Chapter 204 Battle of Beirut (Part 1)

Beirut, Syria.

Gabrentz thought the British must be crazy for taking the initiative. He really couldn't figure out how 5,000 people could attack a position defended by 20,000 people. What's the difference between this and committing suicide?

However, as a representative of Austrian soldiers, he couldn't be timid and had to act like a real soldier.

In fact, the Egyptians were also in a panic. They didn't expect that the British army, which had been besieged for more than half a month, would have reinforcements, and they didn't expect that the coalition forces would choose to fight outside the city.

Only Ibrahim, the Egyptian coach, even shouted "Allah has appeared!" He felt that this was a godsend. Although taking Beirut could not change the situation, he could use the British and the fleet as hostages to obtain better surrender conditions for Egypt.

But he was the only one who was happy. Most Egyptian soldiers could not fill their stomachs, and they felt that the future of victory was slim. A siege like this would only starve at most. Once the two sides exchanged fire on the front battlefield, they would go to the battlefield like their dead compatriots.

The battle was about to break out. First, Egypt opened fire on the British troops who walked out of the fortress. However, unlike what they imagined, the British did not line up to be bombarded.

The first British and Austrian scattered soldiers who came out were almost unaffected by the Egyptian bombardment. After all, the distance between the two sides was still thousands of meters. It would take God to hit a target of any size with the cannons of this era.

Then, the coalition artillery also began to fire. Most of the long-barreled heavy cannons used by the British had large calibers and great power, and used special high-explosive shells.

One shell after another whizzed over the heads of the Egyptian queue, scaring them to either lie on the ground or turn around and run away.

However, they soon discovered that not many of those shells fell into the crowd.

Just as they were glad that they had escaped, a huge explosion came from the Egyptian artillery position.

Those Egyptian artillerymen who were bombarded by the 32-pound long-barreled cannon instantly turned into a pile of scattered meat, and even the steel was blown into pieces, and a 30cm deep crater even appeared on the ground.

Then countless shells fell one after another on the Egyptian artillery positions.

The momentum of this large-caliber long-barreled cannon was amazing, and the power of the high-explosive shells was also terrifying. However, after the smoke cleared, the Egyptian soldiers found that only a few cannons were blown up and a few people were killed.

The cannons of this era were like this. Compared with bombarding infantry, they were more suitable for sieges and sea battles, and they used direct fire to attack larger targets. Because of its small shooting angle and straight trajectory, the accuracy was also higher.

However, with the artillery at this time, shooting infantry at a distance of one thousand meters was similar to using anti-aircraft guns to shoot mosquitoes.

However, before the Egyptian soldiers were happy for long, the coalition skirmishers began to shoot.

The skirmishers on both sides were elite. The British skirmishers came from the Scottish Highland Infantry Regiment. They used the most advanced muzzle-loading smoothbore rifles in the world at this time, the Brunswick 1838 percussion rifle. Only a very small number of troops in the UK were equipped with this rifle.

The Brunswick rifle is certainly not as famous as the famous Brown Bess, but its iconic double-ring groove rifling and special bullets are definitely impressive.

There are convex grooves on both sides of its bullets, and you need to face the grooves to put them in when loading.

Although it looks stupid and troublesome, it is highly accurate and easy to clean, which is a major advancement in the history of muzzle-loading rifles.

The Austrian skirmishers are also elite, and they also have the best rifles of the Austrian Empire, but compared with the British Brunswick, they are instantly not as good.

The coalition skirmishers are all elite in the army, with accurate shooting and courage. As the gunshots sounded, people in the Egyptian ranks kept falling.

But Ibrahim ordered his soldiers not to fight back, but to let the large troops retreat, send out skirmishers to meet, and use artillery fire to put as much pressure on the enemy skirmishers as possible.

Ibrahim has been to France and learned Napoleon's column plus skirmish tactics. However, he felt that it was not the time to go all out, because the line infantry of the coalition had not all come out of the fortress.

Of course, he would not let his troops suffer too many casualties before the attack. Using skirmishers against skirmishers was theoretically the wisest choice.

But Ibrahim forgot one thing. His so-called skirmishers were just ordinary infantrymen holding rifles.

Most of the coalition's skirmishers were veterans who had experienced hundreds of battles, or hunters who grew up in the mountains.

The shooting between the skirmishers soon turned into a one-sided massacre. More than half of the Egyptian skirmishers with turbans were soon knocked down, and the rest did not dare to stand up to load ammunition, and fell to the ground one after another.

The Charleville rifle itself was a generation gap from the coalition's weapons. Lying on the ground to load ammunition greatly slowed down the loading speed. Soon, a considerable number of Egyptian soldiers who lay down to try to avoid bullets could no longer stand up.

At this time, the morale of the Egyptian skirmishers collapsed, and Ibrahim threw the scimitar in his hand to the ground.

"Let the Death Army send these cowards to hell!"

"Those who retreat will die!"

With an order, a group of Sudanese natives rushed towards the fleeing Egyptian soldiers with swords and spears.

Although the Egyptian skirmishers had guns in their hands, they had no bullets at this time, and they were not much different from fire sticks. Theoretically, in this case, they had only two choices when facing the Sudanese natives rushing up, either to escape or to fight for their lives.

But these Egyptian skirmishers chose to kneel down and beg for mercy. This was a certain death path. The Sudanese natives could not understand what those Egyptians were saying.

Just hearing the "pop, pop" sound of the blade cutting through the human body and the spear piercing the human body, those poor Egyptian skirmishers fell into the yellow sand.

However, the Sudanese natives still felt that they were not satisfied and began to trample the corpses of the dead, cut off their hands, feet and heads, and held them high above their heads to show off their achievements.

This behavior made the Allied skirmishers, especially the Austrian skirmishers who had never seen such a scene, feel nauseated.

"Is this how they fight?" Captain Moho said subconsciously, and then he realized that he was next to a British skirmisher.

The other person couldn't understand his German and could only smile awkwardly.

So Captain Mojo took advantage of the time to change bullets, went to the back and shouted to two Austrian skirmishers, "It's disgusting for these Africans to fight!"

It's a pity that the two skirmishers couldn't understand his German, so they could only reply in very poor German, "I don't understand."

This situation is common in the Austrian army. Generally speaking, soldiers only have three things in common, eating, sleeping and women.

General Gablenz put away the telescope in his hand and said to Colonel Carter beside him.

"Are these African cannibals? It's so scary. It's hard to imagine how you survived the attack of these savages."

Colonel Carter shook his head.

"Look, they are one of the few jokes on this battlefield."