The 13th Battle of the Izo River, which ended on October 25, 1918, became the last straw that broke the camel's back, and produced a series of chain reactions.

The Ottoman Empire, which was already in a state of disintegration, had been hit hard by this, and had lost hope of winning the war.

On October 27, representatives of the Ottoman Empire signed an armistice with the Allies on the battleship "New Duke of Hawaii" of the Tang State anchored in the port of Modelos.

The news of the unprecedented defeat at the 13th Battle of the Izo River was an unprecedented political earthquake that led to the complete collapse of Austro-Hungarian rule, a process that could no longer be saved.

The backlog of contradictions within the Austro-Hungarian Empire has completely exploded, and a situation has emerged everywhere.

The Czechoslovaks, Poles, and Yugoslavs rose up in revolt, and these peoples declared their unity and independence from Habsburg rule.

In desperation, the Austro-Hungarian High Command also signed an armistice with the Allies in Padua on October 26, 1918, declaring defeat and surrender.

At this point in time, it was a full week earlier than the original history.

The same cloud of defeat hung over the German Empire, and after the allies surrendered one after another, the Germans could not bear it.

When the news of the disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Izzo River came, the German army was no longer able to make up for the shortage of troops on the southern front, and there was an extreme shortage of food, weapons and ammunition, and the war was no longer sustainable.

On November 27, Field Marshal Hindenburg, General Ludendorff, the German Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and other important government officials held a meeting to take urgent measures.

Ludendorff said at the meeting:

"The Germans were unable to launch an offensive at the front to destroy the enemy, and it was impossible to find peace by defensive action, and there was no hope of victory.

The air superiority of the Tang State was very obvious, and they had almost an endless source of supplies and troops. That would destroy all our efforts, and the war should be ended diplomatically. ”

On the battlefield of the Western Front

On 3 September, the Germans were forced to retreat from the Amiens salient, where the Germans suffered heavy losses.

On the side of the Entente, two armored divisions, 32 infantry and cavalry divisions of Britain, France and Tang were concentrated, and they quickly broke through the forward positions of the German army by taking advantage of the air superiority strike.

Within a few days, Germany had lost all the areas it had occupied when it began its offensive in March 1918.

From 12 September to 15 September, the Germans suffered another crushing defeat in the St. Miel salient.

In this battle, more than 160,000 German troops captured by the Allies were again severely defeated.

The Allied armies attacked the German army and its Allied forces in three prominent areas, including the Marne, Amiens and Saint-Miel, with superior forces, and completely established a dominant position on the Western Front.

From the summer of 1918 to the present, the German army has lost more than 700,000 troops, and because the reserve force has been exhausted and cannot be replenished, the German army on the Western Front is at a great disadvantage.

The defeat on the Southern Front was like a death knell, completely crushing the will of the German army to resist.

General Ludendorff could not help but lament; "October 25 was the darkest day in German military history."

On the battlefield on the Western Front

As early as the beginning of September, the Allied forces began a general offensive between Reims and Verdun and quickly broke through the Hindenburg line.

The Belgian army also launched a major counteroffensive and began to regain its territory, and the defeat of Germany was a foregone conclusion.

The counteroffensive of the Tang Empire in the Balkan theater was also a great success, and on September 29, Bulgaria surrendered to the Entente.

The collapse of the Western Front and the Southern Front, and the shift of the front to the German mainland, has become an inevitable prospect of disaster.

At this time, domestic contradictions erupted, and the German Empire was overwhelmed.

At an emergency military meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on November 27, Field Marshal Hindenburg proposed to the German government:

"Immediately call for peace with our enemies...... The growing tension of the situation may force the High Command to make painful decisions. ”

The German generals agreed that an armistice was the only way to save the Reich.

As a matter of fact

As early as 4 October, Kaiser Wilhelm II appointed the liberal Prince Max Baden as chancellor to preside over the peace talks.

However, at this time, Kaiser Wilhelm II was still lucky, hoping to withdraw from the war with dignity while retaining the German imperial system.

The new German government, with the assistance of the Swiss government, proposed to the Tang Prime Minister:

If peace is made on the basis of the "15 points," Germany is willing to sign an armistice agreement and begin peace talks.

The "Fifteen Points" was a peace policy proposed by Lord Hu Yongtang, Prime Minister of the Tang Dynasty, in his speech to the lower house of the Tang State on January 8, 1918, with the aim of ending the war with this as the core.

Lord Hu Yongtang's "15-point" policy was a "peace program" for dividing up the world under the situation of drastic changes in the international situation, and it also focused on the issue of the "threat from Tsarist Russia."

The purpose of Tang's move was to seize the diplomatic initiative in the negotiations with Germany into his own hands.

