Kingdom of the Netherlands

Having received an official reply from the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Dutch government did not know whether to be happy or worried.

The result was almost exactly the same as they had guessed, and Bulgaria did not have any interest in the South Seas, which was something to celebrate.

It's a pity that it is precisely because of the lack of interest that the Bulgarian government did not even bother to send troops.

The Bulgarian government plans to form a mercenary army to help quell the rebellion, but can this mercenary force alone do the trick?

You must know that the rebels in Southeast Asia are extraordinary, and after so many battles, they have evolved.

The elite troops among them, in terms of combat effectiveness, are not much worse than the regular armies of some countries!

Besides, they have the support of the Japanese behind them, and it is not easy to deal with no matter how you look at it.

If the mercenaries fail to counterinsurgency, the Bulgarians will most likely leave it alone, anyway, their investment is very small, and they can stop the loss at any time!

This is no more influential than having the Bulgarian government send troops directly!

If it is a direct army, it will be different, the Bulgarian government must suppress the rebellion even if it is for its own face.

You must know that behind the rebellion in the colonies of Southeast Asia, there are also a series of political factors.

The Dutch government is not bad, anyway, the Kingdom of the Netherlands has long since declined, so it's a shame to be ashamed!

Anyway, with the support of the British Empire, the British army's record this time is not as good as theirs?

How is it possible not to take advantage as a politician?

With the addition of the British Empire as a background board, the Dutch people felt that the government had worked hard, and the Dutch army's record on the battlefield was stronger than that of the world hegemon.

This is enough to prove that this government is still capable.

The attention of the Dutch people has been drawn, it does not mean that the matter is over, the rebellion still has to be suppressed, and every day of delay will lose a huge amount of money!

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, the mercenaries formed by the Bulgarians will only arrive in Southeast Asia in September, adapt to the weather conditions for a month, and after the rainy season is over, just launch an attack, we must also prepare the necessary supplies in advance!" Dutch Foreign Minister Robinson said

"Well, how many mercenaries are there in Bulgaria?" Prime Minister Daan asked with concern

"There are a total of four infantry divisions and one air force division, with a total strength of about 70,000 people." Robinson thought for a moment and said

"It's just such an army? There are no tank armored units yet, will this work? Prime Minister Daan asked worriedly

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, the Bulgarians gave an explanation, they believe that in the jungle areas of Southeast Asia, our enemies are another group of **** that have not yet evolved and do not need to be equipped with too much heavy firepower.

As for tank armor, even less is used, they believe that we have enough armored forces in the South Seas.

Their reasoning convinced me that there was really no way for these armored units to move through the jungle, and that our enemies were just a group of natives who did not have the ability to produce weapons and ammunition.

In this context, what the counterinsurgency army needs is flexible, mobile, and able to quickly assault, although these heavy equipment are powerful, but they simply cannot reach the enemy! Robinson explained

"Damn, then who was the idiot who asked us to send armored troops and reinforcements before?" Prime Minister Daan said angrily

It is clear that they have been fooled, and it is obviously abnormal to ask for heavy firepower to deploy reinforcements on a battlefield that does not require the use of these heavy weapons and equipment.

However, knowing is knowing, everyone has no intention of continuing to investigate, it is nothing more than profit.

The army does not need these heavy equipment, how can these domestic arms dealers make money? The people in this chain of interests, how do they make profits?

They all know these problems, but this time they have gone too far, which makes them angry.

Originally, the war funds were insufficient, and as a result, most of the money for the purchase of weapons and equipment was wasted on these weapons that did not require heavy weapons.

As long as the IQ is a little more normal, everyone knows that there is a very serious cat in it, and if you don't know these so-called weapons and equipment, they are all a bunch of goods, purely to cheat money.

Send it to the battlefield for a walk, and then let them scrap it reasonably, and then all the relevant personnel, from the front-line officers to the manufacturers of weapons, everyone takes a share of the money from it.

So Prime Minister Daan just caught an officer and scolded him, labeled him an idiot, and exposed the matter on the grounds that the officer's personal ability was not up to par.

If you really track it down, it's going to kill you. Although there are not many assassinated prime ministers in the Netherlands, Prime Minister Daan does not want to test the discipline of interest groups.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands itself is a small country, and there are few wars, and the domestic arms dealers are not living well.

This is the case not only in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but in many countries around the world.

Many people think that the arms trade is a huge profit, and there is nothing wrong with that. But this is only a single piece of gross profits, in fact, their sales are not large, and the overall profit is not so perverted.

