Chapter 332: Luncheon (Yugoslav Consolidation)
In the huge and splendid lounge of the Chancellery, the German Führer returned to his bedroom on the second floor of the old Chancellery alone.
The new head of the Führer's personal butler, Bourne. Fett had been waiting there for a long time, and then, with the help of him and two servants, Xu Jun changed into his second dress of the day.
It was a dark navy blue men's gown with large lapels and a length just above the waist, with the sides open and connected by a gold chain between the two buttons. Inside, he wore a white shirt and a suit jacket of the same color, with a white silk bow tie between the hard collar of the shirt, and a shining knight's iron cross hanging underneath.
The marshal's gold epaulettes were worn on the shoulders of the gown, gold ornaments hung over the right shoulder, a gold sword cross was worn underneath, and other military medals and medals of merit were worn on the chest on the left side of the gown. On the left side, near his waist and abdomen, he wore a silver armored assault medal and a black medal for battle wounds, both of which he won in the Battle of Dunkirk, which were precious memories and glory for Xu Jun.
The lower part of the gown was a straight-leg trouser with a gold ribbon sewn on the side to represent the rank of marshal, and a pair of short black leather shoes with a good brush.
This was actually a Luftwaffe banquet dress, and theoretically the Reich Führer was still a field marshal of the Luftwaffe at this time. For after Göring was secretly executed by Hitler, he had been serving as commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, and no new one had been appointed.
This is not the first time Xu Jun has worn the uniform of the Luftwaffe, he has worn it as early as the French front, but it is indeed the first time to participate in such a high-profile diplomatic banquet, and the reason why the Führer made this choice is simple, that is, he thinks the dress looks very handsome.
When Tysenhofen entered the room for the third time, the clock hand on the wall slipped past twelve o'clock.
Because of the large number of guests at this banquet, from status, position, status, customs and tastes, this is the case of the so-called difficult to reconcile.
In order to reduce the pressure on the chefs in the Prime Minister's Office, and to make it easier for everyone to connect during the meal, the reception luncheon was set up as a buffet, where guests could take the food, drinks and drinks they wanted according to their personal tastes.
Historically, German cuisine has incorporated a lot of European flavors, and the taste is relatively close to normal human beings, so there is no crazy dark cuisine.
German enemas sometimes use some very down-to-earth ingredients, such as pig blood and offal, which were originally the favorites of German farmers, and the dignitaries present may not be used to eating them, so the chef of the Chancellery added a lot of spices to them, but I did not expect these special enemas to be sought after by most guests.
"The taste is very unique and completely different from what I had in Munich when I was younger." The British envoy, Viscount Wood, forked two more sausages into his plate, then scooped a spoonful of the thick sauce from the porcelain bowl next to him and poured it on top.
"The key is cinnamon and onions, Lord Viscount." The accosting was Prince Paul, the regent of Yugoslavia, a notorious loser at Oxford University who had also been trained to be a gourmet.
This time, Prince Paul was the leader of the Yugoslav state, leading a large delegation of envoys to participate in the victory parade in Germany.
Because of the different identities and missions on his shoulders, of course, his mood will also change, and His Royal Highness the Prince is now full of ambition and looks full of red light.
The Yugoslav armed forces were being reorganized and trained by German advisers, and the government had just signed an arms order with Germany worth 10 million marks. Yugoslavia needed to update their infantry light weapons, and at the same time wanted to purchase a new batch of artillery, at least the antique artillery inherited from Austria-Hungary.
Some Serbian nobles with a keen sense of smell had sensed the smell of impending war, but Yugoslavia was not ready to meet the foreign enemy, they did not even know which side the enemy would attack from, and the only thing they could do now was to reorganize their domestic forces and eliminate those hidden dangers that had already existed.
The Serbs have admired the strong since ancient times, especially after seeing the Germans destroy their old enemies and strong enemies, the Italians, and now they are full of reverence for Germany, just as they were in fear of the Ottomans. The Croats, on the other hand, still cherish the Habsburg rule, and they see present-day Germany as the successor of Austria and are full of affection for Germany.
With the help of the German advisers, the problem of reorganization, which had been a headache in the past, was solved, because both Serbs and Croats were willing to obey the orders and demands of the German advisers. All the German advisers had to do was to try their best to level the bowl of water and not show any inclination on a daily basis, so that he could win the welcome of all Yugoslav soldiers.
Now Yugoslavia is in the process of assembling their first real armored brigade, and before that the entire Yugoslav army had a total of 200 tanks, more than 90% of which were French goods, and a very small amount of Czech products.
Yugoslavia was equipped with a total of eight S1-D light tanks produced by Czech Skoda, which was actually a light tank developed by Skoda specifically for Yugoslavia on the basis of the chassis of the experimental model MU-4 light tank that failed in the Czech Army's bidding.
This small tank, with a total weight of only 4.8 tons, has a low box-shaped war compartment, a Skoda 37-mm anti-tank gun is fixed in front of it, the barrel can be deflected 15 degrees to the left and right, the thickest frontal upper armor of the whole vehicle reaches 22 mm, and the power is a 60-horsepower Skoda six-cylinder engine, and the road speed reaches 41 kilometers per hour. This thing is more like a tank destroyer than a light tank.
At one point, the Yugoslavs also proposed some of their own suggestions for improvement to the Czech factory, trying to purchase another 100 units of this type of concealed buckle, but before the Czechs could respond, the whole of Czechoslovakia was gone in the blink of an eye.
Yugoslavia also ordered a large number of tanks from France, and the two countries did not have a very close relationship in the thirties, but there had been military cooperation before.
The Yugoslavs first purchased fifty French-made R35 tanks, and as a result, they did not respond well to them, mainly because they felt that they were too slow. You can't blame the Yugoslavs for being too hasty, and the maximum speed of the R35 is only twenty kilometers per hour.
Incidentally, there was a group of Polish tankmen who fled from Poland to Romania in this kind of tank, and now it seems that these people should not even see the shadow of the German army when they fled, because if they really encountered the German army, they would never be able to run at this speed.
The French built the R35 to assist the infantry attack, and it was a very orthodox infantry tank that did not need to have high speeds, but it was a slow tank that was somewhat unaccustomed to the rapid German armoured tactics.
The Yugoslav Army also purchased 50 Renault NC27 tanks, which were actually the Renault D1 tanks that had been eliminated by the French army. Nice went, and part of it was sold to the Yugoslavs.
And the French threw out more than that, they also sold the Yugoslavs fifty Renault FT-17s during the First World War, it is a shame that the French can still come up with so many antiques that can be driven, this deal is not greasy, it is not even a ghost can be fooled.
As a result, these Yugoslav "armored elites" in history were almost annihilated on the spot in the face of the rapid offensive of the German Army.