paranoianovel Chapter 913: All Quiet on the Eastern Front
Chapter 913: All Quiet on the Eastern Front
Chapter 913: All Quiet on the Eastern Front
Yesterday's World of Battleships, Prussia.
It has been three years since the German Crown Prince, Archduke Ferdinand, was assassinated by Serbian extremists while touring the Illyrian Crown, igniting the fuse of the war between the Central Powers and the Allied Powers.
At first, people were optimistic that they would be able to be reunited with their families before Christmas.
But the cruelty of war was far beyond their imagination.
In the Battle of the Somme on the Western Front, tens of thousands of soldiers were killed in just one day. Now, with the third Christmas approaching, the end of the war is still a long way off.
Outside the command post, the soldiers who had withdrawn from the front line to rest sat in front of the campfire, lazily warming their stinky feet that had become diseased due to being soaked in the sewage and mud in the trenches for a long time.
Some soldiers rolled cigarettes and smoked them intermittently.
Almost everyone was silent, like a dull machine, and even the urging and scolding from the officers could not make them move.
Inside the command post, Elector William II of Brandenburg was resting on a camp bed wrapped in a thin blanket.
In the staff room next door, many staff officers were clacking away on typewriters, printing out massive amounts of documents that were to be distributed to various division-level combat units. Germany's Eastern Army was brewing its long-prepared offensive plan.
Ring ring ring——
William was woken up by the urgent ringing of the phone. He rubbed his cheeks vigorously with his right hand, which looked quite haggard due to not having a good sleep for a long time, and quickly answered the phone.
"This is the Eastern Army Headquarters."
"Yes, I'm William."
"What? The military aid promised by the British was requisitioned? Whose order was it? The Kaiser? Bullshit! It must have been the work of your Western Front military!"
"I will ask the Kaiser personally, you arrogant fool!"
William angrily slammed the phone down and yelled, "What do you mean we have been conducting a sit-in war on the Eastern Front? We don't need the military aid at all. The gray beasts of Tsarist Russia seem to be endless. The Eastern Legion has only 200,000 people. If it weren't for the reliable allies of the Knights, the gray beasts would have invaded Silesia long ago!"
The adjutant could only console him: "Your Highness, the battlefield on the Western Front is indeed tragic. The French are much more difficult to deal with than the Russians."
During its development over the years, the Franco-Spanish Federation swallowed up a large number of colonies. Its comprehensive strength was now comparable to that of the former world hegemon, Britain, known as the Empire on which the Sun Never Sets, and it even called itself the "Third Empire on which the Sun Never Sets."
"Of course I know the Western Front is the most important!"
Tens of thousands of people were killed or injured in the Somme River in one day. How could he, an Elector, whose status was higher than that of the kings of Württemberg and Bavaria, not know about it?
But the Western Front was home to most of the German troops, as well as almost all of the British expeditionary forces and colonial divisions. In comparison, after his Eastern Army had been disbanded many times, only a pitiful 200,000 people were left.
"But the war has been going on for three years, and Schlieffen's plan to quickly defeat the French has long since failed! Now, if we want to win this war, defeat Tsarist Russia, and occupy the entire black soil of Ruthenia, this is our only chance of victory!"
William wanted to go to Schönbrunn Palace in person to ask the old and foolish emperor why he was unwilling to change his plan that was totally unworkable!
At this time in Germany, each state had its own army, but in time of war they would be under the unified command of the General Staff.
Most of the Eastern Army, commanded by William II himself, came from Brandenburg, the Hohenzollern's own base, and a small part was composed of states such as Saxony.
On the entire Eastern Front, in addition to his Eastern Army, there were also the Bohemian Army, the Hungarian Army, and the Galician Army. However, in the early stages of the war, the armies of these crown territories suffered an extremely tragic defeat in Galicia due to underestimation of the enemy and reckless advance, with losses of up to 400,000 people.
Now, William no longer expected the troops of these crown territories to play much of a role, and only hoped that they could hold their own lines.
The real backbone of the Eastern Front still has to be the Baltic Germans.
