On August 24, 1914, the Australasian Expeditionary Force, totaling more than 316,000 men, began to march towards the European theater.

In order to help the Australasian Expeditionary Force reach Europe faster, Britain and France sponsored a large number of transport ships and promised to protect the expeditionary force's transportation throughout the process.

But in any case, it will take at least a little over a month for Australasia to reach the French border, and for more than a month, the French border can only be maintained by the Anglo-French forces.

After the end of the French border battle, the number of French casualties has exceeded 140,000, which also makes Xia Fei have to admit the defeat of the border battle.

Although both France and Germany were fighting according to the established battle plan, the current progress of the two countries showed that France's Operation Plan 17 had failed, while Germany's plan to pass through Belgium had succeeded.

Although the French army did not consume much of its vital strength, the defeat in the border war left the German army in the French territory like a scorched ruin, and even the family cemetery of French President Poincaré in Nigacur was dug into a latrine.

Although it is not known whether this was intentional on the part of the German army, the current situation in France is a testament to the current crisis in France.

After the defeat in the border war, Xia Fei is thinking about the real reason for the defeat and the decision to save the war at the general headquarters.

Although both the military and political circles blamed Xia Fei, Xia Fei was not too panicked at this time.

Seeing his boss frowning and thinking about the problem, Xia Fei's assistant, the adjutant Captain Miller, couldn't help but remind: "Your Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, don't you think there is a problem with the deployment of the army?" ”

Xia Fei was stunned, looked at his assistant, and did not reproach him for his abrupt question, but continued to ask with interest: "Captain Miller, what do you think the German army should do next?" ”

As the retinue of the French commander-in-chief's adjutant, Captain Miller's resume was naturally not ordinary.

Born in the Saint-Cyr Military Academy, and has made many achievements in the army, he is shrewd and capable, and is an extremely capable young officer.

Xia Fei took it with him as an entourage adjutant, which also more or less meant cultivating Miller.

Captain Miller heard Xia Fei's question, thought carefully for a while, and then replied: "Your Excellency, Commander-in-Chief, I think that the next purpose of the Germans must be to attack Paris. There were three ways to attack Paris, the first of which was to return to Paris from the west via the axis of Amiens and Rouen. The second was from the axis of Maubèges, Saint-Quentin and Soisson, and directly stormed Paris. The third was to follow Charleroi and Maubèges to the southwest, to pursue the main forces of our army, and then to attack Paris. Judging from the current situation of our army, which is fighting and retreating, the Germans may be the most likely to choose the third route. ”

Xia Fei nodded encouragingly, looked at his lieutenant with relief, and continued to ask, "Is there any way to deal with that?" ”

"Although our army is newly defeated, our main forces still have the ability to fight. The army of the northern route could retreat towards the Marne and hold out along the river. In addition, an elite army group was stationed north of the city of Paris, both to defend Paris and to look for opportunities to sneak up on the German flank. Miller continued.

For the French army, a retreat was okay, but constant retreat was undesirable. As the capital of France, if Paris falls too early, it will not only deal a huge blow to the French people and army, but also to the entire Entente.

You must know that the battlefield on the Western Front basically relied on the French army to hold on. If the French army loses its combat effectiveness too early, it is equivalent to a powerful boost for the offensive and defense of the Entente.

Xia Fei's laughter became louder, he nodded with satisfaction, and said to Miller, "Captain, I think we should change positions." You will be the commander-in-chief, and I will be your adjutant. ”

Although there was a bit of a joking tone, Xia Fei's words were not exactly jokes.

In fact, Miller's proposal to ascend to the throne is basically the same as Xia Fei's idea, which also means that Miller's ability is indeed enough to be the commander-in-chief of France in some aspects.

On August 25, 1914, the day after the Australasian Expeditionary Force was dispatched, Xia Fei officially changed its deployment and promulgated a new battle plan.

First of all, to prevent the rout of all French troops, but to allow the integrated army to withdraw in an orderly manner to the line of Verdun, Alon, Claeon, Laon, Raphael, Saint-Quentin, Somme.

At this time, Xia Fei was not clear about his order, which led to the outbreak of some of the most brutal battles of World War I.

The line from Verdun to the Somme is the position demarcated by Xia Fei to build military facilities and build offensive defense.

From this decision of France, the Western Front was plunged into protracted trench warfare. The competition between the two sides is not only manpower, but also material, financial and transportation capacity.

Since the very beginning of the war, all the military-industrial complex in Australasia has entered a state of overtime production.

On the European battlefield, the consumption of weapons and ammunition is also getting faster and faster, and Britain, France and Russia are already negotiating a huge arms trade order with Australasia.

According to the current situation, this arms trade order is divided into 400,000 rifles, 1,200 artillery pieces, 500 heavy machine guns, 100,000 grenades, 80 million rifle bullets, 10 million machine gun bullets, and 200,000 shells of various types.

That's more than $10 million in money involved in a huge arms purchase, and at least $4 million in pure profit alone.

And the lion's share of this arms purchase order belongs to the Tsarist Empire. Because of the frenzied expansion of the Russian Empire, many soldiers have not yet obtained their own weapons.

In the current Russian army, there is a tradition of snatching weapons. Of course, it was not in the hands of his comrades-in-arms, but in the dead bodies on the battlefield.

As long as you are quick and take weapons from corpses, then these weapons will belong to you, whether from the enemy or from your comrades.

This has also led to the current chaos in Russia's logistics, with Russia's own guns, British and French-supported guns, Australasian guns and German-produced guns.

These various types of weapons caused a huge burden on the logistics of the Tsarist Empire, which made the Tsarist government determined to replace the weapons of the elite troops.

