Chapter 195： Reserve improvement plan

After the birth of the crown prince's child, the Romanian people loved the newborn prince very much. In the Cathedral of the Last Chief, the baptism by the abbot of Patriarch Baldochven I was also crowded with people, and everyone couldn't wait to see the new prince.

It is also rare for Edel to stay with his family without dealing with government affairs during this period. Mainly concerned about Sophie Marie and Prince Victor, who had just finished giving birth, and his aging father Carol I often accompanied him.

However, such a leisurely time did not last long. After less than a week, he had to pick up the government affairs again and start to deal with it. Now Edel picked up and checked the document, that is, the Secretary of the Army Courtois and the chief of the general staff, General Prieshan, jointly submitted a plan to improve the reserve. This plan, which is related to the military's major moves, is still brought to the crown prince by the Mount Pree.

Looking at Edel, who was reading carefully, Preshan's heart was much more ups and downs, he was afraid that the crown prince would not understand the importance of this plan. This is what he and the Secretary of the Army have meticulously prepared based on the advantages of the reserve plan of various countries and combined with the actual situation in Romania. However, it seems that his worries are superfluous at the moment, and the crown prince looks with gusto.

To talk about the strength of the Romanian army, it is definitely a leader in the Balkans. Just relying on artillery with a larger caliber than other small countries can show Romania’s wealth and wealth, not to mention the number of Romanian artillery that they can’t match. It's just that now Edel's target is the Austro-Hungarian army and the Soviet army, which was born out of the Russian army, so his small but elite Romanian army alone cannot accomplish the above goals, so the Romanian domestic reserve must be mobilized.

Relying on Romania's relatively abundant manpower in the Balkan countries, it maintains a reserve force of 400,000 throughout the year. They usually work in the fields and factories, and when the country needs them, they will take up weapons to fight the enemy. There are reserves in all walks of life in Romania, and even Romania has a reserve company of bankers.

And when using these reserves, the Romanian military can only hope to enlist them into the army to disperse them as supplementary troops,

However, before the Romanian finances could only support the transformation and reorganization of its army, so it had more than enough energy to reform the reserve system. Now with the outbreak of the First World War, Romania's finances are improving, and the two army leaders put this long-prepared plan in front of Edel.

In this reserve reform plan, the two army leaders first unified the reserve rifles of various models, all of which were replaced by the Mauser 98 rifles used by the army. This action consumed 210,000 Mauser rifles out of the 310,000 Mauser 98 rifles in the army's inventory. However, because the Romanian arsenal is now working overtime to produce, it does not take two years to replenish inventory.

In addition, in this plan, they will also train their personnel who use machine guns. This will consume 746 machine guns and 168 artillery in the army's inventory. These still need to be supplemented by the arsenal.

After strengthening these reserve weapons, of course their training time also needs to be strengthened. From the previous five days of training per month to seven days a month, they will also train separately for one month in the winter when there is no farm work. This will increase the training time of 60 days and two months for the previous reserve to 107 days and three and a half months.

And in the plan, those who train these reserve soldiers will be replaced by in-service military officers, and the reserve officers who were previously responsible for training them will also be concentrated to train their military skills.

Through the intensive training of these reserve officers and soldiers, the Romanian reserve forces will be greatly strengthened.

And in order to allow these reserve officers and soldiers to be able to train with peace of mind, in this plan, they have also increased their allowances. In the past, the reserves were not subsidized, and they depended entirely on the patriotic enthusiasm of the people to maintain their combat effectiveness. Therefore, before the Romanian reserve, the training level is not high, and it is not easy to manage.

Now the two generals think that the reserve is also part of the Romanian army, so they are given 50 lei per person per year for soldiers, the average allowance for lieutenants is around 70 lei per person per year, and the average allowance for school-level is 100 lei per year.

But the army does not plan to pay all of this money. In this plan, the two generals believed that because of the half-military and half-soldier nature of the reserve service, the government would also pay half. Relying on the current tense situation of the European war, in the end Prime Minister Bretianu pinched his nose to acquiesce in the rogue of the two generals. Therefore, the government and the army each provide half of the funds to support the 400,000 reserve forces each year.

In fact, it is weapons and ammunition that cost more than allowances. This aspect costs more. We must know that if the training intensity of the army is followed, these reserve soldiers will consume a lot of ammunition. Fortunately, the Romanian ammunition production has been expanded several times, which can support the plan of the two generals.

And at the end, the two generals also conceived how to use these intensively trained reserves. First, before the outbreak of the war, the officers of these troops who prepared and trained them were formed into independent battalion-level units, and then a regiment was drawn and supplemented from each division to form a new division-level unit with them. As for the technical arms of this division level, it is also composed of reserve technical officers and soldiers trained by the drawn division to provide noncommissioned officers as the backbone.

On the whole, it has the style of the Japanese army in World War II, but it did not allow divisions to divide the soldiers to supplement the land, and there is no such abnormal military class as the Japanese army.

After reading the entire plan, Edel still agrees with it, but he still has to ask the Chief of Staff a few questions before he can make a decision.

"Admiral Pree, according to your plan, how can the second volatility member solve it?"

After hearing the crown prince’s inquiry, Preysan knew that this was precisely the part they did not include in the plan. It turns out that there will be differences between him and Courtois on the second mobilization . In his opinion, after the second mobilization to expand the range of conscription, the conscripts were sent to the barracks for training two months later, in order to supplement the soldiers on the battlefield, and this model is now common in Europe.

Admiral Courtois believes that this is too dangerous for the small country of Romania. Once the second mobilization is launched, it may be facing opponents such as Austria-Hungary and Russia, whose manpower cannot be compared with that of major powers. Therefore, he believes that it is necessary to establish a second-level mobilization organization. During training, these people can reduce the training time, two months or one and a half months each year, which is much better than training them for two months after being recruited on the battlefield.

Admiral Pree Mountain mainly considered that this would require more weapons and ammunition to support such a secondary mobilization organization, which is too burdensome for the current military, so he does not agree.

Now facing the crown prince’s inquiry, Admiral Preeshan had to say this question.

After listening to Preeshan's account, Edel knew that it was necessary for Romania to participate in the First World War. And now the Romanian army plus reserve service is only 700,000, even if it continues to expand the army up to 1 million, there is still a lot of gap in the current general recruitment ratio of various countries. So he agrees with the Secretary of the Army's proposal.

So Edel spoke to Puleshan after thinking about it. "At present, it seems that Admiral Courtois's plan is not bad. You should think more about the plan for second-level mobilization and make a supplementary plan."

After Edel finished speaking, he signed his name on this reserve reform plan.

So in early October 1914, Romania began to implement a new reserve program.