"Bang."

With a dull low sound, the two purple wood gates more than three meters high suddenly closed, bringing a slight trill. Qingying stood in the exquisitely decorated corridor, staring at the core of the military power, with a complicated expression that was difficult to say for a long time.

In his original impression, Austria-Hungary was an ally that could be relied upon: although their financial resources were inferior to France, and their land and resources were inferior to Russia's, they could still play a significant role in the war with the second largest heavy industry machinery in Europe and a population base of more than 50 million. Today, however, he realized that he had been completely wrong. The national question in Austria-Hungary was far beyond his imagination, and the country built on the institutions of the Middle Ages was capable of ordinary peaceful development; And if it is linked to war, the ills that have been temporarily concealed by compromise and compromise will suddenly erupt, which this fragile multi-ethnic dualist monarchy cannot easily bear!

The question of war mobilization discussed by Qingying and Hezendorff this time is the most typical case of Austro-Hungarian sickness. Modern warfare forces both warring sides to carry out a national mobilization, otherwise they will be overwhelmed by the massive army of the other side after the general mobilization; However, the Austro-Hungarian system and the multi-ethnic mixed national conditions made it impossible for them to guarantee the combat effectiveness of the army after the general mobilization and the security of the Habsburg Dynasty. Bismarck's "jump" at the Berlin Conference tied the fate of the continent's first power with such a country that had no ability to conduct modern warfare at all. If Germany had always been able to use Russia as an aid back then. Then the import of all kinds of scarce raw materials, the dumping of goods and the situation of land warfare will be changed dramatically! As for the "German India" - the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Germany could have bypassed Austria-Hungary to the south. Colonizing and partitioning Russia by force was the same method used by the great powers of that era of social Darwinism.

However, it is useless to regret it now. Since the Franco-Russian Entente had long since become more and more rigid due to the massive investment loans of the French capitalists, Germany and Austria had no choice but to hold together closely for the sake of their own national security. Although Qingying was helpless against Austria-Hungary, an ally of the cheat, he could only choose to accept it and strive to make it play a greater role. In later generations, even the schoolboy teammates who hung up could light up a thunder or something, not to mention that Austria-Hungary was still one of the five major European powers on the bright side?

This time to meet Herzendorff. It was an opportunity to strengthen Austria-Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian military department, after realizing its serious problems, will certainly try to solve them: a large number of patriotic and loyal education and brainwashing throughout the country, giving ethnic minorities more delicious sweet dates, and training officers and soldiers in language skills, and so on. Although the ultimate effect did not solve the problem completely, it is certain that the Austro-Hungarian army would be in a much better position than it was at the same time in history.

Before leaving the Imperial War Department, Qingying also confessed to Herzendorff. At present, Germany still has a great shortage of personnel training, equipment production, and material reserves, and it will take five to six years to completely complete the preparations for war. Therefore, even at present, the main forces of Russia are mired in the war in the Far East, and the domestic situation is in turmoil and the finances are shaky; Austria-Hungary, which has many problems with its own mobilization, should not open its mouth on the Balkan Peninsula and add new changes to this eventful season.

However, in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this is based on the fact that this region is directly bordering the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was finally annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. Eventually, the Qing Ying expressed Germany's support for the Austro-Hungarian occupation of the territory.

For these requests made by Qingying, Hezendorff had some regrets in his heart. But also accepted his conditions. The reason why Austria-Hungary dared to criticize Russia on the Balkan issue in these years was that in addition to the fact that both itself and the world community valued their strength too much, Germany's support behind it was also an extremely important factor. Now they suddenly discovered that the terrifying stick in their hands that seemed to be full of weight was actually a hollow and brittle scum that had been eaten by mites, and their hearts were less confident; Coupled with the fact that Germany had not yet completed its preparations for war and its restraint on Austro-Hungarian actions in the Balkans, it could only temporarily put aside its ambitions to settle the southern part of the Reich once and for all through a single war. As Ching Ying said, the Austro-Hungarian military's current focus should shift from land appropriation to internal reform, after all, their mobilized army is a hopeless super tragedy; Fighting a small Balkan country can still be majestic, once facing any big country except Italy, it will be the rhythm of the other party's various messes!

