Chapter 434: Head-on Conflict!

Because of Germany's influence in the Munich Conference on Pan-European Cooperation, the voting rate did not achieve the desired effect of Britain and France. Receiving the telex from Germany, Chamberlain was angry and annoyed, but he was helpless.

In view of the inextricable relationship between the British royal family and Germany, and the German ambassador to the United Kingdom, Andreas, who controlled the differences and coordinated the relations, he had to put this matter aside for the time being, and decided to settle the Spanish Civil War first.

Since World War I, the British Commonwealth has felt powerless, not only has it lost the superior geographical conditions of the empire on which the sun never sets, but it has also often been called by younger brothers like the United States. Chamberlain was so angry that he scolded the former prime minister several times in front of the public, and he scolded the former prime minister for being a rice bucket and talking about misleading the country. For a time, the domestic opposition parties pointed fingers and gossiped constantly.

It is also said that the world is declining, and even Portugal, a small European country, dares to throw its face, which is unacceptable to the British.

The Iberian Peninsula is located in the southwestern corner of Europe, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the east and southeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Bay of Biscay to the north. The Pyrenees are located in the northeastern part of the peninsula and are naturally connected to France. It faces Africa to the south across the Strait of Gibraltar. These include Spain, Portugal, Andorra and British Gibraltar.

The Iberian Peninsula, also known as the Pyrenees, is the second largest peninsula in Europe and one of the three largest peninsulas in southern Europe. Together with the Apennine Peninsula, where Italy and other countries are located, and the Balkan Peninsula, where Greece and other countries are located, they are called the three major peninsulas of southern Europe.

On April 5, 1938, the defense ministers of Germany, Italy, Hungary, Turkey, Romania, Denmark, and Bulgaria convened an emergency closed-door consultation meeting in Rome, the capital of Italy, and unanimously voted to adopt a decision aimed at a speedy settlement of the Spanish Civil War.

It was a secret military meeting initiated by Eric and chaired by Defense Secretary Zeckert himself. Previously, the CIA and MIA had revealed a shocking secret to the Hanseatic Palace: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had conspired with the Soviet leadership to quietly gather heavy troops in the early summer season and go all out to deal with the Jose government forces in Spain. It was therefore a race against time, and the G-7 had to eliminate the left-wing Patriarchal rebels before the British and Soviet armies set foot on the Iberian Peninsula.

On 8 April, the main warships of the seven navies quietly assembled in the waters south of the island of Palma in the Mediterranean, and then dozens of large landing ships loaded with tanks, guns, and armbands with uniform patterns set sail from Sicily, Italy, to the island of Palma again.

On the morning of the same day, a huge naval fleet forcibly landed on the southern beaches of Tortosa in eastern Spain and plunged into Valladolid, the hardest-hit area under the control of the Spanish Patriarchal forces.

At 2 p.m., the Seven-Nation Coalition Army descended from heaven like a divine army, and the Catholic forces were caught off guard and hurriedly resisted, but they could not withstand the crushing of tanks and the indiscriminate bombardment of artillery, and the camp was suddenly in chaos. After sporadic resistance, most of the remnants fled inland to the Valladolid plateau.

The Iberian Peninsula in April was very cool and pleasant, and the Seven-Nation Coalition pursued it as far as a ravine more than 300 kilometers east of Valladolid. The Catholic forces have been operating here for a long time, and they are very familiar with every plant and tree here, and using the cover of the terrain and landforms, the rebels quickly escaped from the range of the Seven-Nation Alliance.

In order to cooperate with the coalition forces' clean-up operations, the Jose government forces also launched a major attack on the opposition forces in most parts of the country, and for a time, the Iberian Peninsula was filled with gunsmoke and war, and the situation began to develop in the direction favorable to the ruling authorities.

At this time, the forces of Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States did not retreat on the peninsula, but the forces of Britain and the Soviet Union continued to strengthen. In the face of the intensive military strikes of the Seven-Nation Alliance, the Americans knew that they were invincible and took the initiative to reveal their identities. In accordance with the demands of the coalition forces, the Americans surrendered one by one and withdrew from the theater of operations.

However, the stubbornness of the British, French, and Soviet volunteer armies and their constant resistance brought certain troubles to the military operations of the seven countries. As the fighting progressed, the rebels began to organize counterattacks, occasionally firing a few small steel cannons.

The first day of fighting slowly calmed down as night approached, but under the heavy fire of the coalition forces, no one dared to show their heads, and there were no night sneak attacks.

In the dark night, the Catholic forces and their followers hidden in the ravine cowered in a ravine of hundreds of square kilometers, silently and unscrupulously, leaving the Seven-Nation Alliance with nowhere to use it to accurately capture the target.

The next day, through redeployment, the Seven-Nation Coalition forces dispersed, formed a dragnet battle formation, and began an intensive search.

At the time of the military operation on the Iberian Peninsula, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union issued protest statements against the seven countries, among which the Soviet Union strongly condemned the seven-nation coalition led by Germany, and even threatened to retaliate.

Chamberlain never dreamed that Germany would move so quickly, even hitting Britain and the Soviet Union exactly seven inches, making him speechless.

On 9 April, several heavy cruisers of the British Royal Fleet left Plymouth Harbour and headed south for the Bay of Biscay and the Strait of Gibraltar.

