The Rise of Australia

Chapter 946 Cambridge Five

After ending the war with the island country, Australasia completely set its sights on the battlefield in Europe.

The current battlefield in Europe is very fierce. Major European countries have participated in this war. The total number of soldiers involved in the war has reached a terrifying 30 million or more, and there are dozens of participating countries.

At present, the size of the army of each country has expanded to an extremely exaggerated number, with millions of troops at any time, and the casualties in Europe are increasing at an extremely exaggerated rate every day.

In terms of the country with the largest number of troops at present, it must be the German Empire, which is fighting on three fronts and has extremely strong combat effectiveness.

At present, the total size of the German army is expected to exceed 6 million, of which about 1.1 million are invested in the Western European battlefield, 300,000 are invested in the North African battlefield, 550,000 are invested in the Balkan battlefield, and 3.3 million are invested in the Eastern European battlefield.

The second largest total number of troops is currently Russia. Because of the sneak attack, Russia lost a large number of troops in the early stage of the war. But the good news is that Russia has a population of up to hundreds of millions, coupled with the cohesion of the country, so that Russia still has nearly 6 million troops.

However, Russia's situation was not good at this time. The German army's offensive in Eastern Europe was extremely smooth. At present, Minsk, St. Petersburg, Kiev and other major cities in Russia have fallen, and the German army has attacked the vicinity of Moscow.

If nothing unexpected happens, a completely different defense of Moscow will start soon.

France has the third largest total number of troops. At least the current situation in France is much better than in history.

Although Paris has been occupied, France also controls many areas of the original southern coast of the United States, which can provide France with very important oil minerals and financial support.

Coupled with manpower from Africa, France still maintains an army of nearly 4 million, which is already a very good level.

After all, the population of the above two countries has exceeded 100 million. France relies on its own native population of less than 40 million to maintain an army of more than 4 million. It is absolutely doing its best.

Then there are the two countries of Britain and Australasia.

The current size of the British army is about 4 million, but more than half of them are soldiers from colonies and the Commonwealth.

The troops that were actually mobilized from the British mainland were only over one million, which was also a clever point of the British.

Although the number of local troops dispatched was not large, the British losses were not small at all.

There is no large-scale naval battle in Europe at present, but there are countless small-scale sneak attacks on civilian ships.

The Germans once again played the submarine warfare spirit of World War I and sent a large number of submarines to sneak attack British merchant ships and transport ships. The sinking of each merchant ship is a real loss for the British.

Coupled with the losses of the Germans' previous bombing of London and the military expenditures of the army and navy, the British losses are second only to Russia, and even more than France.

However, the loss of property and materials is definitely not as serious as the loss of manpower.

If the British losses take ten years to slowly recover, then the French losses will take at least twenty years, or even longer, to recover.

After all, population is not something that can be made up in a short period of time. What's more, the losses in the war are all young and middle-aged people, which is one of the most important groups for a country.

The size of the Australasia army is currently one of the smallest among the major participating countries, only larger than Italy, but only slightly larger.

The total number of Australasia's troops is currently about 3.4 million, including 1.4 million local troops in Australasia, 500,000 troops in the Philippines, 1.5 million troops in Kalimantan, and the United Kingdom of the West Coast and the Kingdom of California are not included.

Italy's army is the smallest among the participating powers, with only over 3 million troops at present. Among these 3 million troops, Italy has invested 500,000 troops in the North African battlefield, 1.1 million troops in the Western European battlefield, and nearly one million troops in the Balkan battlefield.

The current size of the army of the six countries of Germany, Russia, Britain, France, Australia and Italy alone has reached more than 26 million, which is more than the total population of most countries.

More importantly, the dead soldiers of the current participating countries are not included. In addition to the millions of troops of the defeated island countries, the number of soldiers invested in this war by various countries has actually exceeded 40 million.

Among all the participating countries, the Russians have definitely suffered the most casualties. Although Russia joined the war relatively late, due to various reasons, the casualties of the Russians have exceeded those of the earliest participating countries such as France and Poland, and even far exceeded those of the already perished countries such as the Austrian Empire.

