With the advent of winter, the German-Austrian coalition army ended the eastern front strategy, and after grabbing most of Ukraine, the German-Austrian coalition army had to stop its eastward advance due to logistics and set its sights on the southern front.

How could Ferdinand, who had made a big move in Romania, hide it from the Allies? However, there is a Romanian government-in-exile, and it is not easy to get some information about the Romanian region.

Originally, Falkingham planned to turn around and go to the Western Front to kill the French in one fell swoop after the battle on the Eastern Front was over, ending this brutal war.

However, Bulgaria continued to send troops to Romania, which attracted the attention of Austria-Hungary. In just a few months, a million troops were gathered, and the number continued to increase, and Conrad was not stupid enough to know that it was coming for them, and immediately asked the Germans for help.

Now the border between Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary is very long, and Bosnia and Herzegovina is fortunately mountainous, and a major war between the two sides there is unlikely.

But other areas were in trouble, like the Belgrade region, where the Bulgarian front had already threatened the Great Hungarian Plain, and Austria-Hungary had to deploy heavy troops to defend it.

As a result of the defeat of the Winter Battle in the first half of the year, Transylenia fell, and now the Kingdom of Hungary was exposed to Bulgarian forces.

Now Bulgaria has again gathered heavy forces in Romania, and if the main forces of the Central Powers leave on the front foot, Bulgaria will attack, and the Kingdom of Hungary will not be able to stop it.

Within a year, after two major wars in a row, Austria-Hungary was now exhausted, and now they no longer had the strength to have a PK with Bulgaria alone.

At the beginning of the year, the winter battle was a disastrous defeat, with a direct loss of more than 1.5 million troops; Then they launched a summer counteroffensive in conjunction with the Germans, and the battle was fought beautifully, but they still paid nearly 800,000 Russian casualties.

In the eyes of the Germans, Italy's tease was no longer their ally, and it was only a matter of time before they surrendered to the Entente.

The other allies are basically hanging, and there is only one ally left, Austria-Hungary, which can't be helped! Austria-Hungary cannot be brought down in any case, this is the bottom line of the Germans.

So Falkingham had to take this tired division to launch the battle on the southern front, of course, the war could not be fought in a day or two, and neither side was ready.

At least Falkingham would not attack until the Germans had all the logistical supplies, and Ferdinand could not have sent his troops to the plains to fight the German-Austrian army, and he had not forgotten how much water there was in this million lions!

If it is to rely on the position for defense, these cannon fodder troops can still be used, and no matter how bad they are, they can also consume the enemy's troops, and if they enter the field state, these hundreds of thousands of cannon fodder troops can only be responsible for sending people to their heads.

Conrad once again approached Falkingham, commander-in-chief of the German-Austrian Eastern Front, and asked: "Your Excellency, commander, when are we going to attack the Bulgarians?" ”

Falkingham rubbed his forehead, he couldn't remember how many times Conrad had urged, but the problem was that the German army on the Eastern Front was not as good as it seemed.

The Germans were also people, not machines, and they also needed to rest. The Russians have just been crippled, and they seem to the outside world to be infinitely beautiful, but in fact, only they know the pain inside.

More than three million Russian troops were killed in World War I, and the main force of the Russians was almost finished, losing the family funds accumulated for more than ten years, even if they could quickly recover their strength, they would not be able to restore their combat effectiveness.

But did the Germans have nothing to lose? How is this possible! At its peak, the total strength of the German army on the Eastern Front was as high as more than 2.2 million, and now there are only more than 1.1 million left, and in addition to the more than 500,000 troops transferred to reinforce the Western Front, the German army still permanently lost more than 600,000 troops.

Falkingham also wanted to conquer Romania, which not only had the most scarce oil resources of the Central Powers, but also the granary of the Wallachian plain.

But the problem is that the Bulgarian army on the opposite side is already more than a million, and the number continues to increase, no matter what the combat effectiveness is, it is enough for them to drink a pot.

In this battle on the Eastern Front, the Russians lost the logistics, but it does not mean that the logistics of the Germans are good. If it weren't for the logistical chaos of the Allies in the middle of the war, now the Russians would have really lost their pants!

