Rise of Australia

Chapter 454 The surrender of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a counterattack across the board
In the peace treaty between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Allies, the Austro-Hungarian Empire repeatedly mentioned a clause that no country in the Allies should support the Hungarian independence forces.

The Hungarian independence forces include not only the well-known Independence Party in Hungary, but also the capitalist and landlord class who are trying to promote Hungarian independence.

If there is a map, it can be clearly found that most of the terrain of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is surrounded by mountains, and only Hungary is one of the few plains in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This has also led to the fact that most of the Hungarian region is a small-scale peasant economy, and of course it also contains a considerable number of farmers and small capitalists.

The completely different economic models of Hungary and Austria are also destined to conflict between Hungary and Austria.

But for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the empire could not lose such an important granary as Hungary.

After full consideration by the Austro-Hungarian government, it was finally decided that even if they lost some more land, they could not lose the right to rule Hungary.

Of course, there is good news for Karl I, his throne as emperor is temporarily preserved.

In order for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to rule Hungary better, Karl I's monarchy cannot be lost for the time being.

After all, in addition to the emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Karl I also held the titles of King of Bohemia and King of Hungary.

It is also the combination of the three titles of Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia and King of Hungary that constitutes the dual state of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Once the monarchy was overthrown, the countries that were united because they were also Habsburg domains lost their reason for uniting with each other.

It has to be admitted that Habsburg, as the greatest royal family in Europe, has a very rich family background.

Even at the beginning of the 20th century, the Habsburgs still held the titles of the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary and the Kingdom of Bohemia. They were one of the most glorious and most glorious families in the European royal family.

This contract is about to be concluded, and it should be Karl I and the government of the Kingdom of Hungary who should relax.

Karl I was able to keep his throne, and the Hungarian Kingdom government was able to deal with its own crisis, which can be described as a win-win situation.

As for the losses of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it can only be borne by the imperial government.But for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it may be the best choice to end the war early. At least it can avoid the further consumption of its own war potential by the war, and it can also avoid the human and property losses caused by the war to the Hungarian Kingdom.

When hearing that the Russian government had re-sent troops to join the war, officials of the Royal Hungarian government, large and small, were basically frightened.

If this contract can be fully confirmed, at least it will give the Hungarian government a period of time to develop and deal with the domestic minority issues.

On July 1917, 7, because the progress of the peace talks was very smooth, the truce was finally announced in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it was decided to mobilize most of the troops to the German border, trying to fight Germany in a short time.

The news of the surrender of the Austro-Hungarian Empire shocked the European people, and it also meant that it was a matter of time before Germany fell.

There are even quite a few European newspapers who are already clamoring. They even think that the Allied forces can end the war before Christmas this year, so that all European people can once again usher in a peaceful Christmas.

On July 7, more than 24 Australasian troops returned to the Western Front on transport ships, which also meant that the Australasian army would face the German army again.

Together with the Balkan Allied Forces, more than 50 troops were taken out, and together with the coordinated operations of 50 Italian troops, the total number of Allied troops on the European Western Front has approached 1000 million.

This is almost all the current cards of the Allied Powers. In the one and a half years since 1916, the Allied Powers, especially Britain and France, suffered more than 400 million casualties, and the death toll was close to 200 million.

And the Germans are not having a good time. The total number of casualties in the past year and a half has reached 350 million, and the death toll is close to 160 million.

The Battle of Verdun, the Battle of the Somme, and the Spring Offensive caused a total of more than 800 million casualties and a total death toll of more than 350 million. It is also the worst period since the outbreak of the war.

During the entire war period, the total number of soldiers from various European countries in the war has exceeded 2000 million, the total number of casualties has exceeded 1500 million, and the death toll has reached 600 million.

Even the death toll is comparable to some small and medium-sized countries in Europe.The cumulative number of casualties is even closer to the population size of Australasia, which is enough to show the cruelty of this war.

In addition to the consumption of manpower, the consumption of funds and materials in European countries has not decreased at all.

