At the request of the Ottoman Turkish government, German and Italian colonial troops stationed in North and East Africa were sent to Egypt to assist the Turkish army in "clearing the rebels." By the end of October 1926 www.biquge.info more than 34,000 German and Italian troops had arrived in Egypt, equipped with more than 400 artillery pieces, 100 airplanes and 100 chariots, while the Ottoman Empire was pinned down by the military conflict in the North Caucasus, and only 5,000 additional soldiers were sent to Egypt in the later period.

Because of the generous financial and weapon assistance of the North American tyrants, as well as the geographical advantages and convenience, the Egyptian rebels beat the Turkish army to the ground at first, and even occupied a strategic place on the west bank of the Suez Canal, but they were not well-trained and disciplined regular troops after all. In the battle of the Nile Valley, 12,000 Allied soldiers smashed the Egyptian rebel army, which claimed to be 100,000, killed and wounded more than 20,000 Egyptian rebels, and seized countless weapons and ammunition. By the end of December, most of Egypt's towns, ports, and transportation hubs were back under the control of the Allied forces, and the insurgents had collapsed, with some of their organizers and a handful of remnants retreating to the Sudan-Ethiopian border, relying on the protection of local tribes and the support of foreign powers to continue their seemingly hopeless cause of independence.

The Italian colonial forces were not much better than the Turkish army in the military operations to suppress the Egyptian insurgents, but their performance was very positive, and the Italian navy sent the main force to help the German navy during the Azores crisis, which made the German top brass very satisfied. Before the New Year, the Italian military and political leaders organized a delegation to Berlin and carried out extensive public relations relations with the German princes and nobles as well as the upper echelons, in order to obtain a handsome reward from the German government - a total of 1 billion marks in economic aid and part of the oil exploitation rights in southern Iran.

For Italy, which has been in a state of economic slump for a long time, capital and resources are undoubtedly a strong agent to stimulate the development of the industrial economy, and if they can be properly used, Italy's economic situation will improve markedly in a few years, and with the increase in the enthusiasm of armaments in various countries, there is just the opportunity to make a big splash in international trade and the arms market, but Rome's political ambitions can no longer wait for the gradual recovery of its own industrial economy. After the first financial aid from Germany arrived, the Italian government quickly approved a new expansion and shipbuilding plan, and a new generation of capital ships, which had been brewing for many years but had struggled to cook under the meter, finally stepped onto the slipway from the drawing board - on March 10, 1927, a keel was laid at the Adriatic United Shipyard in Trieste, where a 40,000-ton battleship codenamed "Caesar" was built; Twenty-five days later, the second 40,000-ton battleship, codenamed "Imperial", was built and the keel was laid at the Ansador shipyard in ******.

These two powerful warships with high speed and heavy firepower alone will cost the Italian government 180 million marks of budget funds, and the Italian government will need to invest at least 80 million marks in the new cruisers and destroyers that have been shelved due to economic and financial problems, and in addition to the renovation of naval base facilities and the procurement of equipment by naval aviation units, the navy's investment alone will easily exceed 300 million marks. Not to be outdone, the Italian Army came up with plans to replace its standard rifles and field artillery, build up its armored forces, and expand its aviation units.

At the same time that Italy began to build new warships, all the countries that had chosen their camps or took advantage of the war to make a difference, invariably began to expand their armaments. In response to Germany's "offensive strategy" in the Atlantic, the United States announced the construction of a new 60,000-ton battleship and a 40,000-ton super aircraft carrier. Because of its high technical standards, many matching weapons and equipment need to be developed in technology, and the US Navy's single-ship budget submitted to Congress has once again set a new history, and the ultimate cost of the new battleship may reach 150 percent of that of the Colorado class, and compared with the US Navy's shipbuilding plan, the US Army's expansion plan is not inferior at all -- they asked Congress to approve the expansion of the army from the current 500,000 to 1.2 million, and to purchase 6,000 additional artillery pieces, 2,000 combat vehicles, and 1,000 combat aircraft of various types in the next two years. If Germany tries to establish a military base in South America, the U.S. Army will recruit another 300,000 troops and purchase 1,000 more fighter planes, which means that the U.S. government's military spending will continue to rise in the coming years.

