Chapter 422 Factional Struggles and Arms Procurement

"I want to return to St. Petersburg to report on my work. Prepare a special plane for me. Remember to have the pilot check it carefully before taking off." Alexeyev, commander-in-chief of the Russian Southwest Front, ordered.

The situation currently faced by the Southwest Front Army is already quite serious. Alexeyev feels that he cannot sit still and wait for death. At least the top Russian officials should know that even if the Southwest Front Army fails in the future, it will definitely not be his fault.

Judging from the current logistics and equipment situation faced by the Southwest Front, even if Napoleon is reincarnated, he will be unable to face the German attack.

Although Alexeev knew that after he explained the situation on the front line to Nicholas II, he might become a thorn in the side of the capitalists and even be hated by the entire Russian logistics department.

But there is no way. If the current predicament faced by the Southwest Front is not made public, I am afraid that after the defeat in the future, Alexeyev will become the biggest scapegoat, taking the blame for Russia's logistics, top management and decadent system.

One day later, St. Petersburg, Russia.

"Your Majesty, this is about the current logistics situation of our Southwest Front Army and a plan to improve its combat effectiveness." Alexeyev anxiously handed a document to Nicholas II with a very decisive look in his eyes.

Regardless of whether this plan will be adopted by Nicholas II, it will be an enemy of the entire Russian decadent system.

Logistics officers, capitalists, and all those who profited from the war would regard Alexeyev as a thorn in their flesh.

Nicholas II took the document, but the first page of the document made Nicholas II's face uncertain, and finally turned into a gloomy cloud.

As mentioned in the information, since Grand Duke Nicholas left office, the logistics situation of the Russian Southwest Front has fallen into a terrible state.

This made Nicholas II feel that Alexeyev had some insinuations about him. After all, he was the new commander of the Russian army after Grand Duke Nicholas.

"Is all this information true?" Nicholas II asked with a gloomy face.

"Yes, Your Majesty. There are hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the entire Southwest Army. Not to mention weapons and equipment, whether they can eat enough is a problem. Especially in recent times, the soldiers have been tired of dry and hard black bread, as well as those without nutrition. Grains. They urgently need a rich meal of meat to restore their strength and better fight against the Germans." Alexeyev quickly replied.

"According to the logistics supply of the Southwest Front approved by the General Staff, there should be meat meals twice a week, right? Not even once?" Nicholas II asked with some confusion.

Although Nicholas II was not proficient in military matters, he still understood the simple truth of occasionally giving soldiers a good meal.

There is too much to guarantee, but Nicholas II is confident that he can guarantee it by eating meat twice a week, and he even personally signed the logistics purchase order.

But now, the frontline reported that they had not eaten meat for a long time, and even ordinary food was gone, only black bread and cereals. This made Nicholas II puzzled, and at the same time, he was also worried and angry.

"There is nothing, Your Majesty. We are short of weapons and ammunition, as well as food and medical supplies. If this continues, the Southwest Front will only collapse faster. The hungry soldiers cannot resist those damn Germans." Lexeyev shook his head and replied.

"Damn it, I'll take care of it, Ayekseev. Within three days, the logistics supplies you need will be delivered to the armies." Nicholas II nodded seemingly plainly, but his clenched fists proved it Nicholas II was not in a good mood.

"Yes." Nicholas II was already furious at this time. Alexeyev did not dare to raise any more questions and let Nicholas II vent his anger on him.

After receiving Alexeyev's reply, Nicholas II returned his gaze to the document and started reading.

"The Southwest Front's plan to increase its combat effectiveness is to purchase more weapons, equipment and aircraft from Australasia?" After a while, Nicholas II continued to ask.

"Yes, Your Majesty. Judging from all factors, Australasia's weapons and equipment are not inferior to Germany's, and their own combat effectiveness is far ahead of German aircraft. If we can have more aircraft on the front line, we can This is not a small disadvantage. This is not my idea, but the final conclusion reached by the Southwest Army Staff after a comprehensive demonstration and analysis." Alexeyev replied calmly.

