Eder called the chief of the guard mainly to learn about Bessarabia and the region of Western Ukraine.

Romania wants to expand its power, and it cannot just focus on Transylvania in the hands of Austria-Hungary. Russia's possession of Bessarabia and the region of Western Ukraine are the key to Romania's strength. Of course, the Transylvania region is also essential, which can give Romania a topography advantage over the surrounding countries. It's just that now Eder needs to carefully understand the information of the two places in order to make a good reference for the future.

When Caluster is called, he is questioned by Edel in person. "How much does your intelligence know about Bessarabia and Western Ukraine?"

Calucte understood what Edel was trying to ask, and he spoke. "Your Majesty is now politically chaotic in the Bessarabia region, and there are people who put forward various political ideas, but at present, their political demands can be divided into three main aspects."

Among them, the political family, mainly Bixter in Chisinau, proposed that the opinion of the Provisional Government in St. Petersburg currently occupies the mainstream opinion of the Bessarabia region, following the orders of the Provisional Government of St. Petersburg. Moreover, most of these people are landed nobles, factory owners, etc., and we analyze that this is just an instinctive move of these people to ensure their own interests. ”

"What else?"

"Then there is the return to Romania that we have financed by several small political parties. Because our economic development has been exceptionally good in recent years, there are many people in the local area who are envious of the country, so that several small political parties have attracted many local people. Especially after the Russian Revolution, more people joined these political parties, and many of the children of the families joined them. ”

Edel nodded when he heard this. "Very good, these are smart people."

For these families, the way they operate is the same in both the East and the West. Like the gentry in the late Qing Dynasty, there are also good choices, the old university tradition, the second one learns the new one, and the third one goes to study abroad. This is all for the sake of the inheritance and continuation of the family, and there is nothing to worry about, as long as the local people do not block the protection of the Romanian army at that time.

Eder continued. "You go on."

Caust continued. "Finally, there are some Bessarabian scholars who propose to make it independent ......"

As soon as Edel heard that someone had proposed independence, he immediately interrupted the head of the guard. "Are there a lot of these people? Who brought it up? ”

In the face of the king's fierce reaction, the chief of the guard could only answer Eder's question first. "Mainly, there are a few people, mainly Stav, a sociologist at Kyiv University, and Sviksi, the principal of the Bellz Secondary School. Their claims are currently not taken seriously, and everyone knows that Bessarabia cannot be independent. ”

When Edel heard the chief guard's answer, he felt a little irritated inside. "Let someone arrange an accident for these two gentlemen, I don't want to see them."

Faced with Eder's order to disregard human life, Caluster did not defend himself, but replied. "Yes, Your Majesty."

After seeing that Eder wasn't talking about these issues, Caluster continued. "Compared to the Bessarabia region, Western Ukraine is much more complicated."

How complicated it is, Eder also learned after listening to Calust's explanation. Under the rule of the Habsburgs, Galicia has more than 70,000 square kilometers of land in western Ukraine, and more than 2 million Ukrainians live on this land. They were not killed in the process of conquest, and their homes were not destroyed in the war, so that Western Ukrainians were very obedient to Habsburg rule.

The greatest "good fortune" for Ukrainians was the fruits of the reforms of Empress Theresia and Joseph II after being incorporated into Austrian rule. In the 80s of the 19th century, Austria began to introduce a series of radical reforms.

First of all, in 1782, it was announced that the personal dependence of the peasants on the landlords would be abolished and the peasants should be given the most basic citizenship rights. Then, in 1786, the peasants were required to work for the landlord only three days a week for the time of the canton's labor. In 1787, the land used by the peasants and the land of the landlords were forbidden, and the landlords were forbidden to dispose of the peasants' land at will. Finally, in 1789, land rent was declared instead of the abolition of servitude, and farmers were able to retain more than 70% of their harvest.

Ninety per cent of Ukrainians in Austria live in the countryside and were treated like "slaves" by Polish landlords before the reforms. Therefore, this reform not only helped them get rid of the exploitation of Polish landlords, but also gave them "personal freedom" nearly 50 years earlier than their Ukrainian brothers in Russia.

