On September 2, Grand Duke Nikolai was relieved of his post as commander-in-chief of the Russian army and sent to the North Caucasus to command the battle with the Turks. The Russian army's defeat on the battlefield, far greater than in history, led to the disgrace of the talented general after only four months as supreme commander. However, Russia's next move surprised all the belligerents: it was not any active high-ranking general who succeeded Grand Duke Nicholas as commander-in-chief, but Tsar Nicholas II himself!

In the history of Europe, it is not uncommon for kings to directly serve as supreme commanders in wartime, and some monarchs have even been ranked among the best commanders in the entire history of mankind. Whether it was Frederick the Great, who single-handedly fought France, Austria and Russia for seven years, or Napoleon, the French Emperor who swept almost all of Europe, they all showed more outstanding military talent than their generals. However, by any measure, today's tsars are not at all as talented as they are.

He did not receive a systematic education in a military academy, and during the Russo-Japanese War, he only stayed in the village of Huangcun, more than 9,000 kilometers from the front line, waiting for news; The only military decision to get involved in the war was to let the Baltic Fleet launch an ultra-long-distance expedition of 30,000 kilometers, and shoehorn into the expeditionary fleet a vote of old ships that were not suitable for ocean-going operations at all, in order to regain honor for the Russian Empire. And the result of this has already settled. The Russian fleet was killed in the Battle of Tsushima, which not only created an unparalleled victory for the Japanese Navy, but also completely hollowed out Russia's power in the Baltic Sea, to the point of the current Baltic Fleet. It was so suppressed by a few German old and fearless ships that they couldn't even get out of the door of the Gulf of Finland!

Cover for this reason. When Hin-Lu learned that his immediate opponent had become the Tsar himself. The last trace of jealousy that I still had for the Russian army in my heart also disappeared completely. The only thing that worries them now is the supply of their own soldiers. After several successive major battles, the German army also suffered a considerable number of casualties, and the attrition of the current armies has reached almost a quarter of the full strength; This was mainly due to the limited combat effectiveness of the Austro-Hungarian army, which made the most critical tough battles have to rely on the German army to take the lead. For this situation, Xinglu could no longer blame his teammates, and they could only send a telegram to the rear asking for help. It is hoped that the high command will be able to transfer more troops to the Eastern Front to deal with the situation.

"The twin brothers on the Eastern Front have come to us again to ask for supplies of soldiers and equipment."

The sand table is built, and the map is hung high; At the front headquarters in Meziers, France, Moltke Jr., the chief of the General Staff, was frowning at the telegram delivered by his deputy, Lieutenant General Stein. Due to his character, although the German army has won brilliant victories in the east, west and north of the battlefield, the "poor Caesar" will always be worried about the difficulties in front of him until the final armistice is signed. Due to the rescue of the Qing Ying in the Battle of the Marne, the avalanche retreat of the German army as in history did not occur, and Moltke Jr. retained his position as chief of the general staff and continued to take charge of this formidable war plane.

At present, the main force of the German army is still storming Paris as always; The headquarters of the various army groups took turns to participate in the battle. The furious explosion of heavy artillery and bombs did not stop for a moment. Since the victory of the High Seas Fleet over the British Home Fleet in the North Sea, the German Army High Command has become even more eager to take Paris in one fell swoop: except that it does not want to be compared to the "civilian navy" that they have always looked down upon. The intention to defeat the will of the Allied army and people to fight through a series of decisive victories in a short period of time was also a very important reason. For if Germany could win a decisive victory on both land and sea, the will to fight of the Allied military and civilian forces would most likely collapse. In this way, Germany would be able to quickly end the war and directly claim absolute hegemony in Europe. The telegrams sent by Xinglu asking for help were intended to spread the five fingers of the German army together, and raised the confrontation against the Russian army to almost the same level as the defeat of France.

"Your Excellency Moltke, what does Your Majesty mean by this telegram?" Seeing that Moltke had entered a negative state of boredom and anxiety again, his deputy, Lieutenant General Stein, couldn't help but ask softly.

"Both His Majesty and the Prime Minister, out of political considerations, were inclined to send a not weak army to the Eastern Front as support. The news of our obstruction under the city of Paris was overshadowed by the brilliant victories of the Eastern Front against the Russian army at the same time; And under the overhype of the media, the whole of Germany now shines with the glory of four successive battles in East Prussia and Poland. If the high command continued to hold on to the army, it would be an enemy of all the German people. In addition to this, Romania had just joined our side in the fight, and His Majesty and the Prime Minister were eager to inflict another heavy defeat on the Russians, so as to stabilize the battle situation and the battlefield situation of this little henchman. According to the reports sent back by our observers, the Romanian army was even worse than the Austrians, and only a little better than the Italians; In order to ensure the safety of this granary and oil depot, which was so important to the Empire, the Empire had to send about two divisions of troops to support their operations. Little Moltke said helplessly.

