Restoring relations with the British was certainly what Arthur would like to see. Not to mention, the hundreds of thousands of British immigrants every year are still very attractive to Arthur.

Without these hundreds of thousands of immigrants, the number of immigrants in Australasia would be close to one million per year.

But even so, it is basically impossible to restore Australasia's former diplomatic front with the British.

Australasia's desire for hegemony in the Pacific and the British's desire to prop up another competitor in the Pacific meant that the interests of the two countries were already different.

When the interests are different, the best outcome for the two countries is to become strangers, and the worst outcome is to become antagonistic.

The talks with the British ended in hypocritical perfunctory, but some cooperation was reached.

Whether it was the import of grain and meat or the maintenance of stability in the Indian Ocean, the British could not do without the help of Australasia for the time being.

Arthur also took the opportunity to re-sign the immigration agreement with the British, and British immigrants in the next few years do not need to worry about it for the time being.

When Australasia's population exceeds 40 million, population growth will depend on the birth rate of the country's native population.

At that time, the demand for immigrants will not be so high, and controlling it at about 500,000 per year is already a good proportion.

According to the current population growth rate, the population will reach the level of 40 million, which is about three years.

It is hoped that there will be no large-scale war in these three years, and that it will be beneficial for Australasia to maintain basic peace in the world.

Having said that, there are still many local wars in the world today. Whether it was the war between Italy and the Abyssinian Empire, the British dealing with the crisis in the Indian colonies, or the war in Eastern Europe, it attracted a lot of public attention.

This was a good thing for the British, after all, the chaos in India was much worse than they thought.

If it weren't for the fact that so many wars had attracted the attention of many countries, I am afraid that the life of the British Empire would not have been as good as it is now.

Compared with the disdain of the British, there are still countries that have seen the impact of such a radical country like Italy on the world situation.

So the question is, what changes did Mussolini bring to Italy after taking office?

Mussolini's reforms in Italy were more than half-hearted, encompassing aspects of the economy, industry, and military.

In addition to tightening control over industry and vigorously developing capitalism as a state monopoly, Mussolini also revised Italy's military service laws to make military service mandatory for adult men between the ages of 18 and 55, greatly expanding Italy's reserve army.

The biggest change was that Italy's regular army, which had grown from just over 200,000 to nearly 450,000 before World War I.

The great expansion of the army was also the real confidence of Mussolini to dare to send 100,000 troops in this war.

For Mussolini and the Italian government, the war must either not be fought, or the shame brought to Italy by the war more than 30 years ago will have to be washed.

In charge of the war was Mussolini's newly appointed commander-in-chief, the East African Army, de Bono, who was one of Mussolini's henchmen in the Italian military.

In order to win this war, Mussolini can be said to have mobilized the strength of the whole country.

In order to gain air superiority, Mussolini built several airfields around the Abyssinian Empire and diverted most of Italy's aircraft to the East African theater.

And the hostile Abyssinian Empire did not have a single aircraft, which can no longer be called air superiority, because the enemy simply did not have a way to go to the air.

But now that the war had begun, Mussolini soon realized that something was wrong.

The Italian army was no different in combat effectiveness than it was before World War I, even if their government was very different.

In order to win the war, rather than repeat the mistakes of the previous Italian kingdom, Mussolini announced the transfer of 100,000 troops, increasing the strength of the East African Front to 200,000.

It is worth mentioning that the strength of the rival Abyssinian Empire was only about 150,000, and the strength of the Italian army was superior.

The Italian army, which had the advantage of strength, looked a little more confident when it launched the attack.

The reorganized Italian army chose to divide its troops into three routes, from the east, south and north, in an attempt to capture the entire territory of the Abyssinian Empire as quickly as possible.

But the Italian army was confronted by the Abyssinians, who had risen up against their enemies in order to defend their homeland.

As in the war more than 30 years ago, the Abyssinians took up all sorts of weapons, even fighting with knives for chopping vegetables and sticks picked up on the side of the road.

Although they were generally backward in terms of weaponry, these Abyssinians were more familiar with Ethiopia's unique mountainous terrain, and used the terrain to ambush the Italian army several times, and even penetrated deep into the rear of the Italian army.

If it weren't for the air superiority of the Italian Air Force, I'm afraid Italy wouldn't have made any progress until now.

Of course, what made Italy most arrogant was the tacit approval of Britain and France to Italy's expansion in East Africa.

Because of the minds of Britain and France, Italy was not hindered from starting this war, not even diplomatically.

