Episode 56 Germany's Eastward Advance

In March 1939, the Spanish war took a turn for the worse, and the Catalan campaign, which lasted for more than three months, was basically over, and on January 26, the Catalan capital Barcelona was captured by Franco's national army. On 8 February, Figues, the last stronghold held by the IRA, was captured, and 250,000 IRA troops were disarmed after fleeing the French border. On February 27, the British and French governments announced their recognition of the Franco regime and the severance of diplomatic relations with the Spanish Republican government.

Following Britain and France, on March 1, the Ming government also announced its recognition of the Franco regime and severed diplomatic relations with the Spanish Republican government. On March 3, an uprising broke out in response to Franco at Cartagena, the naval base of the Republican Army. On 28 March, the National Army and the Intervening Forces entered Madrid, ending the war.

The Spanish Civil War, which lasted nearly three years, finally came to an end. The German-Italian intervention forces, especially the "Condor Army", the most elite and experienced in the German army, could finally be transferred back to Germany. Hitler's plan was to attack Czechoslovakia in April, and the Condor Army was not originally planned. Now that the Spanish Civil War came to an abrupt end at the end of March, it could not have come to an end. However, the German army's battle plan was as precise as a clock, and once it was made, it was not easy to modify. In addition, it will take time to transfer the Condor Legion back home. So Hitler decided not to use the Condor Army in the campaigns against the Czechs and Poland, and to wait until June when the war against the Soviet Union was used.

In the face of Franco and the Falangists coming to power, Germany and Italy were naturally rejoicing, and the Soviet Union was sad. Da Ming's mood is very complicated. As a constitutional state, it is always sad to see the fascism of another world power. But as a capitalist monarchy, it is always better to see the bourgeois royalist forces of another country win, no matter what.

Franco had a good chance of restoring the Spanish monarchy, a traditional, even ** monarchy, would be much better than a Bolshevik-controlled ** republic. Even if the king is not in power, the power is in the hands of Franco, but if there is a monarch as the symbol of the country, it will be difficult for Franco to engage in a cult of personality, and many things will have a bottom line, so as not to kill a fraction of the people in the country at every turn, like Stalin. And even if it is a fascist dictatorship, it is only political, and the economy does not violate the laws of the economy, as in the Soviet Union, and forcibly implement utopia in the economic field for the sake of romantic ideals, resulting in the tragedy of mass famine over and over again. From this point of view, the Spaniards escaped the catastrophe.

……

At three o'clock in the morning on April 2, 1939, the German ** team poured into the German-Czech border. The original "seventh military power" was betrayed by its allies, cut off the Sudetenland, endured a series of insults and tramples, and now has long since become a lost soul and lost all fighting spirit. The Czech army surrendered with only weak resistance.

The news of Germany's brazen occupation of Czechoslovakia and its brazen tearing up of the Munich Agreement shocked the whole world. The great powers began to condemn Germany, and the saliva almost drowned Germany. Britain condemned, France condemned, the United States condemned, the Soviet Union condemned, and the Ming Dynasty also condemned. Hitler's true nature as a political hooligan was finally revealed for the first time.

"You understand why we can't mix with Germany, do you?" Xiang Xiaoqiang looked at the headline in the newspaper about Hitler's blatant breach of the treaty, and sighed to Fourteen Gege, "This kind of country is a hooligan at all." Mix with hooligans, not to mention your own victimization, and after a long time, others will treat you as a hooligan. ”

Fourteen Gege disagreed, and said with a smile:

"Cut, who is the one to be a hooligan in Germany? At the beginning, for the sake of profit, I tried to trick others into playing hooligans, but now that they are playing, we have also got benefits, and the suspects are hooligans. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang said very seriously:

"Yes, so Germany is a hooligan. You give him benefits and provoke him to play hooligan, and he sees that there are benefits, so he immediately agrees and goes to play hooligan without any psychological burden. Then this kind of person is a hooligan, or a purebred professional hooligan. Decent people don't play hooligan at all. You won't pry him again. If you don't believe it, try Shen Rongxuan? …… Of course, it doesn't matter if the old boy is decent or not, at least not a hooligan. He cherishes feathers very much. Hitler's old boy, who has no feathers at all, the whole 'I'm a hooligan, I'm afraid of whom, don't obey us to fight' posture, this kind of person is mixed with him, is it okay with us? A few years ago, Germany was good to us, that is, it had just risen and needed our Ming. You don't believe it for a few years, when he doesn't need us, turning his face is definitely faster than turning a book, and if he doesn't get it right, he will stab him in the back.

"What country is our Daming? Last time, we didn't want to support the German-Austrian merger, didn't we still get in the way of the "Mingde Secret Treaty"? In the end, we still pinched our noses and issued a statement of support. This shows that we take treaties very seriously. Why did we negotiate terms with Britain, France and Germany so easily this time? It's because people believe in us. You want Germany to talk to Britain and France on its own? Only when you can negotiate can you have a ghost. This thing is the same as mixing in society, although it is all about your own interests, but at least it can't make people think that you are a hooligan, otherwise you won't be able to mix. ”

Fourteen Gege laughed dumbly, and only after a while did he laugh and say:

"Virtue. I think you were smoked by Zhu Yourong's Nizi, and it's almost not you. …… Don't go to her tonight, do you hear? Come to me. ”

"Huh?"

……

In England and France, many of the former appeasementers were awakened and began to turn. Public opinion was also angry, and everyone felt that they had been tricked. Chamberlain's approval rating began to drop sharply, and the old man began to get anxious, urging Daming to fulfill his promise all day long, and also urging Daming, so that Daming urged Germany to fulfill its promise and withdraw from the Rhineland.

As a result, Daming immediately came out to take the lead openly and invited Britain and France to hold talks on the world situation. The talks were held in Nanjing, attended by the British and French ambassadors. The main theme of the meeting was to form a trilateral treaty between Ming, Britain, and France, and to form a military guarantee alliance to ensure that any country that was invaded would be regarded as a joint aggression against the three countries. Including both native and overseas colonies.

This is obviously of great benefit to Britain and France. The British and French parliaments debated passionately. At the same time, there is exciting news coming from Germany. The German defenders withdrew from the Rhine defense zone, and the Rhine returned to an undefended state.

Two events occurred one after the other, and public opinion in Britain and France immediately took another big turn, and the atmosphere of joy and peace regained the mainstream. The British and French people, who were already reluctant to get involved in the war, now have excellent reasons, and the "peace of a generation" promised by Chamberlain seems to have become a certainty again. Chamberlain's position was re-established.

The Germans had occupied all of Czechoslovakia without much effort, and Poland was still unaware of the imminent end of death, but the Soviet Union, which had always had a keen sense of smell, immediately felt a great sense of unease.