"The air is shaking, as if the sky is burning. ()"
On the reverse slope behind a ridge near the border, Rivoinovich huddled in a bunker, pondering his poems.
Austrian shells flew over his head one after another, leaving a harsh whistling sound.
"Yes, it seems that a storm is coming." Voinovich's messenger Iger said casually.
Unexpectedly, the Serbian army colonel was overjoyed: "Okay, this is good. If you change the rhyme, it will rhyme."
Eagle's jaw almost dropped to the ground.
"Mr. Colonel, you are really leisurely. You can still compose poetry at this time."
"Why not? The Austrians have never scouted the distribution of our positions. Look at their artillery fire. It's like headless flies wandering around in an empty space. How powerful is it?"
At this time, as if specifically to refute Rivoinovich's words, an Austrian artillery shell happened to land near the bunker, and the exploding soil covered their heads and faces, covering their faces.
"Bah, bah," Eagle spat out the sand in his mouth, "Colonel, look, the Austrians are angry, you've made them angry."
"Haha, they are still angry now. After today, they will only be afraid of us." As soon as the colonel finished speaking, the roar above his head stopped abruptly. A few seconds later, there was a thunderous explosion in his ears.
It also gradually faded away, leaving only the groans of the unlucky wounded not far away.
ri Voinovich poked his head out of the bunker, looked at the situation outside, and then turned to give an order to Eagle: "Order the troops to enter the position, the artillery preparation is over. The Austrians are about to attack, so move quickly!"
"
Eagle said "yes" and immediately ducked into the bunker's communication channel, running and shouting: "Enter the position, the enemy is about to attack!"
ri Voinovich closed the ri notebook in his hand. Then he took off the pen cap inserted on the butt of the pen, covered the pen tip and tightened it. He was about to stuff the pen into his pocket, but changed his mind halfway and put the pen in his pocket.
A pen passed down from his grandfather was stuffed into the belongings box where he was sitting.
"I hope the Austrians who find you will treat you well." After Voinovich finished speaking, he stuffed his diary into the pocket of his military uniform, picked up the polished rifle on the table, and jumped into the air.
He jumped out of the command post bunker without enough time to build a roof.
"Quick!" He waved his hand to urge the soldiers who were running in the longitudinal communication trench. "Put up the machine guns! Get the bullets ready. Over there, go check the phone line. I want to make sure we can call for artillery support! Action!
Get up! Let the Austrians know that the Serbs will never give in easily!"
Rivojnovic's words had an obvious effect. The Serbian soldiers sped up and rushed to their fighting posts.
At this time, an old man wearing a black robe emerged from the trench and greeted Rivoinovich: "Good morning, Mr. Colonel."
"Good morning, Bishop." Rivoinovich politely returned the greeting to the old man.
The old pastor smiled at the officer, then took the Bible from the boy who followed him and began to preach on the battlefield.
Amidst the sound of the sermon, the Serbs completed preparations at an alarming speed. Then they waited for another twenty minutes before the Austrian skirmisher line appeared in their sight.
After seeing the appearance of the Austrians, Voinovich was shocked - the density of the Austrian skirmishers was unexpectedly high, and they were moving very slowly. The Austrians were wearing brand-new military uniforms and were covered with all kinds of bells and whistles.
It was a gadget with a bag on its back. What surprised Rivoinovich even more was that there was a small band playing the Grenadier March in the skirmish line! People who didn’t know thought that time had gone back to the Napoleonic War.
era.
ri Voinovich suddenly felt that the future was full of hope. Maybe the Austrian attack would be thwarted on the border, and he and his men could return to Belgrade to reunite with their families.
"Calm down!" Ri Voinovich shouted to the machine gun position not far away from him, "Put them closer and then hit them. Let us give these invaders a lesson that doesn't know the heights of the sky!"
Not long after the artillery preparations began, Conrad left her headquarters in the rear, hundreds of kilometers away from the front line, and went to play polo with the aristocratic ladies in the town where the headquarters was located.
When the staff found Conrad, she was celebrating her hat-trick and scoring the third goal. Conrad looked very displeased with the staff and messengers who came to disturb her mood.
"Didn't I say, don't come to me unless there is a major change!" She angrily scolded her subordinates in front of everyone, "Did the Serbs really make a big splash?"
"No, Your Majesty Marshal, our army is progressing smoothly in most places. However, in some areas we encountered fierce resistance and the attack was delayed."