Although some European countries have condemned such an act of aggression by Italy, as long as it is not a great power, who cares?

Even the countries that condemned it were mostly Balkan countries. Because the Balkans were too close to Italy, the Balkan states feared that after the Italian occupation of the Abyssinian Empire, they would refocus their attention on invading the Balkan Peninsula.

Speaking of the Balkans, this is also a rather sad region. The eyes of the great powers have focused on this peninsula, which has also made this peninsula a veritable powder keg.

The previous rivalry between Germany and Austria-Hungary, and now the rivalry between Italy and Austria, is a microcosm of the Balkan smoke.

This, coupled with the importance of the Strait of Constantinople, determines that there can be no lasting peace in the Balkans, unless there is a certain breakthrough in the world situation.

Speaking of which, the war between Italy and the Abyssinian Empire has also been going on for a month and a half.

When Mussolini started the war before, he claimed to end it within two months.

But now that more than half of the time had passed, and the war had advanced only a little, Mussolini was very angry, and he was determined to give the Abyssinians a little color.

The most intuitive way, of course, is to carry out a massacre of the Abyssinians in the occupied territories.

After all, they are indigenous to Africa, and the Italians don't care if the Abyssinians live or die, and neither do the European countries.

As for the dissatisfaction of African countries, European countries will not care, and Italy certainly does not care.

On July 5, 1930, the Italian massacre was carried out in the border city of Abyssinia.

The massacre did not take into account the women and children of the Abyssinians, which can be described as quite fair.

According to the statistics of some war correspondents, in just three days, the Italian army slaughtered at least 20,000 Abyssinian civilians, including pregnant women and unarmed old and weak.

Of course, there were many ways for the Italian army to vent their anger beyond massacres.

Some of the Abyssinian strongmen who were lucky enough not to be slaughtered were forcibly turned into slaves and became free laborers for the Italian army.

Their daily work consisted of heavy physical work, with nothing more than a slice of moldy black bread and a clear soup mixed with bran and sand.

Such a brutal act of the Italian army, with the exposure of war correspondents, caused a large number of European people to dissatisfied.

This is also the fundamental difference between the government and the people. The top of European governments do not care about the lives of these people, and they don't even care too much about the lives of European people.

But Europeans are different. First of all, human emotions are complex, and naturally many people's compassion cannot be excluded.

In addition to this, most people are also good, and they oppose the government's massacres, or at least they are very repulsive to them.

The indiscriminate massacre by the Italian army caused discontent among these people, and even large-scale demonstrations broke out in various countries.

Many people in Britain and France were angry and demanded that the government and a world coalition of governments should stop such cruel acts in Italy, because Europe is civilized.

These popular demonstrations are a headache for governments. In fact, smart people know that this is nothing more than an exchange of interests.

The problem is that such an exchange of interests is naturally impossible to get to the surface, let alone explain it to these people.

After all, sacrificing the lives of people in other countries for the good of their own country will certainly cause more dissatisfaction with the Virgin.

There is no way, public opinion in the country is already like this, and Britain and France can only put on the surface and ask the World League to convene a meeting to deal with the massacre in Italy.

But smart people know that if Britain and France really want to sanction a country, it is absolutely impossible to drag it until the world alliance responds.

After all, to put it bluntly, the World League is also under the control of Britain and France. As long as Britain and France agree on something, the world alliance will not come to the contrary.

Britain and France generally leave this matter to the World League to deal with, which actually means that Britain and France do not want to take care of this matter.

Sure enough.

The massacres began in Italy on July 5, and the marches in Europe began on July 10.

By the time the World Alliance announced its meeting, it was already July 17, a week later.

The meeting took place on July 22, more than half a month after the start of the massacre.

However, the Anglo-French goal was achieved.

Seeing that their government had issued a statement urging the World League to convene a meeting to propose a solution, the people simply thought that the government was also dissatisfied with Italy's behavior, but because of the influence of the World League, it could only hand over the matter to the World League for a fair treatment.

After all, compared with the unilateral rhetoric of Britain and France, the World Alliance, which is joined by dozens of countries around the world, symbolizes justice on a global scale.

Britain and France will not deliberately promote the superpower status of the four Entente powers in the world alliance. At this time, the people simply thought that a great power like Britain and France was just a relatively powerful ordinary member of the world alliance.

But it is only at a special moment that people understand that the veto power possessed by Britain, France, Russia, and Australia symbolizes the supreme power to control the world alliance.

3200 words for the first update, ask for a monthly pass, ask for support!

(End of chapter)