Rise of Australia

Chapter 964 Nordic Offensive
On the Spanish side, millions of British, French and Australian troops were gradually narrowing the encirclement and advancing towards Madrid, the center of Spanish power.

Although the advancement speed was not fast, the overall advancement plan was relatively smooth. The Spanish army was simply unable to resist the alliance of the three countries, after all, the number of troops they had was really small.

On the other hand, in North Africa, with the surrender of Italy and the defeat of the Spanish army, the situation in North Africa was gradually regained control by France.

Even the colonies that originally belonged to Spain were divided up by Britain and France, which forced more than 100,000 Spanish troops to eventually give up their weapons and surrender.

However, the most intense battle at present is of course the Battle of Sudalingrad ongoing in Eastern Europe.

With the light of victory in the Battle of Moscow, the Russian government and people broke out in extraordinary fighting enthusiasm.

Sweeped by this fighting enthusiasm, the red fire of Sudalingrad seemed to engulf the black armor on the opposite side.

Germany was definitely the most uncomfortable at this time. Because of the problem of fighting on two fronts, the German government was in a dilemma.

It seemed that Spain could not hold out for a few more days. If Spain also surrendered, Germany’s only allies in Europe would be Bulgaria, Romania and a few puppet governments it supported.

But if the German army came back to support, the vast tracts of land conquered in the Eastern European battlefield would be given back to the Russians for nothing.

These lands include not only Ukraine, which has large tracts of black soil, but also several of Russia's most important industrial cities, including St. Petersburg, Minsk and Kiev.

After all, if the German army returned to its original position, the small number of troops left would obviously be unable to resist the attack of the Russian army.

The Battle of Sudalingrad was fought under the dilemma of the German government.

The German government blocked the news of the counterattack in France in an attempt to stabilize the morale of the German army. This move was indeed very effective. Even though the Western Front was facing a serious crisis, the German soldiers on the Eastern Front still did not know what was happening.

Sudalingrad is backed by the Volga River, which is not only the longest river in Russia's vast land area, but also the longest river in Europe.

Because of its location on the river, it became more difficult to capture Sudalingrad.

Because of the existence of the river, the German army was unable to completely surround the city, and any attempt to cross the river would be detected by the Russian army.

If it is impossible to completely encircle Sudalingrad, Russia can continuously transport supplies from the other side of the Volga River to help the army in Sudalingrad continue to hold on.

As a result, the blitzkrieg, which the Germans saw as a quick victory, turned into a war of attrition in which both sides competed in national strength.

If it was a one-on-one battle, Germany would not necessarily be afraid of Russia. But the problem now was that Britain, France and Australia had already launched a full-scale counterattack in Western Europe, and the Germans were no longer qualified to fight the Russians.

On July 1938, 7, the German High Command held a military meeting.

During this military meeting, the German Chancellor mentioned the battle of Sudalingrad many times and asked the troops on the front line to intensify the offensive and strive to capture Sudalingrad within two months.

In the eyes of the German Prime Minister, two months was quite enough. After all, Sudalingrad was just a Russian city, and it took the Germans just over a month to conquer Poland. Using two months to deal with a city was already a very conservative estimate.

But the German front-line troops gave a time of up to six months, and also required a large number of armored forces and aircraft support.

This made the German Chancellor very angry. If Germany could come up with extra armored and aircraft units, they would have been deployed to the Western European battlefield to save Italy and Spain.

Seeing that seeking support was unsuccessful, the German military commander on the front line made another request, which was to hope that the German government could allocate more manpower and weapons and equipment to support the Eastern Front.

In return, the Eastern Front would attempt to capture Sudalingrad within three months, advance the front to the Caucasus Mountains within four months, and seize Russia's important strategic resources there.

Four months is barely acceptable to the German government, and it is the best plan at present.

Without much thought, the proposal was passed with a high vote in the vote of the Supreme Military Conference, which also announced the official start of Germany's final attempt to defeat Russia.

The first was support for the Battle of Sudalingrad.

