The Third Reich in Desperation

Now, Mussolini, who is jealous of another military miracle in Poland, can only make fun of Reinhardt for his own amusement, so as to barely calm his inner jealousy.

Body 2 Chapter [-] Mussolini's Beautiful Blueprint

Seeing that the leader's jealousy broke out, his good son-in-law Ciano quickly changed the subject and said, "Let me say that the Germans can achieve such a great success today, which is completely inseparable from the help of our Kingdom of Italy."

Hearing this, Mussolini felt a little better, and his complexion became better: "Well, my dear Ciano, please tell me how much we have helped the Germans. .”

"Yes! Great leader." With a flattering smile, Ciano gave an example: "First of all, we have been sending agricultural and industrial workers to Germany continuously for several years. There has been no interruption. On this point, I think Deputy Prime Minister Rossi, who is specifically responsible, has done a good job."

Because he didn't know that Rossi, who was appointed by him as Italy's No. [-] man, had long been a ghost bought by the Germans, Ciano thought that Rossi was maintaining cooperation with Germany under great pressure with his long-term vision.That's how he got his present, hindsight-like praise.

Mussolini also thinks it makes sense: "Rossi has done a good job in this matter. Over the past few years, he has also worked hard to maintain the friendship between Italy and Germany. I will reward him well in the future."

Finding that the leader was in a much better mood, Ciano decided to strike while the iron was hot, and continue to give full play to his sycophant skills: "And the decision of you, the leader, to send troops to the Alps is simply a timely help! This move directly scared the French to the ground and fucked up. The army that attacked Germany was evacuated back to the country, which relieved the major crisis of the fall of Saar for the Germans."

Although Mussolini's original intention was to secretly Chen Bing, waiting for an opportunity to attack France.However, due to the ineffective implementation of the orders by the subordinates, the deployment situation was leaked, and almost all of Europe knew the movements of the Italian army.

This was originally a shameful joke, but Ciano actually boldly called this mistake intentional, which is the most powerful solidarity with the German army.

Sure enough, the power of Italy is frightening, and Mussolini was quite satisfied with the irrelevant credit for the voluntary withdrawal of the French army: "That's right, that's right! Reinhardt, In the end, it was all thanks to my help that I got where I am today.”

Seeing that Ciano was about to turn black into white, the other two types of people in the conference room finally couldn't sit still.

With Ciano and the others avoiding the war, naturally there will be the main war faction.If the theory of the war-avoiding faction finally makes sense, how can the war-oriented faction be confused.

Coincidentally, the representative of the war-avoiding faction is the governor of Libya, while the representative of the pro-war faction is the governor of Somalia.

Admiral Rudolfo Graziani, the feudal official boasted by the Italians as the "Italian version of Guderian", can be said to be the general who knows the role of armored forces best in Italy.

He once led the Italian Army in Somalia in the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, relying on highly mobile troops to fight, and achieved amazing results with less troops.

As one of the few generals in Italy who understands armored forces, Graziani's position in Mussolini's heart is not light.A few days ago, he thought that he would be able to make bold speeches before the war, and he had just been appointed Chief of Staff of the Italian Army by Mussolini.

In order to show the necessity of his main battle theory, Graziani also bragged: "Dear leader! Our Italian Army has 152 divisions, some of which are armored divisions equipped with the latest weapons. In addition, we It also has a huge reserve force of 1200 million as a backup. With such a force, but because of cowardice, it dare not participate in the war, spreading the word is simply an insult to the whole of Italy and to you, the leader.”

In fact, there are only 15 divisions in mainland Italy that can go into battle at any time, and most of the troops do not meet the quota.The equipment is even more outdated and in short supply, and no division can be called a veritable "armored division".

But Mussolini likes to listen to this kind of good news and not bad news. Now that Graziani, the Italian "armor master", has spoken, he can naturally believe that Italy is indeed as powerful as the Germans. armored forces.

"The Germans can defeat Poland, which is nothing. As long as our Italian army is willing, we even have the ability to defeat Britain and France at the same time!" Since both the peacemakers and the warlords believe that Italy is strong enough, Mussolini's confidence is even thicker.

As long as you are happy, this is the common thought of all the current high-level Italians.As long as the leader doesn't make any troubles anymore, it doesn't matter what kind of dreams he likes to have.

"Under my leadership, the Kingdom of Italy will be invincible." Now that it started, Mussolini had to be intoxicated for a while: "If I went west out of the Alps, the main force would be on the northern line to defend against Germany. The French army will be caught off guard by the surprise attack of the Italian army. At that time, I will send another [-] divisions. The Germans only need to follow our pace and send out those troops in the Siegfried Line to match us , France should be subjugated!"

Seemingly unfinished, Mussolini went on to fantasize: "As for those self-righteous British, if we hadn't restrained ourselves, Africa would have been our world long ago!"

Can Britain beat Italy?In fact, this statement also has a source.

As the third faction within the Kingdom of Italy, a group of Italian generals stationed in Africa, headed by Badoglio, the commander-in-chief of the Italian army who invaded Ethiopia, believed that Italy should not participate in the war first, and wait until Germany and Britain and France were both defeated. Collect the fisherman's profit.

Who is Badoglio, he is a field marshal with old qualifications in Italy!

In the last World War, the 2nd Corps led by Badoglio lost face to the Italian army and played a textbook-style classic failure case. After being captured by the German army as many as 26 soldiers at one time However, Badoglio was not only spared any punishment but was promoted to Lieutenant General in the same year.In the end, he also served as the representative of the Italian side in the armistice negotiations and signed an agreement that symbolized Italy as a victorious country in World War I.