For, at the same time, Empress Catherine was strengthening the Ukrainians under Russian rule, to whom slave-like rule had been imposed, and their "liberation" would have to wait until after the serfdom reform of 1861.

Austrian Ukrainians benefited greatly financially, and Ukrainians gained a great deal of religious and cultural independence. The Emperor of Austria imposed the principle of reciprocity between Roman Catholicism and Greek Catholicism, giving Greek Catholics equal status with Roman Catholics, a policy that Catholic Ukrainians were grateful for.

At the same time, in order to rid the Ukrainians under Austria from the dominance of Polish culture. The Austrians began to carry out cultural reforms among the Ukrainian masses, although their aim was only to create an obedient Austrian elite. However, with the acquiescence of the Austrians, the Ukrainians succeeded in popularizing the Ukrainian language.

In 1893 the Austro-Hungarian Empire recognized the use of the Ukrainian language in schools in the regions inhabited by Ukrainians, and by 1914 there were more than 2,500 Ukrainian-speaking primary schools and 16 higher education institutions in Galicia.

Although Ukrainians under Austrian rule sought their sources from Russian culture, in contrast to Austrian rule, Russia not only banned the existence of the Greek Catholic Church, but even in Kiev in 1900 did not allow the publication of books in the Ukrainian language. The differences in religious and cultural policies undoubtedly made the Ukrainians under Austrian rule grateful and loyal to the House of Habsburg, for which they received a new name called the "Tyroleans of the East" (Austrians)

It was precisely because of this loyalty to Austria that the Ukrainians showed a rare "reaction" in the movement of national awakening that swept Europe in the mid-19th century. In 1848, when the Poles in Galicia tried to seek autonomy, they were unsuccessful because of the opposition of the Ukrainian-led "General Rothrada".

Having seen the role of the "total Roslava", the Austrians stingily "granted" the Ukrainians the right to vote, they could vote for 100 seats out of 25 deputies in Galicia. However, the political rights of the Ukrainians under Austrian rule seem to have been all, and even the fact that Hungary forced the Austrian Empire to become a "dualistic Austrian-Hungarian Empire" in 1867, and even peoples such as Poland gained great political autonomy.

Perhaps in order to fight for more rights, or perhaps carried away by Austrian gifts, the "General Rothrada" tried to organize an armed force to help the Austrian government suppress the Hungarian revolution. This is not the first time that Ukrainians have proposed the formation of armed forces (in 1846 there were Ukrainians who proposed the creation of national armies in the cities and self-defense units in the countryside), but the first time that they proposed to fight for the Habsburgs. For unknown reasons, Austria did not agree to this proposal.

With the outbreak of the First World War, the first army formed by the Ukrainians appeared in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, almost 70 years after they demanded a separate formation of armed forces. It is even more ironic that for the Ukrainians, who are loyal to the Habsburgs, for a long time the desire to form an armed force has not been realized, while other peoples have long been realized. This gap between ideals and reality is actually the Austrians' distrust of the Ukrainians, and this distrust will bring even more profound disasters to the Ukrainians in the later World War.

In a short period of time before World War I, the Austro-Hungarian army had grown from more than 180,000 in 1912 to 2.3 million in 1914. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, there was a split among the Ukrainians under the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Ukrainians fleeing Galicia wanted their compatriots to welcome the Tsarist army as "liberators"; The Ukrainians, known as the "League of Liberators of Ukraine", want to attach themselves to Germany to realize the dream of an independent Ukrainian state. And the Ukrainian General Rada called on Ukrainians to join the Austro-Hungarian army and prepare to fight for the "greatest friend" Austria against its "most vicious enemy" Russia. So, 250,000 Ukrainians, who make up 8% of the population of Austria-Hungary, joined the Austro-Crarian army, which is about 10% of the Austro-Hungarian army.

Austria-Hungary, after recruiting 250,000 "cannon fodder" from Galicia and other places, rejected the request to create a "Ukrainian legion" composed of Ukrainians, although 30,000 Ukrainian young people had been mobilized in order to establish this legion. Moreover, the Austro-Hungarian Empire dispersed all the 250,000 Ukrainians who had been conscripted into the regular army.

