.February 7, 1916, light rain.

With rain and snow, a large area of ​​land south of the Alps became muddy overnight, and the temperature dropped several degrees at once.

Early in the morning, German armored soldiers, Major General Guderian, sighed because of the bad weather. If the sunny day like yesterday could be maintained, his armored troops might have been able to see the Mediterranean in the Austro-Hungarian Empire through the Croatia-Slavonia Kingdom.

Now, not only is it unsatisfactory, but even the opponent is fighting to the death.

Before dawn, a new order from the Supreme Command was sent from Berlin. Guderian learned the latest situation of the Austrian army and navy. In fact, his vanguard had contact with the troops commanded by Baron Condra one night before, but neither side was interested in fighting, so they quickly broke off contact.

In desperation, Guderian ordered his armored troops to postpone their departure time and temporarily rest on the spot.

Two hours later, news came from the 4th and 5th Army that the two armies following the 1st Armored Army of Guderian had arrived at the border of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. Their infantry was still advancing, but the speed of the march was really disappointing.

As for Guderian, he has placed his command near Kamnik, more than 30 kilometers on this side of the border, and his main force has set up camp on both sides from the border to several major kilometers here.

The reconnaissance teams have been sent out, and the reconnaissance range of the vanguard troops has also been expanded to near Ljubljana, but no reconnaissance planes have flew overhead for the whole morning. Although this is due to the weather, Guderian is still a little worried.

After lunch, a squadron of airships transferred from Germany came in the rain. Guderian quickly notified the airship troops of the areas he was worried about and asked them to go to those areas immediately for close reconnaissance.

After receiving the order from the Supreme Command, General Hausen, the commander-in-chief of the lower cluster, immediately ordered his engineering troops and part of the 5th Army to build a number of airports and airship landing sites around Klagenfurt, Austria. The airports in this era are relatively simple, with flat grass or hard land. Only bombers have a slightly higher requirements for ground ground; as for the airship landing site, it is even simpler. You only need to find an open area, then build some tether towers for the airship mooring, prepare some sandbags, and then transport the ammunition and medicine resources required for the airship supply to the landing site.

Although it is simple to build an ordinary airport, the runway with low ground requirements also means that it will become soft and muddy when it encounters rain. Therefore, runways compacted by soil and rocks can meet the requirements of aircraft take-off and landing all day. It takes much longer to build such runways.

Of course, the muddy roads not only caused trouble to the Germans. Two hours later, Guderian received a reconnaissance report from the airship troops. A large number of Austrian troops were rushing from the Italian side to the southern part of the Croatia-Slavonia Kingdom. The situation was in line with the speculation of the Supreme German Command - the Austrians were preparing to concentrate the army and navy there to fight the German invading forces for the final battle. If they were defeated, they would be burned. If they were victorious, there would be a turning point to drive the Germans out of the empire.

According to Guderian's own idea, when the Austrian army has made every effort before it has stabilized its foothold, the Supreme Command has other plans. The Command warns the commanders in the order to the main troops of the group army. "Before the Command lifts this order, try to march 15-20 nautical miles away from the coast, and avoid being tempted by the opponent's ground forces and approaching the coast. Otherwise, it will most likely lead to heavy artillery bombardment from the main fleet of the Austro-Hungarian Navy!"

Although Guderian's armored troops were strong, they could not compete with the battleships in the water. To deal with these giant beasts in the water, one was to transfer a large number of fortress guns, the other was to use ships to ships, and the other was to concentrate air forces to attack from the air.

At 3 pm on February 7, German Admiral Hippel led a part of the German Mediterranean Fleet into the Adriatic waters, and soon joined the six German submarines at the site of reconnaissance missions in this area. One night before, three of the submarines, u213, u226, and u310, had torpedo attacks on Austro-Hungarian Navy warships outside the Pula military port. Although multiple torpedo hit the target, they did not sink an Austro-Hungarian warship. The extent of damage caused to the opponent's warships is still unclear.

After receiving the encrypted telegram from the Supreme Command, Hippel asked his fleet to reduce its speed to 10 knots while continuing to gather German submarines in nearby areas.

At 4:30 pm, near dusk, the 9th Airship Squadron, which flew from Germany in the rain, flew to the Bay of Venice. With the command of Commander Major Alchett, 18 Zeppelin airships spread out in formation and began to search for the nearby sea.