Currently, Germany has deployed 300 million troops around Sudalingrad, which is the largest number of soldiers deployed by a single country in a single battle so far in World War II.

But the Russians on the other side were obviously even crazier. Although the exact size of the Russians was unknown, their number was definitely more than 300 million.

At present, the Russian casualties are higher than the Germans, but new Russian soldiers are constantly coming in every day, as if the Russian soldiers are endless.

Although the city area of ​​Sudalingrad is not large, the German army's occupation of Sudalingrad was so difficult and slow.

Since the outbreak of the Battle of Sudalingrad, the German army has only occupied less than one-third of the urban area of ​​Sudalingrad.

But it was precisely this one-third of the city that caused the Germans to lose at least 30 troops. This is a rather terrible fact.

If we look at it this way, if Germany wants to capture the entire Sudalingrad, wouldn't it mean losing at least 90 troops?

The person who is most worried about the current situation in Russia is General Manstein, who is leading the Second Armored Group to carry out the encirclement mission.

At a military meeting of the German Southern Army Group, Manstein once asked a fatal question: Can the occupation of Sudalingrad end the war?

No one could give an answer, and this question directly caused the entire military meeting of the Southern Army Group to turn into a silent forest.

Manstein's concerns were justified. According to the current consumption of the German army, the capture of Sudalingrad could result in nearly one million casualties.

Even if they captured Sudalingrad, the German army would have to at least occupy Moscow to end the war with Russia.

The failure of the last Battle of Moscow showed that if one wanted to successfully capture this city, it would have to pay more casualties than in Sudaly.

Is it really a good deal to exchange the hope of defeating Russia for the casualties of more than 200 million soldiers?

And there was a terrible guess buried in Manstein's heart, that is, after occupying Stalingrad and Moscow, would the Russian army really surrender as planned?

Although the capital is very important to a country, it is definitely not the whole of a country.

If the Russians continued to resist, what could Germany do? Would it continue to waste troops and consume the Russians?

There were many generals in the German military who shared the same idea as Manstein.

However, because the German Chancellor had a high degree of control over the government's discourse power, and because William II behind him seemed to be playing dead and simply refused to show up at government and military meetings, Junker nobles like Manstein were simply unable to oppose.

If you want to oppose a ruler like the German Chancellor who holds great power and is deeply trusted by the people, you must have a person of matching status to take the lead. But it is obvious that in the current German government, apart from Emperor Wilhelm II, no one has such prestige and status.

The glory of the Junker aristocracy has long passed. If Hindenburg were still alive, there might be hope that he could raise objections.

But at present, the Junker nobles who are doing relatively well are those like Manstein, and some of the senior generals among them have not yet gained the trust of the German government and the prime minister.

Under such circumstances, rashly raising objections would actually be giving the German Chancellor an opportunity to purge himself.

When it comes to politics, no one is a pushover. Especially for a German chancellor who climbed to the top step by step from an art failure and a low-level soldier, if he can't be ruthless, he doesn't deserve to be in this position.

There were people within the German military who were originally opposed to launching the Battle of Sudalingrad immediately after the failure of the Battle of Moscow.

But unfortunately, the senior officer who opposed it was dismissed from his post the next day, arrested by the SS on various charges of treason, and sentenced to death within a few days.

This immediately shut up most of the senior military officers, and even if they had any dissatisfaction, they dared not mention it in front of anyone.

On July 1938, 7, after the white flag was hoisted in Madrid, the Spanish government formally declared unconditional surrender.

With the surrender of Spain, the once glorious German-Italian military alliance was left with only the Germans lingering on, and their sphere of influence was limited to Central and Northern Europe.

On July 7, a brand new conference was held in London, England.

Only representatives from Britain, France and Australia participated in this meeting, and the content of the meeting was very simple, which was to discuss the next offensive plan of the British, French and Australian coalition forces.

If they want to end the war quickly, Britain, France and Australia should deploy all their troops to the current French battlefield, launch a counterattack directly against Germany from France, and destroy the Ruhr area, the industrial heart of Germany.

After the war spreads to the German mainland, the German resistance will weaken day by day.