Although the vast majority of the soldiers in the three infantry regiments, the 15th Infantry Regiment of Galicia, the 24th Infantry Regiment of Galicia-Bukovina and the 30th Infantry Regiment of Galicia, are also made up of Ukrainians, there is still a huge gap between the Ukrainian General Rada and the desire to create an independent Ukrainian force.

In fact, Austria-Hungary refused to form a "Ukrainian Legion", on the one hand, it was worried that the Ukrainians with their own armed forces would embark on the road of armed independent statehood, and on the other hand, the Polish aristocracy that had oppressed the Ukrainians for a long time did not want the Ukrainians to have independent armed forces.

Still, in order to appease the Ukrainians for nearly a hundred years of loyalty, Austria-Hungary allowed the Ukrainians to form a small armed force. Although this force is only 2,500 people, it is the first armed force formed by Ukrainians in modern Ukrainian history. This unit, which is equivalent to only one regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht in terms of establishment, is called the "Ukrainian Sechi Marksman". Judging by the name of this unit, it is likely that this was a fortified defense unit formed by Austria-Hungary. Because, "Sechi" means "a fortress made of felled logs" in Ukrainian.

Perhaps, it is precisely because the "mission" originally given by Austria-Hungary to this Ukrainian unit is only to defend the fortress, so it is also extremely "stingy" with this unit in terms of weapons and equipment. By September 1914, the troops defending the Carpathian passes were only rationed single-shot rifles. Unfortunately, on September 25, 1914, the "Ukrainian Sechi Shooters" were sent to the Carpathian Defense.

Perhaps, it is because Austria-Hungary only treats Ukrainians as "cannon fodder", or perhaps because Austria-Hungary has a weak industrial production capacity, and its weapons production capacity is completely unable to adapt to the speed of the empire's military expansion. By the time the Austro-Hungarian army had expanded to 2.3 million men, the M1895 Steyr-Manlisa rifle had become a "luxury" for the Austro-Hungarian army, with two-thirds of the troops equipped only with vintage rifles that had been equipped for nearly a quarter of a century.

However, for the "Ukrainian Sechi shooters", it seems that it does not matter whether the rifle is advanced or not. Because, as a defensive force, the officers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire have always believed that close machine-gun fire is the most important. Therefore, the level of training was originally inferior to that of Austria-Hungary, which was in other countries, and training in shooting was even less valued.

Moreover, the training materials and training subjects compiled by Field Marshal Conrad, the chief of the general staff of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were purely aimed at attacking. At that time, the armies of all countries believed that "a white-knuckle assault would force the enemy to abandon the positions he occupied." For the "Ukrainian Sechi shooters" with poor equipment and poor shooting training, it seems that they have only one option on the battlefield - to resolutely implement the tactics of complete annihilation of the enemy with bayonets in offensive battles

Once the war machine is activated, it will become a life-devouring "meat grinder", and all the young lives that enter the battlefield will only become a tragic footnote to the cruelty of war after a bloody battle. The fate of the Ukrainian Sechi shooters in World War I and the other 250,000 troops who joined the Austro-Hungarian Empire was perhaps even more tragic.

After the outbreak of the war, Austria-Hungary, which lost almost 400,000 troops in the Galician campaign, had to transfer the Ukrainian Sechi shooters, who were poorly armed and poorly trained, to the Carpathian front. The 2,500-strong force, together with the Royal Hungarian Local Defense Force and other newly formed units, was tasked with guarding the Carpathian Passes.

However, the Austro-Hungarian front command did not send Ukrainian Sechi shooters for positional defensive warfare, but instead reduced them all to zero, with a group of 20 people, to carry out the task of infiltrating the rear of the Russian army. Perhaps, the Austro-Hungarian front-line commanders believed that the identity of ethnic Ukrainians of the Ukrainian Sechi shooters was the best cover for obtaining a large amount of intelligence in the territory ruled by Tsarist Russia.