In the year before the war broke out, that is, in 1913, the military expenditure of European countries was generally only about [-] million pounds, and some countries did not even exceed [-] million pounds.

But now, even Italy and Australasia, which have the least military spending, are hovering around [-] million pounds.

And countries such as Britain, France, Germany and Russia, which consume the most, spend tens of billions of pounds on wars every year. It can be said that they are crazily squeezing the country's potential and harming the country's economic development.

It is no exaggeration to say that an early end to the war has become the expectation of all countries.

But the problem is that Germany is not qualified to end the war early unless he ends the war with a defeated attitude.

You must know that the current German government is in the ruling stage of the military government, and it is absolutely impossible for those soldiers and Junker nobles to accept failure.

The way that the Germans dreamed of ending the war with staged victories could never be accepted by the Allied Powers. This also meant that the Allied Powers had to decide the outcome with Germany, and it was enough that neither side had any room to fight back.

At the beginning of August 1917, three American divisions were transported to the Western Front, which also allowed the Allied forces on the Western Front to officially break through 1000 million.

On August 8, following an order from the Allied Powers' provisional headquarters, tens of millions of Allied Powers troops were scattered on the front lines of Belgium and France, launching a full-scale attack on the German defenses.

The counteroffensive of the Allied Powers was shocking, which also made the artillery fire on the border never stop. The vibration of the shell explosion was like an earthquake, and the entire border was shrouded in a layer of white fog. It was impossible to see the deployment of the enemy's troops from above. .

With the Verdun area as the boundary, the Belgian area north of Verdun is the Northern Theater, the Verdun area is the Central Theater, and the south of Verdun is the Southern Theater.

The Northern Theater has 150 million British Expeditionary Forces and 50 Australasian Expeditionary Forces as the main force.

The Central Theater has 50 British Expeditionary Force, 250 million French main forces and 10 American troops.

The southern theater has 50 Italian troops, 80 French troops and 55 Balkan troops.

In addition, Britain and France each have more than 100 million colonial troops, deployed behind these front-line troops, responsible for transporting materials and serving as reserve troops.

Although the total size of the army seems bluffing, in fact there are less than 300 million real elite troops, and most of the others are colonial troops and troops with less combat effectiveness.

The number of troops in Germany is only half of that of the Allied Powers, and there are less than 500 million troops in full.

More importantly, a considerable part of these 500 million people are recruits, and their actual combat effectiveness is also questionable.

Moreover, Germany has at least one million troops at the mercy of Russia.Since the Austro-Hungarian Empire was suddenly attacked by Russia, it has only strengthened its defenses on the Russian border to prevent Russia from repeating its old tricks and catching itself by surprise.

At this time, both sides are holding the idea of ​​victory, because once this decisive battle fails, it is really not far from failure, and it is even very likely that the enemy will directly enter the capital.

Although the Allied Powers did not have such worries, the major European media had already blown out the bullshit. Many British and French media gave the public a strong guarantee that the war would end within 1917, so that the people could have a peaceful Christmas.

The people don't care whether the war on the front line will be complicated or changeable. If there is unfavorable news from the front line at this time, no one can bear the anger of the people.

You know, in order to promote this decisive battle, the British changed their conscription system from the previous conscription system to the conscription system, and quickly raised more than 200 million combat troops.

Although the army composed of real British people is less than 100 million, the conscription system does allow the British to have more troops.

If there is any unfavorable news from the front line at this time, I am afraid that the people will immediately resist the newly revised conscription system, and even affect the source of British troops.

Under such pressure, the politicians of the Allied Powers did not care about the actual situation on the front line.Their purpose is only one, and that is to obey the wishes of the people and completely end the war this year.

Although more casualties will be paid for this, compared with an overall victory, some casualties are completely acceptable.

In particular, Britain and France have a large number of colonial troops, and these colonial troops are used as cannon fodder.

The Allied Headquarters adopted a completely opposite strategy in this counterattack, choosing a concentrated and oppressive charge instead of the previous roundabout outflank.

In fact, it is normal to think about it. On the borders of Belgium, France and Germany, there are more than 1400 million troops from the Allies of the Allies.

