"Our Western allies have already acted. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info”

Stalin abruptly changed the subject, which made Manturov feel a little bored.

The question of whether Finland should be annexed was still being discussed, but before half a conclusion was reached, Stalin turned the topic to Operation Bagration, as if he had already made a decision in his mind.

Judging by Stalin's temperament, Manturov felt that he would most likely choose to annex Finland, after all, the Soviet Union had already had a precedent for annexing the three Baltic states and partitioning Poland with Germany.

Now that the whole territory of Finland has been liberated, it should also be chosen to re-annex the territory of Finland, which once belonged to Russia, into the territory of the Soviet Union, and then he will complete the "great cause" of "recovering the territory of Tsarist Russia".

He did not seem to be worried that the Finnish people would rebel against Soviet rule, after all, Finland has a population of only about 3 million, and it is not difficult to rule a small race, and over time, the local people will gradually adapt to Soviet life, gradually accept themselves as Soviet citizens, and integrate into the Soviet community.

However, this process is still relatively long and will not necessarily succeed, depending on the policies of the Soviet government, including ethnic policy, economic policy, educational policy and propaganda policy, and the effectiveness of these policies depends on the attitude of the Soviet leadership.

Of course, in order to achieve the effect of maintaining stability in the short term, it is still necessary for the Soviet government to take some hard measures, so the Soviet army still left 500,000 troops in Finland. Of these, 100,000 troops were stationed throughout Finland to maintain order in Finland, while the remaining 400,000 were stationed in northern Finland on the border with Norway to prevent German attacks from Norway.

In any case, Stalin had already made a decision, whether it was the annexation of Finland or the establishment of a puppet regime in Finland, it was in the interests of the Soviet Union, of course, the annexation of Finland would bring greater benefits, but naturally more troubles.

"U.S. forces have landed in Morocco and Algeria with British troops, they have captured Casablanco, Oran and Algiers, and driven out the Moroccan and Algerian fascists."

Stalin's words brought Manturov back to his senses, and the content of the landing in Casablanca, Oran and Algiers exactly coincided with the historical "Operation Torch".

It's just that this operation was more than ten days earlier than the historical one, and the Soviet Red Army, which won one after another, did not put pressure on Britain and the United States as it did in history, asking Britain and the United States to open a second battlefield as soon as possible to reduce the pressure on the Soviet Red Army by the Nazi German army.

However, when the Soviet Union did not put pressure on Britain and the United States, the US military actually launched the "Torch Operation" ahead of schedule and opened a second battlefield in French North Africa ahead of schedule.

The operation ended in a complete victory for Britain and the United States, who easily defeated the Vichy French forces stationed in North Africa, occupied vast areas of Morocco and Algeria, gained the coastline of North Africa in the Mediterranean, and strengthened the naval supremacy of the British and American forces in the Mediterranean.

However, the elimination of this point does not mean anything to maintain the French army, after all, the French are ...... combat effectiveness When France fell in 1940, it was already "shown to the world", which is simply a fool's errand.

But North Africa was still garrisoned by hundreds of thousands of Axis troops, mainly German and Italian, and also commanded by Field Marshal Rommel the "Desert Fox".

Hitler's impressive performance of the German Afrika Korps earned Rommel the rank of field marshal, and Hitler had high hopes for his Afrika Korps, which had repeatedly defeated the British in inferior forces and strengthened the German army's strong position in the North African theater.

However, the Afrika Korps is too small in strength and not very well equipped, and they often do not receive enough supplies. In the face of the British and American forces, which were superior in strength and equipment, and had relatively abundant logistics supplies, the German Afrika Korps did not seem to have any advantage.

Indeed, whether in history or in this world, the weaker Afrika Korps will eventually be defeated by the British and American armies, and the British army in North Africa is also equipped with T-34/76 tanks provided by the Soviet Union, which is easy to deal with the German tanks No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4, which are much stronger than the Crusader tanks currently equipped by the British army.

Since the Anglo-American coalition has won the victory in the African theater, opened up a second battlefield, and relieved the pressure on the Soviet-German front, Stalin, as the supreme leader of the Soviet Union, should be happy, but his thoughts at this time are the same as Manturov's, and he is worried that the American army will prematurely intervene in the war in Europe and compete with the Soviet Union for the territory of Nazi Germany.

Stalin looked up at Manturov's young body and asked, "When do you think we can launch the next counteroffensive at the earliest?" I mean Western Ukraine, Western Belarus or the Baltic states. ”

When Manturov heard this, he figured out the thoughts and intentions of the Supreme Leader, and it turned out that he, like himself, was also worried that the US military would intervene too early in the war in Europe and pick peaches in the back.

For him, the goal of the Soviet army in this war was not only to regain lost territory, but also to bring Eastern and Central Europe into the Soviet sphere of influence.

Historically, the Soviet Union almost achieved this goal, bringing the whole of Eastern Europe, half of Central Europe, and half of Southern Europe into its sphere of influence, becoming one of the most influential superpowers in the world.

And in this world, the Soviet Union is much stronger than in history, and it has not suffered much war damage and has not suffered too many troop losses.

Judging from the current strength of the Soviet Union, it is not a problem to expand its sphere of influence to Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and even Northern Europe, and now Finland and Romania are already in the bag, while Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and other countries are already inevitable.

But these countries themselves did not have many resources and lacked industrial base, so winning them would not be of much help to the national power of the Soviet Union.

In Manturov's historical memory, the Soviet Union not only did not take much benefit from these countries after the war, but also had to provide these countries with a large amount of resources to support their post-war reconstruction and economic development, and in the end it was the Soviet Union that lost money.

If the Soviet Union could go one step further and take all of Germany (and Denmark by the way), the Soviet Union would be able to obtain world-class industrial technology and industrial production equipment from Germany, and it would also liberate the German proletariat and give the Red Camp an additional member with the heritage of an old empire.

Under current conditions, it seems that the Soviet Union would not be able to end the war in 1944 ahead of schedule, eliminating Nazi Germany, and if the timing of the Normandy landings remained unchanged, the Soviets could even push the Soviets into France and take the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

But history has already changed, and the Anglo-American coalition troops will definitely land in France and Italy earlier than in history, and if the Soviet army does not act in advance, I am afraid that the peach of Germany will still be picked by the Anglo-American coalition forces.

"Comrade Stalin, I think ......"