It looks like the Americans were forced by the USSR to use only Plan B, it seems that this was good news for the USSR? I'm afraid not. For Britain and the United States www.biquge.info Italy is a core interest, and it is impossible to make principled concessions, so naturally this so-called Plan B is just a different form to protect their interests.

What is Plan B? That is, Britain and the United States agreed that the Soviet Union should station troops in Italy, but the number of such garrisons had to be strictly controlled, preferably no more than a thousand people. In other words, it's just a formality. To put it bluntly, it was a face for the USSR, and then everything was business as usual.

"Everything was exactly what you expected, wasn't it?" Yakov laughed.

Li Xiaofeng shrugged his shoulders and replied nonchalantly: "Roosevelt and Churchill can't play any new tricks either." ”

"Do you accept that?" Yakov asked.

Li Xiaofeng asked rhetorically: "Why do you want to accept it?" ”

In Li Xiaofeng's view, the issue of the Italian garrison was not a problem at all, because he knew from the beginning that Britain and the United States would never allow the Soviet Union to get involved in Italy. As mentioned earlier, the reason why Li Xiaofeng made trouble on this issue is nothing more than to force Britain and the United States to break the rules first. If it was Britain and the United States who broke the rules first, then the Soviet Union was also equal to the bad rules next, see what you can say!

"In the name of the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, a telegram was sent to the British and American diplomatic departments asking the following questions: First, where exactly was the Soviet occupation zone in Italy? Second, where was the Anglo-American occupation zone in Italy? Third, did Britain and the United States station only 1,000 troops in Italy? ”

These three questions go straight to the core of the problem, Roosevelt's Plan B only said that the Soviet Union was allowed to station troops in Italy, but it did not mention where to station troops and how much of the occupied areas were mentioned, and it also directly imposed a limit on the number of troops stationed in the Soviet Union. Then Li Xiaofeng has to ask the other question: You Britain and the United States only have an army of 1,000 people? How big is your Anglo-American occupation zone?

After all, the international status of the allies is equal on the surface, and the occupied area of the Soviet Union cannot be the size of a soybean, and you Britain and the United States are bigger than watermelons, and you can't only garrison 1,000 troops in the Soviet Union, and you can garrison 100,000 troops, right? What else is this called equality?

Of course, both the United States and Britain responded to this question in line with their style: "In view of the logistical difficulties of the Soviet garrison in Italy, and the actual situation of the current war against Germany, it is meaningless for the Soviet Union to maintain a large army in Italy for the time being." If the Soviet Union had to do this, then we have to ask, what was the purpose of the Soviet Union in sending a large army to Italy at this time? ”

Seeing it, this is a rake, and it is decisively crooked, ready to bring the topic in the direction of conspiracy theories. To this, Li Xiaofeng replied: "The stationing of troops in Italy is the legitimate interest of the Soviet government granted by the relevant agreements of the allies. Of course, the Soviet government has to protect its legitimate rights and interests, and it is not the turn of the British and American governments to worry about when and how many troops we will station in Italy, and whether the logistical supply will be difficult. Are the governments of your two countries intending to directly intervene in the internal affairs of the USSR? Take 10,000 steps back and say, did the Soviet government say anything about the fact that a large number of troops would be sent to Italy at once? What we have been trying to figure out is exactly where the occupation zone that should be demarcated to the Soviet Red Army according to the relevant agreements is, and only by knowing the location and extent of the occupation zone can our government know how many troops to send to Italy to maintain stability, right? And now the British and American governments have avoided talking about this issue, saying only that the Soviet government can only station an army of 1,000 people, isn't this bandit logic? ”

This makes sense, at least in the eyes of ordinary people, why did Britain and the United States stipulate that the USSR could only send a thousand men to Italy without even dividing the occupation zone? Besides, now the Soviet Union is logistically tight and the forces are tight, but after the elimination of the Axis powers, it will not be tense, right? The Soviet Union didn't say that it would go to Italy to garrison troops immediately, and how many people they were willing to send to Italy to protect their national interests after the victory was a matter of your British and American!

It's just that Britain and the United States were cheeky and directly ignored these questions, and said bluntly: "Now only the current problems are discussed, and the Soviet Union is only allowed to garrison 1,000 troops in Italy under the current situation, and the matter is as simple as that." The question of the future will wait until after the victory over the Axis powers! ”

Anyway, the Anglo-American attitude is that Lao Tzu has the final say, what can you do with Lao Tzu? It seems that the Soviet Union really can't do anything to them, and it can't turn its face over such a trivial matter, right?