Among these 18 airships, 12 are medium-sized Zeppelin airships with a hydrogen capacity of less than 30,000 cubic meters, and the remaining six are gas capacity of more than 30,000 cubic meters, with a load capacity of more than 2 tons. Among them, two are super-large Zeppelin airships of the fortress class.

The German Fortress-class airship began to be equipped with the Luftwaffe in August 1915. In addition to its large size and load capacity, the biggest feature of this airship is the weapon it carries - the 75mm short-barrel howitzer. A long time ago, people imagined to bring a cannon onto an aircraft. The romantic French tried to bring a simplified 37mm cannon onto an aircraft during the war, but found that the aircraft could not withstand the huge recoil brought by the artillery firing, so this idea had to be temporarily given up.

Compared with aircraft, the airship has a much larger load capacity. However, the early airship pods were simple and not strong, so they could not withstand the recoil when the cannon fire. To solve this problem, German engineers installed a special steel frame pod for the fortress-class airship, covering the outside with a layer of wooden boards and canvas. A simplified version of the cannon wheel, tail and shield removed, forming a small turret with a muzzle facing downwards. Although they had tried their best to reduce the weight, such a pod had a weight of nearly 1 ton with a rack and artillery. With five crew members and backup shells, the total weight of the pod had reached 2.8 tons when taking off.

Under extremely secret circumstances, the Fortress-class airship conducted the first aerial artillery test in northern Germany in June 1915. When flying at a cruising speed at a height of 4,000 meters, the bombing point is no more than 300 meters away from the target, and the bombing point is no more than 250 meters at a height of 3,000 meters. When it reaches an altitude of 1,000 meters, the bounce point is very close to the target. This effect made the Luftwaffe very satisfied. They just believed that the power of the 37mm artillery assembled on the test airship was lacking, so during the second test, the airship was modified with the current 75mm short-barrel gun, and the amount of ammunition was reduced from 40 rounds of 37mm to 15 rounds.

The final effect met the requirements of the Air Force. After reporting approval to the German Emperor, the Air Force customized 50 such airships in one go, and the Army also placed an order of 20. By February 1916, Zeppelin had delivered 36 ships to the German army, and the remaining 34 ships would be completed within the year.

One hour later, at 5:30 pm, the 9th German Airship Squadron discovered the Austro-Hungarian fleet, which was slowly heading north in six columns, 30 nautical miles from the coast. Commander Major Alchet made a quick decision: to carry out inaccurate bombing on the Austro-Hungarian fleet.

In airship tactics, the so-called inaccurate bombing means that the target is not adjusted to the height after discovering it. The height of this bombing is usually higher, and the accuracy is difficult to ensure. It is generally used to bomb large targets such as cities and ports.

After the German airship appeared, the Austro-Hungarian fleet also responded immediately. The flagship "Prince Eugen" quickly raised a signal flag for acceleration. Before the German airship flew over the fleet, the huge Austro-Hungarian fleet had been divided into six single columns. Each column used different speeds to evade according to the ship's situation. Among them, the battleship columns composed of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd battleship detachments reached 16 knots. The slower supply ship columns sailed in the opposite direction to the battleship columns at a speed of 8 knots.

From the air, the thickest black smoke is the most eye-catching, and it is also the core of the opponent's fleet - 9 huge battleships. Due to the right and wrong bombing, the 18 airships were neither picky nor picky except for the fortress level. They directly dropped the bombs on the ship closest to them. In a short while, tall water columns rose up on the entire sea surface, and more than a hundred high-speed evasive ships. From a high point, this sea area boiled like water in a hot pot.

Before the German airship group began to drop bombs, the Austro-Hungarian fleet opened fire into the air without any weakness, filling the shotgun and firing desperately. The unique sound of the 20mm carrier-based machine gun kept ringing, and the sound of machine guns like fried beans.

With a loud bang, a main command tower of Austro-Hungarian cruiser was shot and exploded! The German airship troops dropped more than 120 aviation bombs. It was not uncommon to hit one or two, but before the unlucky cruiser exploded, no one saw the German bomb flying towards it, and the traces left after the explosion were clearly a grenade rather than an aviation bomb!

