The news flew quickly around the world like wings, Franco's army captured Madrid, the capital of Spain, and seized the initiative in the Spanish Civil War, Franco proclaimed himself the leader of the national army, delivered a speech in Madrid, and was sworn in as the leader of Spain.

Just a few hours later, Italian leader Benito Mussolini announced to reporters that Italy would establish diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level with Spain, led by the Franco Group.

Seeing that the wind was blowing the wheel, the British also began to deal with the problems after the Franco clique took control of Spain, and began to send personnel to Spain frequently, hoping to gain the friendship of the new Spanish authorities - but because the British had released Franco's pigeons, this kind of diplomatic remedy on the wall obviously would not make much real progress.

Another reaction was stronger in the Soviet Union, the defeat of the Comintern and the Republican Army in Spain, which undoubtedly brought immeasurable losses to the world* movement, Stalin knew that Madrid had fallen and immediately called an emergency meeting, but nothing could change the fact that Franco had occupied Madrid, and the Spanish Civil War was now nearing its end.

Moscow, inside the Kremlin Conference Hall. At this very moment, a summary meeting of the plan for intervention in the Spanish Civil War is being held.

The atmosphere in the conference room was very strange, and many generals lowered their heads as if they were asleep, because the terrifying atmosphere brought about by the Great Purge made the whole meeting a speech by a few Stalinist cronies, and most of the officers and generals who knew the army chose to remain silent so as not to invite death.

For example, another marshal of the Soviet Red Army, Klimente Yevremovich Voroshilov, who supported Stalin during the purge, is now the person to preside over such military meetings, a slightly fat 50-year-old veteran who speaks with a strong local accent.

He was more good at being a person, and he just made a start, and he gave a few of his henchmen and generals of the same faction a look, so that these people could show up and make a statement, so that the meeting could continue. After all, many generals are now as dumb as they are, and this silence has made many military meetings end prematurely.

"This is not a good deal! Great Comrade Stalin!" the Red Army general saw the face of his superior, so he had to frown and say: "We provided about 300 fighter planes for the Republican Army in Spain for free, and as a result, almost all of them were destroyed by the air force of the Nationalist Army. Even though there are many reports that the National Army has more than 500 fighters, we can't send more fighters to Spain in order to overwhelm that number. ”

"The losses are too great! Comrade Stalin! We can no longer support the Spanish Republican Army in such a gratuitous way! If this continues, it will affect our own military deployment!" a general who was highly regarded by Stalin also stood up and persuaded him.

Stalin frowned, tapped his fingers on the table, and stared at his cronies: "Why did our weapons lose so much in Spain?

"I think, although I don't want to admit it, but the great Comrade Stalin! I'm afraid the truth is like this!" said a middle-aged man with the rank of major general in the Air Force, the commander of the Air Force, regretfully: "Our pilots said that they had encountered an unprecedented fighter jet that could fly at a speed of more than 500 kilometers per hour and could fly over the height of the clouds, and this kind of aircraft completely overwhelmed the I-16 fighter we were equipped with in terms of performance. ”

A Soviet head of the technical department in a suit immediately jumped up like a cat that had been stepped on by its tail, and he first glanced at Stalin before pointing at the person opposite and scolding: "You are slandering! We, the designers, have designed the best fighter planes in the world day and night! You have lost the battle but passed the responsibility on to us in the rear? I think it is you generals who are greedy for life and afraid of death!"

Another technician also slapped the table and argued: "Completely overwhelmed the I-16 fighter? This is impossible! We have copied the engine and made substantial improvements, and the I-16 fighter has twice the performance of the fighter used in Britain and France now! If we say that the flight altitude is because of the problem of the open cockpit, we are urgently adding a closed cockpit to the fighter plane produced in the future." ”

The officer who was scolded blushed and argued: "But our pilots won't lie! They say that they are indeed being chased by an extremely fast fighter! So we must re-produce a fighter with a faster speed and higher altitude to meet the needs of future operations!"

"We are working production, and several factories are working overtime, hoping to come up with the design of the next generation fighter as much as possible!" said one of the technical leaders, seeing Stalin's displeasure.

