Chapter 390
Time passed quickly and soon came to the second year after the war, that is, 1915.
Although the Australasian army arrived on the battlefield in October last year, although the British and French forces achieved great success in the Battle of the Marne, and although Germany just experienced a disastrous defeat, the current war on the Western Front is still a war of attrition, even though Germany has shown signs of Despite the decline, it is still not easy to defeat him.
War is a huge war of attrition, and this is true in any era.
Although the Australasian Expeditionary Force has only been in Europe for two months, the colonial army has suffered more than 82,000 casualties so far, and the Fourth Division has suffered more than 3,000 casualties, which is enough to prove the cruelty of this war.
Thanks to the exaggerated equipment of the Australasian army, the actual consumption of weapons and ammunition is even more exaggerated.
However, half of the military expenses of the expeditionary force to Europe were borne by the United Kingdom. Therefore, the burden caused to Australasia was not too great, at least for now, it is completely acceptable.
According to public or semi-public war reports from various places, a total of nearly 8 million troops have been invested in the current European war.
Especially the main countries, led by France and Germany, have now expanded their military numbers to more than one million people.
The total number of armies and casualties of the participating countries in Europe are as follows:
Germany currently has 1.91 million troops, with 114,000 war casualties and 227,000 wounded.
France currently has 1.75 million troops, with 198,000 war casualties and 352,000 wounded.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire currently has 1.29 million troops, with 78,000 war casualties and 115,000 wounded.
The Tsarist Empire currently has 1.938 million troops, 172,000 war casualties, and 255,000 wounded.
The British Empire currently has 872,000 troops, with 58,000 war casualties and 112,000 wounded.
Australasia currently has 478,000 troops, 33,000 war casualties, and 52,000 wounded.
In just over four months in 1914, the war resulted in more than 600,000 deaths and nearly 1.1 million injuries.
What's even more exaggerated is that this data is limited to casualties counted by the military of various countries, and does not include civilians affected by the war.
If civilians were to be counted, a conservative estimate would make the casualty list at least twice as large.
Moreover, compared with the following year, these four months in 1914 were not too cruel.
Although the armies of various countries have increased several times, they can still recruit more troops to join the war, which also means more casualties and consumption.
It can be predicted that in the coming year, the war will only become more cruel, because all countries have no retreat, either win the war or be destroyed in the war.
No one would hope that the enemy would spare them after defeat. The casualties of this war have been very tragic. Under this kind of hatred, the Allied Powers and the Allied Powers have long been in a state of death or death.
On January 1, 1915, the annual report meeting of the Australasian Cabinet Government was officially held.
The reason why the meeting was delayed by one day was because of the delay in counting casualties on the front line. It was not until close to the early morning that casualty reports from Europe were received.
During the meeting, Arthur looked at Defense Minister Raul and asked with a serious face: "Minister Raul, tell us about the current casualties of our expeditionary force!"
Defense Minister Raul nodded, looked at everyone, and said with a heavy face: "Your Majesty, everyone. So far, our 316,000 expeditionary force has only 217,000 combat soldiers. The Fourth Division has also suffered heavy casualties. , currently there are only about 13,000 people with combat capabilities.”
After hearing the news of such tragic casualties, the ministers of various departments turned their eyes to Defense Minister Raul.
You know, the total number of Australasian expeditionary forces is only 316,000, and they lost nearly one-third in just two months.
Doesn't this mean that in the new year, Australasia still needs to send a certain amount of colonial troops to maintain the scale of the expeditionary force in Europe.
Although most of the dead were indigenous people, they were not that distressed. But it actually costs a lot to train an indigenous person into a barely qualified soldier.
Therefore, the best case scenario is that the casualties of the indigenous people can be less, at least there is no need for Australasia to frequently transport indigenous people to the European battlefield.
"The French side is already asking, when can we send the second expeditionary force to Europe?" Minister Raul glanced at Arthur's reaction before continuing.
In fact, it is normal for the French to ask this. After all, according to the agreement at the time, Australasia needs to try its best to keep the total number of combat troops in Europe above 300,000, including at least one division of the main force.