At its peak, the Knights Templar once mobilized an army of 1.2 million. After Germany suffered a disastrous defeat in the early days, they turned the tide and launched a decisive counterattack, annihilating millions of Russian troops in one fell swoop, which stabilized the battlefield on the Eastern Front.
"The aid promised by the British will be allocated to the Western Front first. What about the domestic supplies promised by the General Staff? Why is there a shortage every time it is delivered? When it is reported, they even say that it is to increase the rations for civilians. Who is fighting hard on the front line?"
The adjutant's voice was somewhat bitter: "Your Highness, the current domestic situation is not optimistic. Due to the massive issuance of national debt, inflation is getting worse and worse. People are living in hardship. Anti-war demonstrations and strikes are happening one after another. Even Vienna is not at peace."
"They are hiding in the safe rear, aren't they just eating less and doing more hard labor? My soldiers are on this damn front line, worrying about losing their lives all the time, and the emperor is withholding their supplies and allocating them to civilians?"
William felt his temples throbbing and his blood pressure was about to burst through the top of his head.
The adjutant just smiled bitterly. The price of goods in the country has skyrocketed by more than ten times. The quota allocated to each person is simply not enough to meet daily needs. Fuel, food, and clothing are all in short supply.
The bread was filled with sawdust straw.
Women had to take over the heavy physical labor on behalf of their husbands, leaving many children without care and living on the streets.
Many schools even dismantled tables and chairs to use as firewood, and citizens had to run to the suburbs to chop firewood for the winter. The parks that were once full of greenery were now deserted, as if a swarm of locusts had passed through.
On the streets of Berlin, even the garbage is no longer dealt with and is piled up in a stinking mess. Rats and poisonous insects are everywhere, and even monsters such as ghosts have bred. If you don't know better, you would think you have returned to the Middle Ages.
It really proves the nonsense that "soldiers on the front line just need to devote themselves to the battlefield, follow orders, and fight hard to kill the enemy, but those in the rear have a lot of things to consider."
There is no way to avoid the shortage of materials in the country, for one thing, overseas routes are blocked.
The French blew up the Suez Canal and occupied Gibraltar, the gateway to the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean has in fact become an inland sea of the Allies.
The Allies' overseas routes had to shift to the longer Atlantic route.
The British's maritime power advantage was not reflected as a result. Instead, the Allied "sea wolves", that is, the submarine forces, were active in the Atlantic all day long, wantonly hunting down those unprotected merchant ships.
Secondly, too many workers were conscripted to the front lines, military-industrial enterprises, and logistics departments, resulting in a shortage of labor resources in agriculture and daily necessities. As the production of daily necessities decreased, they naturally became scarce.
"And those cowardly and incompetent Turkic barbarians promised to join the war but kept delaying. Do they really think that after the Allies win, Tsarist Russia will give up its ambition to annex Constantinople?"
The Ottomans, who had originally planned to join the war to take revenge on Tsarist Russia, had to repeatedly delay the promised time of entry into the war because the Mediterranean was completely blockaded and the German Adriatic Fleet was stuck in a bathtub and unable to get out.
Tsarist Russia's territorial ambitions have always been endless, and their appetite is also good enough, otherwise they would not have swallowed up so much of Siberia, which was considered a wasteland by so many Europeans.
Anyone with a discerning eye knew that once the Allies won, unless the French were willing to fight their allies for the Ottomans, Tsarist Russia's annexation of Constantinople and even the entire Balkan region would be a foregone conclusion.
"And those Czechs, I've long said they should be driven out of Germany, but Franz insisted on bringing them into the empire, and now they're causing trouble again."
The Habsburgs had ruled Bohemia for nearly four hundred years, but in William's view, their Germanization process was not as good as that of the Teutonic Knights on the Poles and Balts.
Now, with the first batch of noble officers and soldiers loyal to the German emperor lost in this meat grinder-like war, the national sentiment of the Czechs was ignited again, and many Czechs believed the promise made by "Tsar Dad" to agree to their independent country.
This led to a case in which soldiers in the Bohemian Legion mutinied, killed their officers and fled to the opposite side.
