Chapter 417: Russia's Defeat

As time progressed, Gao Da finally understood why Tsarist Russia, a superpower that appeared quite formidable, had been defeated by the island nation in this war.

Setting aside the combat effectiveness of the Russian Army and Navy, the logistics department of the Tsar's government displayed a rather absurd side during this war; their logistical operations indirectly led to the collapse of the Russian forces on the front lines.

Why say it this way? A few simple examples of the jokes made by the Russian logistics department during the war will make it clear.

At this time, the Russian government's logistics department was already quite chaotic, and corruption related to logistics could almost be said to be everywhere. The higher-ups barely paid attention to what the logistics department was transporting to the Far East battlefield; they only cared about whether the logistical vehicles transporting supplies arrived in the Far East on time.

This also led to a motley assortment of supplies being transported to the Far East battlefield. When the soldiers were in dire need of weapons and ammunition, the logistics department in the rear transported a Buddha statue weighing several tons.

When winter was approaching and the soldiers needed warmer winter clothing to protect themselves, the logistics department sent a large batch of summer clothing, leaving the soldiers without sufficient military uniforms to ward off the cold.

Logistical problems did not only appear in the Army; the Navy department also faced quite serious logistical troubles.

After Vice Admiral Makarov rushed to the Far East to serve as the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, he originally planned to lead the Pacific Fleet and the Baltic Sea support fleet to launch a heroic resistance against the island nation's naval blockade.

He even specifically applied to the Russian government for a batch of material aid, including large quantities of various types of artillery shells that could be used by warships, some medical supplies, and coal, among other things.

When the Russian logistics department transported these supplies to the battlefield, Vice Admiral Makarov was quite excited.

But when he sent people to receive these supplies, he quickly discovered something was wrong. Not to mention the quantity of the supplies—the Russian logistics department was certainly going to embezzle—being able to send half of the requested supplies would have been quite good.

But the problem was that the supplies sent by the logistics department were not only the wrong quantity, but even the types of supplies were completely wrong.

The artillery shells were indeed sent over, but these shells were all for small-caliber artillery used by the Army; the caliber of the guns on the warships was basically 10 inches or more, making it completely impossible to use these small-caliber artillery shells.

Although medical supplies were sent over, the corruption regarding medical supplies was the most ruthless. These medical supplies were either of substandard quality or were some common items that did not play much of a role on the battlefield; in other words, they were basically useless.

The chaos in the logistics department not only hindered the counterattack planned by Vice Admiral Makarov but also caused the morale of the Russian Far East Army to vanish completely.

The Far East region where the soldiers were fighting was quite cold in the winter. The Russian soldiers did not have enough winter clothing to ward off the cold, and having to fight the island nation's soldiers under these circumstances was simply making things difficult for them.

From the chaotic situation in the Russian logistics department, one could see that it was not without reason that Russia erupted into revolution during World War I.

Russia and its enemy, the island nation, carried out reforms at almost the same time. The island nation's reforms were very effective, allowing it to successfully catch the express train of the Second Industrial Revolution.

As for Russia, although it also appeared to be a vigorous reform, the reform only existed during the reign of Tsar Alexander II.

After Tsar Alexander II was assassinated, his reforms were already dead in all but name, which is also the reason why Tsarist Russia is currently quite chaotic.

Even if Alexander II had not been assassinated, his reforms could only have served to barely prolong the life of Tsarist Russia. This was because his serfdom reform was not thorough and did not change the living conditions of the bottom-level Russian civilians.

Although it appeared to have liberated tens of millions of Russian serfs, in reality, it just changed their title. The nobility and landlords were still oppressing the large Russian civilian class, and the interests of the newly emerging working class were not given sufficient respect.

Under such circumstances, any tiny spark could potentially ignite the entire situation in Russia.

Regardless of the outcome of the Russo-Japanese War, it was only a matter of time before a revolution broke out within Russia and Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown.

Gao Da did not care about the life or death of the Russian royal family, but the threat revealed by Russia after the revolution was not something that ordinary European countries could compare to.

As everyone knows, after the end of the First World War, Britain, France, and Germany suffered extremely significant weakening.

Although the war did not spread to the British mainland, Britain still received a huge impact. More importantly, the potential of the British mainland itself had a limit.

With the development of technology, the British mainland could no longer support Britain in becoming the world hegemon, which also meant that Britain would sooner or later have to give way to countries with greater potential.

So, which countries had greater potential?

After the end of the First World War, the only countries left with the real potential to become world hegemons were the newly revolutionized Russia and the United States, which had not been affected by the war.

These two countries both possessed a common characteristic: vast land area and a large population.

Although post-revolutionary Russia started relatively late, compared to the United States, Russia did not have the problems of racial discrimination and bipartisan opposition.

This also led to the United States and Russia ushering in extremely rapid development in the long period after World War I, and becoming the two poles of the world after the end of the Second World War.

The development of the United States could be slowed down, and one could even find an opportunity to solve the United States directly. After all, there were many problems existing within the United States; the conflict between Black and White people alone was enough to cause the interior of this country to fall into fragmentation.

But Russia was different. Once Russia completed its revolution, European countries would face a brand-new Russia. Most of the corruption and bribery phenomena in post-revolutionary Russia would cease to exist, and because the army had conviction, its combat effectiveness would also be greatly improved.

This was also the reason why Gao Da did not want the post-revolutionary Russia to be born too early. Or rather, the post-revolutionary Russia could be born, but it must be subjected to certain restrictions.

How to restrict it? In fact, the simplest way was to preserve the current Russian royal family and let Russia fall into a state of fragmentation.

Gao Da was not yet sure which side he would stand on, but what Gao Da was certain of was that the Russian royal family must be preserved, and the future Russia must be fragmented.

With the arrival of winter, the war between Russia and the island nation gradually entered a stalemate stage. Although Russia displayed some jaw-dropping operations in this war, after all, its comprehensive strength was still in the range of a superpower, and it would not collapse so easily.

And the island nation also had to slow down its offensive due to the arrival of winter. Whether it was Korea or Russia's Far East land, it was quite cold in the winter.

The Russians were still able to adapt to such cold, but the people of the island nation were relatively less easy to adapt to the cold.

The good news was that the chaos in the Russian logistics department was no longer a secret, and the government of the island nation was also clear about the current state of the Russian army.

Every day the war dragged on, Russia had to pay more energy into logistical supplies. They needed to requisition supplies from the distant Europe to transport to the Far East, and the expenditure on logistics was several times that of the island nation.

Under such circumstances, even if Russia was a superpower, they could not hold on for too long.

Unless Tsar Nicholas II did not care at all about Russia's domestic economic and industrial development in order to defeat the island nation. Otherwise, Russia would have to find a suitable opportunity for peace talks to end this war before its economy collapsed.

Although winter delayed the Army's offensive, the Navy could not stop operations in the winter. ===== CHAPTER 418 =====