But as everyone knows that firewood, rice, oil and salt are expensive, Arthur has only one idea now, and that is to send troops as late as possible.
"Reply to France, it will take some time for our army to train, and the journey to Europe is long. For at least three months, Australasia will not have any reinforcements and can only provide certain material support." Arthur thought for a moment. After a while, he said this.
Although Australasia does need to make a certain contribution during the war in exchange for the distribution of benefits after the war.
But it was not in Arthur's plan to shed his own blood to support the French.
It seems that the casualties of the colonial army did not cause much loss to Australasia, but in fact, the training costs of these indigenous soldiers, as well as their weapons and equipment, brought a heavy burden on Australasia.
After all, the British only provided half of the military expenses of these troops, and would not provide these indigenous soldiers with weapons and equipment when forming colonial armies.
Minister Raul nodded, indicating that he understood.
After the episode of the Ministry of Defense ended, the 1914 annual report summary meeting officially began.
According to the report of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, by the end of 1914, the total population of Australasia had successfully exceeded 15 million, reaching 15.37 million.
This is a significant milestone for Australasia. After the population exceeded 10 million three years ago, the population of Australasia has once again reached a new number.
Of course, the population also reflects a bad news, that is, since the outbreak of the European War, the number of immigrants in Australasia has dropped sharply.
Throughout 1914, the population growth of Australasia was about 1.44 million.
Although it seems not small, the number of newborn babies reached 378,000. This also means that the number of immigrants in 1914 was only 1.062 million, of which Russian immigrants were as high as more than 800,000, accounting for nearly 80% of the new immigrants in Australasia.
The number of immigrants decreased by nearly 300,000 as of the previous year, and a considerable number of them were British and German immigrants.
Even if the relationship between Australasia and Britain is good, Britain will close the immigration channel during the war to minimize the outflow of immigrants.
After all, most civilians do not like war. If immigration is not restricted during special periods, I am afraid that a large number of immigrants will go abroad for refuge before the war is over.
And this kind of loss of national strength during the war is something that all major European powers do not want to see.
Not only Britain, all European powers participating in the war have promulgated certain immigration restriction policies, which also almost halved the number of immigrants outflowing from Europe in 1914.
Fortunately, Australasia still has a good brother, Russia, who can support Australasia immigrants at any time.
After all, in order to attract more Russian immigrants, Australasia bribed Russia from top to bottom. Russia gave the green light to Australasia immigrants, and only needed to send the immigrants to Australasia.
More importantly, because Australasia frequently transported materials to Russia, the relationship between Australasia and Russia also entered a long honeymoon period.
In addition to the marriage relationship between the two royal families, Russian immigrants were indeed the best source of immigrants during this period, excluding some revolutionary elements of Russian immigrants.
Due to the possible crisis in Tsarist Russia in the future, Arthur had already made advance arrangements.
First, by screening all Russian immigrants, thousands of Russian immigrants who recognized Australasia and were willing to be loyal were selected. After a certain amount of training, they were sent back to Russia to perform secret undercover missions.
Their general mission was to enter some revolutionary elements and Russian rebels to find out more information for Arthur.
No matter how corrupt Russia was, the Russian royal family still had to be saved. Even if the ruler is not the current tsar, at least he must be a close relative of the Romanov family.
This is not only due to the good relationship between the Australasian royal family and the Russian royal family, but also due to Russia's geographical location.
As long as Russia exists, at least in the Far East, it will be an ally of Australasia and share the pressure from the island countries and the United States for Australasia.
However, Russia is currently in a relatively chaotic state, and it is also a question whether these more than 1,000 trained Russian immigrants can penetrate those people.
It is worth mentioning that some Russian lawless elements have already fled to Australasian territory by taking the opportunity of immigration.
But Arthur has been prepared for this. The customs of Australasian have strict inspections on all foreign immigrants.
Not only are they prohibited from carrying weapons, but immigrants from the same area are also not allowed to gather in one area too much.
