Chapter 1035 Romania in the Storm
Chapter 1035 Romania in the Storm
"Yes, that's right! Romania has provided Germany and Austria with hundreds of thousands of wagons of wheat and corn, as well as a large amount of livestock, vegetables, oil products, and dairy products! Oh, and millions of tons of fuel! We can't let them become the material base of the Allies! So either stand on our side, or we will destroy them!" A cold light flashed in Nicholas II's eyes!
In fact, although it is a small country, Romania still has something worthy of covet by the Allied Powers and the Entente Powers! This small country with an area of just over 130,000 square kilometers is the second largest oil producer in Europe and the fourth largest wheat exporter! Historically, before Romania surrendered to the Allies, it provided hundreds of thousands of wagonloads of agricultural products to the Allies! Even the neutral attitude of Romania, which pursues localism, is intolerable to Russia. Now, Russia, which has realized the crisis, must try its best to weaken its opponents. Therefore, in response to these waverings, it will continue to maintain its neutral status and provide a large amount of supplies to the Allies. In Romania, the Tsar decisively expressed that he could not tolerate it!
In addition to supplies, Romania's strategic location is very important to both parties. Prince Ruprecht wants to gain a direct passage to Turkey through control of Romania. For the Allied Powers, in addition to strengthening the pressure on Turkey, controlling Romania is more important because Romania and Serbia are next to each other. Currently, Serbia has not been occupied by Germany and Austria. If Romania joins the Allied Powers, it will be equivalent to establishing an alliance. As for the passage to the Aegean Sea, once the French navy comes back, under the cover of the French navy, a steady stream of supplies can reach Russia through Serbia and Romania! And if this could be achieved, who would have nothing to do but fight the Dardanelles with all his might!
Even if it is not for supplies, but simply for this passage, Russia in this dimension will never let Romania remain neutral or defect to the Allies, and will use any means to win over or even coerce Romania to join the Allies!
What's more, although Romania is small, it still has 600,000 to 700,000 troops on paper! According to the Russian understanding, even 700,000 donkeys can play some role! Therefore, when the Romanian government was hesitant, the Russians wanted to use some "special" means to induce Romania to defect to their side!
"If we really want to use force to interfere in Romania's internal affairs, we must do it quickly. I suggest that three newly formed cavalry divisions be deployed to form our forward into Romania. Then cooperate with Ferdinand to complete the control of Bucharest!" Curo! Patkin said.
"You can arrange this yourself. We can temporarily delay the Galician offensive." The Tsar paused and then said: "In addition, once you control Romania, you can persuade Ferdinand to use the gold reserves of the National Bank of Romania as If the funds to purchase our equipment are not available, various gold jewelry and cultural relics, as long as they have precious metals on them, will do."
"Huh?!" Even judging from the Russians' character of losing money if they don't get something right when they go out for a walk,
His Majesty the Tsar's actions can definitely be called robbery! However, after being briefly surprised, Kuropatkin and others expressed their approval of His Majesty the Emperor's wise and powerful decision. Isn't it just a robbery? The Russians know their way around!
"Will this arouse resistance from the Romanians?" Brusinov asked worriedly.
"We are helping Ferdinand attack Romania's old enemy, the Hungarians. If the war is victorious, Romania may be able to get 100,000 square kilometers of land. What does this gold and cultural relics mean?" Nicholas II asked. Waving his hand, it’s settled!
Although Romania is a small country, it has some wealth after all. Relying on its relatively generous natural resource endowments, Romania still had some things that the Russians coveted during World War I! Historically, in 1916, a train filled with 17 train cars and a total weight of 97 tons of gold and gold bars was escorted by 4 carriages of soldiers from Romania to Moscow, Russia. In the summer of 1917, another batch of cultural relics, gold and various jewelry were shipped to Russia. Not to mention the collections of various ancient nobles and royal families, there were also thousands of oil paintings, and even the collections of Romanian cathedrals. Gold crosses, gold and silver incense burners, gold cassocks, etc. were not spared. As for the remaining gold and silver coins in the bank and important documents from the National Archives, they were also looted!
(As for the final result of these things? In fact, everyone should be able to guess it. According to the historical practice of the Russians, how can you spit out what you have eaten? In fact, except for some documents and archives, as well as individual cultural relics. Others The things have not returned to Romania yet.)
The wealth of Romania is still very important to Russia, because at this time, Russia cannot expect to use rubles to get Italy or other countries to provide high-performance engines that they cannot produce in large quantities. The only thing that can circulate is real gold and silver! Even the Germans purchase supplies in precious metals!
"With the help of the three armies of the Southwest Front and the Romanian cannon fodder, we should be able to win the Battle of Galicia, right?" Nicholas II said at the end of the meeting.
"If we cannot make breakthrough progress in the direction of Galicia, then Romania's end is already doomed. Although there are 700,000 troops, with our help, we can still fight against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but without us , their existence time can only be calculated in days."
Brusinov wrote this in his diary. Obviously, he is still a little worried about this huge gamble based on the national destiny of an ally and the strength of several army groups. He vaguely felt that something was wrong somewhere, but he couldn't figure out where the problem was!
The Russians planned to launch a campaign to deal with the Austro-Hungarian Army in Galicia three months after this meeting. What they didn't expect was that before the Russians officially started this battle, the Germans were already prepared. The reason was simple. The Russians' preparation time was too long, and there was no way to conceal their own in such a large battle. intention! Faced with almost every day, there are more than 50 or even 3-digit aircraft in the air for reconnaissance. The Germans can't say they know the Russians' frontline movements well, but it's normal to find a few moving train guns or large-scale movements of regiments!
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