Six hundred and seventy kilometers south of Petrograd, the capital of the Russian Empire (renamed in early 1915 for the "de-Germanization" of the fort), about 250 kilometers from the nearest front, the headquarters of the Russian army was located in Mogilev, and the chief of the General Staff of the Russian army, Alekseev, was walking with a gloomy face on his way to the office of His Majesty the Supreme Commander, that is, Tsar Nicholas II.

The situation is a mess, from east to west, from outside to inside, from bottom to top.

On the eastern front against China, the "Post-Ural Front" composed of most of the country's elite mobile forces, under the command of A. Brusilov, the most outstanding senior general since the beginning of the war, launched a pincer offensive against the main force of the enemy's Northwest Front at the end of July, which ended in a complete rout of its own side, losing more than half of its troops and most of its technical weapons, and by the middle of the month, the territory east of Siberia had completely fallen, and only Novosibirsk, which had been carefully constructed before the war, was left with Novosibirsk, which had been completely encircled.

At present, the "former Ural Front" under the command of General Nakasidze, the former commander of the armored forces, is rebuilding the defensive line along the Ural Mountains, and this "beggar front" composed of remnants of defeated soldiers lacks heavy weapons and no morale at all, and can only pray that the Novosibirsk fortress can hold out for a while longer to buy as much time as possible for the reorganization of the front.

Not to mention the Turkestan battlefield in the southeast, which has no power to fight back at all, is beaten everywhere, passive everywhere, and the future of a complete fall east of the Caspian Sea is probably not far away...... It seems that it is necessary to prepare a front as soon as possible to organize the Ural defense line and ensure the rear of the former Ural Front. A.S.: But in the current situation, the supplies needed for the rearmament of the former Ural Front are not yet known from now, and where can more guns be conjured to arm a front?

The Russian Empire is most lacking in those "gray cattle", and it is not a pity that they will die as many as they want, although the number of casualties and missing 2.5 million people in the first 10 months of this year is a bit "eye-catching", but the elite officers who have lost these cattle, as well as the more important technical weapons such as tanks, airplanes, radios, and heavy artillery, cannot be replenished in a short period of time. (For more new chapters, please visit,

The country's military industry is riddled with ills and inefficiency, the output of weapons and ammunition is far from meeting the needs of the war, and the railway system, which has been made a mess by the rigid and numb bureaucracy, has exacerbated the lack of materials for the front-line troops.

The Anglo-American allies promised a lot of aid, but not much could be delivered on time.

In last month's unprecedented naval battle in the Bay of Bengal, the defeat of the Allied Combined Fleet, the imminent fall of India, and the looming future of China's rendezvous with Germany and Turkey in the Persian Gulf, it seems that the current main route to foreign aid may be cut off in a few months.

On 15 September, Bulgaria, which had a grudge against the Balkan states in the Second Balkan War, announced that it would join the side of the Central Powers and then invaded Serbia and Montenegro with the German-Austrian army.

Although Britain and France promised to send conquest troops to land in Greece to "stabilize the Balkan front", it was far from quenching their thirst, and it was difficult to expect Britain and France to invest enough troops to defeat Bulgaria and recover Serbia in this secondary and secondary battlefield, which meant that the Balkan lines of communication, which were not so important but also played a considerable role, would not be restored for a long time, perhaps until the end of the war.

At present, although the northern line of communication based on the ice-free port of Murmank, which is rare in the Arctic Ocean, is not yet under substantial threat from the enemy, and the single line from Murmanke to the interior was completed before the outbreak of war, due to the lag in the construction of the port's supporting facilities, the quality of the railway itself, and the various problems in coordination with the allies, it can now only bear a small part of the import of foreign aid, and it is even more impossible to make up for the loss of imports caused by the interruption of the communication lines between Persia and the Balkans during the period.

However, compared with the autumn offensive launched by Germany and Austria in the past two months, the above bad news is still a "distant worry" that gives people time to calm down and think slowly about countermeasures. ：

In late August, the German Army Group Neman concentrated its forces to attack Riga, an important port on the Baltic Sea, and at the same time, the German Navy launched a breakthrough operation in the Gulf of Riga with the main force of the High Seas Fleet. The dense mine arrays in the Gulf of Riga caused the German ships to suffer heavy losses but returned in vain, but on the land battlefield, the Russian army was defeated and retreated due to the lack of mobile support, and the main force of the Russian Northwest Front was forced to take the initiative to abandon Riga and retreat in the direction of Lake Chud.

At about the same time, the German 9th and 12th armies faced by the Western Front, with a small number of highly integrated tank motorized units as the spearhead, launched a powerful pincer offensive against the Sventsny region, which was the key defense of the Russian army, and achieved a lightning breakthrough with "incredible progress".

In the face of the Austro-Hungarian army, the situation of the Southwestern Front was slightly better, and from the beginning of September, on the basis of recovering all the lost territory in the early stage of the war, the 1st and 1st regimental armies of the Austrian army attacked the Russian Polish Department and western Ukraine from the front line of the old border, and under the stubborn resistance of the Southwestern Front, the progress was slow, and by the beginning of January, it was already weak after breaking through the Transnistrian line, and at this time it was advancing to the line of Pinsk, Kovel, Lviv, and Chernsenov. The occupation of a narrow border area 60 to 100 kilometers deep exposed the flank of the German 12th Army on the central front, which could not let go of the march towards Minsk.

On the Caucasian side, the Turkish army has recovered all the territory previously occupied by the Russian army, and instead invaded the territory of Russia, due to the low position in the priority of replenishment, the strength of the Caucasian front is constantly weakening, and the Caucasian front is in an extremely dangerous situation.

At the end of the road, in front of you is the office of the supreme commander who must visit for only one hour every day: a farmhouse-style wooden house surrounded by dense tall cedar trees.

Alekseev took a deep breath, calmed down, stepped up the stairs under the watchful eyes of the guards on both sides, and rang the brass bell next to the door. (Read!) )