Chapter 458: On the Eve of the Storm
According to General Brusilov, considering the decline in the combat effectiveness of the Russian army, in order to ensure that the Polish rebels are basically eliminated in a short period of time (three months to half a year), at least 780,000 troops and the main force of the Central Front must be thrown into it. Pen | fun | pavilion www. biquge。 infoBut Tsar Nicholas II did not dare to do this at all, because before the defeat of the remnants recalled from the Eastern Front was integrated, the Central Front was already the only heavy army group he could rely on, and if all were sent out, not to mention Moscow, even the capital St. Petersburg was empty, and if the Chinese betrayed their faith, wouldn't it be all over? Even if the Chinese First Cavalry Army did not attack the two capitals and directly copied the back route of the counterinsurgency army, it would be just as terrible, and Tsar Nicholas II would not dare to take this risk under any circumstances.
With the sneaky support of Germany and Austria, the Polish rebels became stronger and stronger, and the hope of countering the rebellion became dim day by day, and the dissatisfaction with the tsar in Tsarist Russia was rising day by day.
After using the three-month armistice to complete the integration of the Russian army returning to the west and the prisoners of war released by the former First Cavalry Army, the Tsarist government had more than 2 million troops on three fronts available, which restored a lot of confidence to Tsar Nicholas II, but by this time, the impact of the reduction in American aid was also beginning to be felt......
In the face of the unprecedented defeat of the Russian army, in which nearly 2 million people were killed, more than 3 million prisoners, and more than three-quarters of the country's land area and one-fifth of the population were lost, the reason why the Tsarist government was still able to barely maintain domestic stability and did not break out like the great turmoil of the 1905 revolution in history can be said to be a great contribution to the generous assistance of the United States at any cost. Relying on the overwhelming amount of aid equivalent to the total output value of Russian industry and agriculture before the war, the people of Tsarist Russia, although they were heartbroken by the crushing defeat at the front and the casualties of their children, at least their living standards did not decline significantly, and the urban poor even improved, so they naturally could not make up their minds to rebel.
However, because the Tsarist government has been completely corrupted, this kind of aid that does not require money inevitably arouses the greed of many aristocratic bureaucrats, who have taken a lot of benefits from it, and they are becoming more and more emboldened day by day, resulting in the fact that it is becoming more and more difficult for American aid, especially the living materials in it, to reach the front-line troops and the urban poor who need them the most, and the phenomenon of deducting weight and shoddy quality is becoming more and more common, and the rapid decline in the morale of the Russian army in 1908 is not only because of successive fiascos, but also because of the growing problem of logistical supply, also with a great deal of responsibility.
The consequences of serious corruption are not only this, the moths will not be able to keep the materials for their own use, they must be put on the market for cash, as these black materials more and more into the market, the price of daily necessities in Tsarist Russia has been seriously impacted. Taking grain as an example, it is clear that there are countless losses of military food on the front line, and the loss of land and war have caused a sharp decline in agricultural production in Tsarist Russia, but the grain prices in Tsarist Russia have not risen but fallen, especially after the autumn of 1908, due to the defeat of the Russian army on the battlefield, Tsarist Russia has almost reached the verge of extinction, those moths are ready to flee, and they are more and more eager to realize the formation of vicious competition, plus the grain price after the autumn harvest is the lowest point, resulting in a complete collapse of food prices.
Who is being hit by the collapse in food prices? Naturally, it was the peasants, because although the agricultural production model of Tsarist Russia was backward, but the mode of operation had been completely marketized, after the collapse of grain prices, the yeoman farmers quickly returned to poverty, and the landlords passed on the losses to their already extremely poor tenant farmers, and the loss of Siberia and Central Asia made the Tsarist Russian peasants lose the possibility of reclaiming the land to save themselves, and the poor peasants who could not survive could only crowd into the cities, which violently impacted the urban labor market. The factory owners, who were also struggling because of falling prices, took the opportunity to lower the wages of their workers and pass on their losses, with the result that the urban working class began to live like a year.
But even so, there was still no large-scale revolution in Tsarist Russia, because there was still a way to go as a soldier, although you might die in battle, but at least you could eat enough, which was barely a way out. However, after the sudden and drastic reduction of US aid, the Tsarist government could no longer maintain so many troops, and many new people in extreme poverty had no way out but to take risks; At the same time, the treatment of the Russian army has also dropped significantly, and under the connivance of the tsarist government, the greed of the corrupt officials has not been restrained at all, and even intensified, and a large amount of moldy and smelly food has been distributed to the Russian soldiers as military rations, which has aroused their great anger, so that not only the peasants and workers, but even the army of Tsarist Russia has become a volcano that is about to erupt......
If a big victory can be achieved on the battlefield at this time, maybe it can restore a little confidence to the Russian army and the people, but unfortunately, the Russian army was defeated again, and it was defeated badly......
After the three-month armistice ended, the Russian high command thought that if the First Cavalry Army was not driven away, not only would it not be able to solve the rebellion in Ukraine and the Caucasus, but it would also be restrained even to suppress the Polish uprising, and instinctively felt that the winter war was beneficial to it, so it dispatched the newly formed St. Petersburg Front to the south in an attempt to drive the Chinese First Cavalry Army out of the South Russian steppe, but did not know that Bai Lang was desperate for this.
With the rise of the Russian national sentiment, it has become more and more difficult for the First Cavalry Army to capture the city, but unlike the street battles that pay more attention to courage, the organization is the key in the field battle, and the morale of the Russian army can be greatly improved in just three months, but the organization that has been broken down is not so easy to recover.
The vast majority of the officers and men of the St. Petersburg Front were once defeated under the First Cavalry Corps of China, and they were able to withstand the pressure with the psychological advantage of a bloody brute and a large number of troops, but once the front collapsed, they immediately recalled the horrors of the past and quickly lost the will to resist. Because it was difficult to escape under the pursuit of cavalry, and most of them had the experience of being released soon after being captured, most of the Russian soldiers did not even escape, and basically as soon as they saw the pursuers, they directly raised their guns above their heads and surrendered to them......
But what these Tsarist Russian soldiers didn't expect was that the Chinese First Cavalry Army did not release them immediately after they were captured, the reason is very simple, since the country no longer wants them to expand their war results, even if they need to wait for a while before returning to China, the First Cavalry Army will not take the initiative to provoke a big war again, and naturally has spare strength to take care of the prisoners of war. As a result, these more than 500,000 Russian prisoners of war could only stay in the South Russian steppe for the winter, but fortunately, the climate here is mild, and the coldest period has passed, so it should not be too difficult......