"What is the use of the reserve troops in the hands of frontline commanders? Are you still bothering me with this kind of thing, you incompetent wastes!" The marshal on the horse waved his whip and was about to whip the staff who came to see him, but instead
The young staff officer nimbly dodged it, which made the anger on her face even more intense, "Asshole! Mobilize the reserve troops to go up and completely defeat the Serbian resistance! Do you want my marshal's scepter to be covered in dust?"
I have concentrated 40 divisions of troops, which is ten divisions more than the total strength of the Serbians, and the number of artillery is several times theirs. This attack is not difficult. We are just going to Bell for a grand attack.
Can't you even do such a simple job as an armed march?"
The young staff officer seemed full of things to say, but when faced with the angry marshal, he gave in.
"Yes, I will inform the headquarters right away."
In Belgrade, Radomini is dealing with Selena's wrath.
"Why not let the unattacked areas launch a counterattack?" the leader of the Black Hand asked Radomini, "The counterattack can disrupt the Austrian deployment! It can reduce the pressure on the Austrian main attack direction, why don't you understand! The counterattack can even
It is possible for us to attack the flanks of the Austro-Hungarian army and defeat the Austro-Hungarian army once and for all! This is the key to victory. What awaits us in defense is failure!"
Radomini slowly filled his pipe with tobacco. Although the marshal was a goddess, he had a morbid love for tobacco and ceramic pipes like a man.
After filling the pipe, she slowly raised her head. She glanced at Selina and said slowly: "Conrad is a fool, but she is not stupid enough to leave undefended in non-offensive areas. We already lack
Artillery, especially heavy artillery, we do not have the ability to destroy the Austro-Hungarian defense line, and our soldiers will only waste their lives in front of machine guns and trenches."
"Then you can't order troops who are not under attack to abandon their positions! You are treason! I want to impeach you!"
"Our original purpose is to consume the Austrian troops, tire them out, and trade space for time. If we don't quickly withdraw the troops on the fronts that have not been attacked. After the defense line is breached, these troops will face the danger of being surrounded and attacked.
The fighting of the soldiers in these areas is to buy time for us to conserve our troops. Don't worry, the Austrians will not notice that our troops have retreated from those areas where the situation is relatively calm. We will use the stepped positions to consume them bit by bit.
them."
Selina stared at Radomini and remained in a stalemate for a few minutes. Then she turned around, flicked her skirt and said "We'll see" and left Radomini's headquarters.
Radomini curled her lips, took out a match and lit her pipe. After taking a puff, she leaned on her favorite rattan chair and blew out a smoke ring leisurely toward the ceiling.
"However, this tactic is really not good for those soldiers who hold on to their positions with their lives." She used her free left hand to draw meaningless circles on the map. She said to herself, "May God accept their souls.
I am the only one who deserves to go to hell."
After saying this, Radomini changed his pipe to his left hand and made a pious sign of the cross on his chest with his right hand.
ri Voinovich patrolled along the trenches. The tragic situation before him made him want to order the troops to abandon their positions and retreat several times.
The Austrians initially launched three waves of attacks, all of which were easily repelled by the Serbs. The Serbian positions were filled with corpses in gray clothes, and a burned and tattered Austro-Hungarian flag was planted sideways in Serbia.
Not far in front of the human position, together with the corpses scattered all over the mountains and plains, it formed an extremely miserable scene.
But then the Austrians launched another artillery bombardment, and the Serbs had no time to retreat along the longitudinal communication trenches to the artillery-evading bunkers on the reverse slope of the hillside, and were severely bombed.
What's more terrible is that half of the machine guns on the position were damaged by this round of artillery. The Austrians must have a good artillery officer nearby to correct the landing point of the artillery.
Then the battle became brutal.
The Austrians attacked the Serbian front line like a flood, and many sections of the trenches fell into hand-to-hand fighting, causing heavy casualties on both sides.
But Rivojnovic's troops still repelled the Austro-Hungarian army in gray clothes, and the Serbian military flag still flew over this low ridge.
But Rivoinovich knew that his troops were at the end of their rope. Walking along the trenches, he found that half of the soldiers were wounded, and the other half, although their hands and feet were intact, were as exhausted as himself.
At this time, a more serious problem faced Ri Voinovich.
"Colonel," Eagle rushed over and reported breathlessly, "we don't have much ammunition anymore. The machine gunners divided the remaining ammunition belts equally. Each machine gun only has 200 rounds of ammunition to shoot. The soldiers' rifles
It’s all empty.”