Fa Jinhan smiled bitterly and said: "Your Excellency Marshal, you don't know the current situation, this battle on the Eastern Front has consumed a lot of our war materials, and now it is in urgent need of replenishment, and your army is about the same, right?"

And after months of continuous combat, the soldiers are already very tired, they need to rest, and these take time.

I think it would have been nice to be able to attack the Bulgarians years ago! ”

Conrad said helplessly: "I know all this, but now the country is constantly urging us to launch an offensive on the southern front as soon as possible, and the Bulgarians are ready to move again, and they are likely to attack again in the Belgrade area!"

Recently, the Kingdom of Hungary has been making a lot of trouble, they are angry about the lost Transnesia, and there are Britain and France stirring up in it, and they are now even more demanding, if we can't recover Transnesia as soon as possible, they will unilaterally withdraw from the war! ”

It is difficult for people who are not Austria-Hungary to understand the institutional structure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Hungary as a dualist empire has a very large degree of autonomy.

Although Austria-Hungary was still in charge, the Hungarian government could not cooperate, and without the support of the Kingdom of Hungary, the war potential of Austria-Hungary would be reduced by a third.

The political pressure naturally turned into military pressure, and Conrad, the chief of the general staff of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had to find a way to launch an offensive as soon as possible to alleviate the increasingly severe political situation in the country.

Conrad put the situation on the bright side, and Falkingham could not continue to pretend to be stupid, so he had to agree to start the battle on the southern front in advance.

"Well, wait another half a month, and we will attack the enemy!" Fakingham said with a headache

In the same way, due to insufficient preparation, the German army could not play its full strength, so this time it is better to say that it is a political battle to give an explanation to all sides politically!

……

After sending Conrad away, Falkingham began to worry about the war again, and he had no doubt that the Allies would win it.

However, as a commander-in-chief, especially as the chief of the general staff of the German army, it is necessary to consider the problem not only from the tactical level, but also from the strategic point of view to consider the problem more comprehensively and deeply.

First of all, he had to control the casualties of the German army, in the two battles of the Eastern Front in 1916, the German army had lost millions of troops, and on the Western Front, which lasted for a year and a half, the German army's losses naturally exceeded one million!

Note that the "loss" here refers to the loss of troops, not to casualties! This "loss" refers to the permanent loss of this part of the force, mainly refers to: killed, captured, wounded and disabled soldiers who have lost their combat effectiveness, excluding soldiers who can recover after being injured!

It can be said that the losses of the German army now far exceed those of the same period in history.

Don't look at the tactical rivalry of the German army, killing Belgium on the Western Front, while pressing the British and French to fight, and crippling the Russians on the Eastern Front

But strategically, the Germans did not achieve a real victory.

Although the Russians on the Eastern Front were defeated, they did not withdraw from the war, and as soon as this winter is over, there will still be four or five million gray cattle on the Eastern Front again in the coming year, and the situation of fighting on both fronts will remain unchanged.

Not to mention the Western Front, the number of British and French troops has been rising in an uproar for more than half a year, regardless of combat effectiveness, but this number is already huge and makes the Germans feel dangerous.

There were more than 2.4 million French troops and more than 600,000 British troops, as well as more than 200,000 Belgian troops, plus more than 1.5 million colonial cannon fodder troops, and the colonial forces were growing at a rate of more than 20 divisions per month.

This is also the reason why the Germans are in a hurry to fight a decisive battle with Britain and France, if the British and French armies continue to swell, they may really rely on crowd tactics to consume the German army in the future.

Of course, the growth of troops on the Western Front is not unlimited, it is not human resources that restricts them, but strategic materials, and the transportation capacity of the Entente is not unlimited, and it is now about to reach its limit.

Now in the war on the Western Front, Britain and France have commanded the colonial army to launch a counteroffensive against the Germans every day, and the purpose is obviously to consume the strength of the German army.

The use of cannon fodder troops to consume the main forces of the German army, no matter what the exchange ratio was, was acceptable to the British and French, but not to the Germans.

