At this time, the communications officer walked out of the telegraph room and came behind Sa Shijun on the bridge outside the command room: "Sir, the latest battle report!" ”

"Oh, has there been another domestic victory?" Sa Shijun saw that the communications officer's face was flushed with excitement, so he said.

"No, the German-Austrian forces have broken through the French defense line on the Maas River and are advancing towards Paris."

"That's our business!" That being said, he received the telegram from the communications officer, and the telegram was written in German, but could be read by officers who had been in Austria for nearly three years. The content of the telegram was still very surprising, and it took only four days for the German-Austrian forces to completely break through the carefully constructed defense line of the French army, and the speed of the advance completely overturned the previous people's perception of the speed of the army's attack.

"I hope they can free up their hands soon, so that we can return to the Far East to fight as much as possible." Sa Shijun thought silently that the aircraft carriers ordered by China in Germany and Austria had been launched in just over a year due to the design they had been commissioned for, and the speed of construction was beyond imagination, in contrast to the fact that the hulls of the two aircraft carriers built by the Italians had only been completed a little more than halfway.

The speed of a country's shipbuilding can best show the industrial level, for example, after the outbreak of the war, Germany and Austria began to build air defense cruisers with a displacement of 12,600 tons in batches in order to escort aircraft carriers, in the past people's image, it was impossible to complete it in three years, but in fact, just over a year has passed since the beginning of the war, Germany has 8 and Austria-Hungary has 6 cruisers of the same type have been launched, and the hull construction time is only 11 months, if you count the outfitting and testing time, It will only take about 19 to 20 months.

This strong industrial capacity to build warships in batches and quickly during the war was the real guarantee that Germany and Austria could quickly become naval powers.

A week later, the 6th Marine Brigade of the 3rd Austro-Hungarian Marine Division, which was the advance squadron, was urgently transferred from Tanganyika to South Africa. I have been highly nervous. Admiral Yankel, who was worried about being counterattacked by the South African army, finally breathed a sigh of relief. A South African Army unit preparing to attack Durban retreated after being hit by Austro-Hungarian naval aviation, leaving plenty of time for reinforcements from the Austro-Hungarian army.

As the "emperor's favorite", the Austro-Hungarian Marine Corps has maintained the scale of 100,000 men in three divisions in the post-war army, and the priority supply of advanced equipment has made many army generals quite dissatisfied. The Austro-Hungarian Marines have maintained a large number of two brigades and six regiments. In addition to the division's artillery regiment, armored regiment, engineering battalion, engineer battalion, support battalion and other auxiliary units, the personnel establishment is nearly 25,000 people, which is almost catching up with the establishment of the two army infantry divisions.

The Austro-Hungarian Marine Corps is one of the elite units of the Empire, each Marine Division is equipped with 76 light tanks, 138 amphibious infantry vehicles, more than 160 artillery pieces of various types, and more than 130 anti-tank grenade launchers.

The port of Durban is a large port, and the heavy equipment of the 6th Marine Brigade, although basically equivalent to that of an infantry division, took just over a day to unload the ships here. Now Admiral Yankel has finally raised his eyebrows. Prepare to follow the route of the British to conquer the Boers and conquer the country once again.

Austria-Hungary's original plan was to send two marine divisions, one armored division and one infantry corps, plus two army aviation divisions to South Africa, but the Germans were not willing to let Austria-Hungary monopolize South Africa, so they first transferred a colonial division from Tanganyika and Zanzibar to here, and then during the tense period of the French campaign, two infantry divisions were transferred from the country to South Africa to "fight side by side" with Austria-Hungary.

The Americans were extremely sensitive to the German-Austrian move to South Africa. President Roosevelt delivered a fiercely worded speech condemning Germany and Austria for their aggression against "an independent nation." And announced that the United States imposed a material embargo on Germany and Austria. This was already a very serious threat, and as the German-Austrian army marched along the French line, the Americans could not sit still and began to look for excuses to participate in the war.

The Kaiser told Guò that the Foreign Ministry expressed strong dissatisfaction with the United States, while the Vienna side ignored it. Anyway, the United States will enter the war sooner or later, and Helden Lee certainly hopes that the United States will enter the war as late as possible. Although the United States is hurrying to prepare for war. In 1940, the construction of 10 "Essex" class aircraft carriers of the same type was started at the same time, and domestic production began to fully shift to the military industry, but he still did not want the United States to enter the national mobilization too early.

The United States is a rather terrible warplane, and if the entire wartime economy is introduced, its military production will become quite terrifying. At least before the United States entered the war. American public opinion in Congress would have caused great trouble for Roosevelt's war readiness. The Foreign Office in Vienna issued a statement saying that if the South African government chose to withdraw from the war, Austria-Hungary "could consider" withdrawing its troops from South Africa at an appropriate time.

The American threat also became more and more immediate, and in order to deal with this threat, Germany chose to also start construction in 1940 at the same time as four heavy aircraft carriers of the same type as the Austro-Hungarian "Romania" class and four "Graf? Zeppelin" class medium aircraft carriers.

The power of aircraft carrier operations had already been demonstrated in the Norwegian campaign, where only one aircraft carrier, the USS York, repelled an attack by a battlefleet at a distance of 200 nautical miles. However, the joint sinking of the "Glory" by the "Admiral Spee" and the "Mackensen" also raised the eyebrows of the battleship faction, and the German emperor, after listening to the advice of the admirals, adopted a compromise plan and continued to complete the construction of two "Scharnhorst" class battleships, but the next two were converted into aircraft carriers.

Austria-Hungary also continued to increase the budget for four Romanian-class heavy aircraft carriers and four Chinese-built improved Zeppelin-class aircraft carriers.

At the same time, Britain also planned to start construction of four improved "Dreadnought" class aircraft carriers of the "Brilliant" class in 1940, while Japan was preparing to start construction of three "Taiho" class heavy aircraft carriers, and planned to urgently build 15 additional "Yunlong" class aircraft carriers. Not to be outdone, the Italians, naturally, have already started construction of two aircraft carriers in accordance with the design of the improved Zeppelin aircraft carrier built for China, and have placed an additional order for the construction of four aircraft carriers.

Countries began to realize the importance of aircraft carriers, and after the outbreak of war, a fierce competition for aircraft carrier construction began.

The United States, Britain, and Japan are all naval powers, and the Axis bloc is much weaker for Italy in this regard, and Helmet Lee expects the Chinese navy to recover this disadvantage. (To be continued......) R1292