Chapter 209: The Bear of the End?

Moscow, the Kremlin, the base camp of the Russian army.

In the splendid room, Tsar Nicholas II, who is the supreme commander of the Russian army, is numb to the weekly summary report of the Chief of the General Staff, General Alekseev.

"The most serious incident of the week was the betrayal of Romania."

"Although the current Romanian royal family is from the Hohenzollern family of Prussia, and is a distant relative of Kaiser Wilhelm II - but this is obviously not a reason, His Majesty is also related to the Kaiser, and the prominent royal families of the whole of Europe are somewhat related to the old ......"

Speaking of this, Alekseev cautiously raised his eyes to observe the reaction of His Majesty the Tsar, and confirmed that the other party was not stimulated by this sentence, and then continued to bow his head and report.

"It has also been rumored that as early as the 1880s, King Carol I had privately signed an offensive and defensive alliance treaty with Austria-Hungary behind his back on Parliament, which is obviously not enough to explain the performance of Italy, which had long been confirmed as an ally of Germany and Austria, in this war."

"The Romanian Conservative Party, which is mainly supported by large landowners and grain merchants, has always been pro-German, and this is of course related to their economic interests, which are their largest sales market and source of profits. Of course, it is conceivable that they will be somewhat influenced by the king of the House of Hohenzollern at their heads, and blindly superstitious that Prussia is invincible by force......"

"The territorial question of the province of Bessarabia has been a potential obstacle to relations between the two countries, although the former Principality of Moldavia was ceded from the Turks in 1812, but at that time there was no unified Romanian kingdom, and the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which constituted modern Romania, were still under Turkish rule, respectively."

"After the Crimean War of 1856, we briefly ceded three counties of South Bessarabia to Moldavia, which was already semi-autonomous, but after the Tenth Russo-Turkish War, the Romanians gave us back this small piece of land in gratitude for its liberation from Turkish suzerainty and complete independence...... In other words, there is no de jure territorial dispute between the two countries, and for a long time, the Romanian government has never formally dealt with us about Bessarabia. ”

More crucially, the Romanian Liberal Party, which had been in power for a long time before the war and was largely supported by industrial and commercial capitalists, had always taken a pro-Entente position. It is rumored that at the outbreak of the war in Europe, King Carroll and the leader of the Conservative Party proposed to join the Confederate side and declare war on our country and Serbia, but they were dissuaded by Prime Minister Brettianu of the Liberal Party. Since then, our secret negotiations with Romania have not been interrupted. ”

"At the beginning of last year, after Italy reneged on the alliance with Germany and Austria and joined us in the war, the politicians of both the ruling and opposition parties in Romania began to unanimously turn to the position of supporting the Entente, and the negotiations between the Brettianu government and our side have progressed to the point that only the signing of the treaty remains."

"However, the serious unfavourability of our war in the summer of that year obviously affected the confidence of the Romanians, and the government of Brettianu unashamedly refused to fulfill its promise, and at the same time, in spite of our dissuasion, in the name of neutrality, exported to Germany and Austria without restriction grain, livestock, and other agricultural products, and even supplied the German military industry with oil and other scarce resources."

"In the last half year, the war situation has deteriorated sharply: on the side of the allies, the decisive battle at sea in the Bay of Bengal has been lost, and India and the Persian Gulf have fallen into the hands of the enemy; Large-scale offensives on the French and Italian fronts were repeatedly thwarted; And the small fights between Britain and the United States in the Pacific are even closer to inaction. ”

"On our side, Poland, Littais, and most of Belarus fell, and the German-Austrian army advanced to the Pskov, Minsk, and Lviv lines; Siberia and Turkestan were completely fallen, and the Chinese army advanced to the Ural Mountains to the Ural River. ”

"It is incomprehensible that Romania chose to join the Allies in the war at the time when our side opened the Black Sea straits and captured Constantinople......"

"This is God's will to perish and drive it mad, and there is nothing that cannot be understood." His Majesty the Tsar impatiently interrupted the Chief of Staff's eloquent narration, apparently having no interest in such an inquiry into the origins.

Alekseev was sincerely frightened and nodded hurriedly: "Yes, the emperor is wise, this is God to make the ungrateful and lying Romanians pay, but...... As a result, on our Ukrainian front, there are 23 more enemy divisions at once, and I am afraid that the Southwestern Front will not be able to withstand it. ”

"Once Ukraine falls in full, we will face severe food and fuel shortages...... No, not just a shortage, it would be a catastrophe enough to destroy our army. ”

"Then stop them, no matter what you do." Nicholas II frowned, as if this trouble should have nothing to do with him, the supreme commander.

Alekseev reluctantly and cautiously turned around, raised the whip in his hand, and drew on the huge map erected two or three meters away from the throne.