After all, only when their own homeland is damaged will the Germans understand how harmful this war is.

But it is clear that neither the UK nor Australasia wants to do that at this time.

If the war spreads to Germany too early, the Germans will definitely withdraw troops from Eastern Europe to provide support.

This will not only reduce the pressure on the Russians, but also allow the British, French and Australian armies to bear the German counterattack.

After all, Germany was not at the end of its rope at this time. They still had millions of troops, and the domestic material reserves had not yet reached the point of running out of ammunition and food.

At this time, the best plan for Britain and Australasia is to let Germany and Russia continue to consume them.

The best option would be to wait until Germany and Russia's manpower and material reserves were almost exhausted, and then the British, French and Australian armies would capture the German mainland in one fatal blow to end the war.

It is precisely because of this that the next offensive plan of the British, French and Australian troops must not only choose a more suitable area, but also reflect the firm attitude of the three countries to continue the war.

After careful consideration, it was finally decided to target the three Nordic countries for the next attack.

First, the three Nordic countries have a large land area and are rich in mineral resources and other materials. Although Italy and Spain are missing, the Nordic region can still provide Germany with a large amount of iron ore and other mineral resources every year.

With these iron mines, Germany can naturally hold out longer, which is not good for the entire war.

Secondly, the three Nordic countries are three kingdoms. If they actively liberate the three countries, it means that Britain and Australasia can reach an exchange of interests with the royal families of these three countries.

The monarchies still have common interests, whether it is to consolidate their status in the future or seek a higher status, or simply to obtain more resources through Nordic countries, they can all do so through such opportunities.

Another reason is that because the Nordic region is close to Russia, Britain and France must act first.

If the Russians' power gradually recovers and they take the initiative to send troops to liberate Northern Europe, then wouldn't the Russians have the final say in the future of the three Nordic countries?
The expansion of Russian power was something that none of the three countries wanted to see, which was why the three countries finally decided to target their offensive at Northern Europe.

For Australasia, sending troops to liberate the three Nordic countries at this time will obviously have more advantages than disadvantages.

There is no need to say much about Finland. After Dmitry announced the formation of a government in exile, he only stayed in London for a short time and then chose to come to Australasia.

On the one hand, they needed the support of Australasia to resist the German invasion, and on the other hand, they took the initiative to express their stance.

Dmitry is a smart man, and he naturally sees the development and direction of the current situation in Europe.

In the long run, there will only be three powerful countries in the world after the war, namely Britain, Australasia and Russia.

These three countries are bound to challenge the status of world hegemony and continue to win over countries around the world to strengthen their own voice.

At this time, the team becomes more important. For a country, a good team can not only gain more support, but also improve its voice and make the country stronger.

However, if one stands on the wrong side and is implicated, it is very likely that the country will be plunged into an irreparable situation. After all, standing on the wrong side means supporting one of the powerful countries, which will naturally offend the other two powerful countries.

The clear choice was to support Australasia, a choice Dmitry made without much thought.

First, Dmitri and Arthur had a close relationship. As the only brother of Queen Mary, Arthur was also quite concerned about Dmitri.

Even for Dmitry to quickly gain control of the Finnish government, Arthur's help was indispensable.

Second, Finland is too close to Russia and must find a country to rely on that can stand up against Russia.

In this regard, Britain and Australasia are not much different. Their monarchical systems are natural opposites to Russia.

But the problem is that the British are not keen on war. They prefer to pursue a regional balance policy to maintain their status.

In particular, the appeasement behavior of the British and French governments before World War II made Dmitry realize that relying on the British was not a good solution.

Australasia is different. Although Australasia has only been a country for more than 30 years, it has experienced World War I and World War II, and has also actively launched many small-scale wars.

Such a country that is not afraid of war and threats is more suitable to be its big brother, and will stand up to protect itself when necessary.

In addition, Finland and Australasia had already established a very close cooperation. For Dmitry and Finland, changing partners at this time would not only ruin all their previous efforts, but also challenge the bottom line of Arthur and Australasia.

(End of this chapter)