This is really not Alexeyev's aimless intention. This is indeed the current situation on the Russian front.

The army equipped with Australasian weapons and equipment was not inferior to the German army, at least in terms of weaponry and firepower.

However, the army, which is only equipped with weapons and equipment manufactured by Russia, is far behind the German army in terms of weapons, equipment and firepower.

As for aircraft, Russia does have its own domestically produced aircraft. However, most of these aircraft are produced by small workshops, and their safety performance is not guaranteed.

In fact, as early as two years ago, a Russian private workshop contacted the military and wanted to sell its own aircraft to the military.

At that time, there was not much research on aircraft in any country. Russia originally thought that it could be ahead of other countries in aircraft research, but it did not expect that Russian aircraft could not withstand actual experiments at all. A total of three experiments were carried out, and they crashed twice, and the other one was extremely dangerous.

This caused the Russian military to urgently stop aircraft experiments, and Russian aircraft development did not receive strong support from the country.

This also leads to the fact that although Russia does have some domestically produced aircraft, as long as it is a domestically produced aircraft in Russia, except for the test pilots of the workshops that produce the aircraft, no one dares to fly on such an aircraft.

Coupled with the advanced performance of the aircraft exported by Australasia, there is no problem with the strategy of purchasing large quantities of Australasian aircraft, and it is the only thing the Russian Air Force can do at present.

In the end, Nicholas II nodded and agreed to Alexeev's request to purchase equipment.

Buying more weapons and equipment from Australasia is not a bad thing for Russia. Military expenses have to be spent anyway, so it is better to spend it directly on the blade.

Coupled with the logistical problems raised by Alexeyev, Nicholas II had already become dissatisfied with capitalists and logistics departments. Suppressing the arrogance of capitalists was also a must for Nicholas II.

Although the current situation in Russia is indeed chaotic, this does not mean that Nicholas II will think that he will lose his final rights.

In the eyes of Nicholas II, beating capitalists and logistics officials was nothing more than doing what was convenient.

Even as long as the situation on the front line improves, the chaos in Russia will be solved again, and he can rest easy.

But is this really the case? I'm afraid not necessarily.

Even the tsarist government, which seemed to be in a tight knot, actually had a lot of internal struggles. In Russian political thought, there are two opposing ideological schools, namely the Unified Slavs and the Westerners.

These two factions cover almost the vast majority of Russian officials, and they also influence the decision-making of the highest level, Nicholas II.

The first is the Western faction that is best understood. Russia is still a powerful empire, but we have to admit that Western Europe, which has experienced the industrial revolution and the electrification revolution, that is, the second industrial revolution, and the Central European countries are becoming more powerful. Russia, which is located in Eastern Europe and the Far North, has gradually revealed its power. Out of fatigue.

Some knowledgeable people in Russia believe that Russia has lagged behind developed Western European societies in all aspects.

Russia needs to unite and learn from the West more comprehensively, thereby narrowing the gap with Western European countries and quickly integrating into developed Western European society.

The so-called more comprehensive study includes not only studying Western European science and technology, technology and ideas, but also studying Western European systems.

Westerners regard Peter the Great of Russia as a hero. It is precisely because Peter the Great learned Western reforms that he greatly enhanced Russia's strength and defeated Sweden in the competition for hegemony. He became the northern hegemon of the Baltic Sea and the most powerful country in Europe. one of the countries.

From the reign of Peter the Great to Alexander I, Westerners were the mainstream ideology of the Russian ruling group, and Russia's national strength did indeed improve a lot during this period.

But the United Slavs also have a lot of say in Russia. This faction believes that Russia inherited the title of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and its leadership position in the Orthodox Church. This also means that Russia has the right and obligation to rule the world and save the world.

You know, Russia inherited from the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Eastern Roman Empire claimed to be the orthodox Roman Empire.