Immediately afterwards, the same situation was the case when the bomb was exploded on the other battleship. The officers and soldiers standing on the side of the ship clearly heard the shells roaring and falling into the water and exploded, but there were no German warships within a radius of dozens of nautical miles. Not to mention that the German army had not occupied the coastal areas, even if they occupied them, their cannons could not hit so far!

One after another, howitzers continued to land in the area where the Austro-Hungarian fleet was located, and from the bounce point, they were basically targeted. This made even Admiral Anton House, who had extremely rich naval combat experience, confused!

A quarter of an hour later, the German airship formation dropped the bomb and turned back, and the strange shelling stopped. During this period, only one destroyer and a supply ship were attacked by German aviation bombs, but the number of ships hit by grenades reached 7. Fortunately, these ships suffered only some not serious injuries. Although the Austro-Hungarian fleet did not shoot down the German airship, the cannon shotgun seemed to hit several of them. The Austro-Hungarian sailors could see them slowly descending from altitude with their naked eyes. However, after throwing some things from above, they finally maintained their height one by one and turned away.

In addition to regret, the middle and lower-level officers and soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian fleet began to feel scared, because they had only attacked them with less than 20 airships, which made them exhausted. Although they didn't know how many airships Germany had, it should be no problem to send one or two hundred.

What's even more deadly is that some officers in the fleet had already learned about the huge German airship fleet flying to Vienna before leaving the port. Although General Anton House issued a ban order to these people, after such trouble, Germany had countless airships and news that could appear at any time still left without shame. It spread like radio waves that were constantly enhanced by energy. The content became more and more exaggerated, and everyone who heard it was terrified.

Recognizing the abnormal atmosphere in the middle and lower levels of the fleet, several squadron commanders of the Austro-Hungarian fleet were anxiously on a small boat after nightfall. They asked Admiral Anton to leave the Bay of Venice. They felt that instead of being bombed here, it was better to retreat to the Pula Military Port. If they felt that Pula Military Port was unsafe, then retreat to the Taranto Military Port in Italy.

"I have considered this!" Anton House told the generals earnestly: "If you want to survive, there is only one way out, that is, surrender to the Germans!"

The generals looked at each other, but soon, Major General Christopher, the commander of the cruiser squadron, said in his unique loud voice: "Surrender? Are we worthy of His Majesty the Just Dead His Majesty? Are we worthy of the Austrian people? Are we worthy of our souls?"

The call made the generals who originally planned to propose negotiations with the Germans feel ashamed.

"Well said!" General Anton sincerely praised. In fact, he had never thought of compromising. He just wanted to test the reactions of some of the people.

"I think my great power of Xiajia was attacked by such a rogue German. As the essence of the country, our navy has the most responsibility to defend the dignity of the empire! In this way, the deceased Emperor Ao will be relieved in heaven!"

"Fight for His Majesty the Ao Emperor!" The generals said softly, although their tone was weak, at least they no longer thought about the same as before and only worried about their own wealth and life.

"Very good. Since we want to fight, we have to fight with dignity! When we retreat into the Pula military port, we can only be passively beaten. Once we are air strikes by the Germans, it is difficult for our warships to evade in the limited harbor area; when we retreat into the Taranto military port, we should be able to avoid the attack of German land-based aircraft, but the German airships and naval aircraft will still be followed. What I am more worried about is the Italians, who may have reached an agreement with the Germans. In this way, it will become very unsafe for us to stay in Taranto!" Admiral Anton first analyzed his ideas to the generals, and everyone agreed that it is indeed safer to be on the vast sea than staying in the harbor.

"Strategically speaking, retreating into any harbor is a passive defense or even a evasive defense, which basically does not help reverse the current situation! Now, Baron Condra is leading the main force of the Austrian Army into the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia from Italy. They will launch defenses on the line of Ridi Mountain in the Branica River to protect the central and southeastern parts of the kingdom from German invasion, and wait for the support of Hungarian reinforcements on the spot! Look!" Anton House brought everyone to the map, which marked the plan with a series of symbols and arrows. "We will give them fire support behind the army's defense line. The German invasion is very strong, and the heavy artillery must be still in the rear, so we have a chance to repel their armored forces with heavy artillery!"
Chapter completed!