The Rise Of Australasia

The general in charge of resisting the Canadian army’s advance was Arthur MacArthur, Chief of Staff of the United States Army.

Some might wonder, given that President Hoover and MacArthur had already clashed, why it was still MacArthur leading the American army into battle against the Canadian forces.

In fact, a glance at the current reserves of army generals in the United States would explain why.

If the American army is said to be raised by a stepmother, then its generals are orphans.

The incredibly low number of personnel in the United States army has resulted in an equally meager reserve of army generals.

The rationale is simple: there are only so many army troops, so there are only so many general positions available.

To create an additional general in the United States army, an existing one must retire.

Such a difficult environment for nurturing talent has led to a lack of so-called famous generals among United States army leadership, with MacArthur being considered quite capable already.

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The American army contributed nothing in World War I, so it was even less likely to expect any generals to stand out during the war and become renowned commanders.

Even MacArthur, the current Army Chief of Staff, might not have as much actual combat experience as any brigade general from the British, French, and Australian forces.

This is no joke, as the replacement of generals is not as frequent as that of soldiers.

Most of the current generals in Australasia have fought in World War I and have also participated in numerous colonial wars, greatly surpassing the United States Army in terms of combat experience.

Especially because Arthur had established a rotation system for the expeditionary army’s commanders during World War I, nearly every brigade had gone to the battlefield, and every brigade general had taken a turn as a commander, effectively enhancing the military’s combat capability and the high command’s practical leadership ability.

Compared with the virtually blank slate of combat exposure for United States Army generals, the Australasian Army generals’ resumes might be considered luxurious.

Of course, compared to the army, the training system for United States Navy officers is much better. @@novelbin@@

After all, America’s hegemony cannot be maintained without the navy, nor can its Pacific strategy flourish without the navy’s development.

The navy is still very important for the United States, with naval officer reserves substantially exceeding those of the army, including several who participated in naval battles throughout World War I.

The current Army Chief of Staff, MacArthur, holds a four-star general rank, which seems as prestigious as that of world-renowned generals.

However, in reality, MacArthur’s resume is quite ordinary, his most notable role being that of a brigade general with the American Expeditionary Force during World War I, as well as the West Point superintendent from a few years ago.

Indeed, 16 years prior, MacArthur was merely a captain. Within a mere 16-year span, MacArthur rose through the officer ranks, having already reached the rank of brigadier general during his tenure as superintendent of West Point.

Subsequently, when chosen to become Chief of Staff of the Army, MacArthur was bestowed with the temporary rank of four-star general.

From this, it is evident that MacArthur’s actual combat experience amounted to serving as a brigade general, and his command capabilities had not yet been tested by a real war.

However, the good news was that the troops under MacArthur’s command were only about the size of two brigades, which he could competently lead using his World War I experience commanding a brigade.

In order to defend against the Canadian forces, the first thing MacArthur did upon taking office was to order the digging of an extensive network of trenches.

Although his participation in World War I was brief, MacArthur still learned a great deal from it.

The extensive trench warfare between Germany and France was the real reason World War I dragged on for years and was now an excellent defensive strategy.

Moreover, the American army possessed advanced weapons, which would be more than sufficient for a defensive stance against the Canadians.

Having only soldiers dig trenches proved too slow. To expedite the process, MacArthur hired a large number of nearby civilians to aid the military in trench excavation.

In the midst of an economic crisis, it was quite easy to find people for work. Very soon, tens of thousands of American people had gathered, digging trenches enthusiastically with shovels and pickaxes in hand.

But it wasn’t long before MacArthur discovered flaws in his strategy.

These American soldiers were somewhat unskilled at trench digging, not to mention the civilians who had no idea what a trench structure should even look like.

During the excavation, some accidentally cut off the city’s water supply, others managed to break through highways, some created a large ditch that flooded a vast amount of military supplies, and there were even instances where they almost dug right into enemy territory while building trenches.

Fortunately, the Canadian forces were still some distance from the trench-digging site; otherwise, it would have been a colossal joke.

MacArthur quickly disbanded the counterproductive civilian workforce. The construction of such military facilities still had to rely on the soldiers themselves.

Nevertheless, American soldiers were not particularly proficient either, and a stretch of a few kilometers of trenches took several days to dig.

