Xiao Zhenlei is ready to see Lloyd? George's joke, because he knew that George had no defensible reason at all, Britain just wanted to grasp the interests of the Balkans, from a purely military point of view, it was a mistake to focus the offensive on the eastern front, especially in southeastern Europe, which was obviously a thankless and thankless task, but what Xiao Zhenlei didn't expect was that George really gave a reason to stand.

George said: "The reason why I advocate putting the focus and direction of the offensive on the eastern front is because it will reduce the pressure on the western front, and you should know that we in the British Empire have always borne the main pressure of the Entente against the Allies, and this pressure has taken our breath, and we need to decompress so that we can accumulate more war forces." And as the most important member of us, what has Huaguo done? It took only a month for you to recover the Liaodong Peninsula, it took only a month to recover the Bay Island, and it took only a month to recover the Korean Peninsula. After all, the victory of this war is not only related to our interests, but if we fail, everyone will be doomed, right? ”

Xiao Zhenlei's face was very calm after listening to George's words, in fact, he was very annoyed in his heart, George's reason can only be said to be far-fetched, but the topic changed and burned the war to him, and successfully changed the topic and focus.

After lighting the cigar and taking a few puffs, Xiao Zhenlei said, "Mr. George." First of all, I would like to refute what you just said, saying that our country is hiding its strength. This is a slander against me and my country, Britain is an empire on which the sun never sets. It has been hundreds of years since the founding of the country, and how much wealth has Britain amassed in various colonies around the world in these hundreds of years? How strong is the country's integrated war potential? And what about our country? Our country has been oppressed and oppressed by you Western powers for nearly a hundred years, and it has long been decaying, and our new government has only been established for a few years, how can it compare with your old empires in terms of war potential? As the prime minister of a country, you should understand that war is not about people and weapons, but about the comprehensive national strength of a country, and in terms of comprehensive national strength, our country is 108,000 miles away from Britain. It is far inferior to France, even Tsarist Russia is much stronger than our country, and the combat effectiveness of our army is indeed good in the case of ensuring weapons, ammunition and war materials, but you must know that in terms of our country's current national strength, it simply cannot support a long-term war, and every battle consumes the ammunition and weapons we produce, and our army has to stop and recuperate to wait for ammunition to be replenished, this is the reality! ”

"In addition, Mr. George, you just said that the reason why you advocate putting the main direction of attack on the Eastern Front is to reduce the pressure on the Western Front. It was to give Britain a breather, and this is not at all a defensible reason, and it seems to me that whether the main direction of attack is placed on the Western Front or on the Eastern Front, it will have little impact on the production of war materials in Britain. Because once the war starts on the Western Front, we are the attacker, not the defender. There is no question of zài defensive pressure, nor is there such a thing as zài offensive pressure! Opposite. Opening up a battlefield on the Western Front could also put a lot of pressure on the German army, which would have left them overwhelmed by both sides. The dispersion of the forces will lead to a lack of their strength! ”

Cai Yi, who was sitting next to Xiao Zhenlei, said at this time: "Yes, judging from the current strategic situation, if you want to give the German-Austrian army the greatest blow, it is best to start a war on both sides of them, if the Italian side can occasionally strengthen the offensive again, so that you can launch an attack on the German-Austrian army in the east, west and south, from the overall point of view, the German-Austrian coalition army is under our three-sided attack, as long as the layout of the Western Front battlefield is completed, then this military strategic situation that is extremely beneficial to us will be formed, as long as they have a defeat, Then the rest of the world will be implicated, and it will be like a domino effect, and the German-Austrian alliance will be defeated by us! ”

Clemenceau nodded after listening to the translation: "General Cai's analysis of the strategic situation is very good, I agree very much, General Petain, what do you think?" ”

Henry, commander-in-chief of the French army, sitting next to him? Philip? Although Petain had a deep contradiction with him, but now is the time to fight for the interests of France, Petain of course can not hold back, he said with a smile: "Yes, I agree with General Cai's analysis of the strategic situation, this idea of sandwiching the German and Austrian armies on three sides is very good, as long as Germany and Austria cannot resist on the one hand, their defeat will have a chain reaction!" ”

George frowned, and he said: "But the conditions are not yet ripe for landing on the west coast of France to open up a second battlefield, Marshal Robertson, please tell them!" ”

Although Robertson, the chief of the British General Staff, was extremely annoyed by George's frequent overstepping, this was obviously not the time to engage in internal contradictions, and although he also believed that George's proposition was wrong, he could not oppose George's proposition on the spot, and even if this proposition was wrong, he must support it at this time.