"The Army's table is very good, although it failed, but the T-26 tank is very prominent, and the German tank has no advantage in terms of technology or performance compared with our tanks. Klimente, Yevremovich and Voroshilov hastened to report the good news, hoping to ease Stalin's tense face: "The snipers of our army have also achieved brilliant results. ”

They killed 3,000 enemy soldiers, and 400 claimed to have killed German soldiers. A general looked at the information in his hand and reported: "Our snipers have killed 270 people and 13 are missing. This is a very positive achievement, at least we did not let the German snipers complacent for too long. ”

These reports gave a lot of face to several representatives of the tank technical department, and the frowning eyebrows on their faces testified to their smug mood at the moment, and it was definitely a very happy thing to have someone else recognize their exploits in front of Stalin, at least during the Great Purge - which at least guaranteed that you would be in no danger for the next few months.

Stalin was also relieved by this news of victory, and after breathing a sigh of relief, he reluctantly smiled and asked: "The Republican troops at the front have lost so many planes and tanks, can we make up for it?"

"I'm afraid not! Great Comrade Stalin!" an old man in a suit stood up and trembled to report the production figures of the Soviet industry for the previous month, and then began to persuade: "If the supply to Spain is increased, then the military order will not be able to produce it, and the plan to equip 2,000 I-16 fighters and 1,000 subsequent models next year will not be completed." It's the same with tank production. ”

No one wants to pay for trousers with their bare buttocks, and apparently Stalin did the same, but he still wanted to maintain his reputation and position in the Comintern, as well as to ensure his influence over the world* of the world. So he was still reluctant to abandon Spain completely, but the reality before him could not make him continue to do crazy things - the Italian navy had blocked the port of Valencia, and it was becoming more and more difficult for Soviet weapons to be transported to Spain, and the tide of the war in Spain could not be reversed.

Marshal Voroshilov put it in Stalin's ear and gently persuaded him: "Great Comrade Stalin, we cannot endlessly support distant wars, if you feel the need, we can switch to supporting China's not yet climatic * movement." ”

When Stalin heard China, he raised his eyebrows, and after thinking for a while, he finally sighed weakly, looked at the generals around him, and said helplessly: "Okay! Since this is the case, then we will withdraw the troops and weapons deployed in Spain!"

Hearing Stalin's words, many people breathed a sigh of relief, which was tantamount to saving the lives of many Soviet Red Armymen, after all, it was not a safe thing to travel across the ocean to support Spain, not to mention that most of the Soviet soldiers had no return.

At least 10,000 Soviet soldiers were killed in Spain, and hundreds of tanks were destroyed by German Iron Fist bazookas and Tank No. 3 - most of these casualties were shot by the officers as "traitors", and the loss of these tanks turned at least one Soviet panzer division into a shell unit on paper.

Now that Stalin was relieved, there was no need for the countless supplies that had been piled up in the port to be sent to Spain, far away, and many officers began to think about this batch of supplies. The Great Purge brought many incompetent but corrupt officers to higher positions, and retribution soon befell the country.

Many of the goods were auctioned off on the spot to foreign merchants and then recorded that they had been shipped to Spain a few days earlier. In order to fabricate the true number, the navy also sent warships to participate in the escort, and opened fire and sank two empty transport ships of its own country to report to Moscow as "battle damage".

Most of these sold goods were shipped to Italy and became part of the enemy's strategic materials.

The Republican Army, which had lost its greatest support, was defeated and soon driven out of the vicinity of Madrid, and the voice of the Spanish people, who had been exhausted for a long time, became louder and louder, leading the Republican Army to quickly lose the original rock-solid popular support. On the other hand, the Comintern withdrew many elites in order to preserve its strength, which further made the situation of the Spanish Republican Army even worse.

A month later, Valencia, the last major port under the control of the Republican Army, was occupied by Franco's National Army and the German 8th Panzer Division, and Franco declared the end of the civil war once and for all. At the same time, Spain joined the German-Italian steel alliance, becoming the third country to join this steel axis.