To hinder the advance of the Canadian army, the American army grimly suffered hundreds of casualties before they barely managed to delay the Canadians for a few days.

After the trenches were finally dug, MacArthur breathed a sigh of relief and decided to engage in a protracted war of attrition with the Canadian forces.

The real reason why MacArthur was so confident in waging a war of attrition was that President Hoover had already made certain progress.

Of course, the progress here referred to recruitment, not gaining support from the government or a consortium.

Although the American people were not too keen on defending their country, once the government provided food and a thick stack of US dollars, they admitted that their previous opposition to the government was indeed a bit too strong.

Under the incentives of substantial funds and food supplies, the recruitment progress of the United States Army sped up somewhat, and before long, they had assembled 200,000 people.

However, there was a problem: the United States Army did not have enough weapons and equipment in reserve.

But this did not stump the American army. After all, for a country like the United States where it was legal to bear arms, equipping each soldier with a rifle was not difficult.

However, due to the hasty preparation, they got their hands on the rifles, but the models were quite a mixed bag.

In this batch of about ten thousand new recruits, there were dozens of types of rifles and equally as many varieties of bullets.

Some new recruits received weapons with which they were entirely unfamiliar, leading to several accidental discharges that injured their fellow soldiers.

The present-day United States no longer worried about logistics issues. The major military factories were rushing to produce weapons and equipment, and the civilian stockpile of weapons was also sufficient for resupplying soldiers.

When a firearm ran out of bullets, it was simply discarded; it was better to switch to another gun that was already loaded than to replenish the ammunition for the current gun.

Well, if you ignore the assortment of rifles in the hands of these new recruits, these hundred thousand plus soldiers did resemble an army.

But unfortunately, although the number of soldiers in the United States Army had surpassed 200,000, the true veterans numbered only about eighty thousand.

The remaining forces would need some time going through training before being sent into war—at least to acquaint themselves with their weapons and avoid endangering their own on the battlefield.

Rifles and bullets were easier to come by, but machine guns and artillery were not as straightforward. While America’s industry was strong, the military industry was not as prosperous.

The reason was that before World War I, American weapons and equipment were not as advanced as those in Europe, and during the war, a large number of orders for weapons and equipment were snatched away by Australasia, which did not result in a significant expansion of America’s military industry.

This also meant that the United States had limited reserves of weapons and equipment, as there were only so many soldiers.

To ensure the army had enough machine guns and artillery, Brigadier General John Joseph Pershing, who was responsible for training the new recruits, dug out a large amount of outdated weaponry from the army’s warehouses, including, but not limited to, machine guns and artillery supplied to the army during the previous World War, and even some artifacts from the Civil War era.

Fortunately, these weapons had been well-maintained in the army warehouses, and at least it was no problem to put them to use for now.

Speaking of "Brigadier General" John Joseph Pershing, he should be one of the few generals in the United States Army—other than MacArthur—with actual combat experience and quite renowned at that.

This veteran general, who had lived through the Spanish-American War and World War I, had actually retired several years before.

It had cost President Hoover a great deal, even promising to personally bestow Pershing with 2 million US dollars after the war regardless of the outcome, to persuade the old general to come out of retirement.

Of course, because of his advanced age, General Pershing could not possibly take command in the field.

Naturally, the task of training recruits was delegated to General Pershing, and also included the job of sourcing their weapons and equipment.

After much collection by General Pershing, the weapons and equipment for this batch of more than one hundred thousand recruits were finally assembled.

Once their weapons were sourced, formal training for the new recruits began. Their first lesson was to have experienced soldiers teach them how to use the weapons they had in their hands.

However, some models were so peculiar—even produced by small private workshops—that even the experienced soldiers didn’t know how to use them; Pershing had no choice but to seek out the weapons’ original owners to learn the techniques for using these weapons.

President Hoover had given Pershing a timeline of six months.

The industrial strength of the United States was still formidable, and despite the impact of the economic crisis, setting up new production lines for weapons and equipment within six months was not a problem.

General Pershing had only to hold out for six months, after which the recruits could receive new weapons and equipment from the military factories, significantly improving their combat effectiveness.

However, how to endure these six months proved particularly challenging for the old general. Relying solely on America’s eighty thousand soldiers was utterly impossible; this meant that there was a very high probability that these recruits would be sent to the frontlines, and that would be under the pretext that they had hardly mastered any combat skills.