Rise of Australia

Chapter 974: The Russian Army is Defeated Again

It was difficult to break through the Daugava River head-on. Although there were not many German troops south of the river, the attackers would suffer more casualties than the defenders.

Australasia has more options and will naturally not waste limited manpower on such places.

There are currently two ways to bypass the Daugava River defense line. One is to use airborne means to launch a surprise attack on Kaunas in Lithuania, Vilno and Morodechno areas controlled by Germany, and reversely cut off the German army's retreat route.

However, this places relatively high demands on the paratroopers, as they need to penetrate deep into the enemy's belly and may also face encirclement by German troops from Minsk and Bialystok.

But the benefits are also obvious. Whether it is the occupation of Kaunas Vilno or Morodechino, it can cut off the German retreat route and make the Germans' painstakingly built Daugava River defense line collapse instantly.

Another option is to land on the coastline of East Prussia and Lithuania by sea landing. This will mobilize more troops to participate in the landing battle, but the bad news is that it will also need to face more German troops, and the speed is definitely not as effective as airborne.

But the advantage of sea landing is safety. The British and Australasian fleets have completely mastered the Baltic Sea, and the Australasian landing fleet assembled on the Lithuanian border does not have to worry about the threat from the German navy.

Moreover, Australasia also has the advantage of air supremacy, so the safety of landing operations can be guaranteed, which is obviously more secure.

These two methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, but overall they are definitely much more cost-effective than a head-on breakthrough.

However, compared with the current situation on the Eastern European battlefield, Arthur is more concerned about the combat situation in Germany and Russia.

If the Australasian army captured Lithuania or even entered Poland too early, would Germany withdraw a large number of troops from the Ukrainian region to deploy a defense line in Poland and East Prussia?
This is actually certain. Because compared to Russia, which has not yet threatened Poland, Australasia, which is already very close and can even have an impact on East Prussia, is obviously the more threatening one.

If this situation occurs, it will not be a good deal for Arthur.

After all, it was in Arthur's plan to be the one who benefited from the Russo-German War. Confronting the Germans head-on was not a cost-effective deal in any way.

The good news is that the Russian army quickly ended the encirclement.

Yes, the surrounded 150 million Russian troops chose to surrender after suffering hundreds of thousands of casualties.

In fact, this cannot be blamed on these Russian troops. It was precisely because of the order from the Russian High Command that these Russian troops hurriedly walked out of their positions after winning the Battle of Stalingrad and followed closely behind the fleeing German army.

This resulted in the Russian army of more than 150 million not having adequate food supplies or corresponding logistical support.

According to the Russian government's plan, after regaining Ukraine, Ukraine could provide sufficient food supplies to these troops.

Even the defeated German army was able to provide some weapons, equipment and ammunition to the Russian army. This was also the reason why the Russian army acted in a hurry and did not prepare food and supplies.

However, the Russian government did not expect that the Germans would deploy such a huge encirclement around Kiev. 150 million troops rushed into the encirclement like fools, but were intercepted by the Germans in the salient area in front of Kiev.

Now, the Russian army, which did not carry sufficient food and ammunition supplies, was completely dumbfounded.

Although there are large tracts of farmland in the besieged area, it is not the time to harvest crops. The German army had already collected a large amount of food from here before forming this encirclement, and even when occupying Ukraine.

This also meant that the Russian army could not obtain food supplies in this area unless they were willing to plunder all the Ukrainian people in this area. At the beginning, the Russian army was still somewhat rational. They resisted the German army's actions to tighten the encirclement while trying to find a breakthrough in the entire encirclement.

At the same time, the Russian army also contacted the Ukrainian people around the farmland, trying to obtain food supplies from them in various ways.

But soon the Russian army became desperate.

The nearby Ukrainian people may have some food reserves, but they definitely cannot support a full 150 million Russian troops.

Even reducing this number tenfold would not be possible, because the Germans had already collected several waves of food from all Ukrainian citizens by means of half inducement and half coercion.

As the Germans gradually tightened their encirclement, the situation of the Russian army became increasingly critical.

Finally, some Russian troops could not bear it any longer. They forcibly took food from nearby Ukrainian people to fill their stomachs which had not been full for several days.

But setting such a precedent is not a good thing for the 150 million Russian troops.

Ukraine and Russia are different, and the two places have long formed different national consciousness.

Although they are all Eastern Slavs and even look similar, people in the Ukrainian region still insist on identifying themselves as Ukrainians.

Faced with such blatant looting by the Russian army, it naturally aroused dissatisfaction among many Ukrainian people.

The Germans were also happy to see this. Not only did they not block the Russians from obtaining food from the Ukrainian people, but they also relaxed the relevant restrictions to ensure that the Russian army could continue to obtain food from the Ukrainians.

Small-scale food theft once or twice is nothing, but when the Russian army robbed food from the Ukrainian people on a large scale, the crisis of the Russian army came.

The Ukrainian people began to cooperate with Germany spontaneously, and the whereabouts of the 150 million surrounded Russian troops were exposed to the German army.

As the German media reported extensively, people near Kiev and even the entire Ukrainian region expressed their dissatisfaction with the Russian army. Some Ukrainian political parties even stated that these Russian troops are Ukraine's enemies.

After the Russian army looted food several times, they found that the Ukrainian people in the area no longer had any remaining food for the Russian army to eat.

Lacking ammunition and food supplies, the Russian army only held out for half a month before the German army gradually narrowed the encirclement and defeated the entire Russian army more than 100 kilometers east of Kiev.

The 150 million Russian troops suffered more than 60 casualties, nearly 90 Russian soldiers were captured, and more than Russian soldiers were missing on the battlefield.

If the situation before the war had been the same, these missing Russian soldiers would have been well hidden in the Kiev area. As the people near Kiev were hostile to the Germans, the Germans would not have known the whereabouts of these Russian soldiers at all.

But after the Russian army completely offended the residents near Kiev, the whereabouts of these Russian soldiers became transparent.

Just a few days after the Russian army was defeated, people living near Kiev spontaneously reported the sightings of Russian soldiers they had seen.

(End of this chapter)