"Then pick up the Austrian rifles and use them." Rivoinovich said, "In short, we must fight to the last soldier. We will never bow to the Austrians!"
"But..." Eagle looked a little hesitant. Maybe he was too young to die generously - after all, for him, there were still too many wonderful things in life waiting for him to experience.
In fact, for whom is this not the case?
ri Voinovich looked around, his eyes passing over the tired and haggard faces of the soldiers one by one.
He suddenly realized that if he continued to defend the position, these people would definitely be unable to hold on. They would either retreat or kneel on the ground and surrender to the Austrians with their hands raised.
"What a shame," Rivoinovich thought to himself, "if the Austrian army on the other side had the same number as ours, we would have defeated them long ago."
This unwillingness eliminated the option of retreat in Voinovich's mind.
He jumped out of the trench, stood on a large rock that had been blown up by a shell, cleared his throat, and said loudly to the soldiers:
"Soldiers, compatriots! All living Serbs!"
ri As soon as Voinovich opened his mouth, someone interrupted him loudly: "Austrians! They attacked again, with more numbers than last time!"
These words caused obvious panic among the Serbian remnants, and many of them were shaken like Rivojnović.
ri Voinovich raised his voice and shouted, trying his best to overcome the panic caused by the Austrians.
"Compatriots! The Turks have bullied us for five hundred years! How much blood we paid to drive them away and win the independence of Serbia! Today, the Austrians want to replace the Turks again! They want to enslave us! Like
They enslave the Slavs in their own country like that! They want to make our children slaves, they want to obliterate our Orthodox faith, they want to turn our hometown into their farms!
"Think about the wives, children, and children at home! Are you willing to let them become slaves?"
The soldiers looked at each other, but the effect Voinovich wanted to achieve did not appear, but the panic was significantly reduced.
So he continued: "Now, the Austrians are attacking from the rear, and they have suffered greater casualties than us. If we are tired, then they must be even more tired! They have used such fierce artillery fire and used so many troops,
But they are helpless with our small ridge. They must be more frustrated than us! So now, we have an opportunity in front of us."
ri Voinovich waved his hand and pointed at the Austrians who were climbing down the mountain.
"We rush down and take advantage of our superiority to catch them off guard! It's very simple! Retreating is going down the mountain, and charging is also going down the mountain. However, if we retreat, even if we are cowards, not only are we cowards, but also those brothers who have died heroically.
They will be humiliated because of our retreat! But from this side, we are heroes! Even if the Principality of Serbia no longer exists in the future, this land will always remember us!"
At this time, the advancing Serbs began to shoot at Rivojnovic who was standing suddenly on a high place. The bullets flew past him, but he was not afraid and shot all of them.
Turn a blind eye.
He took out the command knife from his waist.
"Serbs, bayonets on!"
Before he finished speaking, the sound of drawing bayonets resounded across the entire position - European armies in this era generally believed that the longer the bayonet, the better, so the bayonets all became like daggers, which had a great impact on shooting.
In order to install the long bayonet on the head of the rifle, the Serbs stood up one after another and leaned their upper bodies out of the trench.
Then a row of fences made of people suddenly appeared in front of the Austrians, and the shining spears were arranged like a forest, shining fiercely in the sun.
The advance of the Austrian skirmisher line slowed down significantly. Everyone from the officers to the soldiers looked surprised, not knowing what the Serbs planned to do.
ri Voinovic raised his command knife high, then slashed it forward, shouting: "For Mother Serbia!"
"Come on!"
The loud shouts shook the world. The Serbs jumped out of the trenches, holding rifles that had long been empty of bullets and shining bayonets. They rushed towards the Austrians like tigers out of their cages.
Many people were wearing colorful clothes, but bandages and bloodstains could not slow down their impact at all.
ri Voinovic's messenger Igor carried the Serbian military flag and followed closely behind the brave commander. He was shot and knelt down, but as soon as his knees touched the ground, the flag in his hand
He was picked up by another soldier.
The Serbs followed the military flag, yelling and running. In front of them was the Austro-Hungarian front that was retreating crazily.
The Austrian flag was cut down, which made the Serbs even louder. They rushed all the way to the foot of the mountain and continued to advance, passing the Austrian front-line artillery positions without stopping.
They charge, charge, until the bullet is fired into the chest, until the legs can no longer use their strength, until the blood drains from the wound.
Although in the end, the Serbian military flag fell, the fear remained in the hearts of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers. (To be continued...)