According to some official media reports in Russia, plus the general intelligence of the intelligence department, it can be determined that the number of casualties in Russia in the war has reached at least 4 million, which is an exaggerated scale that no other country has reached.

Among these 4 million casualties, more than half were Russian infantrymen who were surrounded and annihilated when the German armored forces advanced rapidly.

However, there is also a country that is even worse than Russia, that is Poland, which has been fully occupied by Germany.

In fact, Poland's casualties in the war were only a few hundred thousand, which was also tragic, but it was definitely not on the list of casualties among various countries.

However, due to various concentration camp massacres after Germany occupied Poland, Poland's casualties suddenly increased to millions.

At present, Poland's casualties can be ranked ahead of France, second only to Russia, island countries and Germany.

In this regard, the treatment in Poland is simply incomparable to that in Austria. It is also a country fully occupied by Germany. Most of Austria's population is recognized by the German government. The Czech region is now Germany's second most important industrial town, so it is naturally impossible for a massacre to occur.

Judging from the current number of troops and casualties in various countries, the only countries that have really suffered heavy losses are Poland and Austria, which were fully occupied.

Even the remaining Russia, which had the largest number of casualties, its losses in the war were definitely not considered injuries to the muscles and bones, it could only be said to be injuries to the skin and flesh.

This was obviously not in line with Arthur's expectations, nor in line with Australasia's strategic purpose in this war.

This also means that this war cannot end at least now.

The good news is that after ending the war with the island countries, Australasia can mobilize more than 2 million troops, which can play a vital role in the European battlefield.

It can be said that Australasia has the final say whether the current war ends or not. As long as Arthur wants the war to continue, the war will continue to develop in its current situation.

But if Arthur wants to end this war quickly, through the deployment of more than 2 million troops and the threat of nuclear weapons, this war can be ended as soon as possible from the perspective of benefiting Australasia.

So far, Australasia has played an increasingly important role in this war, and its status among the three countries of Britain, France, and Australia has slowly been reflected.

Britain and France also had to consider Australasia's attitude, and were even willing to make some sacrifices to ensure that Australasia still stood on their side. On September 15, 1937, Britain, France, and Australia held secret talks in London to discuss joint counterintelligence and anti-infiltration operations among various countries.

Mark, Australasia’s ambassador to the UK, proposed during the meeting: “Australasia, Britain and France are both technological and industrial powers in the Western tradition, and they should strengthen the protection of information related to science and technology and industry.”

Ambassador Mark said: "The three countries should cooperate together in some anti-infiltration and counter-intelligence operations to prevent outside forces from infiltrating the intelligence work of the three countries to defraud the three countries' domestic scientific and technological information and industrial design data."

Although the meeting did not name anyone who should be guarded against, based on the current situation, Britain, France and Australia all understand that the target of the counter-infiltration mentioned here is Russia.

In fact, this is in the interests of the British. Russia is already an enemy with very powerful potential at this time. If they are allowed to obtain a large amount of scientific and technological data and industrial designs, or even certain industrial equipment and production lines, the consequences will be disastrous.

A country with a dense population, vast land, and rich mineral resources and oil is already quite terrifying. If they catch up in industry and some military technology, then Britain and France will not be able to deal with such a country anyway.

The mainland areas of Britain and France are both small, which also limits the upper limits of Britain and France. It can be seen from the current development of France that it is difficult for France to charge towards the status of world hegemon.

The reason why the British are still the world's hegemon is that India and other vast colonies are extremely important. As long as India becomes independent, it is absolutely impossible for Britain to maintain its position as a world hegemon.

It was precisely because of their own concerns that Britain and France quickly agreed to this anti-espionage and anti-infiltration convention.

This convention stipulates that the three countries will share intelligence in counter-espionage and counter-infiltration, and jointly supervise each country's advanced military technology and industrial equipment from being penetrated and stolen by the enemy.

Why sign such a convention?

Although Arthur didn't remember the specific events clearly, he vaguely remembered that Russia had great achievements in infiltration in history, and also mastered a lot of advanced technology and information from the British.