On 8 October, the Tang State reverted to Germany and demanded that its government confirm its acceptance of the "Fifteen Points" and the demands set forth in Lord Hu Yongtang's later statements.

It was not until October 23 that the Tang government informed the Entente of the German government's request for an armistice and peace, and proposed that Prime Minister Lord Hu Yongtang's "15 points" be used as the basis for a future "peace treaty."

The government of the Tang Empire stated;

If the "15 points" were not used as the basis for negotiations, Datang would have made peace with Germany alone.

Under such a situation of forced palace, Britain, France, Italy, and other countries, after many days of closed-door consultations, on behalf of the Entente group, informed Tang on 27 October that they had agreed to start negotiations with Germany on the basis of the "15 points."

By this time, Kaiser Wilhelm II had been forced to abdicate and flee abroad, and Prince Baden's cabinet announced his resignation.

On November 1, 1918, a German delegation headed by Matthias Erzberger, Minister of Foreign Affairs, accepted the terms of the armistice in a carriage in the forest of Cambian, northeast of Paris, and formally signed the armistice agreement.

At 11 p.m. on the same day, an armistice was officially declared.

This was a full 10 days earlier than the end of the original First World War.

The signing of the Kham Bien Agreement meant the end of the war in which the great powers carved up the world, which lasted 51 months and 4 days.

The scale of this war is unprecedented in history, and nearly one billion people in 34 countries were involved in the war.

The war spread over an area of 4 million square kilometers, with 70 million people from all countries directly involved in the war, and 350 million people affected by the war.

In the war, more than 10 million people were killed and 20 million wounded. The direct military expenditure of the participating countries alone amounted to 208 billion Tang Yuan.

War has made peoples even more miserable. The monopoly bourgeoisie of the Tang State, on the other hand, made a windfall.

In the three years from 1916 to 1918, the average annual income of the Tang monopoly capital increased by $6.9 billion compared with the three years before the war, becoming the biggest winner.

The "sterilization king" (sulfonamide) alone brings a huge profit of more than one billion Tang yuan every year.

Early December

The imperial capital of Song City (Philadelphia) ushered in a fluttering snowfall, which covered the huge city in silver, and everyone was in a good mood.

When the news of the victory in the war came, the whole country was boiling.

The people of the Tang Empire still celebrated the good news in the traditional Chinese way, beating gongs and drums, and dancing dragons and lions, and the world returned to the long-awaited peace.

In the Senju Palace

The palace was filled with jubilant atmosphere, and Lord Hu Yongtang, the prime minister of the Tang Empire, was about to lead a delegation to Paris to attend a post-war conference on the division of the post-war international landscape, and to discuss with the allies the punishment measures related to the defeated countries, including the issue of post-war reparations.

The "15-point" policy proposed by Prime Minister Lord Hu Yongtang was the basis of the "post-war Paris Peace Treaty," and of course he did not allow him to attend this important international conference.

Everyone in the palace was full of laughter and a relaxed look, and the victory in the war was good news for everyone.

The Tang Empire acted very quickly, and as soon as Germany surrendered, it organized a large group of more than 230 large passenger and cargo ships to enter the Black Sea through the Bosphorus Strait, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

More than 52,000 troops of the advance corps successfully took over the German-occupied coastal areas of Odessa in southern Ukraine, the coal-iron ore producing areas in eastern Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula, and carried out military occupation of the region.

meanwhile

Large-scale expulsion of Ukrainians and Tsarist whites in the region, forced them to relocate to central Ukraine, and made room for the resettlement of subsequent veterans of the Tang Empire.

The Tang Empire has sent as many as 2.76 million expeditionary officers and soldiers to Europe, and will carry out the work of demobilization and decommissioning in half a year, and the main resettlement areas are on the Crimean Peninsula and the coastal areas of Odessa in southern Ukraine.

It is estimated that in the next two ~ three years, 80~850,000 retired officers and soldiers will be resettled in the above-mentioned areas, and the scale will reach 1 million in the long term.

Now, taking advantage of the chaotic situation, all the above-mentioned areas have been vacated, which is also convenient for future governance and rule.

Transporting troops across the ocean was a huge expense, with more than 382,000 casualties out of a total of 2.76 million expeditionary officers and men.

Except for the middle and high-ranking officers of the expeditionary force to Europe, who will return to the empire mainland one after another, most of the officers and soldiers will be resettled in the local area, mainly to the Crimean peninsula and southern Ukraine.

France also hopes to keep as many expeditionary officers and soldiers of the Tang Empire as possible to make up for the huge population loss, which is probably between 70~800,000 people.

