The battle on the Southern Front ended with a Bulgarian victory, and this result undoubtedly stimulated Nicholas II, even if the results of this battle were not very large, but if you win, you win!

This world is so cruel, everyone only pays attention to the result! The chivalry of the Middle Ages is long gone, and Nicholas II naturally does not feel that Bulgaria is invincible to bully more and win less, and he is not a second-class boy, and the woolly bear's housekeeping skills are crowd tactics!

The end of the battle on the Southern Front made Nicholas II see clearly the reality of the Central Powers, and now the strength of the Germans on the Eastern Front has undoubtedly fallen to an all-time low.

Although the Russian Empire is now also in great condition, three million army forces are still there, and so many troops are invested on any battlefield, which is enough to set off a major war that shocks the world!

The new Chief of the General Staff, Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseev, excitedly said to Nicholas II: "Your Majesty, the main forces of the Germans are fighting a bloody battle with Britain and France on the Western Front, they will not be able to distinguish the winner in the short term, we will regain the lost ground at this time, and the Germans will not be able to do anything at all."

And they had just lost a battle on the southern front, Austria-Hungary had also sent troops from the front line back to China, and the Allies were running out of troops on the front line, which was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! ”

It is clear that the Russian military can no longer sit still and is anxious to fight a war with the Allies in order to prove their ability to the outside world and completely throw the responsibility for the last battle on the Eastern Front to the capitalists!

The most important thing is that there is no risk of launching a counteroffensive from the Eastern Front now, and now Austria-Hungary has exhausted all the troops on the Eastern Front in order to resist the Bulgarian attack, leaving only the Germans to defend alone.

And the mere six or seven hundred thousand German troops are scattered on this defense line that stretches for thousands of miles, and it is simply full of loopholes!

There are not enough troops, and now the German army is useless even if it can fight again! The German army in the just-concluded battle on the southern front alone paid 300,000 army losses, and the losses of the German army in the two battles on the eastern front that broke out last year have long exceeded one million, not to mention the battlefield on the western front, which is definitely one million!

That is to say, from the beginning of the war to the present, in fact, the losses of the German army have exceeded more than two million, and breaking through the three million mark is just around the corner.

It is no wonder that the Germans are running out of troops, their population base is so large, and now they are still able to maintain an army of more than four million people at all their best.

It's a pity that even if the Germans have an army of more than four million, they are not enough now! The current situation is obvious, the Germans on the Western Front alone have invested more than 140 divisions, with a total strength of more than 2.6 million, while the Germans on the Southern Front still have the remaining 300,000 troops to help Austria-Hungary stabilize the situation.

This used up more than 3 million, plus more than 700,000 troops from more than 40 divisions of the Germans on the Eastern Front, and in fact only 300,000 mobile troops remained in the hands of the Hindenburg government.

It sounds like the number of more than 300,000 is already a lot, and if it were in peacetime, many countries would not have a standing army of more than 300,000.

However, in the world war, this number is not enough, and the casualties of any major battle are more than 300,000.

For the Germans, the number of this emergency force was too small, and even more than 300,000 troops on the battlefield were not enough for a month's war attrition.

Once the war on the Eastern Front broke out again, the Hindenburg government really had no choice, and the defense line on the Eastern Front was too long. More than 700,000 troops were to be spread over thousands of miles of borders, and it was too easy for the enemy to find one of the breakthrough points.

To some extent, the Russians lost a lot of territory, which also created an opportunity for this counteroffensive. After all, the border line between the two sides has become longer, and the Germans have not only allocated their forces, but also lengthened the battle line, increasing the difficulty of supply!

Obviously, everyone knows this problem, but unfortunately the Germans are not in a position to give up these lands at all now, unless they want to starve.

After thinking about it, Nicholas II asked: "What are the plans of the General Staff?" ”

Chief of Staff Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseev said confidently: "Your Majesty, now our border with the Germans is so long, and their forces are extremely limited, as long as we concentrate our forces, it will not be a problem at all to break through the enemy's defenses.