Judging from the current world developments, Russia may be Australasia's biggest enemy after the war.

For Arthur, it is natural to cut off the enemy's rapid growth of military technology and industrial technology as much as possible.

Fortunately, Arthur's emphasis on intelligence work over the years has not been without results. The three major intelligence agencies supervise and cooperate with each other to ensure that it is difficult for spies from enemy countries to penetrate.

Because even if one intelligence department is conquered, there will still be two other intelligence departments supervising each other. Unless the enemy is able to infiltrate three intelligence services at the same time, it will be difficult to obtain intelligence on advanced weapons and technology from Australasia.

But it is unimaginably difficult to penetrate three intelligence agencies at the same time. So far, no country has been able to do it.

The first is the National Security Intelligence Service, which prevents enemy spies from infiltrating into the country. It directly controls all the domestic population, including all immigrants and tourists entering the country.

Even if they escape the supervision of the National Security Intelligence Service, various important factories and enterprises are basically supervised by the Royal Security Intelligence Service personnel.

You can imagine how difficult it is to penetrate various institutions and enterprises and master important information and intelligence under the supervision of the two major intelligence agencies.

The Military Intelligence Bureau, which is responsible for external affairs, can also provide domestic supervision. The Military Intelligence Agency will send a large number of spies to infiltrate other countries. These spies can also control some important departments of foreign countries, and then discover some spies sent by the enemy to the country.

After Britain, France and Australia signed the Anti-Infiltration Convention, the anti-espionage and anti-infiltration work between the three countries was indeed much easier.

Some false identities were also easier to investigate, and Australasia could pay more attention to the anti-infiltration situation of Britain and France.

Only half a month later, the intelligence department of Australasia discovered something.

It was the foreign intelligence department, that is, the Military Intelligence Bureau, that discovered the situation. The situation occurred in the British, and they had been infiltrated by the enemy very seriously.

Arthur was also surprised when he got the intelligence, because according to the situation, the enemy had infiltrated British institutions for several years, and a considerable part of the intelligence and scientific and technological information transferred to Russia had been transferred.

If it were not for the timely discovery of the Australasian intelligence department, I am afraid that the various materials and intelligence leaked from the British alone would be enough to make the Russians become an industrial power more quickly.

This is really terrible, and it is definitely bad news.

Arthur made a prompt decision and decided to quickly interrupt the Russian infiltration in Britain and clean up Russian spies in Britain as much as possible.

Donald MacLean was born in an aristocratic family in London in 1913. His father was a Liberal Party politician and served as chairman of the Education Committee.

In June 1934, MacLean passed the Cambridge graduation exam with honors. In August 1935, he began to prepare for the British Foreign Office exam. During the interview, the examination committee asked him about his "support for Russian ideas" at Cambridge. He thought for a moment and replied: "I have had such ideas, and I have not completely given up this idea." His honest answer satisfied the interviewer and agreed to let him join the British diplomatic department.

In the two years since he entered the diplomatic department, Donald MacLean has conveyed at least 11 intelligence reports to Russia, including the deployment of the British Expeditionary Force, the production of the British military industry, and some cooperation between Australasia and Britain.

Arthur wanted to laugh when he saw this spy information. Obviously, Donald MacLean had shown support for Russian ideas when he was at Cambridge University, but the interviewer of the diplomatic department accepted him because of Donald MacLean's seemingly honest behavior.

You know, this is to admit a diplomat of a national department, and it is possible to contact government officials at the core level of the country.

At this time, Arthur finally remembered that there was a famous event about Cambridge University, that is, the Cambridge Five.

Five outstanding talents born in the UK were infiltrated by Russia one after another, and they all went to important British institutions and departments.

During World War II and even decades after World War II, they provided Russia with countless intelligence, which was also one of the reasons why Russia was able to rise rapidly in history.

It also includes some important specific drawings and materials of military equipment, as well as information on related industrial technology.

Although Arthur has no ill will towards these people who pursue their own ideas, is it really good to betray their country for ideas?

Moreover, Arthur is now hostile to them, so naturally he can't let them go.