Although these troops are distributed in all directions, they basically occupy the front line, and there are very few places where they can break through, and they are extremely easy to be discovered by the enemy's troops from other directions.

Instead of this, it is better to use the absolute advantage of the number of people to directly charge in groups in the front, mainly attack a certain point of the enemy, and then swarm up to destroy the enemy's defensive front.

Although doing so would lead to more casualties, the most important thing for the Allied forces at present is the number of people, and the most unaffordable thing is time.

In the five days from August 8th to August 6th, the single-day casualties of the Allies were as high as 8, 10, 7.8, 4.4, and 3.1, and the single-day death tolls were as high as 5.1 and 3.7. 2.2, 1.3, 0.6, 1.7.

The total casualties of 22.1 people and the total death of 6.7 people were caused in five days. On average, more than 1.3 people died and 3.1 people were injured every day. Casualties for most of the campaign.

Of course, under the premise of huge casualties, the results achieved by the Allied Powers are also very gratifying.

The first is the casualties caused to Germany. Although the German casualties are far behind this figure, the total casualties in five days are as high as nearly 10, and the death is also close to 3.

Although it seems that the battle loss ratio of the two sides is close to 2 to 1, it must be known that most of the Allies used colonial troops. Such a battle loss ratio is actually dominated by the Allies.

The reason why the Allies were able to use the native troops to cause such casualties was because the three major fronts had hoarded a large number of artillery pieces, and even the total number of artillery pieces had exceeded [-].

Millions of shells are consumed every day on the entire Western Front, far exceeding the combined production of shells from Britain, France, Australia, Italy, and the United States.

Fortunately, there is a big dog in the United States as a supply, and there is no shortage of shells and ammunition on the Western Front in a short period of time.

After all, the mobilization progress of the American army has been very slow. The current total size of the army has just exceeded 20, and the number of troops with real combat effectiveness is even less than 10.

Under such a premise, the Americans definitely want to increase their contribution to the war from other aspects, so as not to spend a lot of money and manpower in vain. If it has little effect on the war, it will not distribute any important benefits after the war.

As time entered mid-August, the treaty between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Allied Powers was officially signed.This also represents that the country that first provoked the First World War, after more than two years of war, finally chose to surrender and leave the war.

According to the incomplete statistics of the Austro-Hungarian government, this war brought more than 300 million casualties to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and more than 80 deaths, causing economic losses of more than 200 billion pounds, and directly brought this huge empire to its end .

Although the contract was signed, the subsequent compensation of up to 150 billion pounds also caused headaches for the entire imperial government.

Until this indemnity was abolished or fully repaid, it was impossible for Austria-Hungary to hold its head up against other nations.

£150 billion would be enough to cover Britain's one-year war, or Australasia's 100-year war.

Coupled with the ceded land, various unequal terms, and major factories that are about to be demolished, etc., whether the Austro-Hungarian Empire can maintain its status as a great power after the war is a problem.

At least the island countries, which were not affected by the war, are very greedy for the status of the great powers.There are also traditional countries in Europe, Spain, and Serbia, which ate a lot of meat in this war, and so on.

Serbia, in particular, had a bad relationship with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and annexed Bosnia, which was previously occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

You know, the Sarajevo incident happened in Bosnia, which directly led to the outbreak of the First World War.

Now that this land has returned to the rule of Serbia, I believe that the Austro-Hungarian Empire will not be reconciled, and I also believe that Serbia, which has a larger land, will not be reconciled to being only a regional power.

Hungary's independence requirements, the trauma of the civil war, high indemnities, and coveted by neighboring countries (Italy, Russia, Serbia), these are the first things to be resolved by the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the war.

In addition, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which abandoned the Germans to seek peace alone, is bound to be abandoned by the Germans. This is a big diplomatic challenge for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which has long insisted on its alliance with Germany.

For the post-war Austro-Hungarian Empire, whether to act as a neutral country or to find reliable allies again is also a question worth thinking about.

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(End of this chapter)