To this, Li Xiaofeng replied: "We have once again learned the shamelessness of imperialist hegemony, and the Soviet government will never accept this!" ”

And after that? There is nothing to follow, because Li Xiaofeng has already got everything he wants, he just wants to be shameless in Britain and the United States, which makes him shameless in the future. Of course, the most crucial question now is to see whether Britain and the United States are running fast or the Soviet Red Army is running fast, and whoever can occupy Germany faster will be the big winner.

Britain and the United States naturally realized this, so they rushed desperately towards Germany, not only to rush and fight, but more importantly, they also began to think of "crooked moves" to see if there was a way to quickly occupy Germany.

This crooked trick is manifested in two aspects, one military and the other political. Militarily, Montgomery once again stepped forward, and once again proposed the famous "Operation Market Garden", preparing to quickly seize the Low Countries through the cooperation of airborne troops and mechanized troops, and then enter German territory in one fell swoop.

The plan was quickly approved, and Operation Market Garden, which was four months overdue, finally came to the stage of history once again, so could it be better than the historical results?

Demetri. Aleksandrovich sat in the café again, only this time he was waiting not for Abel, but for another Soviet agent lurking among the Nazis.

"What are the requirements at home?" The secret agent asked quietly.

Demetri. Aleksandrovich patted the newspaper in his hand lightly and said: "Take a good look at the newspaper, there is a lot of new news today!" ”

With that, he put down the newspaper and floated away, while the secret agent paused for a moment to pick up the thick paper.

The information recorded in this newspaper is very important, specifically the entire plan of Montgomery's upcoming Operation Market Garden, from the objectives, deployment to the specific time, if this valuable information is in the hands of the Nazis, then the market garden will be much fun.

So how did this top-secret information end up in the hands of KGB? This involves a very awesome spy, his name is Philby.

Historically, Western researchers have almost unanimously agreed that Jim. Philby was the best agent of the century. There are various names for him: "the mole of the mole", "the scum of the nation", which boils down to one title as "traitor". But they always preceded it with the modifier "the most powerful" and usually rated his intelligence and true spy talents extremely highly. You know, inside the British intelligence service "MI6", he will never be unfounded as the most promising next head of the department.

Speaking of "betrayal", Gilphilby himself dismissed the term and was very disgusted by the use of the word to evaluate his personality and the activities he engaged. He said: "Betrayal must first have a betrayal, and I have never belonged to anyone. ”

Garolite. Adrian. Russell (Jim) Philby was born in India, where his father was an official in the British colonial authorities. Fluent in many Oriental languages and a well-known expert on Arabic, Philby's father worked for British intelligence in the Middle East. He encouraged the Arabs to fight against the Ottoman Turks. After the end of the First World War, when it became clear that the British had betrayed the Arabs, he left the British and went to Saudi Arabia. There he began to believe in ****** religion and married an Arab woman as his second wife. In his will, he admonished Gilphilby: "Do not trust the British Empire at any time". There is no doubt that Philby's father planted the seeds of "betrayal" for Philby.

In 1929, Giffelby was admitted to Cambridge University. After graduating, he participated in the revolutionary movement in Austria for several months. When he returned to England, he was ready to take an active part in the Communist Party. Industrialist activities. After becoming acquainted with the Soviet agent Jeych, under his influence, Gilfilbi agreed to engage in intelligence espionage for the Soviet Union.

After providing Gifilbi with the necessary training, Zeich gave him a major task - to secretly infiltrate British intelligence. Since then, all of Philby's activities have served this goal. As a result of his efforts, his first contact with intelligence began in 1940, and by 1941 he was already a key member of MI6. Subsequently, Griffel's official fortune was prosperous, and by 1945 he was the head of the counterintelligence department of MI6. Through this counterintelligence service, Giffelby had complete control over all the spy agencies of MI6, which were dedicated to opposing the USSR and its Eastern European allies. It was with Philby's cooperation that Li Xiaofeng was able to eradicate the inner line of MI6's development in the Soviet Union again and again, and made Lierwin retreat again and again.