At the same time, several destroyers of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet also engaged the Turkish Black Sea Fleet several times in close combat, and even almost collided with ships.

At 11 a.m. on 9 April, a far-sea formation of four Soviet Mileja-class destroyers headed straight for the Bosphorus, but was quickly intercepted by the Turkish Coast Guard and the Black Sea Fleet. The two sides were tense and the situation was extremely dangerous, but the standoff soon came to a halt when the Soviets canceled the voyage.

In the early morning of April 12, about 100 people from the top of the Catholic Party and the backbone of various branches were surrounded by the Jose government regiments when an emergency military meeting was held in a secret farm. At five o'clock in the morning, with the help of the Seven-Nation Alliance, the government troops rushed over the wall and rushed into the meeting hall at lightning speed, immediately subdued and killed the few armed men who were ready to resist stubbornly, and openly arrested the main leaders of the heavens.

At this time, the remnants of the forces that had cowered in the ravines south of Valladolid were still resisting, because with the support of Britain and the Soviet Union, they wanted to get a chance to turn the tables. The Seven-Nation Coalition adopted the method of combining exhortation with armed strikes, but because the volunteers of Britain, France, and the Soviet Union were unwilling to be captured, the results of exhortation and armed strikes were not very good.

While the Seven-Nation Coalition cooperated with the Jose government to quickly control the situation on the peninsula, the Portuguese Navy, which was not directly involved in military operations, took the initiative to control the Strait of Gibraltar in order to block the path of the high-ranking officials of the puppet government fleeing westward.

On the morning of 12 April, British Gibraltar was the first to oppose and sent patrol boats to intervene to force the Portuguese Navy to get out of the way, but the Portuguese Navy resolutely refused and resisted. At this moment, the British Royal Navy cruiser formation departing from Plymouth Harbour arrived just in time, and the two sides immediately began to engage in a tense confrontation.

As early as April 11, the huge surface fleet of the seven navies was divided into three routes, the first of which went north to the waters near Barcelona to intercept the remnants of the Catholic forces from escaping from the sea to France. The second route carried out armed patrols in the Balearic Sea to intercept the maritime synthetic mobile brigades formed by Britain, France and other countries in the early years to defend against the German navy. The third route was to move quickly south to the Strait of Gibraltar to intercept the sudden intrusion of the British Navy at any time.

The southbound Seven-nation naval fleet crossed the Alvoran Sea and moved rapidly westward into the Strait of Gibraltar at about 11 a.m. the next day.

The British fleet found a large number of sea targets approaching from the radar screen, and it was expected that they were reinforcements from the navies of the seven countries.

The Portuguese navy was weak and did not dare to pursue, so it had to watch the British leave with thick black smoke.

At this time, the search and arrest operations on land were still continuing, and under the strong deterrence of force, the left-wing Catholic forces had long since collapsed. By noon on 12 April, the rebels in various localities saw that the general trend had turned, and they began to unconditionally take the initiative to surrender to the nearest government army's military control zone.

After destroying the remnants of the armed forces, José's government forces, led by Franco, soon joined the Seven-Nation Coalition in the search east of Valladolid.

Due to the fact that the area east of Valladolid was the core of the long-term occupation of the Left Catholics, and because of the difficult terrain and ravines, the manhunt did not go very smoothly, and casualties were reported in all but a few minor injuries of the German Wehrmacht.

Colonel Mark Vida, the highest commander of the Wehrmacht involved in the search operation. This person was the commander of the 211th Teaching Battalion in Leipzig, the 2nd instructor of the Wehrmacht Army, and was also a hero who won great military achievements during World War I. Although the rank is not too high, it has trained thousands of outstanding officers at the grassroots level in Germany.

Known for his rigor in the German Army, Vida was not at all unequivocal in the battle, and personally led the commandos to capture a dozen rebels entrenched at the crossing, but one sergeant was slightly wounded in the battle.

Armed groups with British, Soviet, and French volunteers are hard to gnaw on, and their troops face casualties at any time. The countries were helpless for a while, so that Vader's heart was on fire, and without saying a word, he immediately informed Captain Hans Leedler, the commander of the first company of the third battalion, and asked him to use a forklift converted from an armored vehicle to clear the way, remove rocks, and open up the road. Other tanks immediately followed, covering the infantry search and advance.

This modified forklift, specially designed to clean anti-tank cones, was an improvised trick by Rommel and Guderian, and was approved by Eric, but it came in handy in Spain in the first place.

Captain Hans Leedler responded and personally drove the modified forklift to the front.

This season, the vegetation on the mountain is not yet fully lush, and many caves are completely exposed. When the search unit discovers such a hole, it first shouts, and if no one answers, it begins to release smoke grenades or tank artillery fire.

It worked so well that most of the remnants of the Catholic Party couldn't get past the three levels, and were caught before they could even release the smoke bombs. That night, countries began to humbly learn from the German army, and with the strong cooperation of German tank forklifts, the search and arrest operation went quite smoothly. In just three days, the Seven-Nation Coalition regained large areas of rebel-held territory.

Next, the search force continued to shrink the encirclement, preparing to deliver the final blow to the remnants of the Patriarchal forces.