"Your Majesty, please listen to my analysis first - as of last week, there were 145 infantry divisions and 28 cavalry divisions in our army's establishment, of which: 93 infantry divisions and 16 cavalry divisions were deployed on the Eastern European front; 29 infantry divisions and 9 cavalry divisions were deployed on the Ural Front; 7 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry division were distributed on the Caucasian front; 4 infantry divisions were stationed in the Bosphorus and Constantinople; 1 infantry division and 1 cavalry division were stationed in Tehran, the capital of Persia; Eleven infantry divisions and one cavalry division are stationed in the interior or are being reorganized. ”

"On the Eastern European front, it is estimated that the German army has about 50 to 55 infantry divisions and 3 to 5 cavalry divisions, the Austrian army has 45 to 50 infantry divisions, 3 to 5 cavalry divisions, plus 23 divisions of the Romanian army, for a total of 118 to 128 infantry divisions and 6 to 10 cavalry divisions."

"On the Ural front, it is estimated that there are about 40 to 4 to 15 tank brigades of the Chinese army in person, equipped with a large number of tanks, airplanes and other technical weapons with excellent performance."

"On the Caucasian front, according to reliable information, after the Battle of the Straits, the focus of the Turkish army's operations shifted to defending the capital of Ankara and the Chinese army aviation bases in the interior, and as a result, more than half of the Caucasian troops were transferred, and it is estimated that only 5 to 6 infantry divisions and a few cavalry detachments have been retained so far."

"From this point of view, on all the main fronts, our army has no superiority at all, let alone a mobile reserve that can be deployed. In order to cope with the 23 Romanian divisions that were advancing on Bessarabia, we could only send a maximum of 4 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry division to the South-Western Front - this only gave Commander Kornilov a little comfort. ”

Hearing this, Tsar Nicholas II rarely remembered something, and suddenly said indignantly: "Brusilov destroyed our reserves in Semipalatinsk and Barnaul. ”

"In that battle, the enemy sent reinforcements in time, and the strength was far beyond our imagination...... Moreover, General Brusilov had already atoned for his sins with his life in the defense of the Novosibirsk fortress. ”

Alekseev trembled and defended his most admired colleagues and friends.

As soon as Nicholas II heard the word "atonement", he seemed to fall into some kind of psychedelic state, and muttered reverently: "Atonement? There is no one but myself who can atone for the sins of Russia...... Yes, only the self-sacrifice of one monarch can save Russia ......"

Alekseev knew that His Majesty the Tsar, who had been brainwashed by the famous Rasputin "saint", was starting to fall ill again, but he did not intend to stop reporting there.

Even if there is a bear in front of him, the work that should be done should be carried out meticulously to the end, this is the consciousness of Alekseev as the chief of the General Staff.

"Your Majesty, my report has just begun."

Alekseev boldly raised his voice two levels and reminded almost clamour.

The trick worked, Nicholas II blinked, stopped his unbelievable dream, and didn't seem to blame, nodded and motioned for Alekseev to "continue".

"The General Staff judged that the coordinated summer offensive of the German-Austrian army on the Western Front and the Chinese army on the Eastern Front would be in full swing in the next few days."

"On the Western Front, in order to take full advantage of the favorable situation of Romania's entry into the war, and at the same time to cut off the food and fuel supply of our army and prevent our side from receiving assistance from the allies from the Black Sea side, the German and Austrian forces are likely to turn the focus of their offensive to Ukraine, and the pressure on our Southwestern Front will increase sharply."

"On the Eastern Front, in order to cooperate with the actions of the German and Austrian armies, and at the same time to further attack our army's will to fight and force our side to submit, the Chinese army is likely to launch a pincer offensive from the east and south, with Samara as the axis, and the two fronts of Ural and Turkestan, which are obviously inferior in terms of strength, will face a severe test."

“…… In response to the enemy's upcoming summer offensive, the General Staff drew up the following deployments:

"The North-Western Front has 26 infantry divisions and 3 cavalry divisions, with Pskov as the center, guarding a front with a total length of 310 kilometers as far as Pernu on the shore of the Gulf of Riga in the west and Daugavpils on the banks of the Daugava River in the south."

"The Western Front has 29 infantry divisions and 5 cavalry divisions, with Minsk as the center, defending a front of 460 kilometers from Daugavpils in the north to Pinsk on the Pripyat River in the south."

"The Southwestern Front has 38 infantry divisions and 8 cavalry divisions, with Chernivtsi as the center, defending a front with a total length of 850 kilometers from Pinsk in the north to Verkov at the mouth of the Danube in the south."

"The Caucasian Front has 7 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry division, with Yerevan as the center, guarding a 700-kilometer front from Batumi on the Black Sea coast in the west to Astara on the Caspian coast in the east."

"The Turkestan Front has 13 infantry divisions and 5 cavalry divisions, with Orenburg as the center, to defend the banks of the Ural River with a total length of about 1,000 kilometers from Orsk-on-Ural in the east to Guriev at the mouth of the Ural River in the south."

"The Ural Front has 16 infantry divisions and 4 cavalry divisions, with Chelyabinsk as the center, holding the foothills of the Ural Mountains with a total length of more than 800 kilometers from Verkhnito Salda in the north to Orsk in the south."

"The base camp reserve is: 4 infantry divisions, 1 cavalry division, 4 tank and armored vehicle brigades, aviation squadrons and several ...... armored trains"

……