Of course, Philby's most important achievement is not this, but the successful development of the "Cambridge ******". In addition to Philby, these five people also have Donald. Macklin, the intelligence agency "Figaro" Berges, the "king's adviser" Anthony. Brandt and the mysterious John. Kornclos. These five masters involved all the British intelligence agencies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it can be said that the five of them almost turned British intelligence into a one-way transparency to the Soviet Union, and even the cunning ones like Learwin did not discover these five powerful guys.

Not to mention the Cambridge Five, the future will be their most important stage, and the competition between the Low Countries will be the focus of the Allies and the German army on the Western Front. First of all, let's take a look at the situation on the battlefield, the main offensive group of the Allied forces on the Western Front is two army groups, Montgomery's 21st Army Group to the north, and Bradley's 12th Army Group to the south. Although Eisenhower had always wanted the two Allied Army Groups to join forces on a wide front and attack into Germany, serious logistical problems prevented him from doing so.

As of January 1945, the only deep-water port available to the British and American Allied forces on the Western Front was Cherbourg, which had to supply not only all the supplies of the two Allied Army Groups on the Western Front, but also the huge material consumption of Paris.

So for Eisenhower, it was clear that he could only focus on securing an offensive from one army group, while the other had to wait. After some insider trading, Montgomery got his supply priority, and Eisenhower hoped that the British field marshal would quickly take the Low Countries and let large deep-water ports such as Antwerp and Rotterdam work, so that the Allies on the Western Front could accelerate their advance and not let the Soviets take the lead.

Therefore, Operation Market Garden is of great importance, which is directly related to the next phase of the Allied supply situation and the speed of the offensive, to put it mildly, the British and Americans really gave everything to prepare for the campaign, so to speak, Montgomery got everything he wanted!

Of course, neither the British nor the Americans knew that the operation, which they valued so much, had become a colander from the start. KGB unceremoniously made a flirtatious slap and leaked Montgomery's entire plan to Germany.

To tell the truth, the Germans were shocked at first, unable to believe that such a big package would fall from the sky, and even suspected that this was another "Calais-style deception", but when the German intelligence agencies began to pay attention to this matter, quite a lot of clues were exposed.

On 13 January, Hitler in Ecstasy declared to his staff: "This is a godsend, if we can fight a war of annihilation in the Low Countries, Britain and the United States will collapse, and then we can repeat the glory of 1940 and once again drive the enemy into the sea with armored forces." This could well force Britain and the United States to withdraw from the war. And without the interference of Britain and the United States, our victory over Russia will not be a problem at all! ”

The Führer considered this a **** fortune similar to that of Germany in the Seven Years' War, which was a symbol of God's blessing of Germany. Therefore, despite the warnings and persuasions of the staff officers, the Führer insisted on transferring armored forces from the Western Front for the "Battle of the Lowlands".

Hitler also gave up for this battle, and after learning that Britain and the United States were preparing to carry out large-scale airborne operations again, he deployed a large number of fighters on this line and waited for the British and American transport planes to come and send them to death.

Lieutenant Hank of the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army recalled: "It was a nightmarish journey, we were frantically intercepted by the Nazis in the skies over the Netherlands, one transport plane after another was shot down, even if it was a fighter squadron escorting us, it was meaningless, my plane was also hit, and soon the flames engulfed everyone in the cabin, and I was no exception, at the last moment, the hatch was finally opened, and I jumped out with a ball of flames......"

Lieutenant Hank suffered severe burns and was sent to a German prisoner-of-war camp after landing, but he was lucky enough to be rescued by the Soviet Red Army after only a month. Compared to those who didn't have a chance to jump out of the cabin, he was already extremely lucky.

The entire airborne operation was a real disaster, with about half of the transport planes and ****** shot down in the air, and the other half being scrapped after landing due to severe damage in the air. In the end, less than one-fifth of the paratroopers with combat effectiveness actually landed successfully.

And the poor fifth of the paratroopers were soon surrounded by the German regiments, and there was no way to complete the task of capturing the bridge given to them by Montgomery.

The paratroopers were a mess, Montgomery's ground forces were not much stronger, and the attack was just launched by the Germans, and after a fierce standoff, the vigor of the attacking troops was quickly exhausted, especially after the German armored forces were put into a counterattack, Montgomery's disaster befell him.

