Chapter 43: The Deliverers of the Balkans
"Oh, Alan, you're looking at the papers, the military has prepared the food." Ivor pushed in, just in time to see Alan Wilson reading the document, and when he got closer to see that it was the report of the Balkan Peninsula, he exclaimed, "When did you really have such energy, are all civil servants in British India like this?" β
"Not really!" Alan Wilson smiled, flipped through the Balkan report and shook his head slightly, "I was supposed to see it in Paris, but I was delayed because I came to Berlin." This is quite troublesome, how to deal with these armed forces, and send them to some foreign offices in London for a headache, which is not a small force. β
As he spoke, Alan Wilson unconsciously tugged at the file bag with one hand, a force that was one of the after-effects of the war.
To say that the composition of the Yugoslav Fatherland Army is actually quite complex, and at different stages, there are also different tendencies. Before the official outbreak of the world war, Britain and France were certainly not blindly appeased, and many European countries had forces supported by Britain and France competing with Germany.
Britain and France, as vested interests, and at the same time because of the First World War and Germany, although they were still able to suppress the United States after the war, they already knew in their hearts that both countries needed time to recover.
On the one hand, they built an encirclement network against Germany, hoping to deter the Germans, and did not want to see the bayonets as if they were in World War I.
Before the battle on the battlefield, the struggle between Britain and Germany was at the diplomatic level, and the war broke out, and the ruling Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, fearing that the Axis powers would attack Yugoslavia, signed the Tripartite Pact, promising to cooperate with Germany and Italy.
As a result, mass demonstrations took place in the capital Belgrade. Two days later, King Peter II, with the support of the British, staged a military coup d'Γ©tat to overthrow the prince's regime. General DuΕ‘an Simovich became prime minister.
At this time, Yugoslavia was in a very awkward position and practically no longer supported the Axis powers, but did not formally withdraw from the Tri-Nation Pact. The new government opposed Germany, but feared that Britain would not be able to help in the event of an invasion, and eventually the Axis powers began to invade.
The Yugoslav Fatherland Army, composed mainly of Serbs and Montenegrins, was loyal to the Yugoslav royal family and rebelled against Italian rule in Montenegro many times, but was suppressed by the Italian army, so it was supported by the British and regarded as an Allied force.
Yugoslav King Paul II is now in exile in London, and it stands to reason that the Yugoslav Fatherland Army, like the anti-German forces in many European countries before the war, is a pro-British force.
But this is not the case, in addition to the Yugoslav Fatherland Army, Yugoslavia has other forces, because Yugoslavia is the victorious country that defeated the Allied bloc after the First World War, and the Serbs occupied the land of other peoples.
In Yugoslavia today, the Serbs are only a little more than forty percent, and they are not a dominant nation. Later generations attributed the dissolution of Yugoslavia to the suppression of the Serbian majority ethnic group, but in fact this was not the case, and the Serbs were never the majority of the country's population.
The Croats, as well as the Slovenes, were pro-German, and they, together with the Yugoslav Fatherland Army, formed Tito's opposition. The Yugoslav Fatherland Army, now concentrated with pro-German and pro-British factions, has withdrawn from Yugoslavia and headed for the Allied occupation zone.
"In fact, we can imagine that the decision that London might eventually make is to abandon them." Ivor looked at Alan Wilson at a loss, guessing London's final decision, "Maybe the decision won't be so fast, after all, it's mainly the German surrender ceremony now." β
"Is it like if we were to get the Polish government-in-exile in London to get out of the way and hand Poland over to the Soviet Union in exchange for the security of Greece?" Alan Wilson sneered and laughed at himself, "At the Yalta Conference, it is understandable to make such a quid pro quo, the Prime Minister has tried his best to maintain the British presence in Europe, whether it is the United States or the Soviet Union, they are strong negotiating opponents. Intellectually, we can't keep Poland, so we might as well exchange it for the security of Greece. β
"I dare to conclude that this still expanding royalist force will fall into Tito's hands. Sure to be all killed! Alan Wilson looked at Ivor with a heavy heart, and gave his own assertion, "According to the Soviets, this is a class enemy, a very terrible definition. β
The most important thing is that Alan Wilson does not want to do something that Britain does by selling other countries, and the interests are occupied by the United States. Britain betrayed Poland and worked hard to keep Greece, the opposition is still pro-Soviet, the government will become pro-American, and there is nothing to do with Britain at all.
If, on the other hand, Britain gets moral praise, it would be better to let the Americans deal with it.
Although the betrayal of Poland was done by Britain, after all, it had nothing to do with Alan Wilson, and the report on the Balkans was in his hands, and he knew that if he didn't see it and directly fed back to London, the Yugoslav Fatherland Army, which had gathered in the Allied occupation zone, would inevitably be liquidated by Tito, and the death toll would be counted in 100,000.
Now the lives of these Yugoslav royalists, Croats, Slovenes are pinched in the hands of Alan Wilson.
According to the Yalta Conference, the British occupation zone was in the northwestern part of Germany, including southern Germany, including Bavaria, and from the French border to Austria. There were British diplomats nearby, but no British troops were stationed. Ivor shrugged helplessly, "It's true. β
"The occupation of the northwestern German coastline, including the Ruhr area, is a diplomatic victory, and the Americans have not always been dissatisfied." Alan Wilson smiled indifferently, "I don't know who the current Bavarian administrator is." β
"I know it's a general named Patton." Ivor spoke lightly, and then was taken aback, how this colleague was startled, and when did he jump up.
Alan Wilson's face became very exciting, and his mind was racing, "Oh, it's General Patton!" β
"Alan, what's wrong with you?" Ivor pointed to the Balkan report in Alan Wilson's hand and asked, "Actually, don't be too impatient, the biggest thing now is the surrender ceremony." β
"Yes, I agree." Alan Wilson accepted the papers, and said that he would not hand over the Balkan report to London first, and that would be it.
Alan Wilson has seen a little at the dawn of solving the problem of these World War II forsaken, though not daring to guarantee success. But he felt that he had done his best, and that it would not be worse than history, and that if the governor of Bavaria had not been Patton, this matter would have been really difficult to do, and there was no hope at all.