There are also some retired officers and soldiers who are willing to go to the UK, and these numbers are being counted, and arrangements will be made one after another after they are discharged, ranging from about 300,000 to 400,000.

A small number of people will go to other European countries, and no more than 200,000 people will actually return to the empire, mainly military officers.

Recall the issue of sovereignty over the Crimean peninsula and southern Ukraine

The Tang Empire did not take over the above-mentioned areas from Tsarist Russia, but from the defeated Germany, which is related to an important legal basis, which must be clarified.

After the signing of the Peace of Brest, German and Austro-Hungarian armies occupied Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic Sea coast in accordance with the treaty.

With the end of World War I and the defeat of the Allies led by Germany, the land changed to a new owner.

After the Tang Empire occupied the Black Sea coast of Ukraine, the entire Ukrainian region became inland and no longer had access to the sea.

Such a new situation in the Black Sea region is also in line with the original intention of Britain, France, and other countries to restrain Tsarist Russia, and is in line with the geostrategic interests of European countries, so it has won the support of the world powers.

Otherwise, if you want to bite off a piece of fat in Europe, it will be really difficult.

Everybody knows

Putting a small Balkan country at the door of such a behemoth as Tsarist Russia will not play an isolation and blocking role at all.

After winning the First World War, the eyes of the world powers turned to Tsarist Russia, which had become a major problem for them.

Needless to say, Marshal Foch hoped to draw 2 million troops from the Western Front to form a multinational coalition to interfere in the internal affairs of Tsarist Russia and eliminate this source of danger in one fell swoop.

The reason for this

It is because after the new regime of Tsarist Russia came to power, it openly declared that it did not recognize the huge debt of more than 60 billion francs owed by the former government of Tsarist Russia in the international community.

More than a third of the debt belonging to the French government and private loan sharks amounted to more than 20 billion francs.

Before 1914 alone, Tsarist Russia owed France 14 billion francs in loans under various names, the earliest of which dates back to 130 years ago.

After the war, France was devastated, burdened with the huge war debts of the Tang State, and was called "a giant with clay feet lying on the operating table", how could it bear that the old man of Tsarist Russia had lost such a large sum of money?

Therefore, on the issue of multinational joint armed intervention in Tsarist Russia, the French were very active.

The most active in Britain was Churchill, the current Secretary of State for War, who declared at a recent meeting with representatives of the Tang State; "Britain is ready to organize a joint armed intervention of the armies of 14 countries in Tsarist Russia next spring."

The Rosstar news agency (the predecessor of TASS) quoted a message from the Finnish Information Agency that proved that Churchill's words were true, and the specific 14 countries to invade were determined.

That is;

Britain, China, France, Italy, Japan, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Poland, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia.

In fact, this is a pseudo-concept, and the list is full of regions that originally belonged to Tsarist Russia, except for the top 5 world powers.

These were all separated from the Tsarist Russian Empire, which hated the oppression of Tsarist Russia for a hundred years and wanted to get rid of Russian control and become an independent state, so they united to resist Soviet Russia, which is a legacy of national and historical problems.

The real participants are the five major powers, Britain, Tang, France, Italy, and Japan, among which each country has different attitudes.

France and Japan were the most active, and in August this year France had already organized an army to invade Tsarist Russia in the Balkans, showing an extremely tough attitude.

On April 5, 1918, British and Japanese troops landed at Vladivostok and invaded Tsarist Russia.

Among them, Fusang took out 12,000 troops as soon as it struck, and then increased to more than 44,000 troops in three army divisions, and planned to further increase the strength of troops and increase the intensity of armed intervention.

The British were hesitant and the British were of course furious because they were one of the biggest victims.

Prime Minister George was troubled by the fact that the post-war British economy was in ruins, and he could not afford too much money to launch a new war of intervention, and the people at home were extremely war-weary, so there was a lot of paddling.

War Secretary Winston Churchill, although a hard-line warmonger, was not the prime minister of the cabinet, and he was also greatly controlled in the cabinet to influence London's final policy.

Chamberlain, the current British Chancellor of the Exchequer, strongly opposed armed intervention in Tsarist Russia, believing that London's finances could no longer support such a war and needed enough time to recuperate.

He said; "Our lads have sacrificed enough, and the most important thing now is for them to go home and be reunited with their families and enjoy the rare peace and tranquility."

Such remarks were supported by the majority of the people in the cabinet.

The attitude of the Tang Empire is ambiguous, it seems that it is not highly motivated, and it has not sent troops to the Far East so far, nor has it used the chips in its hands to make a fuss.

And Italy is completely a wall-to-wall grass, if Britain, France, Tang and other countries all send troops in a big way, then Italy will naturally take the lead and take advantage of it.

On the other hand, they are the ones who are best at paddling.