Chapter 414: The Great Encirclement Plan

Ministers Dizer and Grey quickly reached a verbal agreement that the British Empire would exchange Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait for the Mesopotamian Plain occupied by Australasia.

In addition, the two foreign ministers also happily reached an agreement to visit each other's countries in the near future in order to further the Anglo-Australian entente, which is what Minister Grey believed, to tie Australasia firmly to the chariot of the British Empire.

In fact, supporting the British Empire in the distribution of interests after the war has no disadvantages for Australasia, and it can even gain a lot of benefits.

Among the three major allies of the Allied Powers, Australasia has the best relations with Britain and Russia. Naturally, Arthur would not risk offending Britain and support France's expansion on the European continent.

Anyway, France and Australasia are separated by 108,000 miles, and the French cannot have any influence on Australasia.

The domestic situation in Russia is not very clear. Let alone a large-scale expansion abroad, it is good enough to use war reparations to stabilize the domestic situation, and the help to Australasia will definitely not be too much.

This also means that the only country that can help Australasia after the war is the British Empire.

At present, the British Empire has not consumed much in the war, and it is not a problem to maintain its position as the world's number one after the war.

Building a good relationship with the British Empire can also allow Australasia to gain more in the distribution of benefits after the war. Although it will offend France, who will care?

France, which has consumed a lot after the war, urgently needs to recover through colonies, rather than conflict with Britain and Australasia, which have not consumed too much.

When France regains stability, Australasia's strength has long been no longer afraid of France, not to mention the support of Britain.

After Britain and Australasia reached unity, the peace talks in Constantinople became very smooth.

On August 12, the Allies and the Ottoman Empire reached an agreement on the issue of land cession.

The Ottoman Empire ceded tens of thousands of square kilometers of land in the Caucasus to Russia, the coast of the Rashid Emirate to Australasia, the Mesopotamian Plain and the Yemen region to the British Empire, and ceded all European regions to the Balkan countries, retaining only the land within ten kilometers of Constantinople.

Yes, Constantinople eventually returned to the hands of the Ottoman Empire, at the cost of losing a large amount of territory.

Although it seems that the Ottoman Empire still has Turkey, Syria, Israel and other regions in the future, this area is surrounded by Britain, Russia and Australasia, plus the indigenous forces in the Arab region, and it is not as peaceful as imagined.

Moreover, the time when the Allies handed over Constantinople was after the war, which also meant that before the surrender of Germany and Austria-Hungary, Constantinople was still jointly managed by the Allies.

Compared with the large amount of land ceded, the compensation required by the Allies from the Ottoman Empire seemed pitiful.

According to the final agreement reached between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire must pay a total of 150 million pounds in compensation to the Allies within 15 years, and an additional 3 million pounds per year after the deadline.

As the main contributor to the war against the Ottoman Empire, Australasia can get a quarter of the 150 million pounds in compensation, that is, 37.5 million pounds.

The reason why the Ottoman Empire's compensation is not high is that the current Ottoman Empire has been divided up by more than half, and the remaining land is also coveted by the powers.

Relying only on Turkey and Syria and other regions, the Ottoman Empire can pay 150 million pounds in compensation within 15 years, which is already very good. After all, the size of the country can only allow the Ottoman Empire to pay so much.

However, the major powers have gained a lot of expansion in land, so they don't care about the compensation that is a drop in the bucket for the war.

The same is true for Arthur. The land obtained by Australasia can already connect from Qatar to Kuwait.

A large area of ​​land is rich in oil and natural gas, and their value is many times greater than the compensation received by Australasia. Who cares about that small compensation?

In addition to land cessions and war reparations, the Ottoman government also signed various humiliating treaties, such as recognizing the occupation of Ottoman land by the British Empire and Italy before the war, including Cyprus and Zozecanisos.

At the same time, the Allied forces have the right to move freely in the Ottoman Empire. Before the end of the war, the Allied forces can freely enter and exit the Ottoman territory, and the Ottoman government shall not make any obstructions or interventions.

In Syria, Israel and other regions, the Allies have a lot of privileges. Although these lands have not been ceded, the Ottoman Empire has lost its actual jurisdiction, and these regions are more like semi-colonies.

In addition, a large number of mining rights in the Ottoman Empire, and even railway toll rights and jurisdiction, were sold and leased to the Allies.

With the signing of the Treaty of Constantinople, it was inevitable that the Ottoman Empire would become an ordinary country. Its land area and population size were not enough to support it to become a regional power.

On the Allied side, the signing of the Treaty of Constantinople boosted the morale of the Allied Powers, and media from various countries rushed to report it.