At the very least, it is necessary to adopt unified combat weapons in elite troops, which can greatly reduce the logistical pressure caused by different weapons.

This batch of weapons orders is also almost a quarter of Australasia's stockpile. Even if the Australasian military factories work overtime to produce, the current rate of consumption of weapons and equipment (including exports) is still far greater than the production rate.

This also made Arthur's previous decision to order a frenzied hoarding of weapons and equipment extremely wise, and inadvertently, the arsenal became more obedient to Arthur's orders.

To date, the Royal Military Factory employs 25,000 people. This figure has risen by nearly 10,000 compared to more than a year ago, and it is not clear how exaggerated the pace of expansion of the military factories is.

Even the expansion of civilian military factories in Australasia is staggering. According to conservative estimates, more than 30,000 people are employed in Australasia's military industry. The biggest change that the war brought to Australasia was the frenzied expansion of the military industry.

If the war continues, employment in Australasia's military industry could even exceed 50,000, heading towards the 100,000 mark.

While this is a good thing to promote employment in Australasia, it is also a question of what to do with the oversized and bloated military industry when the war ends.

There was a long gap between World War I and World War II, and Australasia was destined not to have much war because of its special geographical environment.

Unless Australasia can provoke many regions in the world and artificially create a lot of wars, otherwise the weapons and equipment manufactured will have nowhere to sell.

Wait, Arthur suddenly felt that this kind of behavior was somewhat familiar, wasn't this the world policeman of the future?

Although the war has been going on for almost a month, the impact on Australasia is not too great.

Judging from the current situation in Australasia, the life of the residents is still business as usual, except for the constant recruitment of people in the military factories, everything else seems to be no different.

That's where Australasia's unique location comes in. Even if the First World War had affected the six powers, it was unlikely that the war would have spread to Australasia itself.

If it weren't for the fact that Australasia had sent an expeditionary force and had already transported weapons and resources to Europe several times, the war would not have looked like it had much to do with Australasia.

Of course, it is impossible to say that the war had no effect on Australasia. At least in terms of immigration, especially since the second half of the year, the number of migrants in Australasia has been visibly reduced.

Previously, a large number of oil tankers and transport ships would travel between Oceania and Europe every day, and thousands of migrants would be transported by Australasia.

But since the second half of this year, the number of immigrants has decreased by half, and if it were not for the number of Russian immigrants struggling to support, I am afraid that this year's immigration numbers would have been cut in half.

According to the report of the Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Livelihood of Australasia, this year's immigration has dropped significantly compared with last year, and even the final number of immigrants may not exceed 700,000.

The number of Russian immigrants accounts for the majority of the total, probably around 500,000 to 550,000.

Without the support of a stable source of migration from Russia, it is feared that the migration boom that has been persisting in Australasia for more than a decade would have come to an end, and the population growth rate in Australasia would have declined.

On August 27, 1914, after several days of preparation, weapons and equipment destined for Britain, France and Russia were successfully shipped from the port of Sydney to France and the Russian Far East.

The Australasian expeditionary force, which had set out by boat a few days before, would arrive in France at about the end of September, and from there they would take the railway to the border to fight with the Anglo-French forces.

In addition to requesting support from Britain and Australasia, France and Russia are also seeking support from other neutral countries.

In fact, from the beginning of the war, some of the more important neutral countries, such as Italy and Bulgaria, were the targets of the Central and Entente powers.

Needless to say, as one of the great powers, Italy is adjacent to Austria-Hungary and France, and has a good naval strength in the Mediterranean region.

If Italy can be co-opted into the war, it will be good news for either side (naval only).

The Entente and the Central Powers had never ceased to woo Italy, and although Italy had already declared its neutrality, the interventionists and centrists in Italy had already been engaged in a long quarrel over which side to join.

There were also frenzied negotiations between the Central and Entente powers and Italy, and if nothing else, Italy should wait and see a little longer before making a decision.

In addition to Italy, Bulgaria was also co-opted by both the Central and Entente powers.

Bulgaria is geographically important, not only in the Balkans, the flashpoint of World War I, but also in close proximity to Serbia, Romania, Greece and other countries.

If Bulgaria had joined the Central Powers, then Serbia would have suffered from the enemy, which was not a good thing for the Entente.

Bulgaria, with the support of the Allies, could posefully pose a significant threat to Serbia and the Balkans.

And if Bulgaria joins the Entente, it will also be a huge help for the Entente. Not only would Serbia not have to worry about reserves and concentrate on uniting with Russia against Austria-Hungary, but it would also allow the Balkans to form a whole, and the Austro-Hungarian advantage in this region would be wiped out.

However, compared to Italy, which is relatively grassy, Bulgaria is actually more difficult to woo.

Italy will join whoever gives the most benefits, and all they hesitate is to wait for which side will enter the greater advantage.

Unlike Bulgaria, the hatred between Bulgaria and Serbia deepened during the Second Balkan War, which greatly reduced the likelihood of Bulgaria joining the Entente.

Unless Britain and France could offer conditions that far exceeded those of the Central Powers, and that would satisfy the forces and people in Bulgaria, it was unlikely that Bulgaria would join the Entente.

In any case, Bulgaria's geographical position is indeed very important, and Britain and France are trying their best to fight for it.

In addition to fighting for countries such as Italy and Bulgaria, the four major powers within the Entente had also held several meetings, in the form of telegrams, of course.

The four great powers were engaged in various negotiations to determine how much concessions they could give to these neutral powers, so that they could be drawn into the Entente and fight together against the Central Powers.

If nothing else, the Italians should have joined the Entente. It must be said that Italy and Austria-Hungary had direct territorial contradictions, which were what prevented Italy from joining the Central Powers.

(End of chapter)