It's a pity that the opponent faced by the Ukrainian Sechi shooters who carried out the infiltration mission was the elite Kuban Cossack brigade of Tsarist Russia. As a result, in this operation, although Austria-Hungary successfully held off the Russian army in the Carpathians, the Ukrainian Sechi shooters also lost hundreds of people. In the first battle, although the Ukrainian Sechi shooters completed the strategic task, they also suffered heavy losses.

Perhaps for these Ukrainian-based fighters, the baptism of war is only the beginning of their tragic fate. In the future battles, they not only fought with the Ukrainians in the Tsarist Russian army, but also staged the tragedy of the Ukrainians killing each other. It was also because they could not be trusted by Austria-Hungary, so they kept fighting on the most dangerous front.

This Ukrainian force fought valiantly in October-November 1914, April-May 1915, and August-September 1916. In World War I, the Eastern Front fought three famous battles in each of these three time periods: the siege of the fortress of Pumiger in 1914, the Battle of Gollitzer in 1915 with Austria-Hungary and Germany, and the "Brushilov Breakthrough" in 1916.

In these three battles, which often numbered in the millions, the 2,500-strong Ukrainian Chissai shooters were just a drop in the ocean. However, they showed great combat effectiveness in the war, first breaking through the Russian defense line with bayonets together with the Hungarians and Croats in the siege of Pumiger. Then, together with his allies the Germans, he annihilated more than 500,000 Russian troops in the Battle of Gollitzer and recovered Galicia, which was occupied by Tsarist Russia. Finally, in 1916, the battle stopped the Russian army that was attacking like a tidal wave, and the salient reached the purge.

It was precisely because of the heroic performance in these battles that the rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had to admit that they were "the best unit in the Austro-Hungarian army". However, this Ukrainian Chisper shooting force, which was recognized as the "best unit", was completely defeated after a fierce battle with the Russian army in the autumn of 1916 and disappeared into the long river of history.

Of course, in addition to this 2,500-strong Ukrainian Cypriot shooter, the Austro-Hungarian army also had as many as 250,000 ethnic Ukrainian soldiers. Although, they had a bad record of abandoning their weapons and fleeing in the Galician campaign, and they also passively avoided the battle during the siege of the fortress of Pumiger.

However, after witnessing the atrocities of the Tsarist Russian troops who had invaded Galicia in the spring of 1915, they burst out with rare blood in the battle to defend the Carpathian Pass with ethnic Polish soldiers. Taking advantage of the natural dangers of the Carpathian Mountains, they used rifles, bayonets, and even sapper shovels to fight several times their size with the Russian army for five days, not only killing and wounding a large number of Russian troops, but also buying enough time for the Austro-Hungarian and German armies to counterattack the Russian army.

However, neither the Ukrainian Chissai shooters who fought bravely nor other Ukrainian soldiers who were brave enough to fight were able to exchange Austria-Hungary's trust in the Ukrainian community with their achievements on the battlefield.

After the Battle of Galliasi, the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire arrested and executed hundreds of Ukrainians without trial, citing the fact that these people had betrayed Austro-Hungarian military intelligence to Tsarist Russia and led to their crushing defeat. In addition to the execution of so-called Russophiles, thousands of Ukrainians were relocated to the west to prevent them from providing intelligence to Tsarist Russia, and more than 30,000 Ukrainians were imprisoned in concentration camps in Austria.

Perhaps, the reason why Austria-Hungary recruited a large number of ethnic Ukrainian soldiers in the war was just to make up for the lack of soldiers, and in addition, it hoped to use the bayonets of the Tsarist Russian army to consume the Ukrainian elite in the war.

Perhaps, the "conspiracy" of Austria-Hungary succeeded, countless Ukrainian soldiers shed their blood on the battlefield, and the residential areas of the Ukrainian community were ruthlessly destroyed by the war because they were the main battlefields of Austria, Germany and Russia.

Eder seemed to want to have ideas in Western Ukraine, and some of the practices of Austria-Hungary were still instructive to him. But now there is a piece of news that makes Edel not want to put down his work now. Concerned about other issues.