According to the agreement between Australasia and the Entente, when the number of Australasia's standing army reached 400,000, it was when Britain and France began to transfer Pacific colonies to Australasia.

You know, although the colonies in the Pacific Ocean only have a few archipelagos and islands, the total area is not very large.

But that doesn't mean that transferring a colony is a simple process. Even if Australasia is relatively close to the colonies, it will take at least half a year to fully accept it.

It also involved the admission and repatriation of the colony's population, the re-establishment of order and government in the colony, the takeover of the colony's garrison, and so on.

What's more, the area involves a small half of the Pacific Ocean, which means that Australasian navies need to patrol the area to ensure the safety of the colonies' waters.

The good news, however, is that Australasia has no rivals in the region, and is backed by the Allies, so it is not worried about the security of these colonies.

Of course, if we are to be fooled, the current United States may be a danger.

Because of the current South American war, the forces behind Argentina and Chile are actually fighting in secret.

However, the United States should not have the courage to directly participate, and on the premise that the allies do not help the United States, the current comprehensive military strength of the United States is not comparable to that of Britain and France.

However, for security reasons, Australasia will be the first to receive islands closer to the mainland, such as the British Solomon Islands Reserve, which is very close to Australian New Guinea.

The entire Solomon Islands has a land area of approximately 28,400 square kilometers and a total population of nearly 220,000.

But the current Solomon Islands are divided between Britain and Germany, with Germany occupying the two islands in the north and Britain occupying the entire Solomon Islands except these two islands.

After a note with the British ambassador to Australia, the transfer of the colony began on 1 September 1913.

The population of the British Solomon Islands Protected Area is about 150,000, of whom less than 20,000 are British and European immigrants, and the rest are indigenous people.

What needs to be solved is the question of whether to stay or leave these 20,000 people. For the remaining nearly 130,000 indigenous people, the problem is simple.

Or, give your own life for the future construction of the Solomon Islands. Or, they will be repatriated to Southeast Asia or elsewhere.

There is also a thorny issue about the resettlement of the Solomon Islands, or the level of political divisions of the Solomon Islands.

At present, there are basically two ideas and methods, one is to separate the Solomon Islands and create a colony of the Solomon Islands.

On the other hand, because of the relative proximity of the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, some officials proposed that the Solomon Islands be incorporated into the colony of Australian New Guinea without a separate administrative division.

Neither of these proposals had such a big impact on Arthur.

After all, the governor of the colony was appointed by Arthur himself, which meant that the governor of the colony would be more loyal to Arthur than the elected governor.

Whether the Solomon Islands is annexed to Australian New Guinea or as an independent colony, it is the scope of the colony, so the difference is not too great.

After comprehensive consideration, Arthur, at the suggestion of Prime Minister Kent, decided to make the Solomon Islands a separate colony and named it the Solomon Islands Colony.

After all, the Solomon Islands are also hundreds of kilometers away from Australian New Guinea, and it is not convenient to manage them in a unified manner.

More state-level administrative units also helped Arthur reward his subordinates. At the same time, these colonial governors were also equivalent to Arthur's loyal supporters, and to a certain extent, they could also support Arthur's status.

On September 2, a 1,000-strong colonial garrison accompanied the first Solomon Islands Colonial Governor, Marker McOsland, to the Solomon Islands, which also represented Australasia's takeover of the Solomon Islands and expanded its sphere of influence in Oceania and the Pacific Ocean.

Before Marc McOsland's departure, Arthur met with him and tested his abilities.

What the Solomon Islands needs to do now is to retain the population of the colony as much as possible and ensure the development of the colony.

The second is to stabilize the order of the colonies as soon as possible and not to allow possible chaos in the Solomon Islands.

Thirdly, it is necessary to establish a well-established defense system in the Solomon Islands as much as possible, and coastal defense is also very important, after all, this is the actual northeastern border of Australasia at present.

Of course, these tasks are not difficult to accomplish in practice. At least with Marc McOsland's abilities, it's not difficult to accomplish this.

After all, there are more than 100,000 indigenous people in the Solomon Islands who can be used, which is a labor resource that can be consumed at will, and can lay a solid foundation for various construction in the Solomon Islands.

Taking advantage of this opportunity in the Solomon Islands, Arthur also made changes to the defense of all his colonies.

The Solomon Islands and Australian Timor each have about 1,000 troops.

Australian New Guinea and the Crown Territory have a garrison of 3,000 troops.

These garrisons are separate and directly subordinate to the Ministry of Defense. The colony has the right to apply for transfer, but the salaries, weapons and equipment of the garrison are all provided by the Ministry of Defense.

Doing so would weaken the powers of the colonial governor and minimize the possibility of the colonial governor's mercenaries becoming self-reliant.

However, the power of the colonial governor to mobilize these garrisons still existed. After all, certain policies regarding the security of the colonies also require the cooperation of these garrisons.

After this move, the number of troops stationed in the northern colonies and royal territories was greatly reduced, and the number of troops was only 8,000 at full capacity.