Tsarist Russia even incorporated all the Bohemian soldiers captured in the early stages of the war into a so-called "Czech Legion" and turned their guns against Germany.
On the other hand, the Poles in the Knights Templar were not interested in their Slav father at all. They could even be said to be the vanguard of anti-Russian forces and had an extremely strong will to fight. This forced William to satirize the incompetence of the Habsburg family.
"Without this batch of supplies, the offensive plan will be shelved again. Am I going to sit in the command post and watch the fate of defeat befall this country?"
The performance of Tsarist Russia was far from what the Allies had expected. It was just a giant with feet of clay that could be easily kicked to pieces and disintegrated.
The huge amount of funds injected by the Franco-Spanish Federation enabled them to build up a fairly strong industry. With the constant supply of materials from the Mediterranean routes and a large number of cheap gray livestock, Tsarist Russia would not be killed even if it lost another million people.
boom! boom! boom!
Heavy footsteps sounded.
There was a burst of cheers from outside.
"The Grand Commander is back!"
"The Grand Commander has returned victoriously!"
William hurriedly stood up to greet him. He did not dare to neglect the grand master at all. The grand master of the Teutonic Knights was his uncle. He had vowed to devote his whole body and soul to God, so he did not marry and had no children.
According to the family plan his father had told him, after his uncle's death, the Teutonic Knights would be reorganized into the Kingdom of Poland through a will and inherited by himself.
At that time, if the kingdom could be incorporated into Germany, it would be a situation where the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerns coexisted in the north and south, and Germany could even be reorganized into a dual empire ruled by two emperors.
But this assumes they can win!
Otherwise, the State of the Knights, a country composed of Baltic, Prussian and part of Polish territory, would definitely be dismembered after the war.
The commander jumped off his mount, a Tyrannosaurus Rex-like Land Dragon that was more than ten meters tall, and walked straight into the command post.
He was a thin middle-aged man, and his personality was very similar to his brother's, serious, old-fashioned, and even a little mean, but he still won the unanimous love of almost all the soldiers.
Because he ate and lived with the soldiers, always led the charge in battle, and time and again proved to the soldiers the truth that "following him will always lead to victory."
"Uncle, what's the situation on the front line now?"
The Grand Commander said solemnly, "The situation is similar to what we expected. The internal unrest in Tsarist Russia is also very serious. The combat effectiveness of the frontline soldiers has dropped significantly. If the Land Cruisers provided by the British are in place, coupled with my specially trained 'Storm Commandos', I am confident that I can drive another sharp knife into the heart of Tsarist Russia."
William's expression froze slightly: "Uncle, I'm afraid that batch of supplies can't be transferred here."
The Grand Commander was stunned for a moment: "He was called up by the Western Front again?"
William nodded helplessly.
The Grand Commander was silent for a moment, then he sighed softly, and he looked like he had aged ten years.
"William, maybe it's not a good idea for you to stay at the front. You should go to the General Staff and tell those fools everything you have seen and heard. They either underestimated the Russian Empire and thought they were a giant with feet of clay that could be killed with one kick, which led to heavy losses in the early stages of the war. Or they overestimated the Russian Empire and thought they were still the European steamroller that even Napoleon was defeated by, and they only wanted to maintain the front line."
William was silent for a moment, and then said softly: "Uncle, do you think that this is a matter of life and death for our family?"
The Grand Master looked at him seriously and nodded, "After paying such a huge price, if we lose again, who will believe in our rule? When the crown falls to the ground, it will naturally be a matter of life and death."
"I understand."
William breathed a sigh of relief: "My father left me a trump card, which is said to be able to save the situation in times of crisis. I don't know what it is, but now I have no choice but to give it a try."
"Ah."
The Grand Commander patted William's shoulder helplessly and said, "What can old man Frederick leave for you? A dusty artifact? Cutting-edge weapons and equipment? Or a private army, or the weapons of a legion?"
"Either the weapons and equipment are worth looking forward to. If they are private soldiers, I suspect they have been driven into the factory to screw in screws by now."