"It's a little late, but we're back to our homeland safely, aren't we?" Standing on the bridge of the Sultan Osman I, the Turkish admiral Al Basha finally breathed a sigh of relief. Behind it was its class-sibling, the battleship Rysadikh. There are a total of 8 ships of the same class in this world, and they belong to 6 countries or regions in two camps. And when the Turks returned in their own warships, there was always a cousin belonging to another country who followed. The Royal Navy's South Africa Fast Battleship, which belonged to South Africa, had been following the two Turkish super-dreadnoughts in a short distance until the two battleships entered the Persian Gulf, and then turned around and left.

Only Al Barsha knew what price the Turkish Empire had paid to acquire these two world-class fast battleships. "It took 6 years, a full 6 million pounds of investment (including training expenses and supporting parts in the Chinese period, etc.), we used the Baghdad Railway, the promise of fighting the Russians in the future, and our sweat and hard work for nearly 3 years to make these two warships join the battle sequence of the Turkish Navy! We will prove in the future that the choice of the motherland and our efforts will not be in vain, witnessing the revival of the Turkish Navy! Albarsha wrote in his diary.

The success of the final return voyage of the two super-dreadnoughts made both the Turks and the Germans breathe a sigh of relief. In August 1913, the Chinese Republic finally handed over the two warships to the Allies, and also trained qualified officers and soldiers for the Turks. I don't know what the actual situation will be, but at least the training looks good. Up to this point, the maritime strategy of the Allies had been largely perfected by now.

After several years of operation, the new military port, called Port Fao, already has a hull that can accommodate the super-dreadnought. And there are related supporting facilities and machinery workshops, with various parts and materials transported through the Baghdad Railway, which can already provide maintenance services for Super Dreadnought. Together with minefields and other light warships, it has become an important Allied military base in the Mediterranean. The only fly in the ointment was that the Kaiser rejected the proposal to bring the Far Eastern Fleet to the port of Faw in advance, and in the opinion of Wilhelm II, it was undoubtedly a great shame to abandon the Reich's territories in the Far East before the war had even begun! So the fleet of Count Spee could only move freely after the start of the war. And now it is necessary to stay in the Far East.

And for the home fleet, Tirpitz assured the Kaiser that by mid-1914 the Reich would have at least 20 dreadnoughts of all kinds. This number will reach more than sixty percent of the Royal Navy, and the combat strength will be between seven and eighty percent, (well, the events of the Dardacity three years ago gave Tirpitz strong confidence.) Tirpitz and Schell co-sponsored. Once the war began. The German High Seas Fleet will definitely not stay in port as a fleet of existence! To this end, the Kaiser agreed to the budget for ships three and four of the Bismarck-class battleships!

At this time, the Austro-Hungarian fleet in the Mediterranean Sea also had 2 Combined Forceweight battleships and another 2 Prinz Eugen-class super-dreadnoughts. A third super-intrepid Loudon is under construction. As for the Italians? Italy now has 3 Count Cavour-class dreadnoughts and 2 Caiodurio-class superdreadnoughts. In addition, 2 ships are being outfitted. If nothing else, by 1914 there would be 10 to 12 dreadnoughts of all kinds in the entire Allied fleet in the Mediterranean! Enough to suppress the French fleet!

And on the side of the Army. Germany had already completed the construction of the defensive line in the border area of the Western Front, and had set up fortified areas and batteries behind the defensive line, according to the overall plan. The German Army will deploy about sixty percent of its strength in this defensive line called Hindenburg (this line of defense was planned by Hindenburg and others). The remaining forty percent of the forces and the vast majority of the Austro-Hungarian army were to be engaged in the war against Russia on the Eastern Front, while the Germans also controlled the oil fields in Romania. In the last 5 years, almost all of Romania's fuel oil has been purchased by Germany. And that's not all, Germany also imported a lot of crude oil from the oil fields of the Nanyang provinces controlled by China, so much so that Wilhelm II thought that if it did not take advantage of the war, Germany would have to build new oil storage facilities.

In the planning of the army, the German army finally saved up 10 armored divisions after several years of hard work, of which in addition to 4 for the defense of the Western Front, the remaining 6 armored divisions will be used in the war against Russia, 2 of them will be deployed in East Prussia, the other two will be deployed in the Silesian region of Austria-Hungary, and the remaining two will be used as general reserves. When the Russians rushed in like angry bulls, they would first be beaten in the head by the German and Austrian army's fortifications, then cut off by four armored divisions, and finally surrounded and annihilated in Russian Poland.

After the completion of the East Prussian-Polish campaign, the German and Austrian armies would continue to advance in depth into Russia and, when appropriate, march with the navy to the Gulf of Finland to force Russia out of the war as soon as possible, as for the Western Front? The German Army had only one task, and that was to hold the line of defense and let the British and French armies meet on the line of defense! The Germans knew that it was unrealistic to destroy France, because he had access to overseas aid at any time, and the help of the powerful British Expeditionary Force, and it was undoubtedly the best and most realistic option to take out Russia and force France out of the war.