Upon learning that the US Navy was going to build a 60,000-ton super-jumbo, the German top brass decisively gave up the idea of building a 55,000-ton battleship, demanded that the Navy's shipbuilding department come up with a design plan for a 70,000-ton battleship, and could not wait to finalize a contingency plan for additional orders for aircraft carriers and light cruisers. With the approval of the Reichstag, two 30,000-ton and four 20,000-ton aircraft carriers will be started in shipyards in Germany and Ireland, six 8,000-ton light cruisers will all be handed over to the two shipyards in Danzig, and the size of the naval aviation force will be doubled in four months.

Britain's recent economic and financial situation is not very optimistic, but seeing the United States and Germany upgrade their armaments, they still gritted their teeth and placed orders for the construction of three new 55,000-ton battleships at the Royal Shipyard in Halifax, which was jointly funded by the United States and Britain.

Compared with the arms race of the top powers, second- and third-rate countries such as Ireland, Spain, and Sweden have a much smaller expansion of their armed forces. Ireland, which has only been independent for 11 years, has become a model of a small country of this era with the rapid development of its industrial economy, and its achievements in infrastructure, science and technology, education, and commercial circulation have attracted the attention of the world. After the end of the Azores conflict, the Irish government adopted a phased military program in a low-key manner, the expansion of the navy is mainly concentrated in land-based aviation and submarine forces, and the capital ships are only increased by one 25,000-ton aircraft carrier, and what is surprising is that Ireland's investment in the construction of the army and air force in the next few years will greatly exceed that of the navy, the active strength of the army will be expanded from 350,000 to 400,000, the armored fighting vehicle force will be expanded from four battalions to six regiments, and the mechanized artillery will be expanded from two experimental groups to twelve battalions. The fighter force will be increased from four to nine and the bomber force from two to eight, with 1,200 land-based aircraft and 400 carrier-based aircraft in service with the Irish Army, and many of the new weapons that were previously installed on a small scale will also be put into large-scale production and equipment at this stage.

The only "active nation" that has not joined the race is Japan, an ambitious Asian power that has not withdrawn from the arms race because of its peace-loving passions, but because it is now engaged in military aggression against Northeast China. With the connivance of the United States and Britain and the acquiescence of Soviet Russia, Japan gave up the idea of making a small fight from the very beginning, and resolutely invested nearly half of its active forces and a large number of aircraft and artillery, and occupied all the cities along the railway line in just three weeks. At this time, although China was nominally unified, the situation of warlord division still existed, and the central government could not concentrate the military strength of the whole country to resist a strong enemy, so it had to seek help from the great powers. The German and Austrian governments intervened to try to prevent Japan from monopolizing Northeast China, but how could Japan, a hungry wolf, give up the fat in its mouth? They ignored the lack of diplomatic action of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and at the same time intensified their military offensive on the front line.

Germany is more reluctant to see Japan join forces with the United States, Britain, and Soviet Russia to form a new Entente bloc than its own investment interests in China. From a macro strategic point of view, the Allied bloc's troop base and core territory are inferior, and key production resources such as oil, rubber, and metal ores are relatively scattered, and they need to be converted to their own use through long-distance sea and land transportation, and these transportation channels are vulnerable or even blocked during the war. In the eyes of the world, Germany has completely escaped the "cage trap" of 1914 through its victory in the last war, but if it loses control of the Caucasus and the Persian Gulf, or if it loses its ties with the source of resources, whether the Germans admit it or not, it will actually return to the cage, only this time the opponent has prepared a larger cage for it - and this is when the brilliant decision of British political diplomats to abandon the car at the negotiating table is fully manifested.

By April 1927, the Japanese army had occupied most of Northeast China, and its advance troops had crossed the Great Wall for the first time, which went far beyond the scope of "protecting the South Manchurian Railway and Japanese nationals." No matter how much the Japanese diplomatic department whitewashed, it could not hide their true intention to invade other countries in order to extricate themselves from the country's financial crisis, the depletion of strategic resources, and the brink of collapse of industrial and agricultural production -- this was a punishment for Japan's long-term overload of its navy. However, even if Japan completely annexed Northeast China and resumed ore mining and industrial production in this region in a relatively short period of time, it would only be able to slightly alleviate the domestic economic problems, after all, the oil, rubber, and rare earths needed for the development of modern industry and armaments were almost not produced in Northeast China at that time, and to fundamentally solve the dilemma of resource shortage, either desperately throw themselves into the arms of the United States and Britain and obtain sufficient strategic resources from their allies at the expense of strategic autonomy, or use China as a springboard. Step by step, he conquered India and the islands of the South Seas, and then expanded to Asia Minor and even Europe, like Britain in the past and Germany today, becoming a world hegemon that requires resources and labor.

(End of chapter)