Chapter 394 Incidents on the Eastern Front

The large-scale production of penicillin is a research that cannot be rushed. It is conservatively estimated that it will take one to two years to achieve.

Of course, if Fleming is not lucky, the production time of penicillin may be delayed until after World War I.

But no matter what, the discovery of penicillin is a good thing for Arthur and Australasia.

Penicillin, a miracle drug during the war, can be controlled in advance and can bring a lot of benefits to Arthur and Australasia.

Not only can it reduce the casualties of Australasia in the war, but it can also be used to exchange for more benefits, such as land, technology, talents, etc.

Imagine that if Australasia suddenly took out strategic medical supplies such as penicillin at the moment when the war in Europe was fierce, both the Allies and the Central Powers would rush to get it, because whoever does not have it will be at a disadvantage.

The real reason for the current large losses and casualties is that some soldiers who are more seriously injured are still at risk of wound infection even after treatment.

In this era without antibiotics, wound infection is fatal and more cruel than direct death in battle.

Many soldiers did not die under the enemy's guns, but died of wound infection and lack of timely treatment.

If there is enough penicillin, both sides can ensure that the wounded can return to the war after receiving adequate treatment.

This can not only save thousands of soldiers and families, but also save the country that has been in decline due to the large number of soldiers injured.

The task of purifying and mass-producing penicillin was given to Fleming, and Arthur asked Kent, the butler, to pay 3 million Australian dollars to Fleming's laboratory.

Among them, 1.5 million Australian dollars was used for research to accelerate the purification and mass production of penicillin.

The remaining 1.5 million Australian dollars was used as a reward for Fleming and all his assistants, as well as all the scientific researchers and workers in the laboratory.

Fleming will get the largest share of 500,000 Australian dollars, and all scientific researchers can also get more than 50,000 Australian dollars per person.

As for the most basic workers, their rewards are divided into hundreds and thousands of Australian dollars according to their contributions.

Arthur was still very faithful to his promise and promised to send reinforcements to Europe before April. Now that the National Day has not arrived, he has already selected a large number of soldiers from all the indigenous peoples.

Of course, the selection of indigenous peoples cannot be too fussy. Therefore, Arthur decided to train at least 400,000 indigenous troops at one time. After sending reinforcements, there will be 200,000 left to continue training in Australasia.

For the selection of indigenous soldiers, their physical fitness cannot be too bad, at least they can survive the two-week recruit training.

Yes, the recruit training of indigenous soldiers only lasts for two weeks. One week is used to learn military rules and disciplines and understand how to become an obedient soldier.

The remaining week is used to practice shooting, at least to ensure that every indigenous soldier can use firearms skillfully, whether they can hit is another matter.

Thanks to the short training time, the second round of expeditionary forces in Australasia is expected to end the training in late January and early February, and all arrive in France before the end of March.

In order to collect these 400,000 rifles, Arthur has made great efforts. It was a bit arrogant to equip all these indigenous soldiers with new rifles. Therefore, Arthur deliberately eliminated all the rifles of the current Australasian army, handed over these rifles that had been in service for a period of time to the indigenous soldiers, and equipped the regular army with new rifles.

In order to allow the indigenous soldiers to adapt to the lack of logistical supplies on the European battlefield in advance, Arthur equipped all the old firearms in the Australasian inventory, even the rifles from decades ago, to the indigenous army.

Anyway, these troops will arrive in the European battlefield to fight after training, and their logistics will be provided by Britain and France. Australasia only needs to transport supplies.

After barely equipping these indigenous troops, time quickly came to January 10, 1915, the National Day of Australasia.

As one of the most important national holidays, the whole country was in a state of carnival during the seven days of the Australasian National Day.

The impact of this war on Australasia was not great, but it still worried many people.

In order to eliminate the worries of some people, Arthur deliberately decided to hold a military parade again after many years.

The military parade was relatively brief, but all three services of Australasia participated. The Guards, the regular army, the dreadnoughts, the super dreadnoughts and the airships all made their debut, showing the outside world and the public Australasia's impressive military strength.

Of course, Australasia's real trump card aircraft, tanks, etc., will not be unveiled in the military parade.

Australasia will not disclose its weapons system until they are well known to everyone in the war.

But anyway, such a large-scale military parade has indeed gradually put aside the doubts of many people.

In terms of Australasia's special geographical location and the military strength currently displayed, it is completely fine to settle in a region, not to mention hegemony.

