Chapter 454: Austro-Hungarian Empire Surrenders, Full-Scale Counterattack

In the peace treaty between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Allied Powers, the Austro-Hungarian Empire repeatedly mentioned a clause that no country of the Allied Powers should support Hungarian independence forces.

The Hungarian independence forces include not only the independence party, which is already very famous in Hungary, but also the capitalists and landlords who attempt to promote Hungarian independence.

If there is a map, it can be clearly found that most of the terrain around the Austro-Hungarian Empire is surrounded by mountains, and only the Hungarian region is one of the few plains in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This also leads to the fact that most of the Hungarian region is a small peasant economy, of course, including a considerable number of farmers and small capitalists.

The completely different economic model between the Hungarian region and Austria is also destined to cause conflicts between Hungary and Austria.

But for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the empire cannot lose such an important granary as Hungary.

After full consideration by the Austro-Hungarian government, it was finally decided that even if more territory was lost, the right to rule Hungary could not be lost.

Of course, there is good news for Karl I. His throne of emperor is temporarily saved.

In order to better rule Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire cannot lose Karl I's monarchy status for the time being.

After all, in addition to being the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Karl I also holds the titles of King of Bohemia and King of Hungary.

It is precisely the three titles of Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia and King of Hungary that together form the dual state of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Once the monarchy is overthrown, the countries that are united because they are all territories of the Habsburg family will lose the reason to unite with each other.

It has to be admitted that as the greatest royal family in Europe, the Habsburgs still have a very rich family background.

Even at the beginning of the 20th century, the Habsburgs still held the titles of the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary and the Kingdom of Bohemia, and were one of the most brilliant and glorious families in the European royal family.

This contract is about to be reached, and the ones who should be relaxed are Karl I and the Kingdom of Hungary.

Karl I can keep his throne, and the Kingdom of Hungary can deal with its own crisis. It can be said to be a win-win situation.

As for the losses of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they can only be borne by the imperial government. But for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ending the war early may be the best choice, at least it can avoid further consumption of its war potential, and also avoid the loss of manpower and property caused by the war to the Hungarian government.

When the Russian government re-dispatched troops to join the war, officials of the Hungarian government, big and small, were basically frightened.

If the contract can be thoroughly confirmed, at least the Hungarian government can get a period of development opportunities to deal with domestic minority issues.

On July 21, 1917, because the progress of the peace talks was very smooth, the result was finally announced in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it was decided to mobilize most of the troops to the German border to fight Germany to the death in a short time.

The news of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's surrender shocked the European people, and it also meant that Germany's defeat was a matter of time.

Even many European newspapers have been clamoring, and they even think that the Allied forces can end the war before Christmas this year, so that all European people can usher in a peaceful Christmas again.

On July 24, more than 100,000 Australasian troops returned to the Western Front on transport ships, which also meant that the Australasian army would face the German army again.

Also withdrawn were more than 500,000 troops of the Balkan coalition, plus the coordinated operations of 500,000 Italian troops. The total number of Allied troops on the Western Front in Europe has approached 10 million.

This is almost all the cards of the Allies at present. In the one and a half years since 1916, the casualties of the Allies, especially Britain and France, reached more than 4 million, and the death toll was close to 2 million, which can be said to be a real loss.

The Germans were not having a good time either. The total casualties in the past year and a half reached 3.5 million, and the death toll was close to 1.6 million.

The total casualties caused by the three local wars of the Battle of Verdun, the Battle of the Somme and the Spring Offensive have exceeded 8 million, and the total death toll has exceeded 3.5 million, which is also the most tragic period since the outbreak of the war.

During the entire war, the total number of soldiers deployed by European countries has exceeded 20 million, the total number of casualties has exceeded 15 million, and the number of deaths has reached 6 million.

Even the number of deaths alone is comparable to that of some small and medium-sized European countries. The cumulative number of casualties is even close to the population size of Australasia, which is enough to show the cruelty of this war.

In addition to the consumption of manpower, the consumption of funds and materials in European countries has not decreased at all.

