"
"Sir, you really love your soldiers like your own sons!"
"You are so capable of advancing and retreating with ease, sir. You are indeed the most outstanding commander of this era!"
When Maurice reluctantly announced the suspension of the attack , a group of Ottoman officers gathered in a canyon six kilometers south of Jerusalem and summarized the war under the chairmanship of Richelieu.
"Sir, in the battles of the past ten days and the battle on the 12th, our army has lost 7,326 men. There are 1,586 seriously wounded and 3,253 lightly wounded in the military hospital. In addition, there are more than 4,000 prisoners of war in our prisoner-of-war camps."
"This amount of casualties is still a bit high."
"Sir." A bearded Pasha stood up and said, "Our army has indeed suffered heavy casualties, but our rough estimate is that the enemy's casualties are at least 20,000, and the wounded are even more!"
"Yes, sir. I was so happy to see those Spaniards rushing towards us and dying like fools, bearing down on our Hotchkiss!"
"Yes, praise be to Allah."
"Praise be to Allah, praise be to the Grand Vizier, and praise be to the wise Civil Secretary!"
Looking at the group of senior officers and pashas who were not convinced by him at first, but have become more and more convinced in recent days, Richelieu's mood also improved: "After such a hard battle, our soldiers have no complaints, right?"
"Very well, sir. Except that the Spaniards are always attacking and they are not able to attend church on time, which is annoying, everything else is fine."
"That's good." Richelieu stood up and said, "Everyone, the population of the Empire is only one-fifth of that of the European Union, and we don't have vast colonies like America and Africa. In terms of manpower , we can't afford the same losses as the other side. If we can't achieve a casualty ratio of more than five to one, our battle will be a failure. So, in the next battle, everyone must continue to work hard and achieve a higher exchange ratio. We must make the Spaniards bleed dry in this millstone!"
