Chapter 306: Smoke of War

As time entered the end of 1911, people all over the world finally breathed a sigh of relief, finally passing a disastrous year full of crises and frequent conflicts.

What happened throughout 1911 was basically not good news for all European people.

The second Moroccan crisis made the confrontation between the two major military groups in Europe a reality, and the contradictions between Britain and Germany deepened, further promoting a more radical naval arms race.

And more importantly, all European powers participated in this naval arms race, which also meant that these powers had a clear understanding that the war was not far away and they were preparing for the war.

In addition, the major European powers were also stepping up the expansion of the army. From the expansion of 300,000 troops by the Italian Austro-Hungarian Empire to the expansion of 500,000 troops by France, Russia and Germany, all proved that the current situation facing Europe was very serious and the war seemed to be imminent.

The crazy expansion of the army and navy by these powers also brought their military enterprises to an explosive growth.

A most obvious example is the famous German military enterprise Krupp Factory, which had only 9,000 employees in 1873 and developed to 43,000 in 1902. As of the end of 1911, the number of employees in Krupp Factory has reached 70,000.

The British military industry is also very large, with more than 100,000 people engaged in the military industry.

The British military industry has two major characteristics. One is the priority development of warship and merchant ship manufacturing, which is also in line with the characteristics of the British navy.

The second is that private military factories occupy an important position, which is different from the royal military factories in Australasia.

Among the military factories in Australasia, the royal royal military factories occupy 87% of the market of all military factories in Australasia. Only a small share of weapons that some military factories are unwilling to produce will be produced by some private military workshops.

In addition, the arms industry of France, Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire is also very large. The number of armaments and soldiers in these powerful countries is also benefiting from the very large military industry.

This can also be seen from Australasia. At present, all the military industry practitioners in Australasia add up to 15,000 people.

If we count the aviation research laboratories and agricultural machinery factories hidden in the dark, the number of military industry practitioners has exceeded 20,000.

Compared with the number of regular army expansion, the number of reserve soldiers brought by the major European powers is even more exaggerated.

Except for the British Empire, the focus of the expansion of the European powers is actually the army.

This also leads to the fact that the number of armaments and soldiers of the major European powers is very exaggerated so far.

Among all the European powers, Russia has the largest number of soldiers, with 1.1 million regular troops and 5.65 million reserve troops.

The second largest is France, with 710,000 regular troops and 5 million reserve troops.

Following closely is Germany, with 700,000 regular troops and 4.9 million reserve troops.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire had 400,000 standing troops and 3 million reserve troops, Italy had 380,000 standing troops and 1.8 million reserve troops, and the British Empire had 250,000 standing troops and 1.2 million reserve troops.

Although the major European countries have already announced the expansion of their military forces, the progress of the expansion varies.

At present, the countries with the most successful military expansion should be Germany and France. So far, Germany and France have recruited more than 200,000 reserve troops to join the standing troops and have carried out long-term training.

The country with the relatively slow military expansion should be the Tsarist Russian Empire with the largest number of reserve troops.

I have to admit that the corruption of this country is shocking. Even though the military expansion has been announced for several months, only tens of thousands of troops have been recruited so far, and even these tens of thousands of people have not yet arrived at the scheduled training site and are still on the road.

If the military expansion of these powerful countries is completed, then in the future war period, Europe may usher in a great war with tens of millions of soldiers, and the losses brought to major European countries are also immeasurable.

In addition to the confrontation between the two major military groups in Europe, the shadow of the Balkans is already very dense.

The Balkan countries are either preparing for war or preparing for war.

In order to prepare for future wars, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and other Balkan alliance countries have announced military expansion. The armies of Bulgaria and Serbia have exceeded 300,000 and 200,000 respectively. Even the smallest Montenegro has exceeded 35,000 troops.

The Balkan Alliance has the support of the Russian Empire behind them. The weapons and equipment they need to expand their army are naturally purchased from the Russian Empire.

For this reason, the Russian Empire eliminated some of the weapons currently being equipped and sold them to the Balkan countries at a price slightly lower than the market price.

The Russian Empire, on the basis of the previous order of 50,000 rifles, ordered 150,000 rifles and tens of millions of bullets from Australasia to prepare for domestic military expansion.

This also made Arthur feel the huge profits from selling arms. Even though the war has not yet started, European countries are only preparing for war, and only Russia has ordered weapons from Australasia, which has made the military factory earn hundreds of thousands of Australian dollars.

If the war really breaks out and European countries are short of weapons, the profits brought by the arms trade will expand to tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of Australian dollars.

For this reason, Arthur generously gave the Royal Arsenal tens of millions of Australian dollars to allow the arsenal to work hard to produce at least one million rifles and hundreds of millions of bullets, as well as tens of thousands of artillery pieces and millions of shells for future wars.

Anyway, Australasia has both British and German weapons, as well as weapons and equipment developed and produced by Australasia itself.

In Europe, the more popular weapons are British and German weapons, and there is basically no difficulty in exporting weapons.

Arthur even thought that if countries used military aircraft in World War I and showed their attention to aircraft, then could they build a large number of the first two generations of aircraft and sell them in large quantities.

Anyway, Australasia's military aircraft have been researched to the third generation, and the research on the fourth generation is already underway.

As long as the fourth generation of military aircraft is successfully developed in the future, then selling the first two generations of military aircraft to major European powers will not affect Australasia's aircraft research. Anyway, affected by the war, it is impossible for them to catch up with Australasia in a short time.

The cost of these aircraft is tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Australian dollars. The profits from large-scale sales to European countries are no less than arms exports.

I'm going to take a leave of absence for 5,000 words today. Happy May Day!