Considering the actual situation, the General Staff planned to recover the Ukrainian region first, and then join forces with Bulgaria to attack Austria-Hungary, and then the four countries would join forces to deal with the Germans after Austria-Hungary was destroyed! ”

There is no doubt that last year's battle on the Eastern Front had woken up the Russians, who knew that the Germans were not to be messed with, and now they were beginning to be conservative in their strategy.

Nicholas II nodded with satisfaction, the conservative strategy is good, now he likes to be conservative, the Russian Empire can no longer withstand a big defeat, if the situation of last year occurs again, he will no longer be able to find the object of the black pot.

"Well, it's a very good battle plan, I approved it, let's implement it as soon as possible!" Nicholas II said

Chief of Staff Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseev then said: "Your Majesty, I'm afraid it will take some time for this to happen, our ammunition and weapons reserves are limited, and at most they can only support the recovery of the Ukrainian regions!"

So far, we have 3.36 million troops, but we are only armed with more than 1.6 million rifles, more than 5,300 light and heavy machine guns, more than 4,800 artillery pieces, 236 tanks, 200 million rounds of ammunition, and more than 2 million rounds of artillery shells.

Now we still have a quarter of our soldiers who lack weapons in their hands, and the weapons and ammunition are only enough to fight a medium-sized battle, so ......"

Nicholas II interrupted coldly: "Stop, I know all the things you said, but we don't have a choice now, do we?"

Now you know very well the situation on the battlefield, the Allies are about to end, the British, French and Bulgarian have opened a new front in Italy, and the Allies have lost the battle on the southern front, how long do you think Austria-Hungary will be able to support it?

Once Austria-Hungary surrendered, how long could the Germans hold out? We can't wait for the Allies to surrender, we still have a lot of land in the hands of the enemy, right?

If this really happens, this war empire will be in vain, the Entente has agreed on the principle of dividing the spoils of war after the war based on the size of the contribution on the battlefield, and our current performance is not qualified to get everything we want! ”

Once the war is linked to politics, it will become degenerate, and the military must make political concessions, even if it is a military war, no matter how unreasonable it is, it must be fought!

Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseev could only smile bitterly at a self-serving tsar, but now the situation was good, at least Nicholas II did not let them immediately enter into a decisive battle with the Germans.

Theoretically, with a fourfold superiority in troops, even if they were to fight the Germans immediately, their chances of victory were very high.

It is a pity that this is no longer the era of cold weapons, and the war cannot be decided by military strength alone, and in last year's Eastern Front war, the Russian army has lost most of its foundation, and it will not be able to recover in the short term.

If it weren't for the onset of winter, perhaps in last year's war, the Russian Empire would have had to throw in the towel.

In part, it was the German-Russian negotiations that saved Russia, and the Germans made the wrong judgment that Russia would withdraw from the war and did not take a military adventure before the onset of winter.

Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseev thought for a while and said: "Your Majesty, let's ask for help from the Entente, as long as they provide enough weapons and ammunition, we can launch a counteroffensive immediately!" Or is it for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to communicate with Bulgaria and get them to deliver in advance? ”

After a moment of silence, Nicholas II spoke: "We urge the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to do it, but you must also be mentally prepared, now that the British, French and Germans are fighting very fiercely on the battlefield on the Western Front, I am afraid they will not have much spare strength to provide us with assistance!"

And Bulgaria's military production capacity is also limited, if only part of the weapons and equipment are delivered in advance, it should not be a big problem, but if they want to complete all our orders in advance, I am afraid it will not be possible! ”

Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseev said with a wry smile: "Yes, Your Majesty! But something is better than nothing, at least let the Bulgarians come up with two or three hundred million bullets, so that we can make an emergency! ”

Both of them tacitly did not mention the domestic military production, at its peak, the Russian Empire was able to produce five or six hundred million rounds of ammunition a year, and this figure could only meet a quarter of the consumption of the Russian army itself!

