The Rise Of Australasia
Chapter 539: Chapter 423: The Ambition of Verdun

Although Nicholas II's large orders made Russia stand out among the Allies, it was clear that the focus of the war was no longer on the Eastern Front but on the long-quiet Western Front battlefield.

After the failure of the German-Austrian Alliance Army's plan to annihilate the Russian Army's main force, the main force of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had to head south to resist the severe pressure that the Balkan army brought to the empire.

Meanwhile, Germany's attention had also been temporarily redirected to the Western Front because Britain and France, in order to alleviate the pressure on the Russian Army in the East, decided to launch a new large-scale offensive to replace a chance to break through the German defense line.

Currently, the European War had entered a long phase of attrition, and the situation had gradually become clearer.

The Allies had a clear advantage now. It was not so much that the Allied armies had defeated the armies of the Central Powers, but rather, the more developed economies and richer resources of the Allies had defeated the Central Powers.

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All countries had suffered huge losses in the war. To support the war, Germany had implemented supervision of farms, collected income taxes and implemented a rationing system in some areas.

Britain and France had done the same, gathering more resources and food for the frontlines, militarizing their national economies, and serving the war to the best of their abilities.

In this period, a new term was also born – Industrial Mobilization.

In the one year and two months since the outbreak of the war, the armaments industries of all countries had expanded rapidly, and all factories had entered the bottomless pit of war. Clothing factories had switched to producing military uniforms, and various types of machinery and equipment factories had switched to producing weapons and equipment, such as bullets and shells.

A large number of women also entered factories to produce helmets, uniforms, and various types of bullets for the soldiers on the frontlines.

Some women stuffed written notes into the helmets and clothing to comfort the injured or weary souls of frontline soldiers.

However, one had to admit that this was indeed very effective. Encouragement from women in the rear had indeed ignited an extraordinary fighting spirit in some frontline soldiers.

The expansion of each country's military industry was quite exaggerated, especially in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

By October, Germany's production of rifles and shells had increased more than half, and the production of machine guns and cannons had nearly tripled.

Even with the attention now given to airplanes by countries around the world, Germany was already able to produce thousands of them annually.

Although the growth of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's weapons production was not as exaggerated, the annual production of all types of weapons had also increased by more than half.

Overall, the growth of the Allies' military industry was not as exaggerated. After all, apart from Russia, Britain-France-Australasia were all major exporters of military products, and their weapons and equipment had already been selling well in many countries and regions before the war.

For the Allies, the expansion of the military scale was even more exaggerated than the military industry.

At the beginning of the war, which was in early August 1914, Russia had the largest number of soldiers among the Allies, but the total number of soldiers was less than 2 million.

But now, Russia had invested over 4 million troops, France more than 3 million, Britain 1.2 million, Australasia 550,000, Italy 600,000, Belgium 350,000, Romania 250,000, Serbia 350,000, Greece 150,000, and Montenegro 80,000.

The total number of soldiers that the Allies had invested in this war had already exceeded 10 million, with over 1,000,000 deaths and 3,000,000 injured (cumulative).

On the side of the Central Powers, Germany had invested 3.5 million troops, the Austro-Hungarian Empire 2 million, Bulgaria 300,000, and the Ottoman Turkish Empire 550,000, totaling over 6 million troops.

Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire were also about to withdraw from the war, and amongst the more than 5 million German and Austro-Hungarian troops combined, nearly 1 million were dead and more than 1.5 million injured.

Of course, a considerable part of this was attributable to the Austro-Hungarian Empire's performance. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had been defeated by Russia in a single battle, with hundreds of thousands of casualties at the time, leaving the Austro-Hungarian Empire almost unable to recover.

The war had already resulted in more than 2 million deaths and nearly 5 million injuries among the warring nations, with incalculable economic losses.

That is why, whether the Central Powers or the Allies, neither could afford to back down at the moment.

They could not bear the consequences of a war failure, not only due to the anger of the people but also due to the extortion from the enemy after the war.

This has led countries to face the war with even greater frenzy. Germany had planned to continue increasing conscription and enlist at least 1 million more troops in the new year for combat on the Eastern and Western Fronts.

At present, Germany had nearly 2 million combat-ready troops, but there were just over 1 million on the Western Front.

Adhering to the principle that a better defense is an offense, the Germans decided to launch a surprise attack on the strategic hub of the French before the large-scale campaign by the British and French forces. Perhaps, under the unpreparedness of the British and French forces, unexpected results could be achieved.

When it came to the impending German raid, it was necessary to mention Fakinham's insistence on shifting the focus of the offensive back to the Western Front.

Fakinham believed that the vast territory of Russia, the cold climate, and inconvenient transportation made it impossible to defeat Russia in a short time. An attack on Saint Petersburg would not yield decisive results, and it was very easy to follow in the footsteps of Napoleon and face another Waterloo in the rush to advance.

On the other hand, the French Western Front had a shallower depth, and the British and French forces were directly threatening Germany's hinterland, which posed the biggest threat to Germany at present.