These immigrants from all over Russia will also be dispersed to various regions of Australasia, including New Zealand and all colonies.
Of course, they can also refuse the government's distribution, but the price is to lose the government's welfare policy.
Although such regulations are somewhat tough, they are not unacceptable to civilians who just want to come to Australasia to live a simple and happy life.
After all, Australasia's current immigration policy is also very generous. As long as you pass the immigration assessment of about half a year to a year, you can successfully obtain Australasia citizenship, obtain 4 to 8 acres of land (depending on the location and fertility of the land), and have the opportunity to work in Australasia's major factories.
You must know that with the growth of Australasia's per capita income, the salary packages offered by major factories have also been very generous.
Although the income level is not as good as that of top powers such as Britain, France and Germany, Australasia's consumption level is also relatively low, especially in terms of beef, mutton and grain, the price is much lower than that of Europe, which has also brought the living standards of Europeans and Australasia closer.
According to statistics, in terms of beef, mutton and grain consumption, Australasia's per capita even exceeds that of some parts of Europe, including some powerful countries.
In addition, the eight-hour work system is strictly enforced in Australasia, overtime work also has corresponding subsidies and overtime pay, and salary benefits are also guaranteed.
Therefore, Australasia's factories have attracted a large number of citizens and immigrants to enter, allowing Australasia's various industries to develop very rapidly.
Although more than 1 million immigrants are added each year, these people will be dispersed to agriculture, industry and other aspects, which also leads to the unemployment rate in Australasia not being affected too much.
According to statistics from the people's livelihood department, by the end of 1914, Australasia's per capita income was 52.7 Australian dollars, still in a relatively stable growth state.
Economic growth can be seen from the gross national product.
Throughout 1914, Australasia's gross national product reached 1.677 billion US dollars, equivalent to 335 million pounds and 670 million Australian dollars, with a growth rate of about 6%.
Although the growth rate has slowed down compared with the previous year, the war broke out in the second half of 1914 after all, and such a growth rate is already good.
If Arthur's guess is correct, the economic growth of several major European powers participating in the war, especially France, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia, is definitely negative.
You know, war is very costly for a country. In order to make the country enter a state of war better, these countries mobilized some civilian factories to enter military production, producing more complex military equipment and weapons with technology, and producing simpler military uniforms and helmets without technology.
Although it greatly alleviated the military supply pressure on the front line, it also caused a huge impact on the civilian economy, and the country's economic growth was slow, and even fell into negative growth.
The situation in the UK is relatively better, after all, the mainland was not affected by the war. But after all, being in Europe, there must be an impact, at least much greater than Australasia.
In terms of government fiscal revenue, Australasia's government fiscal revenue in 1914 was 107.2 million Australian dollars, an increase of about 5.6% over the previous year.
The economy of Australasia was not greatly affected, and it even made a small profit because of the large amount of materials exported to Europe.
In terms of fiscal expenditure, because half of the expeditionary force's military expenses were borne by Britain, Australasia's military expenditure actually decreased to just over 38 million Australian dollars.
The total fiscal expenditure of the Australasia government was 98.71 million Australian dollars, and the fiscal surplus increased compared with the previous year, reaching about 8.5 million Australian dollars.
Although military expenditure has been reduced a lot, the government's total fiscal expenditure has not decreased much.
After all, in the war, it costs more to introduce immigrants from Russia. At the same time, in order to stabilize domestic production, certain expenses are inevitable.
However, these expenses are destined to be earned back from the Allies. But as the war in the new year becomes more intense, the Allies will really lack weapons, equipment and supplies.
And that time was when Australia made a lot of money. Just relying on the trade of food and weapons and equipment, it was enough for the royal family and the Australasia government to make a lot of money, not only to pay off all the government's debts, but also to make a small profit.
If it weren't for the previous war between Argentina and Chile, the relationship between Australasia and the United States would have declined.
Arthur even wants to borrow a large sum of money from the United States, and he can pay it back in francs or marks.
This is the only update today, so I'll take a day off. I'll update twice tomorrow.