This also gave some people in Russia the ambition and belief to restore the former territories of the Roman Empire and unify the entire Slavic nation, which has become the mainstream idea of ​​this faction.

The reason why Russia intervened in the Balkan affairs was to unify the Yugoslav nation in this area and bring the entire Yugoslav region and nation under Russian rule.

The United Slavic faction believes that the homogeneity of Russian society brings transcendent morality and social stability to the Russian people, which is incomparable to Western capital societies that are materialistic and money-oriented.

Therefore, the United Slavs believe that Peter the Great is a sinner of the Russian nation, precisely because he learned from Western reforms, which led to the loss of homogeneity in Russian society.

During the Anti-French War, due to Tsarist Russia's victory over Napoleon, the national self-confidence of the entire Russia was unprecedentedly high, and the United Slavs faction also replaced the Western faction and became the mainstream thought.

But the good times did not last long. Then Russia faced the failure of the Crimean War. Alexander II gradually realized the gap between Russia and Western European countries, and gradually began to reuse the Western faction.

However, Alexander II chose the more moderate ideas of the Western faction. As a result, the political and economic reforms led by Alexander II were not thorough and did not change the real situation in Russia.

Even the Slavic faction gradually occupied a dominant position, and the Western faction was excluded from the ruling class and could only join forces with the capitalists, which in turn promoted the rise of some revolutionary parties.

Which one is better between the Unified Slavs and the Westerners can actually be seen from the history of Russia.

During the period of re-employing the Western faction, Russia's strength has indeed improved a lot. But Russia could not give up its expansion ambitions, and the Unified Slavs occupied a certain position, even a dominant position, at all times.

In addition, the repulsive force of reform was too great, which resulted in the incomplete reforms in Russian history. There is still a big gap between the Russian system and the West.

Although Nicholas II also had the idea of ​​​​activating Westerners to carry out reforms, the current chaotic situation in Russia no longer allows Russia to carry out reforms.

If the vested interest groups that originally supported the government are pushed against the government, the speed of the government's collapse can be imagined.

Fortunately, Nicholas II was very generous in purchasing armaments for the troops, including several dreadnoughts for the previous navy expansion. Nicholas II nodded in agreement without any thought.

"I agree to the proposal to purchase aircraft. I will inform the finance and diplomatic departments and ask them to cooperate with your aircraft purchase plan." Nicholas II nodded and said very generously.

Although this new batch of aircraft procurement plans will cost tens of millions of rubles, it is undoubtedly cost-effective to use war victory in exchange for domestic stability compared to improving the combat effectiveness of frontline combat troops.

"As for the equipping of fighter pilots, domestic training is part of it. I will also ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss with Australasia and send a group of trainees to Australasia for emergency training. General Alexeyev, I hope you can stabilize According to the situation of the Southwest Front, the logistics supplies and new weapons and equipment you requested will arrive soon." As he spoke, Nicholas II looked at General Alexeyev, half requesting and half demanding. said.

"Yes, Your Majesty, please rest assured. The Southwest Front will never let you down, and we will do our best to resist the German attack." Alexeyev nodded excitedly and replied in a high tone.

Alexeyev thought that it would be perfect if he could solve one of the two major issues of logistics and equipment purchase.

But unexpectedly, Nicholas II directly passed two items, which completely exceeded Alexeyev's expectations.

Of course, this is a good thing for the Russian Southwest Front. With sufficient food and weapons and equipment, the soldiers can better resist the German attack.

Perhaps it is also a good thing for the Northwest Front. After all, after Nicholas II held the logistics department accountable, the theft of food and supplies should not be so rampant.

If the Northwest and Southwest Front armies can obtain the support of a group of aircraft and have enough pilots, it is not impossible to regain the lost ground previously occupied by Germany as long as they gain an advantage in the sky.

After all, bombing from the sky is far more dangerous than bombing on land. Aircraft can accurately select targets and then drop bombs, but artillery shells can only be aimed at long distances, which extremely tests the accuracy of artillery.

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