Reincarnated as Nikolai II

Let Serbia think about that.

Rather, it's time to think about what comes next.

"Serbia is removing Austrian-origin soldiers from their military. Seems they're responding to war threats."

"The Dual Monarchy has transferred control to the military. Looks like all major cities and borders have been handed to the army."

"Resident diplomats in each country keep sending reports but no specific direction shows. For now, it seems we must wait for the Dual Monarchy's official announcement."

Some say this won't lead to war.

Even now, British battleships are stationed in the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal under the pretext of friendly yacht race regatta.

The British Parliament is only now deciding how to respond to this assassination.

They still have no intention of acting beyond playing mediator.

But I know.

At this moment. The Dual Monarchy and Germany must be in Potsdam.

'Their foreign ministries, war ministries, cabinet ministers, army and navy commanders and chiefs of staff must all be gathered.'

Their topic is one.

War possibility with Serbia, Russia, and France.

There's no way for the Dual Monarchy and Germany to win fighting against our Russia.

Since they physically can't approach even Moscow let alone St. Petersburg, they must be discussing if they can destroy France and Serbia.

When Serbia strongly resists and Britain prepares to mediate and France habitually heightens border tension as usual.

It means those two countries are preparing for real war.

And the same was true for us.

"Is this the first time cabinet joins meetings since the General Staff was created?"

"Yes."

Kokovtsov's cabinet mixing Duma and bureaucrats, and the General Staff commanding army and navy gathered in one place.

What I want to bring up here isn't war possibility.

"Moving each military district will take about 5 weeks. Even this will be difficult for all districts."

"It's practically impossible to conscript reserves and deploy them in early war."

"...Realistically, troop movement alone will overload railways."

Before we kindly declared official mobilization before moving troops, but not now.

I consider war started from the moment the Dual Monarchy government handed control to the military anyway.

Though some here still wavered about war possibility, no one easily voiced those thoughts.

Germany's Schlieffen Plan for short war.

And our imitation plan seeing that Schlieffen Plan, the Brusilov Offensive.

I know well this plan has several flaws.

First, since we're not Germany, we can't send troops to the front in a short period. In other words, we can't implement numerical superiority overnight.

Next, we can't be sure Germany will move according to the original history's Schlieffen Plan, and even if the Schlieffen Plan remains the same, the Dual Monarchy might be deployed to defend the Eastern Front instead of attacking Serbia.

Finally, even if Germany goes to the Western Front and Austria-Hungary to the Balkan Front, we don't know if the Russian army can succeed in occupying and defending Poland in just 42 days.

So if a third party saw current Russia's plan, they'd see it as leveraged gambling not a solid war plan.

And this was true internally too.

Even Kuropatkin, who once ran around inside like a madman, showed stepping back this time.

"Your Majesty, though the empire has 38 cavalry divisions, cavalry can't be filled by conscription. As revealed sufficiently in the Russo-Japanese War, this branch's weakness is poor combat power."

"That's right, and intelligence still hasn't obtained definite information about Germany's war plans. If Germany and Austria-Hungary fully prepare Eastern defense, our initial losses would be tremendous."

Carefully emerging concerns.

Of course these were reasonable points deserving nods and their arguments weren't wrong at all.

However, if this powerful empire has just one chance given?

If the only time to win one-sidedly in 1,566 days of war is just about 50 days?

Though I'm not 100% certain history hasn't changed either, this isn't a matter of choice.

It's something we must do unconditionally.

"I know well what you all want to say. But I haven't prepared such a bold move blinded by profit."

"...Then how about taking some time to watch? Whatever the case, Serbia is wrong and it seems good to guide them to make a reasonable level treaty."

"General, that's an issue when choice is possible. Assume I'm right and look. They choose war and we're really given chance for initial offensive. Will you then move military district troops by rail and conscript?"

As they say, we must prepare even for one in ten thousand.

Why couldn't original history's Russia advance one step in East Prussia.

Wasn't it because they waited for that damn troop movement?

We can't waste 35 days of less than 50 days on troop movement.

From the start, the Schlieffen Plan itself was made assuming 'Russia's poor administrative power and unique military district system with army spread across the country'.

'Actually true words.'

So there's no way to break the Schlieffen Plan except moving first.

Though it was difficult to obtain information with Austria-Hungary and Germany entering thorough internal control, it wasn't hard to catch information transfused from outside.

July 13, German Ambassador to Russia Pourtalès informed his country that France's three-year mandatory service was due to Russian pressure.

This information was enough to signal Germany that Russia and France were already assuming war.

Meanwhile, we completed the first stage of three stages - preparation order, partial mobilization order, full mobilization order - and entered groundwork for the second stage.

July 23, the ultimatum arrived in Serbia.

When the ultimatum arrived, Serbia's prime minister was traveling and hurriedly returned home, while French President Raymond Poincaré was visiting Russia.

Truly meaning no one thought war would break out.

To respond to Austria-Hungary's ultimatum, we issued mobilization preparation order on the 24th.

In reality, it was just an official announcement of something completed dozens of days ago.

Up to here, it's a common show mobilization measure announced 39 times in Europe since entering the 20th century.

Everyone thought so.

However, July 28.

[Austria, Vienna.

The Austrian Royal Government did not receive satisfactory response through the Austro-Hungarian Empire's ambassador to Belgrade. Stay updated via empire

To achieve this goal, each country must rely on weapons and force.

In conclusion, the Austro-Hungarian Empire government notifies it has entered a state of war with the Kingdom of Serbia.]

The Dual Monarchy really declared war.