Just as the SS generals had learned the impudence of the German Führer, so the Italian Field Marshal had learned the Italian Prime Minister's ramblings.He also planned a blueprint for the future of Africa to Mussolini: "With Italy's nearly 50 troops stationed in Africa as the backbone, and an additional army of 200 million black soldiers, it will be able to completely overthrow the British left behind. Tens of thousands of troops in Africa, and then achieve control of Africa!"

Body 2 Chapter [-] Separation of Heroes

The reason why Mussolini is so confident is actually due to Reinhardt.

Reinhardt provided a piece of information to Rossi, the No. [-] figure in Italy, which allowed Rossi to use this information to find nearly [-] barrels of sealed crude oil hidden in three tunnels in La Spezia, northern Italy.

During World War II, the Italian Navy repeatedly canceled its combat plans for large warships due to lack of oil.Now, with nearly [-] barrels of crude oil, Mussolini's ambition to rule the Mediterranean will be more secure.

The Italian royal family, which had always been critical of Mussolini's dictatorship, also reached a certain consensus with Mussolini because of the unclear relationship with this batch of privately stored crude oil.

Everyone is not a fool, who in Italy has the ability to hide so much crude oil in advance, both sides know it well.Some things are just unspoken.Mussolini did not pursue the relationship between the Italian royal family and this incident, and the Italian royal family also allowed Mussolini's dictatorship even more.

Prior to this, Mussolini, who hated being judged by others, even sent a second-rate regiment on the Western Front (this is a second-rate army in the Italian Army. It's time to go to the third rate) with nearly 10 people, who were handed over to the command of Prince Pinsabeto of the Italian Savoy royal family.

It's so beautiful to regard the heroes of the world as the ears!

Since Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Poland, the military powers ranked seventh, sixth, and fifth in Europe, were successively annexed by Germany, looking at the European continent, there are only four countries, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, which can be regarded as great powers!

Yes, Italy is a big country, and it is an important role in determining the Vienna system and consolidating the balance of power in Europe!

After all, it is still only the end of 1939. Although Europe has ushered in a powerful emerging power like the Third Reich of Germany, in general, it is not at all a situation where Germany is the only one.

In the south of the Continent, Italy has been recharging its energy and recharging its strength, sitting on hundreds of divisions, but it has always been at the two ends, ushering in the competition between Britain, France and Germany, and taking advantage of it.

In the north, there is a single hand that has controlled the development of the European continent for nearly a hundred years, and is known as the "Empire on which the sun never sets".

In terms of national strength, Britain can be called the world's largest colonial empire!

In the composition of the British Empire, it has colonies of about 3000 million square kilometers, which is equivalent to 1/4 of the global land area.

In addition, its total population exceeds 4 million, accounting for 1/6 of the world's total population!

Since the last world war, Britain has controlled almost all sea routes in the world except Panama, and has the monopoly of world trade. It is a veritable superpower!

Among other things, Britain can compete with the Italian National Navy in the Mediterranean with just a Mediterranean squadron.With a local fleet, it can even force the commander of the German navy, Raeder, not to dare to cross the thunder pool!

In terms of technology, at least until the end of the last world war, no country can catch up with the level of the British Empire.

This kind of strength is enough to allow Britain to watch the fire from the other side with confidence and boldness before.

In the northwest corner, France, known as the "No. 123 power in Europe", has now relied on initial mobilization to have 250 infantry divisions with a total of 3250 million infantry.In addition, the French army already has 35 tanks, among which the performance of the main battle tank Soma S-3 medium tank is even better than the No. [-] tank developed by Germany in history.

Counting the 10700 large-caliber artillery of the French army, it completely surpassed the German artillery in pursuit of maneuverability in terms of artillery firepower, and dominated the throne of the king of European artillery.

Not only is the army strong, but even the French navy, overshadowed by the army's mighty brilliance, also has 3 battleships, 7 heavy cruisers, 12 light cruisers, more than 50 destroyers of various types, 101 submarines, and a "Béarne" "The Aircraft Carrier!"

In terms of comprehensive strength rankings, the French army claims to be the number one in the world, and the navy dares to claim to be the number four in the world.The French Third Republic has been the most formidable power in continental Europe since the end of World War I.

In terms of the air force, the French Third Republic also has more than 1500 combat aircraft of various types, including 700 fighters, 260 bombers, 180 reconnaissance aircraft and 400 ground attack aircraft.

Then there is Belgium, which has been closely on the same front as France since it invaded the Ruhr area of ​​Germany.There is a 90.00% chance that the Belgian army will provide a large number of troops to the French Third Republic in case of any French action.

Although the equipment of the Belgian army is poor and the quality of its soldiers is generally low, its huge base of 22 infantry divisions is also a local force that cannot be underestimated.

Needless to say, the German Third Reich, which is located in the heart of continental Europe, has been arming itself at an astonishing speed since the day it re-garrisoned in the Rhineland. A total of 36 troops in each division.

As of the eve of the merger between Germany and Austria, the size of the Wehrmacht of the Third Reich has further expanded to 60 people!The peaceful annexation of Austria provided the Third Reich with a well-trained standing army of 30.

Through a "Munich Conspiracy", Reinhardt took advantage of the momentum to annex Czechoslovakia, which had already expanded its army to one million, more than doubling the number of troops in the Third Reich!Even if a large proportion of the millions of troops expanded by Koslovakia have not been well-trained, with time and training, they can become the main force of the German army in the future.

Hungary's accidental entry into Germany provided Reinhardt's new Third Reich with 10 not-so-elite additional troops (the ownership of these troops was temporarily divided into the jurisdiction of the second-line SS), and provided The German army will enter a large forward base in the Balkans in the future.