I'm playing whack-a-mole in Siberia

Chapter 667 The Last Battle

After losing trade with Germany, the US military became a new source of financial support for the United States.

Wilson was ambitious and drew up a mobilization plan of up to 400 million people.

When it comes to mobilization, the Americans are extremely efficient. By May, 185 million people had been mobilized.

This was extremely bad news for Ludendorff, who had already sidelined Hindenburg and gained actual command of the German army.

After the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Ludendorff concentrated the main forces of the German army on the Western Front, preparing to launch a fatal blow to France.

Ludendorff now had 191 divisions and 350 million men under his command.

In terms of numbers, the German army was just as large as it had been in 1915, but not as strong.

The German army mobilized 25 people last winter. All of these mobilized soldiers were born after 1900, and the youngest was only 14 years old.

The situation was even worse in Austria-Hungary, where the bandages and underwear issued to soldiers were made of paper.

In contrast, last winter, 5 war horses or draft horses in the Austro-Hungarian Empire starved to death due to lack of fodder.

Maybe the Austro-Hungarian Empire used all the grass to make paper.

It is difficult to tell whether the horses died because of a lack of fodder or because the soldiers wanted to eat meat.

The only thing that is certain is that it costs much more to train a war horse than to train a soldier.

For Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was no longer a threat, and George focused his main energy on appeasing various places.

Pressure on Constantinople increased as grain was forcibly requisitioned from the peasants.

Now George not only had to organize logistics for the front-line troops, but also had to raise food for disaster relief.

The Balkan Corps now has to deal with not only the rebels, but also the roaming bandits, separatist forces, local armed forces, and the local autonomous governments that have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk did not directly cede territory to Germany, but rather allowed Germany to establish a puppet regime to rule the local area.

Apart from the cities, Russia originally had makeshift autonomous governments at various places. These autonomous governments have transformed themselves into legitimate local governments.

The First Army, commanded by Runev, frequently went out to various places to quell rebellions.

This is a familiar task for the Russian military as they have been doing it for many years.

The difference is that after the rebellion was quelled this time, it did not continue to be autonomous as before, but was directly managed by civil officials sent from Constantinople.

The rebels not only robbed the farmers of their food and seeds, but also thoroughly destroyed the local area, especially the transportation facilities, including railways, roads, tunnels, bridges, etc.

George has food, but unlike Nicholas's equal distribution, only those who accept work can get food.

The bombed railways and roads need to be repaired, the burned houses need to be rebuilt, the ruins caused by the war need to be cleaned up, and the bodies hanging on the gallows need to be buried. All these tasks need people to handle.

The number of disaster victims is simply too great.

But the current situation is actually not serious.

If their lives are not stabilized before winter comes, then it will be a real disaster when winter comes.

The small town of Rivne, where George once made his fortune, also suffered severe damage from the war.

All the residents of Rovno were Cossacks. After the war broke out, they actively responded to the call of the empire and enlisted in the army. A total of 807 people joined the army.

Of these 807 people, except for 11 who were lucky enough to return home due to injuries, the rest were either killed in the battle or their whereabouts are unknown.

The efforts of the residents of Rivne did not receive the rewards they deserved. Instead, they were regarded as examples of stubbornness and were targeted by the Provisional Government and the Autonomous Government. Not only was the train station blown up and the tracks dismantled, but the entire town was set on fire.

When Alexander arrived in Rivne with the 3000st Livadian Rifle Battalion, the population of Rivne, which once had a total population of 100, was reduced to less than people.

George was very sad. The Cossacks in Rovno were moved there by George, and he promised to give them a stable and good life, but he did not do so.

Stanislav, who once worked at the Rivne Railway Station and served in the Guards, not only had no complaints about George, but was full of gratitude.

"The Grand Duke has fulfilled his promise and brought us from the bitter cold of Lake Ladoga to the warm Rovno. This is not the Grand Duke's responsibility—"

Stannis finally asked Alexander, "When did the Grand Duke become Tsar?"

George's new nickname was "Tsar".

Alexander decided to rebuild Rovno. He led the soldiers of the rifle battalion to build new houses on the ruins, used his salary to buy new clothes for the naked children, gave the military boots issued by the army to barefoot homeless people, and finally even replanted food with the residents.

George was very pleased. No matter whether Alexander went into politics or business in the future, George hoped that Alexander could become a person who contributed to society.

As the Second Army got closer to Moscow, it encountered increasingly stronger resistance.

On June 6, the Second Army finally found the main force of the rebels in Tula.

In 1632, the Dutch established an arsenal in Tula. In 1712, Peter the Great expanded the arsenal into a royal arsenal, and Tula became one of the three largest arsenals in the empire. After the outbreak of the war, Tula's industrial capacity increased rapidly, and the production of rifles increased nearly 10 times. More than one-fifth of the rifles used by the Russian army were produced in Tula.

