The Rise of the Third Reich

“It’s crazy that the Dutch government is suing us to the League of Nations!”

Winston Churchill heard news that made him unbelievable at the British Cabinet meeting on September 16.

He actually sued the British Empire. Do he still want to impose collective sanctions on the UK?

"They also want Germany, France and us to confirm Dutch neutrality." Viscount Halifax continued.

"This..." Churchill looked at the Imperial Chief of Staff, General Ironside. "Are the French still planning to attack Germany from the Netherlands?"

"Well, there is still this plan," General Ironside said with a frown. "Admiral Gamelin plans to launch an attack into Germany via the Netherlands and Belgium in 1941-1942."

"1942?" Churchill rolled his eyelids, "What a nonsense!" He looked at Prime Minister Chamberlain, "First of all, I don't think the French are planning to attack at all."

Definitely! It took Germany 12 days to defeat the "world's second largest army power". How could France, the "world's largest army power", not be afraid? How strong is Poland? Others don’t know, but France doesn’t know either? France is Poland’s “teacher”.

"Then, we might as well confirm the neutrality of the Netherlands." Churchill suggested, "The Dutch accusation is nothing. Just let the League of Nations form an investigation team to investigate slowly."

"In addition, Mussolini was very enthusiastic about 'confirming neutrality'." Viscount Halifax added, "He said that Italy could guarantee the neutrality of the Netherlands, and could also unite other neutral countries to sign a mutual agreement between European neutral countries. Treaty of security. If any belligerent country dares to invade these neutral countries, it will be subject to collective sanctions by all neutral countries."

"It's meaningless!" Churchill smiled nonchalantly, "The British Empire and the French Empire are still afraid of their sanctions?"

The British Empire and the French Empire are not Britain and France in later generations, they are two world empires! The British Empire had more than 33 million square kilometers of land and a population of 458 million, while the French Empire had 12.898 million square kilometers and a population of 110 million. They are all superpowers and are not afraid of sanctions at all. Moreover, the British Empire is the maritime hegemon. Anyone who dares to sanction Britain and France should forget about overseas trade!

"Mussolini wants to act as the arbiter of Europe," Chamberlain thought for a moment and smiled. "We can ask him to guarantee that we don't intend to undermine the neutrality of the Netherlands now anyway. No, we don't intend to undermine anything now. If Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Portugal and other countries also want us to confirm their neutrality, they can all agree.”

The French will attack again in 1942, and the British will naturally not consider attacking alone before 1942 - the British army will be in vain if they go. Since there is no intention to transit through the Netherlands, the Netherlands and other countries should be allowed to remain neutral.

"Our current strategy is to blockade!" Chamberlain said, "So we can ensure that things like the night of September 6th will never happen again. However, we still have to continue to persuade Belgium to join our alliance."

Belgium is the key to preventing Germany from breaking through from the north of the Maginot Line! Moreover, Germany and Belgium had a deep grudge - in history, William II planned to win over Belgium to attack France together, but the King of Belgium turned around and told France about William II's plan! After the war, Belgium followed France in invading the Rhineland, extorting a lot of reparations from Germany and dismantling many German machines.

At this time, a secretary from No. 10 Downing Street opened the door and walked in, "Mr. Prime Minister, the Polish Embassy just called. Early this morning, the Soviet Red Army began to attack Poland!"

"Well, now the Poles can only rely on Germany wholeheartedly!" Winston Churchill said in a rather gloating tone, "Maybe the two robbers, the Soviet Union and Germany, will fight over the uneven distribution of the spoils... The Germans seem to Got some more territory, right?"

"Yes," Admiral Ironside said, "their occupied area includes the entire Volyn and Rivne provinces."

Most of these two provinces were not part of Austrian Galicia, and the Germans had violated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by taking them there, for which the Soviet Union also protested.

However, the current "occupation" is not the final "demarcation". The Germans may occupy it just to gain more leverage in the final demarcation negotiations. In addition, "occupation" may only be a guarantee - because the Soviet Union may cross the Bug River when it attacks Poland... The Brest Fortress, the largest Polish stronghold on the east bank of the Bug River, is by the river. If the Soviet Union If the army does not cross the Bug River, there will be no way to encircle the fortress. In order to ensure that the Soviet troops evacuated after capturing the fortress, Germany always had to have something in hand.

"We can look forward to this," Chamberlain said, "but the possibility is not very high. After all, Su and Germany have been allies for 20 years and will not fall out so quickly."

He was silent for a moment, then said to Viscount Halifax, "I think we should consider helping the Poles to establish a government in exile."