From the beginning of the battle of the Eastern Front, Britain and France began this tactic of shrinking the flow, and in a few months, it still caused more than 200,000 casualties to the German army, of course, their casualties were even greater, but most of the dead were cannon fodder, and there was no pressure on Britain and France at all.

The more Falkingham thought about it, the more he finally realized that Germany was in danger! No matter what kind of results he won on the battlefield on the southern front, he could not change the strategic crisis of Germany!

At present, there are more than 1.8 million Austro-Hungarian troops on the southern front, but only 6 or 700,000 troops can really be put into the Romanian battlefield, and the rest of the troops have to fight against Bulgaria and Mao Xiong on the border line.

Although the German army now has more than 1.1 million, he still has to allocate half of his forces to defend against polar bears, and the number of troops that can really be put into the battlefield is less than 600,000.

Even if it was 600,000 German troops and 700,000 Austro-Hungarian troops, would these troops be able to defeat Bulgaria? Won't the enemy increase his troops?

In his opinion, at least, the Balkans were much more important than Asia Minor. If it is needed for war, Bulgaria will not have any pressure at all to transfer hundreds of thousands of troops, at least there are hundreds of thousands of reserves in the country that can be used!

And even if this battle is won, what price will the Germans have to pay? The Bulgarian army on the opposite side carried forward the turtle shell, and at a glance it was full of trenches.

Due to the short time, most of the fortifications built by the Bulgarians were very simple, but they couldn't stand many people's defenses! As long as it is suitable for setting up a defensive line, it is basically a trench, and it means that the opponent is disgusted to death by relying on the trench!

And this is exactly the situation that Falkingham least wants to see, the thickness of the Bulgarian army's defense line is really beyond his imagination, and it is almost dozens of kilometers to catch up with the Western Front, which is completely like a war of attrition.

In the spirit that it is better to be happy alone than to be happy, Falkingham reported his speculation to the German High Command, and it boiled down to one point: If Germany wants to win this war, it must first solve the problem of materials!

Otherwise, as now, it is clear that the sooner the war is started, the more beneficial it will be for the German army, but because of the strategic materials, the fighters were delayed in vain.

If the supplies could be supplied openly, the German-Austrian coalition forces would not need to go to Ukraine to grab food, and they would have already attacked the Romanian region.

You must know that when the Russian army just withdrew, the Bulgarian army in Romania was only about 400,000, and as long as the German-Austrian army attacked with all its strength, even if Ferdinand was a traverser, there was no way to keep Romania.

Even after conquering Romania, more than 2 million German-Austrian troops still had the opportunity to enter Bulgaria in one go, cripple Bulgaria, and end the long-term confrontation on the southern front.

But now it's different, more than two months have passed, the Bulgarian army has gathered more than a million people, and even if the Germans can achieve a tactical victory, there is no way to achieve a strategic victory!

Before the window paper was pierced, it was covered up in the triumphant advance of the German army; But as soon as the window paper was pierced, the German top brass immediately discovered the problem.

Kaiser Wilhelm II also began to formalize the issue, although the current situation is dangerous, but the German army is still the first army power in the world, even France in second place and Bulgaria in third place combined are not their opponents.

But two fists are hard to beat four hands, and the Entente has four powers: Britain, France, Russia, and Bulgaria; The Allies, on the other hand, had only two German and Austrian powers + Italy, a comic pseudo-power.

The current ranking of the land forces of various countries made by the German General Staff:

German boss 10

France followed 5

Bulgaria third 3.3

Fourth 3.1 of the Russian Empire

Austria-Hungary fifth 3.1

Great Britain sixth 2.8

Italy 1.3

The Russians, with their large number of troops, were originally the second largest land power, but due to the heavy losses they had just lost in the battle on the Eastern Front, they fell to the fourth.

According to the ranking of the strength of the army according to the statistics of the German General Staff, the strength of the Entente and the Central Powers is roughly equal, and the strength of the Allies is more concentrated, and it is completely possible to defeat the enemy in each way!

However, the Allies were limited by the lack of strategic materials, which restricted the exertion of the army's combat effectiveness, and they were unable to defeat their opponents individually, but were instead caught in the embarrassing situation of fighting on three fronts and being exhausted.

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