And the rest of the part can only be supplemented by the outside world, the problem is that Russia lacks not only bullets, but also all kinds of strategic materials, even if the British and French have a great cause to meet their own needs, they are unable to meet all the needs of the Russians.

Even if Bulgaria's military production is added, it will not be able to meet the needs of the Russians, there is no way to do it, Bulgaria must also give priority to meeting its own needs, Ferdinand did not have the spirit of internationalism that exploded for the sake of the Russians!

In other words, since the outbreak of the world war, the Russian army's weapons and ammunition have never been sufficient, and naturally the combat effectiveness of the Russian army has never exploded!

Constrained by transportation, the Russians' military production capacity after the outbreak of the world war not only did not continue to grow, but shrank, and after reaching its peak in 1915, it began to decline.

Especially after Nicholas II launched the Great Purge of St. Petersburg, the capitalists who were provoked artificially reduced the production capacity of the military industry, except for the factories in St. Petersburg, the military industrial enterprises in other parts of Russia reduced production for various reasons!

At its peak, Russia's military-industrial complex could produce 50 million rounds of ammunition per month, but now this production is only about 13 million rounds.

In this context, the tsarist government had no choice but to look to the outside world, first of all, Bulgaria, which was next to it, had obtained a large number of orders, and now had to deliver more than 50 million rounds of ammunition, more than 1 million shells, more than 200,000 rifles, more than 500 artillery pieces, and more than 300 aircraft to the Russians every month......

And the more the merrier, in order to stimulate the Bulgarian military industry to increase production capacity, the Russians even announced that they would take all the extra products.

A few months ago, Ferdinand was worried that his business would suffer heavy losses from the impact of the war and was ready to bail out the market, but it didn't take long for the huge orders from the Russians to get them out of the predicament.

After all, the weapons and equipment procured by the government are given at cost price, but the products sold to the Russians no one cares what price you want to sell, and now all enterprises that produce for the military during the war are tax-free.

Of course, it's not tax-free, people have been selling goods at cost price before, what taxes are charged if there is no profit? It's just that now there is an extra hairy bear to be the big one, so that everyone can get some blood back.

However, it seems that all the heavy industry enterprises in Bulgaria have never paid taxes, and this policy has been implemented since Ferdinand's succession, otherwise they would not have developed so fast!

Oh, in fact, the Russians don't want to be the one who is wronged, the main thing is that they can't do it!

At the beginning of the war, the Russians were reluctant to bid for weapons and ammunition from Bulgaria, hoping to purchase them at cost price, just like the Bulgarian government.

And then there is no then, everyone is not an idiot, there is not enough profit, who will take their order?

Then they tried to buy weapons and ammunition from the Bulgarian government several times, and Ferdinand was not a vegetarian, and sold whatever kind of weapons at any price.

I poured out the treasury and packed the weapons and ammunition seized during the Balkan War to the Russians, anyway, as long as the procurement officials were bribed, whether they could be used or not, they were all qualified products.

The tattered is sold out, and the deal is naturally over, anyway, insufficient production capacity is the best reason, how did the Russians make trouble in the battle of the Eastern Front last year, isn't Ferdinand watching the show?

It wasn't until they were about to be defeated that they were provided with a batch of weapons for emergency relief, and then the woolly bear was tragic.

So now that the woolly bears have learned to behave, they know that the Bulgarian capitalists are not easy to mess with, and people without money will not buy it, and the tsarist government has to pay a lot of money for procurement.

Well, in fact, these are also the pots of the Russian capitalists, who made the wrong judgment that this war would not last long at all.

For their own sake, they naturally wanted to hinder the government's foreign procurement, and then they used their influence to make bad decisions among the Russian officials in charge of material procurement.

Therefore, before the war, the volume of government trade between Bulgaria and Russia was not very large, but the private trade developed very rapidly.

By now, the Russian capitalists had lost control of the country, and naturally could no longer hinder normal trade between the two countries.