Because of the very bad weather, the air support of the Allies was greatly reduced, and without the support of the air force, the Allies on the Western Front could not bear the German armored forces at all. In the first three days of the battle, Montgomery had lost 200 tanks, his offensive spearhead had been almost crippled, and the poor 7th Panzer Division had not been crippled.

Fiasco!

Montgomery was disgraced, and his highly-hoped air-ground joint operation proved to be an out-and-out farce, not only trapping the Allied airborne forces, but even worse, paying a heavy price, the 21st Army Group not only failed to make the strides as expected, but was repulsed by the Germans and had to go on the defensive.

"Why is this happening?" Churchill was so angry that he dropped his cigar, the market garden was too important for him and for the British Empire, and if it could succeed, it would greatly boost the morale of the Empire, and it would enter the heart of Germany before the Soviet Union.

And now? The market garden turned into a gutter, and the British Empire shamefully capsized!

Lierwin's face was also quite bad, and she replied: "According to our internal reaction to the Nazis, Hitler seems to have had insight into our actions, and he has made targeted arrangements to transfer a large number of warplanes and tanks from the Eastern Front to Marshal Montgomery's side. At the beginning of the battle, the disparity in strength between the enemy and the enemy was not at all as great as we had imagined when we formulated our plan......"

Churchill asked with a calm face: "So, can MI6 tell me how Hitler knew about our plans?" I remember that the program was not highly confidential? Could he have predicted the prophet? ”

Learwin smiled bitterly: "I'm afraid there are still German spies lurking in our government, so I want to carry out another counter-espionage operation in the near future." ”

Truth be told, it's an afterthought, and it's useless. But now there is only so much that the British can do. If a few German spies can be found, then Churchill will at least have an account to Parliament.

Of course, the old smoker also gave instructions: "Another person is in charge of this counter-espionage operation, we have carried out many counter-espionage operations, but each time the effect is not ideal, I doubt the reliability of the counter-espionage department!" ”

Li Erwen also nodded: "I have similar thoughts, so I suggest that I be personally responsible for this counter-espionage operation!" ”

Churchill nodded in agreement, and he felt that Learvine could at least be trusted. It seems that the situation is very bad for Philby? As head of MI6's counterintelligence service, the fact that he is not in charge of counterintelligence operations is in itself a form of distrust. However, Philby did not say anything, but said very sincerely: "In view of the fact that all previous counter-espionage operations have not achieved satisfactory results, as the director of the counter-espionage department, I am responsible, I am willing to accept any form of review, and my department will fully cooperate with the review." ”

Although such a statement was not enough to completely dispel Learvin's doubts, it did alleviate Philby's suspicions a little. So why is Philby so calm? The reason is very simple, as the main assistant to the person in charge of this counterintelligence review, it is John Murphy, one of the "Cambridge Five". Kornclos.

As the last member to be developed into the five-member group, Korncross has little seniority, but he is very capable. Historically, the KGB has commented on it: "With the exception of Philby, Kerncross's exploits are as good as any of the 'Five Masters'." ”

This shows how powerful this person is. With him as Learvin's assistant this time, Philby naturally didn't have to worry too much, and his family, that is, the KGB headquarters, also told him: "Relax, there will be no problems!" ”

Obviously, in order to keep the vital Cambridge Five Heroes, a certain immortal took action in person, and it was really difficult for Learwin to find evidence if he wanted to do it.

Learvin gave the Counterintelligence Division's review to Kornclos, because she had no interest in such boring document reviews and interrogations, and if there was a real problem with the Counterintelligence Division, such a review would not reveal anything. Learwin felt that the key to everything lay in Germany, and that if the Germans knew about the Market Garden operation, then all problems would be solved.

Once again, Learwin flew to Switzerland and instructed the MI6 spies lurking in Germany to pursue them in an all-out manner.

"You're saying the information was obtained from the Gestapo?"

Learwin apparently did not believe this answer, because in her opinion the Gestapo was not really a powerful spy structure, but more of a bandit and bandit agency in her eyes, except for confiscating Jewish property, looting the occupying country, and fighting dissidents, it could be said that the intelligence work was a mess, and it was unlikely that a top secret such as Operation Market Garden would be obtained by the Gestapo.

Without hesitation, Learwin ordered: "Tell me the names of the people who directly handle the information, and I will greet them one by one!" (To be continued.) )