The Rise Of Australasia

Chapter 944: Chapter 703: Internal Breakthrough Tactics

The American fleet commander’s cries changed nothing about the outcome of this naval battle. If a few words could alter the result of a war, he would be more than a mere fleet commander.

The naval battle lasted over two hours, with Australasian aircraft even making several trips back and forth for resupply.

After losing two battleships, three battlecruisers, and about ten small and medium-sized warships, the United States Pacific Fleet no longer had the courage to resist and signaled to the Australasian Fleet their surrender using flag signals.

Looking down from the sky at the entire United States Pacific Fleet, although only about ten warships had sunk, the rest were all more or less damaged, with some even taking on water.

The situation was much better for the Australasian United Fleet. After all, they had the advantage in numbers and were supported by aircraft in the skies, making the battle less worrisome.

On the Australasian side, only one pre-dreadnought battleship was sunk, and the rest of the warships suffered only minor damage, not enough to sink them.

The vast discrepancy in battle achievements between both parties was not only due to the numerical superiority of the United Fleet but also due to the bombers in the skies making significant contributions.

Although bombers were not accurate every time, a hit could cause significant damage to a warship.

Particularly for those smaller warships with weaker defenses, a hit usually resulted in severe damage and could even lead to sinking if they were unlucky.

In such circumstances, continuing the battle would only increase casualties. The Australasian Navy was at ease, and the navy soldiers from the only sunk pre-dreadnought were quickly rescued, so the actual casualties were not many.

The situation was different for the American fleet. Due to being at a numerical disadvantage and with airplanes constantly circling in the sky, the American fleet had no time to rescue those soldiers who had fallen into the sea.

Especially when a warship sank, it created a massive vortex that could easily draw in any unprepared soldiers.

If these soldiers were not rescued, those who fell into the sea would most likely face death, or at best, face death after a while.

This was actually one of the reasons for the American fleet’s surrender. Not only the American fleet commander, but the United States Navy soldiers also understood the situation they faced.

They knew that continuing the fight was simply courting death, and if the fleet commander kept ordering them to do so, a mutiny in the United States Navy wouldn’t be far off.

For safety, the American fleet commander also sent a public frequency telegram to the other side, to ensure they received it.

The United Fleet indeed received the American fleet’s telegram, and surprise and astonishment appeared on the faces of the Australasian Fleet Commander and the British Mediterranean Fleet Commander.

In any case, it was good that the American fleet was willing to surrender. Should the battle continue, the United States was destined to fail, but the United Fleet would also inevitably suffer casualties.

For caution’s sake, one can never fully trust the words of Americans.

So how to take in these American warships that had surrendered? Naturally, it was by using small transport boats to transfer the Americans.

All American warships, except for the necessary operating crew, needed to transfer all the remaining United States Navy personnel to warships of Australasia and the British.

Meanwhile, the Americans on the warships would be under strict supervision to ensure they wouldn’t suddenly rise up and harm the Australasian Army.

During this process, aircraft would continue to circle overhead, making sure the Americans had indeed surrendered and were not feigning it.

Fortunately, this group of American military personnel was not too loyal to the United States, and their surrender was not likely to be a ruse.

After transferring the vast majority of American soldiers to their warships, the Australasians finally breathed a sigh of relief, then headed north with all the American warships and Navy soldiers towards California.

Transporting them to the native land of Australasia was too impractical, given the entire Pacific Ocean lay in-between, and too much time could lead to problems with these American soldiers.

Since California State was now fully under Australasian control, it made sense to temporarily detain these United States Navy soldiers there, then later discuss how to deal with these warships of the United States Pacific Fleet.

In fact, for Australasia and Britain, the slightly damaged warships were more valuable than the captured American navy soldiers.

With the surrender of the United States Navy, ownership of these warships naturally fell to Australasia and Britain, but how to allocate them needed discussion.

As the second naval superpower, the United States had many warships, and the British naturally had designs on these vessels, as they were most keen on maintaining their naval superiority.

For Australasia, Arthur could do without these warships, but the British would have to offer similar interests in exchange.

After all, these warships were the products of the United States and, to Arthur, they were already behind the times; moreover, the current naval size of Australasia was already sufficient.

