Chapter 306: The Rise of the Wolves
As 1911 came to a close, people around the world finally let out a sigh of relief, having survived a year fraught with crises and frequent conflicts.
For all Europeans, the events of 1911 were mostly bad news. The Second Moroccan Crisis turned the rivalry between the two major military blocs in Europe into a tangible conflict, deepening the divisions between Britain and Germany, which further fueled the intense naval arms race.
More importantly, this arms race involved all the European great powers, signaling that war was no longer a distant prospect—these nations were preparing for it.
In addition, the great powers of Europe were also ramping up the size of their armies. From Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire's expansions of 300,000 troops, to France, Russia, and Germany each expanding by 500,000, all these efforts pointed to the serious situation Europe was facing, with war seeming imminent.
The frantic military expansions of these powers also sparked explosive growth in their military industries.
A simple example would be Germany's renowned arms company, Krupp. In 1873, it had only 9,000 employees. By 1902, that number had grown to 43,000, and by the end of 1911, Krupp employed 70,000 people.
Britain's military industry was also massive, with more than 100,000 workers in the military sector.
Britain's military industry had two prominent features. First, it prioritized the production of warships and merchant vessels, in line with the British Navy's focus. Second, private military factories played a significant role, which contrasted with Australasia's royal military factories.
In Australasia, the Royal Military Factory controlled 87% of the military market, with only a few minor weapons that the royal factory wasn't willing to produce being made by private workshops.
In addition to the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire all had very large arms industries, and these industries were directly responsible for the vast armaments and soldiers that each country could field.
This was evident in Australasia as well. The total number of people working in the military industry in Australasia was around 15,000. When including hidden military research facilities and agricultural machinery factories, the number of people working in military-related sectors had surpassed 20,000.
Compared to the growth of standing armies, the reserve forces brought in by the great powers of Europe were even more staggering.
Aside from the British Empire, the focus of European great powers' military expansions was on the army. This led to the current overinflated number of soldiers and arms in Europe.
As of now, Russia had the largest standing army in Europe, with 1.1 million active soldiers and 5.65 million reserves.
France had the second-largest standing army, with 710,000 regulars and 5 million reserves. Germany followed closely with 700,000 regulars and 4.9 million reserves.
Austro-Hungary had 400,000 regulars and 3 million reserves, Italy had 380,000 regulars and 1.8 million reserves, and the British Empire had 250,000 regulars and 1.2 million reserves.
Although the great powers of Europe had announced their military expansions, the progress varied.
The fastest expansions were those of Germany and France, which had already called up over 200,000 reserve soldiers into their standing forces and begun long-term training.
The slowest expansion, by contrast, had been that of the Russian Empire, which, despite announcing its military build-up months ago, had only called up a few tens of thousands of soldiers, and even those were still on their way to training grounds.
If all these great powers' military expansions were completed, Europe would likely face a war with a combined total of tens of millions of soldiers, and the losses for these countries would be incalculable.
In addition to the rivalries between the two major military blocs in Europe, the shadow of war loomed heavily over the Balkans.
The countries of the Balkans were either preparing for war or already engaged in preparations for war.
To prepare for future conflict, the Balkan League, which included countries such as Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro, had all declared military expansions. Bulgaria and Serbia had each surpassed 300,000 and 200,000 troops respectively, and even the smallest of the Balkan League members, Montenegro, had already surpassed 35,000 soldiers.
The Balkan League had the support of the Russian Empire, and their weapons and equipment were largely sourced from Russia.
To facilitate this, the Russian Empire had offloaded some of its outdated weapons at a price slightly lower than market value to the Balkan nations.
Additionally, the Russian Empire had ordered 150,000 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition from Australasia to prepare for its own military build-up.
This was when Arthur began to feel the huge profits that came from selling arms. Even before the war had begun, European countries were simply preparing for it. Russia had placed substantial orders with Australasia, netting the arms industry hundreds of thousands of Australian dollars in profits.
If war broke out and European countries found themselves in need of weapons, the profits from the arms trade could grow to tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of Australian dollars.
To facilitate this, Arthur generously allocated millions of dollars in funding to the Royal Military Factory, ensuring that it could ramp up production and stockpile at least one million rifles, hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition, as well as thousands of artillery pieces and shells.
Australasia had both British and German-made weapons, as well as its own domestically developed weapons, making it easy to export weapons to Europe where British and German arms were most in demand.
Arthur even began to consider whether, if military airplanes were to become important in World War I, it might be possible for Australasia to produce large numbers of older aircraft models and sell them in bulk to European powers.
After all, Australasia had already developed the third generation of military aircraft, and research on the fourth generation was well underway.
Once the fourth generation was successfully developed, selling off earlier models to the European powers wouldn't interfere with Australasia's research. Given the impact of war, European powers would likely struggle to catch up with Australasia's aircraft technology in the short term.
The cost of manufacturing these aircraft was tens of thousands of Australian dollars, and the profits from large-scale sales to European countries could rival those from selling weapons.
(End of Chapter)
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