In 1913, the year before the outbreak of the war, the military expenditure of European countries was generally only about 100 million pounds, and some countries did not even exceed 100 million pounds.

But now, even Italy and Australasia, which have the lowest military expenditure, are hovering around 100 million pounds.

And the countries with the most serious consumption, such as Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, have annual war expenditures of up to tens of billions of pounds, which can be said to be madly squeezing the potential of the country and damaging the country's economic development.

It is no exaggeration to say that ending the war early has become the expectation of all countries.

But the problem is that Germany is not qualified to end the war early unless it ends the war with the attitude of a loser.

You must know that the current German government is in the military government ruling stage, and those soldiers and Junker nobles will never accept defeat.

The way that the Germans fantasized about ending the war with a phased victory would never be accepted by the Allies, which also meant that the Allies must decide the outcome with Germany and beat them until neither side had room to fight back.

In early August 1917, three American divisions were transported to the Western Front, which also made the Allied troops on the Western Front officially exceed 10 million.

On August 6, with the order of the Allied Provisional General Headquarters, tens of millions of Allied troops were scattered on the fronts of Belgium and France, launching a full-scale attack on the German defense line.

The Allied counterattack was earth-shaking, which also made the artillery fire on the border never stop. The vibration of the artillery explosion was like an earthquake, and the entire border was shrouded in a layer of white fog, and the enemy's troop deployment could not be seen from the sky.

Taking the Verdun area as the boundary, the Belgian area north of Verdun is the Northern Theater, the Verdun area is the Central Theater, and the area south of Verdun is the Southern Theater.

The Northern Theater has 1.5 million British Expeditionary Force and 500,000 Australasian Expeditionary Force as the main force.

The Central Theater has 500,000 British Expeditionary Force, 2.5 million French main forces and 100,000 American troops.

The Southern Theater has 500,000 Italian troops, 800,000 French troops and 550,000 Balkan troops.

In addition, Britain and France each have more than 1 million colonial troops, deployed behind these front-line troops, responsible for transporting supplies and serving as reserve troops.

Although the total size of the army looks bluffing, in fact, the real elite troops are less than 3 million, and most of the others are colonial troops and troops with weak combat effectiveness.

The number of German troops is only half of that of the Allies, and it is less than 5 million at most.

More importantly, a considerable number of these 5 million people are recruits, and their actual combat effectiveness is also questionable.

Moreover, Germany had at least one million troops tied down by Russia. Since the Austro-Hungarian Empire was suddenly attacked by Russia, it has strengthened its defense on the Russian border to prevent Russia from repeating the same trick and catching itself off guard.

At this time, both sides were determined to win, because if this decisive battle failed, it would be close to failure, and it was even very likely that the enemy would directly enter the capital.

Although the Allies did not have such concerns, the major European media had already blown up their own cowhide. Many British and French media gave the public a solemn guarantee that the war would end within 1917 and allow the people to have a peaceful Christmas.

The people did not care whether the war on the front line would be complicated and changeable. If unfavorable news came from the front line at this time, no one could bear the anger of the people.

You know, in order to promote this decisive battle, the British changed their conscription system from the previous recruitment system to the conscription system, and quickly raised more than 2 million combat troops.

Although there are less than 1 million troops composed of real British people, the conscription system does allow the British to have more troops.

If there is any unfavorable news from the front at this time, I am afraid that the people will resist the conscription system that has just been revised, and it may even affect the source of British troops.

Under this pressure, the politicians of the Allied Powers do not care about the actual situation on the front. They have only one goal, which is to obey the will of the people and end the war completely this year.

Although there will be more casualties for this, compared with a complete victory, some casualties are completely acceptable.

In particular, both Britain and France have a large number of colonial troops, which are used as cannon fodder.

The Allied General Headquarters adopted a completely opposite strategy in this counterattack, choosing a concentrated oppressive charge instead of the previous roundabout encirclement.

In fact, it is normal to think about it. There are more than 14 million troops of the Allied Powers on the borders of Belgium, France and Germany.