Compared with the Allies, the Allies were also trying to speed up their preparations for war, and Britain and France had already begun to expand their armies and military industries early. Around 1914, the French Navy would have 8 to 9 capital ships, including 2 Danton-class dreadnoughts, 3 Guba-class dreadnoughts, plus 3 to 4 provincial-level super-dreadnoughts. If they are lucky, and Italy and Austria-Hungary are a little less powerful, the French will at least guarantee that the difference in numbers will not be very large, of course, if there is a real fight, but it is not possible, the French think that most of them will kneel.

Although there was a period of confusion in the guiding ideas of the British Navy after the time of the Daring, under the strong guidance of Churchill, the British Navy quickly took various remedial measures, especially when the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships started construction, and the British regained their original self-confidence! The British always believed that it is always better to find and correct problems in peacetime than to find problems and correct them in wartime, the former is painful, but at least there is a chance to correct it, while the latter often means defeat!

The British are trying to maintain and expand their advantage, and the Russians, after several years of hard work, will also launch three super-dreadnoughts before 1914, so that with the three dreadnoughts that survived the Sino-Russian naval battle, the Russians also have a more or less formidable force in the Baltic Sea. However, this fleet, which is less than half of the number of the German High Seas Fleet and has a coffee table in quality, is actually very similar to the French fleet, which looks more bluffing, but when it comes to fighting, you can only see three new super dreadnoughts. It's interesting that the other ships can support for half an hour! But the only thing that can make Essen happy is that there are two super-super dreadnoughts on the slipway (yes, you read that right, it's not that the author made a mistake. Under construction, these two super battleships, which are planned to use 12 14-inch 50L guns, will serve as killer features for the Russian Navy! Of course, this thing was still on the slipway, and by 1914 it could not be ...... water.

As for the army, Britain and France stood on the defensive line called Xia Fei, looking at the Hindenburg defense line, which was also made of reinforced concrete, not far away, and couldn't help but smile bitterly. Both sides had the same strategy, painstakingly repairing the defensive line and then placing various artillery and machine guns in these bunkers. These lines of defense use trenches and tunnels as meridians, reinforced concrete as muscles and skins, turrets and firing points as fists, these two lines of defense are like two steel giants stretching for thousands of kilometers, standing on the front, according to the current situation, Britain and France determined that the opposite Germany may also be on the defensive, then the two sides directly turned the battle into a war of attrition, but Britain and France like it, because in their opinion, if they want to compare resources, the advantage of Britain and France is too great, in the face of a solid defense line, The role of elite infantry and tactics will be minimized by the defensive system.

The Anglo-French army was happy, but the Russians were not, and judging by the information from all sides, it seemed that the Germans and Austrians were determined to fight themselves. The Russians are still very self-aware, and the Sino-Russian war completely shattered the halo on the head of the Russian army. The war gave a light to Russia's weakness, and at the same time a wake-up call for the Russian Army, which had always been arrogant. The exquisite tactical coordination and fierce armament of the Chinese army easily tore apart the defense line of the Russians, since an international that Russia has always looked down on can defeat Russia, then what will happen to Germany, the second largest industrial country in the world, and its army, which is the largest in the world? The results speak for themselves.

Although the Russians had received assurances from Britain and France, the latter said that they would try their best to attract the German Army to the Western Front to reduce the pressure on the Russian Army, and at the same time, the British, French, and Chinese governments assured that in the event of war, the supplies sent by the three countries through various channels would not be cut off. Of course, there is another premise for the Huaxia Republic, that is, it needs enough hard currency to pay, and now Huaxia can also collect pounds. But if, after the war, China hinted that if the value of the pound is not guaranteed, then it can only be traded through gold and other precious metals. But it's better than nothing, and if you want to talk about gold reserves, Russia still has more than 500 tons of reserves. And more importantly, the Russians are also not mentally prepared for a long war, so Russia is not afraid of hard currency payments.

In response to the sharp German attack, the Russians also made some preparations, on the one hand, to build a defensive line, and on the other hand, to mobilize a large number of cavalry as reserves. At the same time, they stepped up the construction of their own armored forces, and the last thing was to formulate a series of measures to clear the walls and clear the wilderness, so that after the start of the war, Germany would be completely dragged down by the vast geographical distance and the harsh winter. The Russians have reason to believe that they can drag their opponents to death when Napoleon is at his strongest, so what can't they do now?

Thanks to the book friend Li Yi for the reward of me and zhouyu1976, as well as the monthly ticket support of the book friend Zhiqiu Yiye 1117, and the evaluation vote of the book friend smuksi~~~. (To be continued......)