Chapter 1322 New Meat Grinder—Southern Front Battlefield
The Allies had both carrots and sticks, and Romania had no choice but to submit. This naturally went against Ferdinand I's wish for a "neutral" end, so it is understandable that Ferdinand I was dissatisfied.
Of course, Ferdinand I had many small thoughts. The reason why he agreed to join the Allied Powers was definitely not just because of the threat from the Allied Powers. In essence, it also showed that he was relatively optimistic about the future of the Allied Powers camp.
Although the entry of the United States has now made the Allied Powers more powerful, the Allies currently have a military advantage in Europe, not to mention that there is a German country overseas in East Africa that has not ended up.
Crown Prince Rudolf didn't care about the little one in Ferdinand I's heart. He only wanted Romania to obey the arrangements of the Allies, or Germany and Austria.
Crown Prince Rudolf said: "You don't need to worry too much. We don't need Romania to join the Western Front. Your main task is to cooperate with our country, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire to attack Greece, Albania and other countries in the Balkan Peninsula."
"At the same time, an expeditionary force of at least 200,000 people will be organized to enter the territory of the Ottoman Empire, assist our country and the Ottoman Empire in retaking the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea coast, and open up trade routes between the Alliance and East Africa."
"The Allied armies in these two directions are not strong. If we can defeat the Allied armies in these two directions, then our chances of winning will be greater."
Although the Allies acquired a large amount of Russian territory, it would take time to reorganize local industrial and agricultural production to feed the Allies, and these new territories could not provide the Allies with strategic materials such as cotton, rubber, and sugar.
Therefore, the Allies knew clearly that only by breaking the Allied naval blockade could the Allies remain invincible.
The easiest thing to achieve is to regain the Ottoman Empire's lands in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea coast. Therefore, Crown Prince Rudolf decided after discussing with Germany's William II that the Austro-Hungarian Empire would lead the new Eastern Front war.
Lead the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, and Romania to clear away the Allied forces on the Balkan Peninsula and the Middle East.
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Romania's participation in the war and joining the Allies was very bad news for the Allies. In addition to adding nearly 600,000 elite troops to the Allies, Romania also solved the Allies' oil gap.
Because of the investment in Romanian oil fields by East African and other countries, its oil production has exceeded the level of the same period in history. Therefore, relying on Romanian oil production today to ensure the operation of Allied cars and machines is no problem, not to mention Russia's Baku Oil Field in the future. , can also play a complementary role to the Allies.
Moreover, in the trade between East Africa and the Allies before 1918, the Allies themselves had large reserves of gasoline and diesel.
This also means that for a long time, the Allies do not need to be nervous about energy issues. At present, the energy that the Allies need is nothing more than coal and oil, and the Allies have never been short of coal. Several Allied member states produce coal. country.
In addition to ensuring the needs of industrial production and the military, energy is most important to the Allies to ensure people's livelihood issues, especially the heating of cities in winter, especially Germany, which is responsible for the combat power of the Allies.
Germany is the only high-latitude country among the Allied Powers, and it is also the most industrially developed and populous country. Therefore, Germany's demand for energy far exceeds that of its allies such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire.
In addition to gaining new access to food, trade with East Africa was also an important reason for the normal maintenance of German society. In the three years from 1914 to 1918, East Africa exported a large amount of agricultural products to the Allies. In particular, important agricultural products such as wheat, meat, and sugar not only maintained the basic livelihood needs of the Allies, but also had spare capacity to import tropical fruits and vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, desserts and other non-essential supplies from East Africa.
A very typical data can illustrate the importance of East Africa's export trade to the Allies. In previous lives, the Germans estimated that at least more than 700,000 Germans died of hunger or diseases caused by hunger during World War I. Because of the existence of East Africa, Before 1918, Germany could barely maintain its basic living necessities.
Not to mention that the Allies still have the ability to import non-survival supplies from East Africa. In the previous life, Germany's food shortage was so serious that it threatened the survival of the nobles.
For example, Blücher, a British woman who married a Prussian noble in her previous life, wrote in her diary in January 1917: "We are getting thinner every day. The plump figure of the German nation has become a legend of the past. We are all skinny now. We have dark circles around our eyes, and the main thing we think about is what our next meal will be.”
Assuming that there was no trade between East Africa and the Allied Powers, the Allied Powers would have been difficult to maintain as early as early 1917. After all, even the nobles were disturbed by food shortages, and the living environment of the civilians could be imagined.
Therefore, it is very important for the Allies to reopen trade with East Africa. This is also the main reason why Germany supports allies such as Austria-Hungary to seize the Persian Gulf and Red Sea coasts.
For this reason, the Allies were even willing to give up part of their troops to support the Western Front battlefield and first destroy the Allied forces in the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire in order to realize the strategy of reopening trade with East Africa.
This strategy basically relied on the army as the main force. Although the naval strength of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire still existed, they could not shake the British and French navies that had absolute dominance in the Mediterranean.
If it were not for the weakness of the navy, the Allies' target would probably not be the Balkans and the Middle East, but the Suez Canal under British control.
August 1918.
With Austria-Hungary as the main force and Bulgaria and Romania as auxiliaries, the Allies assembled nearly 1.2 million new troops and officially went to fight in the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire.
Among them, 700,000 were from Austria-Hungary, 300,000 from Bulgaria, and 200,000 from Romania, plus the Allied forces originally fighting on the front lines in Greece and Albania, as well as the Ottoman Empire.
On the battlefield from the Balkans to the Middle East, the size of the Allied forces exceeds five million. Among them, the Ottoman Empire has the largest army, reaching more than two million, followed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is close to two million. Bulgaria's military strength in the Balkans is approximately More than 700,000, and finally Romania has just joined. Although Romania only has 200,000 participants in the war, Romania will gradually increase its military strength in the future.
As for the Allied Powers, mainly Britain, France and Greece, the number of troops recruited from their respective colonies is about four million.
However, the composition of the Allied forces was worrisome. Among them, the United Kingdom was the largest. The number of British troops in the Middle East reached an astonishing two million, but nearly 90% of the British troops were Indians. The French army was basically composed of blacks and North African whites. This means that although the British and French armies are large in number, their actual combat effectiveness may not be as reliable as that of Greece, which has less than 700,000 troops.
The increase in troops by the Allies and the Entente to the Balkans and Middle East battlefields has completely upgraded the so-called "new" Eastern Front battlefield to the Southern Front battlefield that is no less inferior to the Western and Eastern Fronts in World War I.
The two sides are entangled with nearly 10 million troops, fighting on the long front from the Balkans to the Middle East. As time goes by, Britain and France will definitely continue to recruit troops from India, Southeast Asia, North Africa, West Africa and other colonies to support the southern battlefield.
It is only a matter of time before the strength of both sides on the Southern Front exceeds 10 million, which will quickly turn the entire Southern Front into a new meat grinder.
(End of chapter)