"After Romania joins us, not only can we not reduce the number of troops deployed on the Eastern Front, but we will have to send more troops to protect them?" Stein's eyes widened at this.

Moltke smiled bitterly and said, "Although this logic is very puzzling, it is a pity that every one of our allies is better than each of us at present. We allied with Vienna, but as a result, the Reich's 8th Army, which was supposed to defend East Prussia, had to pay for their defeat in the Battle of Galicia, and it was still unable to completely open up the Eastern Front. Although the Turks did not ask us to send troops directly for protection, their land was trained by our German officers from thirty years ago; At present, too, we need to provide them with ammunition and arms on a regular basis. The Italian Army was even more ineffective, and if the French could spare their hands in a battle with us, they would be able to kill directly from the foothills of the Alps to Rome with only 15 divisions! Although the Romanian army was better than the Italians, they were facing Russia, which had abundant human resources, so we had to fully consider the safety of this granary. Stein was silent.

After a careful study of the situation on the battlefield, Moltke Jr. finally decided to meet some of the requirements of Xinglu. He sent a number of domestic reservists who had not yet been reorganized at the regimental level to East Prussia by train to fill the gap in the attrition of the 8th and 9th armies, as well as the separate cavalry units, in previous battles.

Although Moltke was not particularly interested in the battlefield on the Eastern Front, he had to admit that the two generals who were appointed in danger had so far achieved a series of breathtaking and brilliant victories on the Eastern Front. The Germans annihilated nearly 1.1 million Russian troops in four large-scale battles, including more than 500,000 prisoners, while their own casualties were only a fraction of the losses of the other side; Even if the opponent is the Russians, such a record is enough to be praised by the media and newspapers!

Since the losses of the troops on the Eastern Front were lower than expected, Moltke Jr. was determined to reduce the number of troops that came to the aid of the Eastern Front; However, under Xinglu's strong insistence, he still reluctantly matched enough to satisfy the other party. Three new corps of reservists were assembled to form the German 11th Army, commanded by François, who had previously disobeyed orders twice at the Battle of Tannenberg but had won the German victory. His wisdom and decisiveness, as well as his ability to control the battlefield with extreme precision, made François more than capable of handling this 130,000-strong army. However, for this appointment of the high command, Ludendorff was quite a headache. Because of François's wild and unruly nature, his army was very likely to act without following the command orders; This would mean that Ludendorff would have to put a lot of effort into every battle to restrain the bull's behavior.

"12 infantry corps, 4 cavalry divisions and 42 separate cavalry brigades, plus a number of local garrisons, I have given more than 600,000 troops on the Eastern Front. Together with the assistance of the Austro-Hungarian and Romanian armies, the Eastern Front was sufficient to ensure victory over the Russian army. Moltke Jr. was silently calculating the deployment ratio of his own troops, and he already had the final answer in his heart. According to his correspondence with Herzendorff, commander of the Austro-Hungarian Army, it became known that the attitude of Bulgaria and Serbia towards Austria-Hungary had also undergone an unprecedented change of course with the defeat of the British Royal Navy by the High Seas Fleet; Herzendorff, on the other hand, is using the troops previously drawn from the Italian border and now from the Serbian-Bulgarian border to form a new 6th Army, which will be deployed on the battlefield against Russia in a few days. Although the combat effectiveness of the Austro-Hungarian army was worrisome, after all, the equipment and numbers were there; In the face of the Russian army, which is also not high in combat power, the broiler Austria-Hungary can still pose a threat to the Russian fighting chicken by virtue of a large number of weapons and weapons with sharp beaks and hard claws!

Thinking of the two chickens pecking each other between Russia and Austria, Moltke Jr. looked at the Western European part of the map with some apprehension. There, the words Paris in bold were still standing in front of a small black flag representing the German Army Group. Unlike the Russian army, the French were far more tenacious than they imagined before the war; And that one was going to just go gilding. What is the situation of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, who has won the title of Conqueror of Paris? (To be continued......)

PS: Thank you for the reward of the book friend zhouyu1976, and the large reward of the pigeon and 6 update tickets of 3000 words~~~ The author was finally able to eat it, and he was moved to tears