Far away in St. Petersburg, Nicholas II had no idea that Arthur's plan would prolong the life of his dynasty, or that the turmoil within his empire would be far more dangerous than he had imagined.

But now, Arthur had more important jobs, such as rotating the Fourth Division, which was fighting in Europe.

The Fourth Division has been deployed to Europe for more than four months and now has a current death toll of 1,524 and 5,323 wounded, respectively.

This adds up to nearly 6,800 casualties, and the Fourth Division, which has only 16,000 people, has just over 10,000 soldiers.

If the fight continues like this, the combat capability of the Fourth Division will be a problem, and the soldiers will also suffer from war weariness because of the long hours of fighting.

After deliberations within the Ministry of Defense, coupled with Arthur's own plans, it was decided that the 3rd and 2nd Guards Divisions would be the 3rd and 2nd Guards Divisions for a new round of operations in Europe.

Although the greatest duty of the Guards was to defend the capital and protect the safety of Arthur and the royal family. But as the most powerful unit in Australasia in Arthur's mind, it is not only equipped with the most advanced and luxurious weapons and equipment in Australasia, but also has to experience life and death that is difficult for conventional troops to experience, and can also train the best and most elite soldiers.

The current Guards Division is an army formed by selecting the best soldiers in training from the regular army, but this does not guarantee that the Guards Division will be able to surpass the regular division in real combat, especially an army like the Fourth Division, which has experienced real life and death.

Therefore, having all two Guards divisions go into battle in batches is also the way Arthur planned to increase the combat effectiveness of the Guards Division.

Although the casualties of the Guards Division after participating in the battle would certainly be distressing to Arthur, compared to the actual large-scale war, the improved combat effectiveness of the army and soldiers is nothing.

Moreover, the 3rd Guards Division and the 3rd Regular Division have a total of 36,000 troops, which also helps the Australasian army to launch an offensive independently on the Western Front, after all, the Australasian army has independent command and must be used.

Repelling the German attack, or even recovering the territory occupied by the Germans, will become an excuse and bargaining chip for Australasia to gain more benefits after the war.

If civil strife really broke out in Russia after the war, the Entente would only be Britain, France and Australia.

Britain and France, on the other hand, were more damaged by the war, and they needed the support of countries like Australasia that were not greatly affected by the war, and there was more time to recover.

This also led to the increase in the importance of Australasia after the war, and Britain and France needed allies such as Australasia to help them consolidate their international position.

After all, Germany and Austria-Hungary will definitely be divided, and the remaining territories will be greatly restricted, and the status and strength of the great powers will definitely not be guaranteed.

If Germany were to suffer another civil strife, the three more powerful powers would directly lose their status as great powers.

This also made Australasia's international status skyrocket, and it even hoped that it would become the fourth great power after Britain, France, and the United States after World War I.

Of course, if the Australasian army breaks out in the war and raises the size of the navy, it is not impossible to surpass the United States and become the third largest power.

At least for the time being, the United States' military strength is still very backward, and the size and combat effectiveness of the army are vulnerable.

The 2nd Guards Division and the 3rd Regular Division were accompanied by 200,000 native troops.

The transportation of such an army was a problem, and therefore cost a large number of British and French transport ships. Over the next two months, these troops will arrive in Europe and join the Australasian Expeditionary Force in the fight against Germany.

At the same time, the recruits trained by France, the second round of expeditionary forces sent by Britain also arrived in the European theater, and along with the large-scale campaign planned by Russia on the Eastern Front, Britain, France, and Australia also planned to organize a large-scale campaign on the Western Front to completely expel the German army from French territory.

The preparation time for the two major battles on the Eastern and Western Fronts was more than a month, and even the specific launch time would not be until two months later.

After all, the Western Front has to wait for the arrival of the Australasian army, and the Eastern Front has to wait for the materials transported by Australasia to arrive at the front line, well, they are all waiting for Australasia.

Of course, it's not all about Australasia. Whether it is the Western Front or the Eastern Front, the large-scale battles planned are super-large-scale battles with more than one million troops, and naturally more materials and weapons and equipment need to be prepared, and the time required is also longer.

It is no exaggeration to say that the food, drink, and lazar of up to one million troops is a serious logistical problem, not to mention the frequent consumption of weapons, equipment, ammunition and shells in war, which is enough to overwhelm a country's logistics system.

Britain and France were not easy either. The British bear half of the cost of the Australasian Expeditionary Force, which is not a small amount. Coupled with the British Expeditionary Force's own expenses, a large amount of pounds were thrown into the war, which also made the British more and more eager to end the war.

Needless to say, part of France's territory is currently occupied by Germany, and most of the wars on the Western Front are fought on the French border and territory.

