Chapter 1318 European Situation

In mid-1918, with the occurrence of a series of major international events and the changes in the domestic situation in East Africa, the three main major events of the East African government can be summarized as "digestion", "construction" and "army expansion".

Digestion, as the name suggests, means digesting a series of achievements made by East Africa in recent years, especially the newly opened overseas markets and colonies.

In the past few years, East Africa's trade in South America, the Far East, and the Indian Ocean coast has continued to expand. These new market shares have injected vitality into East Africa's economic development.

If you want to maintain the stability of these markets and colonies, it involves the issue of "army expansion." Overseas markets and colonies without force to maintain can only be a mirror image. Therefore, the expansion process of the East African Navy is still advancing steadily, which is inevitable for a powerful country. Initiatives to be carried out.

Construction mainly targets the domestic economic construction situation and is mainly reflected in two aspects. On the one hand, it is the reform of state-owned enterprises, and on the other hand, it is the guidance of the free market and the improvement of market systems and legal construction.

Its main content basically follows the guidance of the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" launched by East Africa in 1916, and continues to deepen and improve. This is the basic task of the East African government, or the minimum economic development goal, so it will not be described in too much.

Obviously, the booming economic development trend will easily enable East Africa to successfully complete all indicators of the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" ahead of schedule.

Therefore, in 1918, the focus of the East African government's work was still on the topic of military expansion. For this reason, Ernst held a meeting at the Rhine Palace.

Defense Minister Pripyat summarized the development of the East African army in recent years: "As of 1918, the size of the National Defense Force had grown to an unprecedented 850,000 people, with the army reaching nearly 650,000, the navy and marines There are also more than 170,000 people, and there are nearly 20,000 people in the air force.”

"Among them, the army's motorization level is as high as 75%, and the navy's warships exceed 1.4 million tons."

"Our country's military strength is currently behind the four countries of Britain, France, Germany and Austria. If broken down, the strength of the Imperial Army should be ranked fourth in the world, the Navy should be ranked second in the world, and the Air Force should be ranked third in the world. First."

The reason why the Ministry of Defense came to this conclusion is mainly because the Imperial Russian Army has basically been paralyzed. With the fall of Tsarist Russia, the combat effectiveness of the Russian Army has plummeted. In the war between the Russian Labor Party and Germany last year, the former Imperial Russian Army led by the Russian Labor Party It was completely ineffective, so that the frontline battlefield collapsed thousands of miles away.

This also led to the Russian Labor Party urgently calling a halt to the war, negotiating peace with the Allies, and signing an armistice treaty.

Therefore, in the eyes of the East African army today, Russia is no longer enough to rank among the world's military powers. At least until the Russian Labor Party reorganizes the army and trains its own military cadres, the Russian army is basically useless.

As for other countries, the countries ranked before East Africa, that is, the four countries of Britain, France, Germany, and Austria, if they compare their overall strength, they may not actually be ranked in front of East Africa.

For example, in the United Kingdom, the Royal Navy has increased the data of the entire British army. In the other three countries, only the size of the army is now larger than that of East Africa, which has not been mobilized for war.

Therefore, Pripyat's statement that the strength of the East African Defense Forces ranks fourth in the world is not false, and is even a relatively conservative statement.

As for the United States, which has joined the Allied Powers, its current military strength is almost negligible. Even after a round of military expansion, the current US military only reaches a few hundred thousand people, less than half of that in East Africa.

The main reason was that the U.S. standing army was too small before entering the war, with an army and navy of only a few hundred thousand people.

Pripyat said: "The Russian military system is paralyzed, soldiers are unwilling to fight, a large number of military commanders have fled, and coupled with the Russian civil war, the current Russian army is just a facade, and although the United States has gone through a round of conscription, most of the recruits have no combat effectiveness at all. At the same time, the United States' performance after entering the war was also timid, which will inevitably affect the combat effectiveness of the U.S. military. "

After being successfully deceived by Britain and France, the United States is far from showing the courage of its previous life. The main reason is that the combat effectiveness of the current Allied Powers is a bit too strong.

The fundamental reason for this result is that the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany's other two allies have demonstrated combat capabilities that far exceed those in their previous lives.

Today, Crown Prince Rudolf of the Austro-Hungarian Empire has full control of the country. Compared with Emperor Franz, he is more energetic and can better integrate the country's resources to support the war.

A key point is reflected in the fact that the Austro-Hungarian Empire now has nearly four million troops. This was something that the Austro-Hungarian Empire could not achieve in its previous life. Moreover, after Italy was dismantled in the last century, it greatly affected the national destiny of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. .

The combat effectiveness of Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire also far exceeds historical levels. Especially after the Ottoman Empire was successively armed by Germany and East Africa, its performance was much stronger than in its previous life.

All in all, the situation in World War I is still very unclear today, even after the United States joins. Just because the performance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is higher than that of the previous life, the morale of the Allied Powers will not collapse as soon as the United States declares war in the previous life.

After the First World War in the previous life developed into 1918, the Allies had basically reached their limit. However, due to the emergence of East Africa, or the influence of Ernst, the situation had completely changed.

The biggest problem of the Allies in the previous life was production and logistics, but in this time and space, until 1918, the Allies could still obtain a large amount of strategic materials through East Africa, which allowed the Allies' economy to maintain as usual.

In particular, the Allies still had a large reserve of resources such as cotton, sugar, rubber, oil, and rare metals, and there was basically no problem with food and other major minerals after Russia withdrew from the war.

Because the Allies' strength in this time and space was strengthened, the Allies got more war spoils from Russia, including most of the three Baltic countries in the previous life, Poland, the entire territory of Moldova, and the entire Ukraine and Belarus.

These areas were the main grain and mineral producing areas of Tsarist Russia, and also occupied nearly half of the original Russian industry.

In the previous life, the Allies did not have time to digest these spoils and strengthen their own strength, but now it is hard to say.

As long as the Allies can digest the results of the Eastern Front, even if the United States joins the Allies, it may not be able to change the war situation in Europe.

This also involves the influence of Italy. After all, Italy was one of the world powers in the past, and now even if Italy joins the Allies, it cannot play a restraining role on the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

That's right, Italy has not joined the war until now, or the entire Apennine Peninsula has maintained neutrality. The Papal States and Naples were supported by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Before, Italy did not dare to join the war due to the gap in strength, but now, there are more concerns, because the strong combat effectiveness shown by the Austro-Hungarian Empire is not something Italy can resist at all. This may also be affected by the Italo-Austrian War in the last century, so the Kingdom of Italy has long lost the ambition to unify the Apennine Peninsula.

After all, it is much more difficult to support a person's spirit after destroying it, and the same is true for the country. The reason why Italy was able to compete with the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the past was based on one victory after another.

The current state of the Austro-Hungarian Empire can be said to be excellent, especially after snatching a large amount of Russian spoils from Germany, even Hungary, which had been dragging its feet before, has become active.

The benefits that Austro-Hungary gained from Russia were most beneficial to Hungary. After all, the borders between Russia and Austro-Hungary were closer to Hungary. The carrot of being able to share more spoils after the war was too tempting even for the stubborn Hungarian donkey to resist. So Hungary underwent a major change in its attitude towards the war.