Having just been promoted to field marshal by the newly enthroned Kaiser Wilhelm III, the commander-in-chief of the German Southern Front Group, Lendl, rushed from Yekaterinodar to Rostov in a fit of rage, and as soon as he got off the plane, he went straight to the headquarters of the Allied Forces in the center of the city.

The German army attacking Soviet Russia was divided into three major groups: northern, central and southern, with a total of 2.6 million troops, of which the Middle Route Group commanded by Marshal Bock in Kiev was the most abundant, with a total of more than 1.2 million people, followed by the Northern Front Group commanded by Marshal Loeb, with 950,000 troops under his command, but the Southern Front Group led by Rundes had the least troops, with the Fourth Army commanded by General Kruger and the Sixth Army under the command of General Paulus with a total of 650,000 people. But in fact, the Axis group on the Southern Front has the strongest troops, the commander-in-chief of the coalition forces on the Southern Front, Marshal Catherine from the Austro-Hungarian Empire has four armies of 1.3 million Austro-Hungarian troops, plus 250,000 Don Cossack Army, 150,000 Ukrainian Republican Army, 120,000 Caucasian Army and 150,000 Italian Army, Marshal Catherine has a total of nearly 2 million troops in his hands, with such a strong force, he can completely take Tsaritsyn, which is only held by more than 1.1 million Soviet troops in one fell swoop. Thus further severing the connection between Soviet Russia and Central Asia.

To this end, the commander-in-chief of the German Sixth Army, General Paulus, who was advancing towards the bend of the Don, drew up an ambitious battle plan to capture Tsaritsyn in one fell swoop before winter, and to continue to break through to the east, capture all of Kalmykia, and advance to the lower Urals.

Just as the Germans were preparing to carry out their plans for this large-scale campaign, on 3 October, Field Marshal Catherine suddenly ordered the entire front to stop the offensive, and the whole army retreated to the defensive. Without the support of the Allied forces, the Germans would certainly not be able to complete a campaign of this magnitude on their own, and Paulus was forced to order a retreat of more than 50 kilometers from the outskirts of Tsaritsyn due to the drag of the Austro-Hungarian Army. to maintain the integrity of the entire line of defense between the coalition forces.

The whole offensive came to an abrupt halt, which made the Germans on the southern front feel extremely depressed, and even Field Marshal Lendel was angry, and the Austrians' unjustified retreat ruined the entire battle plan.

But the initiator of this matter was His Majesty the Emperor.

“…… Never underestimate the severity of the Russian winter cold spell, which threatens us even more than millions of armies. I don't recommend that we force a winter campaign because of the gains and losses of a city, if the battle is dragged into the winter. According to the estimates of the General Staff, the number of non-combat attrition caused in this campaign would have exceeded 500,000. This is not only a defeat in one battle, but will seriously affect our entire battle plan for next year, and may even cause the entire tide of the war to be reversed.

We have the advantage in the balance of power on both sides, so the situation on the battlefield will become more favorable to us over time, so we hope that we will suffer serious losses in our strength because of a military adventure. Of course, defeat is only one of the possibilities of this campaign. But I would still advise you to stop this campaign and stabilize the current situation.

Our goal is not to completely destroy them, but to weaken the enemy to the maximum and force them out of this war. The final outcome of this war at the present time does not depend on our outcome on the Eastern Front, but on the resources we control, our factories, mines and slipways. If you postpone this campaign until next summer, then I promise you will have another 10,000 combat planes and 8,000 tanks on your hands. That's enough strength to give you an absolute advantage over your opponents, and the Germans are pretty much able to get that amount of reinforcements......"

Faced with Rendel, who came to ask for sin. Marshal Catherine just quietly pushed a handwritten letter from the Emperor in front of him, which immediately left Lendl speechless.

The last world war earned Wilhelm II the title of the greatest emperor of the entire German Empire, but the senior generals of the Imperial Army knew that all this was done by the greatest emperor of the Habsburgs in Vienna. It was under his personal command that the Austro-Hungarian Army completely reversed the rout on the Eastern Front at the beginning of the war, and finally enabled the German-Austrian alliance to win the war.

All military men who have studied the history of war in the slightest will be struck by His Majesty the Austrian Emperor's incomparable insight and impeccable strategy and tactics in the war. What's even more terrifying. If you study it carefully, many people can feel that it seems that the emperor had begun to prepare for the war twenty years before it broke out.

Most historians have concluded that without the existence of His Majesty the Austrian Emperor, the German-Austrian League would most likely have lost the war, and that the German nation would have faced an unprecedented catastrophe. From the secret archives obtained from France, which were released one after another after the war, it can be ascertained that the Entente bloc, led by Britain, France, and the United States, had drawn up a comprehensive plan for the complete dismemberment and weakening of the German nation during the war......

His Majesty Friedrich became the "savior" and "god of war" in the eyes of the entire German people, and although His Majesty the Kaiser almost never intervened in government affairs, almost no one, including the Germans, could go against his will......

So, Marshal Catherine said: "Although it was only His Majesty's suggestion, I made a decision anyway!" He looked up at Lendl, "Because as Imperial soldiers, we never doubt Your Majesty's correctness!" ”

"Doesn't Your Majesty never make mistakes?" Lendel was already deflated, but still muttered reluctantly.

Catherine's eyes widened as she stared at Lendl with a gleam in her eyes, "...... There may be, but Your Majesty is right, our strength is superior, we can wait, waiting is not a mistake in itself! ”

The entire battle on the Eastern Front came to a standstill before the winter began, the Axis forces stopped their offensive, and the Soviets were temporarily unable to launch a counteroffensive, and the battlefield fell silent.

At this time, His Majesty the Austrian Emperor, accompanied by Admiral Horti, came to the Imperial Naval Shipyard in Constanta in Romania to inspect the progress of the shipbuilding.

In fact, after the start of this war, Helton basically did not care too much about the situation at the front, but devoted more energy to domestic industrial production. In his mind, the outcome of this war was actually decided before it began, and he did not think that the war he had been preparing for decades would be exported.

In this war, the ultimate benefit of the Axis allies depends entirely on the contention on the seas.

At present, the annual steel output of Germany and Austria is close to 70 million tons, which seems to be a lot, but at the same time that mankind enters mechanized warfare, the military demand for steel has increased dozens or hundreds of times. With planes, tanks, artillery and huge convoys of transports, plus having to take care of weak allies like Italy and Ukraine, Germany and Austria are still in dire straits with seemingly significant steel production......

In this regard, Germany and Austria are stepping up efforts to restore iron ore production in Ukraine and Donets, and the two major oil fields of Baku and Maikop have also resumed production, and most of the resources of the African continent are also used by the Axis Bloc, and the Axis Bloc's war industry is still developing rapidly.

After opening up the sea route with China, the labor shortage faced by the Axis countries was greatly alleviated, and the arrival of more than 2 million laborers recruited from China not only alleviated the production problems of European factories, but also ensured the smooth flow of front-line logistics lines and material supplies.

"There is no reason why we should lose this war, but how much benefit we can gain depends on the efficiency of our slipway!" Helton said to Marshal Horthy that this was an obvious implication that the entire empire would maximize the supply of raw materials needed for the construction of ships in the imperial navy. "The war with the British Navy is mainly a matter for the Germans, and you should choose to go up in the South Atlantic to seize the British territory!" The Emperor smiled and continued. (To be continued.) )