The more the war lasts, the more damage it will do to the French economy, and the greater the French people's expectation of peace.

On April 11, 1915, the 2nd Guards Division and the 3rd Regular Division successfully arrived in France, completing the rotation with the 4th Regular Division.

Thomas Johansen, commander of the 2nd Guards Division, succeeded Scott as the second Commander-in-Chief of the Australasian Expeditionary Force.

In order to show his support for the army, Arthur handed over the command of the expeditionary force to the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force, and the Australasian side was only responsible for the logistics of the expeditionary force.

This also meant that the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force had a lot of power and could even decide for himself the role of the Australasian army in the war.

Although it is said that with great power comes great responsibility. But the role of commander-in-chief of the Australasian Expeditionary Force was also the most important in the war.

Not to mention anything else, after the victory of the war, the successive commanders-in-chief of the expeditionary forces, as long as they did not make too many mistakes in the war, could be promoted to a higher rank in accordance with the usual practice.

If you make no small contribution to the war, you can even enter the defense department, or enter important positions such as the Guards Division and the General Staff.

If Australasia were to build a corps-level army in the future, the commander would also give preference to those who had made meritorious contributions.

Failure to become the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force, the commander of the 3rd Division, Batlló Yuderog, still has some regrets.

Suddenly thinking that his competitor was Martin Ruth, the commander of the 2nd Guards Division, Batlló Yuderog was a little confused.

To be able to become one of the few Guards Division commanders in Australasia, Martin Russ's ability naturally goes without saying.

According to the promotion practice of the Australasian army, in addition to the internal competition of the Ministry of Defense, the commander of the Guards Division is also a strong contender for the next Secretary of Defense.

And the commander of a regular division, no matter how great his meritorious service, cannot directly become the Minister of National Defense.

Although the promotion from the regular division to the Guards division to the Ministry of Defense is not rigid, no one can deny that there is indeed a certain gap between the Australasian regular division and the Guards division.

Upon arrival in France, the 2nd and 3rd Guards Divisions were quickly transported to the front and stationed where the 3rd Division had previously been stationed.

The next day, the French Commander-in-Chief Chauffy and the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, Sir French, came together to express their importance to the Australasian Expeditionary Force.

In the jokes of Xia Fei, French and Martin, a large-scale battle involving more than 2 million people and four countries was planned, and it was easy to decide the life and death of these more than 2 million people.

The topics discussed by the three are likely to lead to another hundreds of thousands of casualties on the Western Front. But there is no way, for the sake of victory in the war, compared to these hundreds of thousands of casualties, achieving greater results is the most important thing at present.

The specific offensive plan of the Western Front was divided into three directions, in the north, to unite the Belgian army to drive the German army out of France, defending itself on the basis of the fortified Belgian fortresses.

In the center, again attack Alsace and Lorraine, threatening the Ruhr area of Germany as much as possible.

If Alsace and Lorraine could be captured, it would not only greatly increase the morale of the French fighters, but also reduce Germany's supplies by a large part, and threaten the German hinterland.

For the southern direction, the main plan was to draw Italy in, unite the Italian army for a counteroffensive, and threaten the western part of Austria-Hungary and the southern part of Germany.

Combined with the large-scale campaign launched by Russia on the Eastern Front, Germany and Austria will be overwhelmed and exhausted by fighting on two fronts.

In order to make the campaign a success, the Entente can be said to have played all their cards. All European countries, including Italy, that had not yet entered the war, were the targets of the Entente.

If the war in the previous six months was a war between the Entente and the Central Powers, then from now on, this war will become a major war in the whole of Europe, affecting not only Britain, France, Russia, Australia, Germany and Austria, but also a mixed war involving Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Greece, Turkey, Belgium, Montenegro, etc.

On April 17, 1915, Romania declared war on Germany and joined the Entente.

On April 18, 1915, Greece declared war on Germany and joined the Entente.

Montenegro followed suit, joining the Entente on 18 April.

After that, Italy was the most difficult to bite, and after agreeing to Italy to obtain part of the territory and a large number of benefits, Italy publicly declared war on Germany on April 21 and joined the Entente.

German opposition soon came, because the war of the Allies had reached a disadvantage, so few countries joined the Allies, and only Bulgaria and Turkey were willing to join the Allies in the whole of Europe.

Beginning in May 1915, the war between the Allies and the Entente countries involved in the war had reached more than 10 countries, specifically: the Allied countries (Britain, France, Russia, Australia, Italy, Serbia, Greece, Romania, Black, Belgium), and the Allied Powers (Germany, Austria, Turkey, Bulgaria).

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(End of chapter)