When the Second Provisional Government moved the capital, part of the machines of the St. Petersburg Arsenal were transferred to Tula, which thus became the most important industrial center of the Second Provisional Government.

Vasily knew the importance of Tula to the rebels and personally commanded the attack on Tula.

Air Force reconnaissance showed that the Tula garrison had at least 30 people, which was far beyond Vasily's estimate.

Vasily estimated that since the rebels also had to defend Moscow, the number of defenders in Tula would not exceed 10.

The total strength of the Second Army was only 40, and Vasily's troops used to attack Tula were only about 10.

Vasily is still very confident when it comes to 10 against 10.

If 10 fight against 30, they might get killed in return.

George drew troops from the Third Army led by Andrei to reinforce Vasily.

At the same time, he ordered Brusinov and Ruzynski to support the Russian army on the northern front and stop the attack on the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

As the war spread to Austria, the Austrian resistance became increasingly fierce.

When they attacked Transylvania, Vasily and Andrei encountered almost no resistance and easily swept across Transylvania in two months.

When Brusinov attacked Bosnia and Herzegovina, he also did not encounter much resistance. The locals did not care whether they were ruled by Russians or Austrians.

On the land of the Kingdom of Hungary, the Austrians' will to fight was not strong.

As the Russian army invaded Austria, even Austrian women took up arms to fight the Russians, which made George begin to feel that there was no way out.

Hungary's capital was occupied by the Russian army, so there is not much profit to be made from it.

George's main focus now is on the Second Provisional Government.

On June 6, the First Army artillery bombarded the rebel positions.

At the same time, Vasily dispatched bombers to bomb the Tula Arsenal.

George was now short of food because he had to provide relief to the disaster victims, but he had plenty of artillery shells. The amount of artillery shells sent from Amur alone reached 30 tons per month.

With the improvement of Constantinople's local industrial capacity, the amount of artillery shells produced each month has reached about 10 tons.

Although the pensions for the vassal troops were very low, George still did not waste manpower if the problem could be solved with artillery shells.

Compared with the First Army, the rebels' weapons and equipment were relatively backward. Not only did they have no air force, but they also lacked heavy artillery. However, they had a large number of armored vehicles.

These armored vehicles all came from the previous Russian troops on the northern front and the Guards, with a total of nearly a thousand vehicles.

On the 17th, the transport troops of the First Army were attacked by the rebels in Tumsk, and the troops attacking Tula were in danger of being surrounded by the rebels.

Vasily didn't take it seriously and continued to attack Tula.

On the 18th, Bryansk was also attacked by rebels. Fortunately, the defenders were well prepared and the losses were not great.

On the evening of the 18th, the vanguard of the Third Army arrived in Bryansk.

While Vasily was attacking Tula, the German army launched a full-scale attack on the Western Front.

Ludendorff and Hindenburg met last winter and both agreed that it would be difficult for Germany to win a final victory if the war was not ended in 1918.

Following the Georgette Offensive, the Germans launched attacks on Allied positions at Mansheddham, the Aisne River, the Marne River, the Metz River, and Champagne.

In the second half of last year, Ludendorff's cousin Oscar von Hutier invented a new tactic. This tactic consisted of 6-8 carefully trained soldiers forming a commando team as the vanguard, sneaking into the Allied positions and infiltrating in depth, leaving the strong fortresses on the positions to be dealt with by follow-up troops carrying heavy weapons.

This tactic achieved good results in small-scale battles, so Ludendorff regarded the "Hutier Tactics" as a magic weapon to win victory.

Last winter, the German army withdrew its best officers from the front lines for four weeks of training, and then formed 42 elite divisions based on these officers.

These 42 divisions were Ludendorff's main attack force.

After the battle began, Ludendorff discovered that the "Hutier Tactics", which worked well in small-scale battles, did not show the expected effect in corps-level battles. Not only did it fail to achieve the purpose of infiltration, the "Storm Commandos" often suffered devastating blows as soon as they approached the Allied positions.

This cannot be blamed on Ludendorff.

42 divisions may seem like a lot, but in fact, due to the heavy losses suffered by the German army, the organization has been shrinking, and the total strength of the 42 divisions is only about 50.

The U.S. military, which had just joined the war, had a division with an extremely large strength of 2.5 soldiers.

Before the outbreak of the World War, the main field forces of various countries usually had a division strength of between 1.5 and 1.8 people.

This number has been shrinking since the outbreak of the World War. The worst-hit Austro-Hungarian Empire now has only 5000 people in one division.

(End of this chapter)