Chapter 107 Division Commander, Deputy Division Commander and Instructor (Please subscribe!)
Australia’s military expansion plan has achieved initial success.
In just the week from February 21st to February 27th, tens of thousands of people went to recruitment offices in various places to sign up.
Due to the limit on the number of conscripts, most of these applicants may be screened out in the future, and only some young people with flexible minds and strong bodies will be selected to join the army.
Those who successfully register for the election will undergo a week of training in the local city.
During this week of training, those who are truly suitable to join the army will be screened out, and the rest will be given a sum of money to repatriate.
Each city will have a certain quota of conscripts based on its population. Even Sydney, the capital of Australia, has a quota of only 4,000 people this time.
The entire recruitment process took more than three weeks, and nearly 30,000 people had signed up.
The Ministry of National Defense also took the opportunity to stop the recruitment plan. There is still no problem in selecting 15,000 recruits out of these 30,000 people.
For those who were not selected, the Ministry of Defense also distributed a severance package of one pound each.
This also makes those who are not selected not too disappointed. After all, according to the current per capita income level in Australia, one pound is already the monthly income of most Australians.
One month later, on March 20, 1902, two thousand veterans and fifteen thousand recruits were integrated and reorganized into Australia's first regular division, the 1st Australian Defense Division.
Arthur also personally attended the founding ceremony of the First National Defense Division and personally appointed the commander of the First National Defense Division.
Because it is preparing for future expansion of the army, the number of officers in the 1st National Defense Division is very large.
The senior officers of the 1st Division were composed of division commander John MacLean, deputy division commander Jürgen Schüler and instructor Bernhard Lange.
Division Commander John MacLean was one of the senior generals in Arthur's Guards. He was trustworthy both in terms of military quality and loyalty, and was naturally the best choice to be the commander of the First Division.
Deputy Division Commander Jürgen Schüler was a former senior general of the Australian garrison, and he also showed great potential after the reorganization. The deputy commander of the 1st Division is also honing his position. If his ability and loyalty can be confirmed during the stage of serving as deputy division commander, then he should be the commander of the 2nd Division in the future.
Bernhard Lange's identity is the most special. Berthold Lange is Arthur's subordinate left by Duke Arthur, but his abilities are somewhat special.
When it comes to civil and military skills, that is, the ability to handle government affairs and lead the army, Bertrand Lange can only be regarded as barely qualified.
But Bernhard Lange has a special advantage, that is, he is better at giving speeches, and his speeches are very seductive.
This characteristic is somewhat similar to that of later heads of state. When Bernhard Lange gives a speech, he can always arouse the emotions and resonance of most of the audience.
This ability seems useless in some aspects, but it is extremely important in some special aspects.
Arthur decisively made him the person in charge of ideological education in the army, and asked him to select talents to form his ideological education team.
The result is obvious. Bernhard Lange completed his task very well and made the veterans who had received training understand how important it is to be loyal to the emperor and patriotism.
Now after the army was reorganized, Arthur also asked him to continue to be the instructor of the First Division. The position of instructor was specially created by Arthur. As one of the senior generals of an army, the instructor is mainly responsible for the ideological education of all soldiers and officers in the army, and is secondarily responsible for the logistics issues of the army. Although it seems that the instructor's role should have the lowest say among the three senior generals, in fact it is just the opposite.
Arthur gave the instructor a great deal of power. In addition to not being able to directly command the troops in combat, his usual ideological work targets even included the division commander and deputy division commander.
This also directly made the instructor's role the second-ranking figure in the first division, with power directly overtaking the deputy division commander.
The three senior officers of the First Division are like a triangle. They each have their own areas of responsibility. While not affecting each other, they can supervise each other to ensure that no problems will arise in the army.
The 1st Division is stationed in the mountains, where they will train for at least a year before being split into regiment-based units and stationed around Australia and New Guinea.
In order to ensure the logistical supply of these soldiers, as well as the various ammunition and materials needed for their training, at Arthur's instruction, the Ministry of Transport directly built a road directly to the military area, and mobilized more than 3,000 indigenous people to make this road More than twenty kilometers of road were completed before the soldiers arrived.
This mountainous area will also become a camp for Australia to train its troops in the future, cultivating batches of outstanding soldiers for Australia.
In terms of material supply, the Ministry of National Defense is also unceremonious. Just like previous military training, each soldier is guaranteed to have at least two of his three meals a day with meat, and he must eat at least one kilogram of meat every day.
The food supply is even more diverse, with at least five delicacies to choose from for every meal, and the dishes will change every day.
Arthur was very generous in providing food to these soldiers, with only one requirement, that it should not be wasted.
With the supply of at least one pound of meat every day and a lot of physical training, the physiques of these recruits changed day by day. In just one month, they had a lot of meat on their bodies.
Arthur is still satisfied with this progress. The strength of a soldier also represents the combat effectiveness of the soldier to a certain extent.
No one wants to see the soldiers of their country who are so skinny that they look like they could be blown down by the wind, let alone even think about going into battle.
Under Arthur's philosophy, the Australian army should be an excellent army that looks strong but is actually more powerful.
Even if it costs a lot of money and supplies to train these soldiers, Arthur will not hesitate.
For this reason, military factories are working overtime to produce weapons, equipment and ammunition. Whether it is a Lee-Enfield rifle, a CA-1 machine gun, or an MA-96 Maxim machine gun, a large amount of equipment is required.
Along with rounds of target practice and weapons training, the ammunition consumption of these weapons is a huge number.
Arthur's arsenal has been working overtime during this period of time, even recruiting workers one after another for this purpose.
Lee-Enfield rifles, MA-96 Maxim machine guns, and CA-1 machine guns were continuously transported to the military camp and distributed to the soldiers for use.
This also makes the First Division look more and more like a regular army and is heading towards an elite unit.
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(End of chapter)