Robertson said: "The reason why Mr. Prime Minister said that it is not yet ripe to land on the west coast of France from the English Channel to open up a second battlefield is because until now air supremacy is firmly in the hands of the Germans, who have built a large number of airfields in towns on the west coast of France, and they can take off hundreds of warplanes at any time to carry out a large-scale bombardment of our sea-crossing troops and ships, and I am afraid that our soldiers will be killed in the sea by German planes before they have even landed on the west coast beaches of France!" ”

After Robertson said this, French Prime Minister Clemenceau and Marshal Petain had nothing to say, after all, this is a fact, the German army with air supremacy is too strong, coupled with the strong German army, the two do not think that the forced landing operation will have any effect, which can only increase human lives.

Xiao Zhenlei asked at this time: "Is this the reason why Mr. Prime Minister has always refused to launch a sea-crossing operation to open up a second battlefield?" Is there any other reason, if any, that can be said".

George shook his head at Robertson and motioned for him. After receiving the instructions, Robertson said: "Of course, there is another reason, as far as we know, the German troops deployed in France are about two million or more, and our army in Britain and the French army are only three million in total, and the strength is only one million more than the German army deployed in France. If you don't have an advantage in terms of troops, can you still win the battle? ”

Xiao Zhenlei watched Robertson talk while smoking a cigar, and after he finished speaking, he turned his head to Cai Ye and asked in a low voice: "How many troops does our army need to deploy in southeast Europe to contain the German army of 1.5 million?" ”

Cai said: "Now my country has 800,000 people in the Second Army Corps and 300,000 people in the First Army Corps in Southeast Europe, and these forces can launch an attack on Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, but if you want to contain the German army of 1.5 million, you still need at least 600,000 regular Wehrmacht, that is, the strength of two corps!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei nodded, turned to George and Clemenceau and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, as far as we know, Germany has a total of 6.4 million troops. Germany deployed a total of 2.2 million troops in France; In the southern part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the three armies of the Germans, totaling 1 million men, confronted the combined forces of Italy, Britain and France, and the Austro-Hungarian army of 300,000 men; In Southeastern Europe there were 600,000 German armies and 500,000 Austro-Hungarian troops; On the defensive line of confrontation with Tsarist Russia, the German army has 1.2 million people in four armies, 300,000 in Austria-Hungary, and 1.2 million people in the country and other occupied areas, that is to say, Germany's mobile strength is less than 200,000 people, and the entire German army has lost no less than 2 million people due to the war in the past few years. ”

"Just now Marshal Robertson said that the reason why Britain proposed to put the main offensive direction on the eastern front is because of two reasons: first, the time is not ripe to launch an offensive on the western front, because there is no air supremacy, and I have already thought of a way to solve this point for you, if you agree to launch an offensive on the western front and open up a second battlefield in Europe, then our army will send three air divisions with a total of 1,200 fighters to participate in the operation on the western front to help the British Air Force defeat the Luftwaffe and seize air supremacy. As for the second question, you are worried about the German reinforcements on the Western Front, and I can assure you here that Germany will not have a single soldier to reinforce the Western Front, because we will send another million Wehrmacht troops to cooperate with you in the offensive in southeastern Europe to contain the last combat strength of the German army! Prime Minister George, what do you think? Do you still insist on setting the main offensive direction on the Eastern Front? Judging from the current situation, it is impossible to set the main direction of attack on the Eastern Front, because Tsarist Russia is no longer able to launch an offensive due to civil strife, and our country can only draw out another million people at most because it still has to look at the Japanese, otherwise our country will be empty! ”

It is no less difficult to let a politician at the level of a prime minister give up his long-standing political ideas than to bring a dead person back to life, all the time, politicians are the most stubborn people, this has nothing to do with faith and willpower, politicians' political ideas are their lives, they use their political ideas to attract supporters and followers, if a politician changes his political ideas at will, then he will only make his supporters his opponents and let his followers rebel.

George was silent, he thought for a while, took out his pocket watch and looked at it, and said, "It's not early, I think we'd better continue in the afternoon, right?" ”

The other people looked at each other and could only agree. (To be continued......)