If the naval size became too large, Australasia would appear as the next United States in Britain’s eyes.

At this point, Arthur had no intention of confronting the British; offending Britain now would not be a good idea, at least not until after World War II.

If World War II had erupted as it did historically, the United Kingdom and France would have been fortresses resisting the German advance.

Appropriately bolstering the strength of the United Kingdom was also beneficial, as at least one Britain would greatly irritate the Germans.

As American warships docked along the Los Angeles coastline one after another, numerous media outlets frenziedly reported the news of the United States Pacific Fleet’s capture.

This almost became the last straw that broke the Americans’ spirit, further weakening their resistance.

For the American Government, this was also a piece of devastating news. After the capture of the Pacific Fleet, the remaining Atlantic Fleet of the United States was completely outmatched by the Allied Army.

The only hope for the United States at this point was to massively build up its army, using the army to block the advance of the Allied forces and utterly muddle the waters of the war.

Compared to the policy shifts of the American people, the Allied Army was also taking action, and it was the kind that struck at the heart.

Knowing that the Americans wanted to continue with staunch resistance, the Allied forces naturally did not wish to give the United States that opportunity.

After all, war meant casualties, and equally, it represented significant military spending, something the Allied forces did not want to see.

Although it might seem like the Allied Army only had 800,000 soldiers, nearly the entirety of various countries’ navies were mobilized, and the military expenses they incurred daily were astronomical, which they definitely could not sustain in the long run.

If the Allied forces could not resolve the issue with the American Government in the short term, they quickly turned their focus to other targets that could be quickly resolved: the state governments of the United States.

As the saying goes, even the most solid fortress is often breached from within first, and this saying isn’t without reason.

The United States now resembled such a fortress: not impregnable, but the cost of conquest was enormous.

If all the states stood with the federal government on the same front, it would be almost impossible to end the war quickly.

According to the information received by the Allied forces, the eastern states of the United States were already rapidly expanding their armies.

The number of the United States National Guard had already far exceeded the size of the United States Army, and together, they had grown to over a million strong, posing a huge threat to the Allied forces that wanted to swiftly conquer the entire United States.

To quickly resolve the situation with the United States, it was necessary to find a way to splinter it, transforming the complete United States into individual states and then conquering them one by one.

In discussing this, it’s still necessary to mention the colonial history of the United States.

As is well known, the colonies initially started as outposts established by European settlers, which eventually evolved into urban cities, then into vast colonies, before finally becoming an independent nation.

These settler-established outposts also shared a common characteristic: outposts from the same country and ethnicity were relatively close to each other, and situations of cohabitation among multiple nationalities were rare.

This led to a major characteristic of the United States: the ethnic distribution in each state and region varies, with European immigrants also spread throughout the entire country in this unique fashion.

This was good news for the current Allied Army, as they could leverage the ethnic composition of each state, allowing corresponding countries to negotiate with the states of the United States.

The states involved in the negotiations were those American states that had not yet been touched by the flames of war. The aim was to maintain their neutrality in the war rather than support the United States.

The United Kingdom exerted significant influence in these negotiations. The eastern states were home to a large number of British immigrants, and these British descendants also exerted considerable effort.

After all, for most immigrants, they did not wish to see their countries at war with their previous homelands, let alone a scenario where they were at war with the entire world.

It was this public sentiment that gradually led some state governments to begin drawing back, and their willingness to support the federal government weakened.

After all, directly opposing the federal government and merely maintaining neutrality were two different matters. In theory, the states also had the right to maintain neutrality, particularly since the United States was indeed at a disadvantage in terms of public opinion during this event.

No matter how you look at it, a country at war with the whole world is ultimately wrong.

Unless one can defeat all countries with absolute military force, the disadvantage in public opinion is something that simply cannot be reversed.

The most awkward part for the American Government was that neutrality among the states was entirely achievable.

Due to the unique system of the Federation, the internal workings of U.S. states were entirely independent, and they only nominally obeyed the federal government.

Maintaining neutrality in a war had no significant impact on the states, and it could even spare them from the troubles of war. This was the real reason why states expressed their neutrality one after another.

And the United States, having lost the support of these states, was like a plane losing power, plummeting through the sky until it inevitably crashed to the ground at some point.