The Rise Of Australasia

Chapter 935: Chapter 699: Landing in Hawaii, West Coast Strategy_2

“Although taking a detour through South America will take more time, it’s still much better than the Pacific Fleet losing the majority of its force.”

Seeing that President Hoover’s expression had relaxed too much, General Pan Xing couldn’t help but remind him, “President Sir, our current enemy is almost half the world, so we cannot afford the slightest neglect or carelessness.

Apart from concentrating the navy on the Eastern Coast, we should also expand the military as soon as possible. We need to increase the army’s numbers to more than 2 million to be able to hold the entire Eastern Region against the enemy’s attack.

During the previous world war, Germany also managed to take on the whole world alone; if it wasn’t for logistical supplies and material shortages that dragged Germany down, holding on for a few more years would have been entirely possible, and they could have even exhausted the British and French instead.

We are currently fighting on our Native Land, and both our Territory size and Material Reserves are even more plentiful. In theory, we could completely wear down the British and French.

It’s not just us facing an economic crisis; the entire Europe is suffering from a quite severe economic crisis.

As long as we can hold out for a few years, the British and French will inevitably collapse under the high war expenses and economic crisis, and we may even take this opportunity to become the number one superpower in the world, thereby dominating the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.”

Originally intending to remind President Hoover not to be too careless and negligent, General Pan Xing’s words seem to have caused the President to lose some morale. Pan Xing could only speak some encouraging words to first draw a big “pie” for President Hoover to regain hope before proceeding.

As for the matters of the front-line combat, it’s not something President Hoover needs to worry about. As long as President Hoover can stabilize the American government and provide as much supplies for the Military as possible, General Pan Xing is confident in accomplishing his plan.

President Hoover, other than massaging his own brow, barely mustered up the energy to say to General Pan Xing, “I will notify the major consortiums to restart their Military Factories’ production lines, to produce as many weapons and ammunition for the Military as possible.

Meanwhile, the government will issue a new batch of national bonds, hoping to raise more military funds for the Military.”

The United States Army currently faces three major recruitment challenges. The first is the source of soldiers, which can be somewhat resolved with more funds.

The second is the issue of weapons and equipment; calling for American Military Factories to expand on a larger scale and continuously increase production lines is the only way to barely make up for the shortage of weapons and equipment.

The third, and also the most serious issue, is the shortage of lower-ranking Officers in America; the Military is in dire need of lower-middle-ranking Commanders.

The number of people in the United States Army has tripled compared to six months ago, which means the required number of lower-middle-ranking Commanders has also tripled.

Since the United States Army previously did not have much reserve in terms of basic level Commanders, there were many new recruits who became Commanders as soon as they enlisted, posing a huge challenge to the combat effectiveness of the new Army.

Currently, General Pan Xing can only reassign some Veterans to become Commanders of the new Army, although this barely strengthens the order of the newly assembled troops, it also weakens the units from which these soldiers were drawn.

The American People are anxiously preparing for war, while in Australasia, Arthur is also closely monitoring the situation in Hawaii.

Since the battle of Hawaii began on July 17th, Arthur has been constantly attentive to telegrams from Hawaii, waiting for good news from General Silvio.

However, Hawaii, after all, is an official territory of the United States, with defensive forces much stronger than the former U.S. Philippines.

Especially after the loss of the Philippines, Hawaii has become an important Pacific springboard and one of the key bases of the Pacific Fleet.

Arthur is particularly concerned about the intelligence from Hawaii because of its unique geographical location and the American defensive arrangements there.

Not counting the Navy’s deployment, the United States has as many as three Infantry Regiments stationed in Hawaii, which were rapidly formed into infantry brigades after the outbreak of war.

It’s worth mentioning that among these three Infantry Regiments, one is a Regular Army unit of the United States, and the remaining two are Militia from the State of Hawaii, which are relatively weaker in combat power compared to the Regular troops.

The military disposition of the United States in Hawaii clearly shows that Hawaii is indeed considered much more important than the Philippines in the minds of the American people.

If it weren’t for the fact that the original military of the United States also only had eighty thousand men, Arthur believed that the United States would at least station a division in Hawaii, if not even more troops.

But unfortunately, after World War I, the American people chose to downsize their military, and now it’s simply impossible to increase the garrison in Hawaii because the island has already been completely surrounded by the forces of Australasia and Britain’s Indian Ocean Fleet.

More than ten days have passed since the Hawaii landing battle began, and the campaign has essentially yielded results.

In fact, given the combat strength of the Australasia Army, this landing battle should have been resolved in a short period of time.

However, in practice, Silvio, in order to implement the spirit Arthur spoke of reducing casualties, essentially did not allow the Australasia Army to force a landing.

In the first few days of the landing operation, it was all about aerial and naval firepower suppression, overrunning any Hawaii region with a United States garrison, with the amount of shells and bombs expended already exceeding one hundred thousand.

This extensive bombing was quite successful; by the fourth day when the Australasia Army forced a landing, the counterattack from the Hawaiian garrison had become minimal.

This doesn’t mean that the majority of the Hawaiian Garrison perished in the explosions. In fact, most of the American military had not experienced war—they were new recruits who had enlisted in recent years.

More than ten years have passed since World War I, and the soldiers who had once represented the United States in the war had long since retired, with some having already died in the Washington incident.

Being predominantly new recruits, facing widespread and massive bombardments, these American soldiers naturally wouldn’t have the courage to stand up and resist.

After all, shells do not have eyes; if one were to land near them, they would either suffer broken limbs, or worse, lose their lives.

On the cautious advancement of the seventh day, which was also the eleventh day of the formal siege of Hawaii, Arthur finally received a telegram from Hawaii.

This was a telegram sent directly to Arthur by General Silvio, detailing the current achievements of the Hawaii landing battle and reporting the latest news—that they had taken control of Honolulu, the capital of the State of Hawaii.

Over a thousand soldiers from an entire American infantry brigade perished, and the rest were captured by the Australasia forces, reduced to prisoners.

Because of General Silvio’s prudence, the casualties on the Australasian side were quite low, with less than a hundred dead and only a few hundred injured in total.

Worth noting is that although Hawaii served as one of the bases for the United States Pacific Fleet, there was no sign of the fleet present on the island.

However, General Silvio was not surprised by this; after all, Hawaii was merely a bridgehead, with California in the Western United States being of utmost importance.

Especially with the Panama Canal already blocked, where else could the United States Navy go? The likelihood was that they were on the West Coast.

After sending a message of encouragement to General Silvio and all soldiers on the telegram, Arthur, with a smile, ordered the government to promptly publicize the good news and simultaneously arrange personnel to take control of Hawaii.

Arthur was determined to annex the Hawaiian region, as it is located in the heart of the Pacific Ocean, making it possible to radiate eastward towards the West Coast of the United States, facilitating the future establishment of puppet states there by Australasia.

With Hawaii as a stepping stone, Australasia could better control the regions of the American West Coast, and Arthur could confidently assign his other sons to the soon-to-be established nations on the West Coast.

The development potential of the American West Coast is quite good, especially the California area, which in later generations grew to a scale comparable to European nations.

By dividing the complete American West Coast into several countries to distribute amongst his sons, Arthur aimed to better control these nations on the one hand, and on the other, to allow his family to flourish and support each other, maintaining the monarchy’s rule and stature after his time.

Actually, the political system of Australasia had already determined that if a new nation were to be supported on the American West Coast, there was a high probability it would be a monarchy.

After all, if Australasia was a monarchy, it would not make sense for its subordinate to clamor for democracy and freedom—that would be like creating a bomb that could threaten its own security at any time.