Although these troops are distributed in various directions, they basically occupy the front line. There are few places to break through, and it is extremely easy to be discovered by the enemy's troops in other directions.

Instead of doing this, it is better to use the absolute advantage of numbers to directly charge in groups on the front, focus on a certain point of the enemy, and then rush forward to destroy the enemy's defense line.

Although doing so will lead to more casualties, the Allied forces are currently the least lacking in numbers, and the most affordable is time.

In the five days from August 6 to August 10, the Allied casualties per day were as high as 78,000, 44,000, 31,000, 51,000, and 37,000, and the number of deaths per day was as high as 22,000, 13,000, 6,000, 17,000, and 9,000.

In five days, a total of 221,000 casualties and 67,000 deaths were caused, with an average of more than 13,000 deaths and 31,000 injuries per day. Such casualties far exceed the previous wars and the casualties in most of the two major battles last year.

Of course, under the premise of huge casualties, the results achieved by the Allies are also very gratifying.

First of all, the casualties inflicted on Germany, although the German casualties were far behind this figure, the total casualties over the five days reached nearly 100,000, and the death toll was nearly 30,000.

Although it seems that the casualty ratio of both sides is nearly 2 to 1, it should be noted that most of the troops mobilized by the Allies are colonial troops, and the Allies have an advantage in this casualty ratio.

The reason why the Allies can use indigenous troops to cause such casualties is that the three major fronts have stockpiled a large number of artillery, and the total number of artillery has even exceeded 10,000.

The entire Western Front battlefield consumes millions of artillery shells every day, far exceeding the total artillery production of the five countries of Britain, France, Australia, Italy and the United States combined.

Fortunately, with the United States as a big dog supply, the Western Front battlefield will not lack artillery shells and ammunition in a short time.

After all, the progress of the American army mobilization has been very slow. The current total size of the army has just exceeded 200,000 people, and the army with real combat effectiveness is even less than 100,000.

Under this premise, the Americans must want to increase their contribution to the war from other aspects, so as not to pay a lot of money and manpower in vain. If the role in the war is small, there will be no important benefits after the war.

As time entered mid-August, the contract between Austria-Hungary and the Allies was officially signed. This also means that the country that first provoked the First World War, after more than two years of war torture, finally chose to end the war with surrender.

According to incomplete statistics from the Austro-Hungarian government, the war brought more than 3 million casualties to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, more than 800,000 deaths, and caused more than 20 billion pounds of economic losses, which directly led to the end of this huge empire.

Although the contract was signed, the subsequent compensation of up to 15 billion pounds also gave the entire imperial government a headache.

Before this compensation was abolished or fully repaid, the Austro-Hungarian Empire could not raise its head in front of other countries.

15 billion pounds is enough to support Britain's one-year war needs, or support Australasia's 100-year war expenses.

In addition to the ceded land, various unequal terms, and major factories that are about to be demolished, it is a question whether the Austro-Hungarian Empire can maintain its status as a great power after the war.

At least the island countries that were not affected by the war are very envious of the status of the great powers. There are also traditional countries in Europe such as Spain and Serbia, which has suffered a lot in this war.

Serbia, in particular, had a bad relationship with the Austro-Hungarian Empire and annexed Bosnia, which was previously occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

You know, the Sarajevo incident happened in Bosnia and directly led to the outbreak of the First World War.

Now that this land has returned to Serbia's rule, I believe that the Austro-Hungarian Empire will not be willing to accept it, and I also believe that Serbia, which has a larger land area, will not be willing to be just a regional power.

Hungary's independence demands, the trauma of the civil war, the high amount of reparations, and the covetousness of neighboring countries (Italy, Russia, Serbia) are the first things that the Austro-Hungarian Empire must solve after the war.

In addition, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which abandoned the Germans and sought peace alone, will inevitably be abandoned by the Germans. This is a considerable diplomatic challenge for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which has long insisted on its alliance with Germany.

For the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the war, whether to be a neutral country or to find reliable allies again is also a question worth thinking about.

Today I will update 4200 words, take a break, and update twice tomorrow.

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