After the surrender of the Ottoman Empire, only Germany and Austria-Hungary were left to resist. The people of the Allied Powers seemed to have seen the arrival of victory.

It is worth mentioning that due to the joining of Australasia, the demand for imported resources from abroad by the Allied Powers was not that high.

The island countries and the United States have never found a good opportunity to join the Allies. The United States has repeatedly sold military equipment to the Allies, but was rejected by the Allies on the grounds that there is no shortage of supplies.

This resulted in the United States not having much trade with Europe during the war, except for some equally scarce supplies in Australasia.

Of course, as the war has developed to this point, Britain, France and Russia have borrowed a lot from the United States, and this is the only thing the United States has participated in the European war.

After the Treaty of Constantinople was reached, the Allies' attention was once again on the battlefield on the Eastern Front.

At present, the German army on the Western Front has entered a state of holding on, and there is no good way to defeat Germany quickly.

The Allies' hopes are also all focused on the Eastern Front. If the Eastern Front can defeat the Germans again, Germany, which is seriously injured, will no longer be the opponent of the Allies, and there will be hope for a quick resolution of the war.

In fact, it is not only the Allies who are paying attention to the Eastern Front battlefield, but the Allies are more concerned about it.

As early as after the defeat of Bulgaria, Germany knew that it was time to go all out. The defeat of the Ottoman Empire was actually inevitable. When the Ottoman Empire was facing siege, Germany also launched an offensive on the Eastern Front.

The German army and the Austro-Hungarian army implemented a strategic encirclement of the Russian Eastern Front army according to the plan.

The encirclement plan can be divided into two parts. The German army in East Prussia marched eastward and then went south to bypass Poland.

The German-Austrian coalition bypassed the southern Carpathian Mountains and joined the German army in East Prussia to cut off the retreat of the Russian army in Poland and Galicia.

If this encirclement plan can be implemented smoothly, at least one million Russian troops will be in the encirclement and be jointly surrounded by the German and Austro-Hungarian armies.

As long as most of these millions of Russian troops can be eliminated, Germany and Austria-Hungary will have an overwhelming advantage on the Eastern Front.

It is even possible to take advantage of Russia's heavy losses to strike a heavy blow to Russia and force Russia to withdraw from the war.

As long as the Russians withdraw from the war and the pressure on the Eastern Front is relieved, the German and Austrian armies can march south and force the Balkan fence-sitters to turn to the Allied side.

The German-Austrian coalition plus the Balkans, against Britain, France, Italy and Australia, the war is still worth fighting.

Even if the Ottoman Empire can be persuaded to join the war again, Germany will be able to obtain material support from the United States in the Persian Gulf, and the resource crisis will be solved.

Without the Russian army's containment on the Eastern Front, the British, French and Australian coalition forces and the German-Austrian coalition forces on the Western Front are only evenly matched.

In a single-line war, if the transportation line with the United States can be opened, Germany is not afraid of the Allies at all.

Adhering to the belief of fighting hard, at the end of July 1915, the German army launched an all-out attack on the Russian army.

It was summer in the northern hemisphere at this time, which was also a good opportunity to attack Russia. If you wait until the ice and snow in winter, even the most powerful army is likely to be defeated in Russia.

Napoleon more than 100 years ago was such an example, which also made the German army very urgent.

If this battle cannot be ended before the winter comes, the Eastern Front will be difficult at that time.

The German and Austrian armies launched a fierce attack on the Carpathian Mountains. The left wing of the Russian Eighth Army was stationed here. Under the strong pressure of the German-Austrian coalition, it had to slowly retreat to the rear.

But the Russians also reacted very quickly. The commander of the Southwestern Front temporarily transferred the right-wing troops to form the newly formed Ninth Army to urgently reinforce the Eighth Army.

But at this time, Germany and Austria-Hungary were fighting hard. Coupled with the advantage of the number of soldiers, the Russian Eighth and Ninth Armies still could not stop the offensive of the German-Austrian coalition and could only slowly retreat to the rear.

The Russians had no choice but to transfer the 11th Army in the central region, which barely blocked the charge launched by the Russian-Austrian coalition from the Carpathian Mountains.

But the combat effectiveness of the Russian army was a world apart from that of the German-Austrian coalition. The casualties of the three Russian armies soared, and even at the peak, the casualties in one day were as high as more than 30,000.

Although the Russian army successfully prevented the German-Austrian coalition from encircling the Russian army in Galicia, the Russian army also paid an astonishing casualties for this.

According to rough statistics from the Russian front, the total casualties of the 8th, 9th and 11th armies exceeded 300,000, and the death toll exceeded 100,000.

This also means that the casualties of the three armies, whose total number of people added up to less than one million, have been nearly half, which can be said to be a heavy loss.

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