After a meeting with Herzendorff, Qingying also saw the current situation thoroughly. Among Germany's three allies, Austria-Hungary, the most powerful, is also a fundamentally unreliable master, and the army cobbled together by all kinds of chaotic people is a group of zombies, and they cannot be expected to play any role on the battlefield. The Ottoman Empire had been sick for a hundred years, and it was unable to deal with Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and other small countries that were originally divided from their own territory, and it was already Allah to be able to block the Russians with the rugged terrain of the Caucasus mountains during the Great War. Italy's combat effectiveness is even more of a laughing stock in the history of world wars: regardless of the strange performance during World War II, the counterattack they launched against Austria-Hungary in 1915 with all their strength was blocked by the Tyrolean archers of the Austro-Hungarian local miscellaneous army, which was only 150 of them, and let the Austro-Hungarian troops who came to reinforce afterwards "find the feeling of being overwhelmed for the first time" in front of them! This meant that on the land battlefield, Germany had to fight all three of Britain, France, and Russia, and the number of troops that could be mobilized on both sides was close to 1 to 4, not counting the cannon fodder armies provided by Britain and France's huge colonies all over the country for the suzerain: during World War I, the British Army had a large number of foreign troops from India, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, in addition to its own soldiers, who absorbed a lot of firepower for the British soldiers in the Battle of Garibaldi.

Looking at the allies that France is looking for, the British Empire and the Russian Empire are all world-level giants with great weight; Looking at the allies that Germany is looking for, Austria-Hungary and Italy are all scum-like and shoddy frustrations. Qingying doesn't understand, it's also a country that is a feud with each other, why is the gap in the vision of finding allies so big?

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Leather boots step on the brightly colored stone floor, making a crisp rhythmic sound. After standing silently for a while, Qingying finally turned around and walked away quickly, her face full of gloom and anger.

The Austro-Hungarian Army was completely out of hope. The country has no more than 800,000 Wehrmacht troops of a regular standard, and it is unclear whether the tragedy of the historic Battle of Brusilov will be repeated under the Russian offensive. The only use of this land power for Germany now is to build a powerful naval fleet to break out of the Adriatic Sea, block the British Mediterranean route in the event of a war, and threaten Egypt, so that Britain can move its forces to the Mediterranean to defend the German High Seas Fleet.

The only thing that made Qing Ying happy was that since the dreadnoughts that could arm two divisions only needed less than 1,000 men to move, the navy needed far fewer people than the army at the same cost; In addition, the fact that the number of naval forces is directly linked to the number of warships means that the size of the navy cannot be swelled by a nationwide mobilization as soon as war is declared, as is the case with the army. In this way, the Austro-Hungarian military could carefully select those who were "well-established" and loyal to the empire to be put into active service, without worrying about the kind of rebellion or mutiny in the navy that would occur after the army was mobilized.

In Qingying's concept, the navies of Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Turkey would form a veritable "combined fleet", with about 12 dreadnoughts, enough to overwhelm the French fleet responsible for the defense of the Mediterranean. As long as Britain still wanted the Suez Canal and the African colonies, it had to send capital ships into the Mediterranean to return to the rescue. At that time, the German High Seas Fleet will once again wait for an opportunity to smash the long-range encirclement built by Britain with its naval superiority in one fell swoop.

The key to the success of this plan is that in addition to the attraction of Italy, the strengthening of the strength of the Austro-Hungarian navy is also what Qingying needs to do at present. Historically, the Austro-Hungarian Navy has built a lot of capital ships after entering the dreadnought era, and they have built a total of 3 Radetz-class battleships and 4 United Force-class battleships, with a total tonnage of nearly 125,000 tons. But what is speechless is that the Radetz-class battleships they started construction in 1907 turned out to be a strong style of the former dreadnought, mixed with 4 305mm main guns and 8 240mm secondary guns, and at this time the dreadnought had been completed! If Austria-Hungary could finance this class of ships into dreadnoughts, then its naval strength would be greatly enhanced, which would undoubtedly play a very important role in promoting Germany's strategy of forcing Britain to divide its forces in the Mediterranean.

Thinking of this, the gloomy look on Qingying's face finally melted a little. He touched the thick package he was carrying, and then quickened his pace away from the War Department building. For the strengthening of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Qingying has found the most suitable breakthrough: that is, the Austro-Hungarian crown prince, Franz, who has always supported the development of the navy? Archduke Ferdinand. (To be continued......)