However, with the Australasian navy, the security of these colonies can still be guaranteed.

As for the 15 colonial divisions that Australasia currently has, they were mobilized by Arthur to Australasia mainland for unified and standardized training.

Before the First World War began, they also underwent a period of training to ensure that they had some combat ability.

Of course, it is more important to cultivate the loyalty of these indigenous soldiers. At least in the war, there will be no chaos, no defection, which is also the most basic requirement.

But I don't think so. After all, these armies are going to arrive in the European theater in the future. Who can they defect to? Defection to Germany?

You know, racism is much worse in Europe than in Australasia, and when they flee the battlefield, they don't necessarily get out of danger with their lives.

It is better to fight for Australasia, and if they win, they will also receive the reward promised by Arthur.

Yes, in order to motivate these soldiers, and to ensure that these indigenous armies would not be born of chaos, Arthur promised that if they had served in Australasia for ten years, they would receive a financial reward and be sent to live in Southeast Asia with his family.

It was Arthur's first public commitment to bring indigenous people to Southeast Asia safely since he took control of all of Australasia.

It also gave hope to some natives who thought they would die in Australasia in a tragic fate, even if it was just for their families.

In order to make these indigenous soldiers believe their own words, coupled with cultivating the combat effectiveness of these indigenous soldiers, ensure their loyalty.

With a wave of his hand, Arthur also provided meat for these indigenous soldiers, but only for one meal every two days.

But this is much better than what these natives had lived before. On the basis of daily obedient training, they were able to get enough food, and the beef, mutton and fruit every two days, even if it was just a tomato or apple, were enough to excite the natives.

In addition, these colonial divisions all have instructors set up by Arthur, who are actually officials responsible for brainwashing.

Therefore, since the training of these 15 colonial divisions began, there has not been much chaos, and the training is also proceeding in an orderly manner.

In fact, this is also normal, after all, after these natives join the army, they and their families will be treated much better.

One of the many benefits of indigenous soldiers was that their families were exempt from forced labor and became regular workers under the government or colonial government, and their work was also paid.

This also means that after these indigenous people join the army, the safety and livelihood of their families are guaranteed.

At the same time, some natives who have been promoted to the positions of squad leaders and officers will be given more generous rewards and guarantees, and with these natives to carry out internal supervision, the control of the entire colonial division will also be more secure.

One of the most crucial aspects of ensuring that the Colonial Division had a certain level of loyalty, Arthur established a rule within the Native Soldiers, which Arthur simply referred to as the Whistleblowing Rule.

As long as you can expose the disloyal behavior of your comrades and superiors, once verified, you can get a rich reward.

The reward includes a certain amount of money, as well as the right to freedom for whistleblowers and their families.

This also means that if the revelation is successful, it is very likely that he and his family will be directly freed.

Even if money is not touched, Arthur believes that no natives will not yearn for freedom. The promulgation of this whistleblowing rule, even if the natives do not have the courage to expose their comrades-in-arms and superiors, will make some natives with ulterior motives jealous and create a rift between the natives and the natives.

At the same time, there will not be too many indigenous soldiers from a region inside a colonial division.

This rule is even extended to class units, and there are basically no more than two natives from the same region in the same combat class.

This also means that these indigenous soldiers and their comrades-in-arms are relatively strangers to each other, which also increases the possibility of indigenous soldiers exposing their comrades-in-arms, and increases the distrust and suspicion between indigenous soldiers and indigenous peoples.

The best way to manage these indigenous people is to divide them from indigenous peoples, and to use indigenous people to govern indigenous peoples.

Under all these policies, even if the loyalty of the colonial division is not too high, it can barely be used for battle.

Anyway, these colonies were sent to Europe, and their lives didn't matter to Arthur.

Of course, Arthur will also do what he says. By the end of World War I, the vast majority of natives would be repatriated by Arthur, even those who had not joined the army.

All Aboriginal soldiers were uniformly armed with Lee Enfield rifles, which also depleted part of the Royal Arsenal's rifle stockpile.

However, the good news is that the British Empire supported part of the funds for this batch of equipment, and the Australasian Ministry of Defense did not contribute much.

With the exception of rifles, the colonial divisions were equipped with very few heavy weapons. Each colonial division was armed with only a few machine guns and more than a dozen artillery pieces, and the heavy fire weapons were only disguised.

Compared to the luxuriously equipped regular troops and Guards Divisions, the Colonial Division's equipment is somewhat shabby.

But after all, it is a unit that is used as cannon fodder by Arthur, and it is already quite good to be able to equip some machine guns and artillery.

In terms of training, there is also a relatively large gap between the colonial division and the regular troops.

The most important training of the colonial division was discipline and discipline training, and simple English training.

This is to facilitate the soldiers to better communicate with the Europeans after they go to Europe, and at the same time, it is also to allow the soldiers to better obey the command of the Australasian officers.