In particular, small countries have very limited domestic markets, and they cannot compete with the major powers in the international arms market.

If they encounter an arms race, they can indeed make a lot of money, but if they encounter a peacetime era, they can only live a miserable life.

In the case of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, for example, their army was less than 100,000 in peacetime, so how big can this arms market be?

If the arms dealers don't sell these "valuable" big guys, how much is 100,000 rifles just for selling rifles?

Let's just say that 100,000 rifles are sold for 100,000 pounds in this era, which is already two or three hundred percent of the profit, and from the perspective of gross profit, this is indeed a huge profit.

(Reference: In January 1904, the government of "Beiyang" government purchased 12,000 6.5mm Meiji 30-year-old rifles, 2,000 carbines, and 7 million rounds of ammunition;

650 pistols with 130,000 rounds of ammunition; There were also 48 Japanese field guns and 16 Japanese mountain guns, which were the latest Japanese Meiji Type 31 rapid-fire guns at that time, with 25,856 shells.

Together with accessories, ammunition carts, etc., a total of 1.2 million taels of silver were spent. ）

However, these rifles do not need to be reloaded every year, in fact, they are reloaded by 10%~30% every year, which is already very good.

In other words, Dutch arms dealers, the annual domestic rifle sales are only tens of thousands of pounds.

If it is replaced with a tank, a tank with supporting facilities can be sold for thousands of pounds, and the profits of both sides are not at the same level at all.

In short, arms dealers who sell guns don't make a lot of money, unless they catch up with the world war, they can still go in volume.

In peacetime, this little sales volume will hardly make much money after removing labor, mechanical maintenance costs, and production costs, and losses often occur.

In this context, arms dealers will naturally push governments to upgrade their weapons and equipment, and every change of equipment is a bloody gain.

This is also the reason why many countries are not suitable for using certain equipment at all, and they give a large amount of equipment regardless of the actual situation.

"And what about the issue of troops? Now that there are millions of rebels in our Nanyang colonies, do the Bulgarians think that they can do it with just 70,000 troops? As if the scolding was almost over, Daan asked again

"This~~" Robinson hesitated, not knowing whether to continue

"Say, there are no outsiders here, so it won't get out!" Prime Minister Daan dispels his concerns

"The Bulgarians thought that there was something wrong with our counterinsurgency tactics, and they suggested that we use the navy to block the rebels' contact with the outside world first, so that the rebels on the islands could be isolated!

With our troops in the South Seas, plus these 70,000 mercenaries, it is more than enough to deal with the rebels on any of the islands alone, and they propose to break them one by one!

Now that the rebels are establishing power on the islands, the rebels are coming out of the jungle and will flee as soon as the army defeats their main force.

We can slowly exterminate them, and in the future, as long as we strictly control the arms trade in the colonies, without ammunition replenishment, these rebels will be dragged to death! Robinson organized the language and said

The faces of the crowd were ugly, although they did not say it explicitly, in fact, it was also saying that they were too wasteful to formulate a simple strategy.

The conscience of heaven and earth, they are all pure politicians, and if they have touched a gun, they are considered to be soldiers. Those who use soldiers to fight wars are given priority to political considerations.

Politically speaking, when they first started to suppress the rebellion, these islands were only partially rebellious, and of course they had to be exterminated at the same time.

Otherwise, it is not in vain to extinguish the rebellion on this island and let that island fall completely?

The situation is different now, basically they have fallen, they don't have to care about the political repercussions, and it won't be worse than the current situation anyway.

But everyone is an old fritter, and they reacted quickly, as long as they can suppress the rebellion and solve the current big trouble, what can you say!

"Then let's do it, the Ministry of Finance will raise a sum of money as soon as possible, and we must prepare the logistics materials first, so as not to delay the counterinsurgency process in the end because the materials are not in place!" Daan said without changing his face

……

London

Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was about to go mad, and the performance of the British Army had thrown the face of the British Empire into his pants.

It was similar to the performance of the British army in Southeast Asia in the Second World War in history, and was jokingly called by the London media "fleeing when you hear the enemy, and crushing when you touch the enemy!" ”

Although this statement is a bit exaggerated, the performance of the British Army is indeed subpar. With equal forces and superior firepower, you can't win against the rebels?

Even if there were Japanese in the rebel army, this should not be a normal behavior of the British army!

The international media have equated the British Army with the Italian Army, and their existence is to refresh the bottom line of the combat effectiveness of the armies of the great powers!

These are the problems that ordinary people see, and the real reason is very clear, that is, the British army is too poorly adapted, and they are not able to adapt to fighting in Southeast Asia, this unique geographical environment.