Viscount Halifax was stunned for a moment, "Polish government in exile? But Poland has not yet been destroyed."

Chamberlain shrugged and said: "If Poland takes refuge in Germany, we can no longer regard it as an independent and legitimate government!"

…

"Marshal, the troops remaining in Pinsk are ready to withdraw to the German-occupied areas of Western Ukraine at any time. And all the bridges on the railway line from Baranovichi to Brest have been blown up, and the railways have been damaged as much as possible. be destroyed."

Lieutenant General Julius Rommel, who was probably a distant relative of Rommel, is now the deputy chief of staff of the Polish Army and also the chief of staff of Field Marshal Rez Himigwi at the Brest headquarters.

Marshal Rez Himigwi did not return to Warsaw, but "camped personally" as the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army's Eastern Front. Personally command more than 200,000 Polish troops to resist the Soviet Red Army in Western Belarus!

However, the deployment of Marshal Rez-Khimigvi is also very interesting. He neither deployed his troops along the border nor guarded several important cities in Western Belarus. Instead, most of the elite troops were concentrated around the Brest Fortress - behind this fortress was the Bug River. Even if the fortress was defended, 99% of the land in Western Belarus would still be captured by the Soviet army.

From a military point of view, his deployment seemed meaningless, but as a confidant of the Marshal, Lieutenant General Julius Rommel understood Rez-Khimigvi's strategy very well - it was to maintain a "state of resistance" ".

Most of the land in western Belarus and right-bank Ukraine can be lost, but in fact it cannot be defended. But the Polish leadership must not follow the advice of the British and sign the treaty ceding Western Belarus and right-bank Ukraine.

This is not the 30,000 square kilometers ceded to Germany, but nearly 400,000 square kilometers!

Whoever wants to sign the treaty ceding West Belarus and Right Bank Ukraine will be the biggest traitor in the history of Poland, waiting to be scorched by the nationalist anger in Poland!

And by restoring the "1918 Polish-German border", Poland's survival has been guaranteed. As long as the Soviet Union did not want to go to war with Germany, it would not cross the Bug River and march into Warsaw. Therefore, the Polish government does not even have the need to "traitor the country for glory." Anyone who wants to sign must have a broken mind.

But Polish politicians did not dare to really fight with the Soviet Union. They knew that they did not have the capital to fight the Soviet Union head-on. Before the 12-day Polish-German war, they might have had the idea of ​​​​taking a direct confrontation with the Soviet Union. But now the Polish marshals and generals have been frustrated and dare not fight any more.

Therefore, Rez-Chimigwi thought of a way to "maintain a state of resistance" - just on the edge of the Bug River, Poland's largest fortress was set up on the battlefield, relying on the fortress to defend it to the death. In this way, even if the Polish army was resisting the Soviet Red Army, the land east of the Bug River was not completely lost.

At the same time, they will use weapons and funds to fund Ukrainian nationalists to fight guerrillas, so that both Ukrainians and Russians will suffer losses...

"Just destroy the railway!" Rez Himigwe nodded. "Then the towns and villages along the main roads were burned down?"

Not only to blow up the railway, but also to play with scorched earth! This was what the Russians used to deal with Napoleon. Rez Himigwe also followed it as much as possible - in fact, the corresponding plan had already been made, Rez Himigwe was just the next order.

Lieutenant General Julius Rommel replied: "Marshal, we sent cavalry and burned many Belarusian villages and towns along the railways and main roads. Now it is difficult and impossible for the Soviets to use railway lines to transport supplies. They collected a lot of supplies along the way and had to drag hundreds of kilometers of logistics lines to Brest!”

Rez Himigwe nodded and said: "Maybe they won't come at all..."

…

"Comrade General Secretary, I have some good news for you." As soon as Stalin picked up the phone, he heard Voroshilov's tone of voice about to laugh. "Both the Ukrainian and Belarusian Fronts have made major breakthroughs.

Less than 12 hours after the war started, the 5th Army, 6th Army and 12th Army of the Ukrainian Front forcibly broke through the Dnieper River defense line in three directions: Chernobyl, Cherkasy, and Klemachu.

In the direction of Belarus, the Brest Rapid Cluster and the Pinsk Rapid Cluster also achieved rapid breakthroughs. Among them, the Brest rapid cluster advanced 28 kilometers and the Pinsk rapid cluster advanced 22 kilometers. This speed has exceeded the speed of the German blitzkrieg on September 1! "

"Okay, okay!" Stalin nodded with satisfaction, "Okay, it started very smoothly. The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army fought well. I hope they can continue their efforts and liberate the entire right-bank Ukraine and Western Belarus as soon as possible!"