Even if the Australasia navy is a little stronger, it will not have any problem dominating the southern hemisphere.

With such military strength, there is naturally no problem in protecting its own country and people.

In addition, their lives were not disturbed too much by the war. Therefore, after the parade, it was obvious that many Australasian people were no longer troubled by the war, but were enjoying their lives with peace of mind.

During the National Day holiday, as usual, the royal consortium purchased a lot of supplies and distributed them to the people for free.

A large amount of resources such as meat, food, milk, medical supplies, etc. were distributed to the people, and smiles could be seen on the faces of the Australasian people.

After the National Day holiday, while all the recruited indigenous troops were still in training, several large-scale battles were also fought on the European battlefield, or more precisely, the Eastern European battlefield.

The biggest difference between this war and history is that Russia did not launch a large-scale offensive at the beginning of the war, and the main wars between Russia and the Allies were mostly concentrated on the border with the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In order to divert the attention of the Germans, France paid a huge price and let the Russians organize an offensive in the East Prussia region.

But the scale of this offensive was not large, and the Russian army was quickly repelled by the German army due to the confusion of equipment and poor training, with heavy casualties.

With all three of his allies joining the war, Russia, which performed the worst, naturally made Nicholas II unhappy.

As a monarch who considered himself to be a man of great strategy, Nicholas II believed that this war was an opportunity for Russia to expand and an opportunity for the Russian Empire to recover.

However, hundreds of thousands of Russian troops were blocked by less than 100,000 German troops at the border of East Prussia, which was unacceptable to Nicholas II, and he also dismissed the commanders of several army groups.

In order to regain face, Russia decided to organize a regular, large-scale offensive to restore the dignity of the European steamroller and to re-demonstrate Russia's strength.

You know, if Russia exposed too many drawbacks in this war, then in the distribution of interests after the war, even if Russia suffered heavy casualties, it would be unlikely to be respected by Britain and France.

If a country is not strong, even if its casualties in the war are tragic, it is destined not to get the due reward.

Although Russia had more than 1 million troops before the outbreak of the war, the total number of Russian troops has not exceeded 2 million since the implementation of the Russian mobilization order.

Of course, one of the main reasons for this is that Russia suffered heavy casualties. If the number of Russian casualties is included, the total number of Russian troops deployed in the war is actually nearly 2.5 million.

In order to avenge the previous shame, through careful preparation, under the order of Nicholas II, the Russian commander-in-chief Grand Duke Nicholas reorganized up to 800,000 combat troops and planned to re-launch an offensive against the East Prussia region.

Speaking of this grand duke with the same name as Nicholas II, there are some stories that must be told between Grand Duke Nicholas and Nicholas II.

According to relevant Russian regulations, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army during the war should actually be Tsar Nicholas II.

But because Nicholas II himself lacked military experience, the command was transferred to Grand Duke Nicholas with the support of many generals.

Grand Duke Nicholas' full name is Nicholas Nikolaevich Romanov Nicholas, and he is Nicholas II's uncle in terms of seniority.

Although he is a member of the royal family and has a close blood relationship. Because the two have the same name, in order to distinguish them, people generally call the two Nicholas tall Nicholas and short Nicholas.

And Nicholas II, who is shorter in height, is naturally called short Nicholas by people.

This made Nicholas II very uncomfortable, and even his uncle expressed his dissatisfaction.

Of course, there was another major reason.

Grand Duke Nicholas was born in the Engineer Corps Academy and the Imperial Military Staff Academy, and served as an officer in the Russo-Turkish War. He set an example and enjoyed a high prestige and status in the army.

Such a high-ranking and powerful grand duke with royal blood naturally aroused the suspicion of Nicholas II.

Before the outbreak of the war, Grand Duke Nicholas was even excluded from the decision-making circle of the General Staff and only served as the commander of the St. Petersburg Military District.

Although Grand Duke Nicholas became the commander-in-chief of the Russian army under the admiration of the officers, Nicholas II also weakened Grand Duke Nicholas's command power in many ways, such as not being able to change the personnel appointments and system of the General Staff, so that his confidants could always monitor Grand Duke Nicholas in the General Staff.

Although this did limit the power of Grand Duke Nicholas, Nicholas II was also relieved.

But the narrow-minded Nicholas II did not see the harm of doing so, and it would even affect the strategic deployment of the entire Russian army.

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