As for target training, colonial divisions also had them, but they were not as frequent as regular troops.

In general, these indigenous soldiers were allowed to conduct target training every five days, consuming about 10 rounds per person per target training, or an average of 2 rounds per person per day.

This also means that the 300,000 indigenous soldiers consume up to 600,000 rounds of ammunition per day, which is also a test of the production capacity of the Royal Military Factory.

However, such consumption is also effective. At least these indigenous soldiers have improved their marksmanship a lot since they joined the army.

Of course, the Ministry of Defense did not expect these indigenous soldiers to have good marksmanship, and it can be seen from the target shooting training every five days that the requirements of the Ministry of Defense are actually only to let these indigenous soldiers master the use of firearms, so as not to know how to fire a gun on the battlefield.

Anyway, when it came to the European battlefield, the consumption of these indigenous soldiers was basically provided by the British Empire.

As for whether these indigenous soldiers will waste a lot of bullets, it depends on whether the logistics capacity of the British Empire is strong or not, and whether the production of military factories is fast.

While the colonial divisions were heavily trained, the training of the Australasian regular troops, the two Guards Divisions and the three Regular Divisions, did not end.

This also leads to the fact that the current Australasia is just a daily training consumption of soldiers, which is a very large number.

At present, ordinary soldiers have about 20 rounds of bullets per target training, which also means that the total number of bullets consumed by all ordinary soldiers for each target training is as high as 1.6 million.

And that's not even counting the training cost of the colonial division, otherwise the number would be even higher.

Of course, target shooting training is not carried out every day in the regular troops, after all, there are many other trainings. But theoretically, soldiers in the regular army have target shooting training at least three times a week.

In this way, all Australasian armies consume nearly 100 million rounds of bullets per year.

If Arthur hadn't ordered the Royal Arsenal to expand frantically and increase the production rate of weapons and equipment in order to deal with the future world war, I'm afraid that the domestic consumption in Australasia alone would be enough to give the Royal Arsenal a headache.

The current Royal Military Factory is one of the largest enterprises in Australasia.

The Royal Military Factory employs a total of 17,000 people and has one main plant and two branch factories.

With the combined production capacity of the three factories, the Royal Military Factory is capable of producing 500 Lee Enfield rifles, 200 Gew 98 rifles, 90 artillery pieces of various types, 30 heavy machine guns, 110 submachine guns, and 400 grenades per day.

In terms of ammunition, the Royal Military Factory is capable of producing 500,000 rounds of ammunition for various rifles, 150,000 rounds for machine guns and 8,700 rounds of artillery shells of various types per day.

If we can concentrate on the production of a certain weapon or ammunition, then the output value of this type of weapon and ammunition should be increased several times, but the disadvantage is that the output value of other weapons and ammunition will be reduced.

The good news, though, is that the production capacity of the Royal Military Factory is still increasing, almost every few months.

Moreover, in addition to the Royal Military Factory, the current civilian military factories in Australasia, including those invested by the government and the royal consortium, can also produce 100 rifles per day and more than 100,000 rounds of various ammunition per day.

The sufficiently developed military industry was the confidence that Australasia dared to participate in World War I, and it was also Arthur's confidence that he would gain sufficient benefits in World War I.

You know, in the First World War, countries around the world were very short of weapons, ammunition and supplies.

In war, the problems caused by the lack of weapons and ammunition also make these countries miserable.

In particular, Australasia's current ally, Russia, is one of the hardest hit countries by the lack of weapons, ammunition and other materials.

In 1915 alone, Russia ordered 3 million rifles, 2 billion rounds of ammunition and 12 million artillery shells from the Allies and neutral countries, but only 8-15% of these arms actually arrived.

This also means that the arms market in World War I is infinite, and whether or not you can eat this cake depends not only on the strength of the country, but also on the degree of development of the military industry.

With Arthur's advance preparations, the Royal Arsenal and the Australasian military industry, it was not difficult to obtain sufficient orders for weapons in World War I.

To this end, under Arthur's urging, the Royal Arsenal has begun to frantically stock weapons and equipment, including all kinds of weapons and ammunition.

According to Arthur's understanding, the Royal Military Factory currently has more than 500,000 rifles of various types, 250 million rounds of ammunition, 1,200 machine guns, 750 artillery pieces, 67 million rounds of machine gun ammunition, 1.1 million shells, 209,000 grenades and other weapons and equipment, and it is still growing.

If it weren't for the fear of hurting the normal development of Australasia, Arthur would have even planned to frantically expand the Royal Arsenal and other military factories, and frantically lay production lines for all kinds of weapons and ammunition.

At least in the First World War, weapons and ammunition were not sold at all. The amount of weapons and ammunition that can be produced also means how much money and benefits it has.

As a member of the Entente, Australasia can sell weapons and ammunition to Britain, France and Russia, so why not win the favor of the three countries.

5,000 words update, ask for a monthly pass, ask for support!

Tomorrow starts day 10,000!

(End of chapter)