Reincarnated as Nikolai II

Unlike the army, apart from taking 10-20 years to rebuild the navy, the High Seas Fleet and Royal Navy simply had no reason to fight.

’We won’t leave our ports. Don’t worry. Just do your naval blockade.’

’Right, you just do appropriate commerce raiding with U-boats.’

Not only is the winner unclear even if they fight, but there’s nothing good even if they win. A decisive battle might sink ships and kill sailors by the thousands, but it wouldn’t fundamentally alter the strategic situation or break the deadlock in the North Sea.

Even after the massive fleet battle off Jutland in 1916, where both sides claimed victory despite heavy losses, U-boats are still indiscriminately attacking civilian ships and merchant vessels, while Britain has once again effectively locked the High Seas Fleet in port through its superior naval position. The German dreadnoughts sit idle in harbor while submarines wage an increasingly desperate campaign of unrestricted warfare.

In other words, while each country makes all sorts of propaganda about winning and claiming tactical victories, the fundamental situation hasn’t changed - Britain maintains its blockade while Germany can’t break out into the Atlantic with its surface fleet. The stalemate continues month after month.

If anything changed, it was some naval strategy.

"The Battle of Jutland was the first and last naval battle. We must never fight on the surface again. Now we really need to bet our lives on U-boats!"

"What? Liberating the Baltic Sea? Perhaps is the Danish army going to make a suicide attack on Germany? We can barely defend the English Channel, what Baltic Sea are you talking about?"

Just one naval battle too clearly defined each other’s territories.

Their original goal of ’inducing German surrender indirectly through naval victory’ sank to the bottom of the North Sea along with the deaths of innocent sailors.

In the end, going round and round back to land warfare.

Both sides had to turn their eyes to the Western Front, which was now familiar to the point of being tiresome.

The Somme and Verdun.

Just as the Eastern Front had done in autumn ’15, both armies conducted two battles simultaneously, causing troop numbers to plummet.

France, which had solely handled the Battle of Verdun, called the first battle of attrition, suffered 350,000 casualties.

At the Somme, by late November, the Anglo-French alliance conducted unlimited offensives until it started getting properly cold, resulting in 620,000 casualties.

In fact, at the Somme, even though Britain alone mobilized over 50 divisions and added various colonial forces and the French Northern Army Group for about double the force difference, they suffered more deaths, so it was tactically a defeat, but...

"We won! This is a great victory!"

"My God, pushing back 13km! Considering General Pétain was promoted straight to army general for pushing back 4km in ’15, this is an incredible victory!"

"Tactical defeat? Looking at small battles it might seem so, but this is a strategic victory!"

Well, although the British Expeditionary Force that had barely been filled after the third Military Service Act amendment - which had expanded conscription to married men between 18 and 41 - returned to where it was a year ago, everyone accepted it since the higher-ups said they won. The newspapers dutifully reported success, while censors carefully managed any dissenting opinions.

Of course, even if they called it victory, the end of 1916 wasn’t so happy. The streets were filled with wounded veterans, and hospitals struggled to cope with the endless stream of casualties.

Beyond the too many deaths - with some battalions suffering up to 90% casualties - remaining practical problems mounted daily. Fields lay fallow, factories stood idle, and infrastructure crumbled from neglect.

The nation itself was becoming poor with abandoning the gold standard and continuous deficit economy, and everything except the munitions industry had gone bankrupt. Small businesses closed their doors forever, while government bonds stretched the treasury to its limits.

Now Western Europe had become more accustomed to state-led production-consumption rather than market economy principles of production-consumption. Government committees dictated everything from coal distribution to bread prices, while private enterprise withered.

Labor shortage due to continued mobilization orders created a crisis. In France, 63% of the rear male economically active population disappeared into uniform. Rather than economic entities going bankrupt, they were just disappearing overnight, leaving empty shops and silent workshops across the country.

Feeling this crisis, the coalition cabinet hurriedly enacted the Dalbiez Law restricting some conscription and immediately expanded it nationwide, but even so, the Dalbiez Law only pushed soldiers into factories. Women and elderly tried to fill the gaps, but skilled labor remained scarce.

In late 1916, after massive attrition warfare, the French people witnessed the unprecedented spectacle of the Dalbiez Law fighting with the Military Service Act.

"What, taking workers again? Our factory will go completely bankrupt! At least nationalize it and give us some money!"

"Front line troops are lacking! You bastards! What Dalbiez Law when there’s no elections anyway because it’s wartime!"

"H-honestly, I think female workers are hopeless. They’re just different in strength and skill, and seeing them form labor unions during wartime makes them look like commun-"

"Oh... But looking at it, things run quite well even with the state handling planning, purchasing, distribution, funding, taxes and production? There’s no clearer evidence!"

"It’s State Socialism! The commies are running wild in this gap!"

Whether to make men work or serve was actually just a very superficial social chaos.

Seeing how the country was running, communists were running wild, frontline military unit rebellions were daily occurrences after the Somme, and workers were dying from overwork after the Labor Laws protecting them were abolished.

Meanwhile in Paris, France.

Supreme War Council.

"Launch an offensive."

"...Minister Rödiger. That’s what you demand as soon as you arrive? To launch an offensive?"

"General Foch, in the end the Somme and Verdun haven’t ended. Yet if we stop the offensive now, it wouldn’t be strange for enemy troop deployments to change."

Rödiger, who had become minister and was dispatched to the Supreme War Council, boldly demanded of Foch who had led the Battle of the Somme, while simultaneously.

"An offensive when France’s two army groups are half-destroyed and now we have to deploy troops all the way south just above Switzerland? Are you joking!"

"If we can just meet face to face, I can assure you." 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

He boasted.

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"As long as Germany doesn’t come down, the Southern Front, the Dual Monarchy, is finished."

Russia would now bring down Austria-Hungary.