The most obvious sign was the massive non-combat attrition, and many British officers and soldiers had already laid down before they even went to war.

It seems that this is a reincarnation, and Churchill also sent them to death in history, and this time is no exception.

None of these issues matter now.

Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's biggest headache now is who to send to quell the rebellion, civilian officials don't have to think about it, even if he dares to send it, someone has to dare to go?

He personally visited the few remaining famous generals in the British Army, but the result was undoubtedly rejected.

Suppressing a colonial rebellion is obviously a chore, and if you win, you should win, and if you lose, you are incompetent.

Coupled with the British cabinet's consistent policy of unloading the mill and killing the donkey, no one wants to jump into this fire pit, even if he has repeatedly assured it, it will not have the slightest effect.

If these famous people are unwilling to do it, they can only promote newcomers. The British army was not unavailable, but there were too many people to use.

How soon has the world war ended? The British Army now has not much else, that is, there are many generals, and there are more than 500 officers above the brigadier general level among the active officers.

Don't be surprised, there are now many generals in all countries of the world. For example, the British Army mobilized millions of men, as well as hundreds of colonial divisions.

Many of these troops are planned and haven't had time to go into battle, but it doesn't affect their officers, does it?

How can a division commander be a brigadier general, right? If you come back from a circle on the battlefield, you will become a major general!

If they have made meritorious contributions, then the deputy division commander and chief of staff will also become major generals, not to mention higher-level officers, even the brigade commanders and regiment commanders below will become brigadier generals.

After the end of the World War, the British Army gave birth to more than 2,000 officers of the brigadier general and above.

With so many personnel, who is more militarily capable and who is less militarily capable, is this something that Stanley Baldwin can know?

If he knew, there would have been no such defeat, and the rebellion in Southeast Asia would have been extinguished long ago.

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, I think Major General Archibald Percival Wavell is good, he is now recognized as a talented general within the army, and his ability in the war against the United States has also been recognized by his counterparts from all over the world!" The War Secretary proposed

"You mean the one-eyed dragon general?" Stanley Baldwin asked

"Yes, Your Excellency Prime Minister!" The Secretary of War replied

"He's the one recommended by your War Department, so what's so special about our one-eyed dragon general?" Stanley Baldwin asked

"Your Excellency, you know that our army is now a rabble, lacking even the most basic training, and Major General Wavell is the most capable general in our army!

At the same time, his easy-going adaptability is also very strong, and he has performed very well in all previous exercises, and has been recognized by everyone!

For this reason, I also consulted many generals in the country, and they all thought that Wavell was the most suitable candidate! The War Secretary thought for a moment and said

"Alright then, let's let the One-Eyed Dragon General try it first, and I hope he can bring us good luck!" Stanley Baldwin rubbed his forehead and said

"Don't worry, Your Excellency Prime Minister! No matter what, it won't be worse than now, at least General Wavell can train us an elite army! The Secretary of War comforted

The main reason for the current situation is that after the end of the world war, the British cabinet tried to send all the generals who had made great contributions home in order to prevent the influence of the military from expanding.

Often, these people who have made war achievements are also the most capable in the British army, and after these people retire, the remaining people are either mediocre in ability or have not yet grown up.

Otherwise, it would not be the turn of a major general to command such a battle, and at worst it would be hundreds of thousands of troops, even if a marshal was sent, the British Empire would not be unable to take it.

It's just that their civilian bureaucracy, which is in charge of all this, naturally cannot allow these people who have made outstanding achievements in war and have extraordinary influence in the army to exist.

The dispute between civil and military affairs, regardless of what is distinguished, is indispensable in ancient and modern China and abroad. The Stanley Baldwin cabinet was just in time, and this rebellion in Southeast Asia exposed the after-effects of civilian leadership.

The ass decides the head, and if you know, you know, but don't expect Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin to change all this, in order to create such a political pattern, there is a king in Britain who was guillotined, and this is the influence of the army!

How can he turn back the clock on history now?

(Note: Archibald Percival Wavell (born May 5, 1883 – May 24, 1950) is famous for defeating 300,000 Italian troops and capturing 130,000 enemies in Africa with 50,000 troops.

Later, due to Churchill's blind command, he was defeated by Rommel. He was transferred to the commander of the Southeast Asian Theater of Operations, but due to lack of combat readiness and Mr. Churchill's intervention, he was defeated by the Japanese Southern Army Terauchi Shouichi.

One of his eyes, which he was blinded in World War I, earned him the nickname "One-Eyed Dragon". ）