The Rise of the Empire

Chapter 496: Contact and temptation



As Prince Heinrich said, Arnold Siemens arrived on the front foot of the prince. Prussia moved very fast this time, and his attitude was relatively low, so he chose to cooperate well with himself. The Siemens Group, not the Krupp family that has been fighting against itself. This made the prince feel a little kindness, but if they wanted to make the prince retreat with this kind of goodwill, it was because they thought too much. They had no interest and did not have what the prince wanted. How could they give in?

After a brief greeting, after the prince withdrew from others, Arnold finally explained his intentions, "I am here on behalf of most of the businessmen who have intersections with your business in Prussia. We hope that some communication and coordination can be used to reduce The differences and frictions between us, you are a future king, I must have other needs besides money? We can talk."

"Are there other needs? For example?" As the dominant party in the negotiation, the prince naturally cannot directly throw out his own demands. He now prefers to play the "Guess Guess" game!

"For example, you want to have more military posts, and for example, you want to build an air force." Arnold paused and continued: "You not only want to have an air force in Bavaria, but also I want Prussia to build an air force to prepare for future battles. There is no doubt that this is an old-fashioned plan for the country, but it is a pity that some old stubborn people in the Prussian General Staff overlooked this point. Not only you, Even we are sorry." Arnold Siemens made an angry expression.

"Fuck, what you said is what I want, but is this something worth discussing with you? The first time I settled the expansion of the army, it took a long time to break the arms with the German emperor. I want to do anything big in armaments. All changes need to be implemented through the Prussian General Staff. Even if I want to do it, I will coordinate with people like Xiao Maoqi. Do you have half a penny relationship with your Siemens?" The prince frowned and said in his heart.

"Although you are a prince of Bavaria and have a very good relationship with His Majesty the Emperor, you are not a Prussian after all, and it is the Prussian General Staff who actually handles matters and establishes the plan, and you must have recognized this, so You handed some new ideas to General Little Mochi. I hope he can persuade His Majesty the Kaiser and the Prussian General Staff. But unfortunately, both the aircraft and the armored vehicles seem to have failed. So I think you need help. "Looking at the silent prince, Arnold continued.

"Well, if I give you 5 million marks, can you persuade Schlieffen to add another army to Bavaria? If you can, then this transaction will be done." The prince continued to make soy sauce. Before the opponent has shown his hole cards, he is not ready to negotiate on the core issues.

"Well, we really can't increase the configuration of an active group army, because this is not only a matter for the Prussian General Staff, but the Emperor is also very concerned about this. But I think that under our operation, we can make some changes. , Is to work around. We can change the mobilization mechanism. You are a soldier, you should understand what I mean." Arnold Siemens said.

"I understand! If the current loophole is so easy to take advantage of, I still can't get along with the Kaiser with lifelessly?" The prince rolled his eyes. Secretly scold the other party's cunning!

The Prussian military’s active and reserve system is actually similar to that of other major European countries. Generally speaking, active soldiers are recruited from young people aged 20 to 21. After undergoing 2 to 3 years of service training for infantry. Artillery and cavalry are about 3 to 4 years of service and training. They can choose to retire and join the reserve army after retiring. The compilation time is generally 13 to 17 years. After the expiration of the reserve period, it will be incorporated into the civilian army. Once a war begins, the reserve personnel quickly enter the active-duty corps, while the civilian army is responsible for logistics.

From this perspective, there are actually a lot of people in Germany who have received military training. There are 4.9 million people who have received military training before the outbreak of the war! It is second only to 5.6 million in Russia and 5.067 million in France. Far more than the 3 million of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the 1.203 million of the United Kingdom (a silence for the size of the British Army...) The reason why France can have more soldiers with a smaller population is largely because This is because the lower age limit for service personnel is reduced to 18 years, and the service period of 2 years is extended to 3 years.

Of course, this is the number in theory, but how much can actually be mobilized is another situation. After the outbreak of German War I, it only expanded from 24 infantry troops before the war to 26 troops plus 13 reserve troops. The total force is less than 1.9 million. Among them, there are 22 regular troops and 12 reserve troops on the western front, and 4 troops and one reserve army on the eastern front. (Cavalry army, garrison brigade, etc.)

In addition to the impact of this expansion of military material reserves, another problem is the issue of commanders. There is not enough material to reserve, because the Bavarian army pays for it, if you want to, you can reserve twice the material and no one cares about you, but the material problem can be solved~www.novelhall.com~How can you solve the problem of reserve officers?

You do not decide how many troops the Bavarian Legion has, but the Prussian General Staff. Your army cannot exceed a certain percentage. In other words, your size is restricted by the Prussian Legion in disguise. Now, Prussia does not like to expand its military. Among them was General Josias von Herlingen, Minister of War of Prussia. The reason is also quite absurd. If the army is expanded, it will increase the number of officers, and the number of Junker nobles is limited, so a large number of other classes will enter the army and affect the interests of the Junker nobles in the army... . This properly puts the class interests above the national interests!

In fact, the composition of officers in the German army at that time was indeed like this. In all corps, noble officers accounted for 48% of the total number of infantry officers, 41% of artillery and 87% of cavalry! And if it is among high-level officers, then the proportion of noble officers will be higher, and among school-level officers, the number of noble officers will reach more than 80%!

Well, since the number of noble officers is a certain amount, so is the size of the army, so is the size of the Bavarian army. Therefore, every time the prince asked Bavaria to expand its army, it was changing this ratio, and the resistance was indeed great. Of course, if Germany expands its army as a whole, Bavaria can naturally expand its army proportionally, but it is a pity that the Prussian Junker masters do not want to expand its army. Look at the French and Germany... Don't say anything--!

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