Chapter 759: A Single Stone Stirs up a Thousand Waves

Arthur would certainly like to see the restoration of relations with the British. Apart from other things, the hundreds of thousands of British immigrants every year are still very attractive to Arthur.

If these hundreds of thousands of immigrants are missing, the number of immigrants missing in Australasia will be close to one million every year.

But even so, it is basically impossible for Australasia to restore its previous close diplomatic front with the British.

Australasia wants to compete for Pacific hegemony, and the British want to support another competitor in the Pacific, which means that the interests of the two countries are no longer the same.

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 with hypocritical perfunctory, but some cooperation was still reached.

Whether it is the import of food and meat or the maintenance of stability in the Indian Ocean, the British cannot 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 there is no need to worry about British immigrants in the next few years.

When the population of Australasia exceeds 40 million, population growth will depend on the birth rate of the domestic population.

By then, the demand for immigrants will not be so high, and it will be a good ratio to control it at around 500,000 per year.

According to the current population growth rate, it will take about three years for the population to reach the level of 40 million.

I hope that there will be no large-scale war in these three years, and it will be beneficial for Australasia if the world maintains basic peace.

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

This is a good thing for the British, after all, the chaos in India is much more serious than they imagined.

If it weren't for so many wars that attracted the attention of many countries, I'm afraid the days of the British Empire would not be as good as they are now.

Compared with the British indifference, there are still countries that see the impact of such radical countries like Italy on the world situation.

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

Mussolini's reforms to Italy were more than a little bit, covering aspects such as economy, industry and military.

In addition to strengthening control over industry and vigorously developing state-monopolized capitalism, Mussolini also revised Italy's military service law, forcing adult men aged 18 to 55 to serve in the military, and greatly expanded Italy's reserve troops.

The biggest change caused was that Italy's regular army before World War I was only over 200,000, and now it has expanded to nearly 450,000.

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

For Mussolini and the Italian government, this war was either not fought, or if it was fought, it had to wash away the shame brought to Italy by the war more than 30 years ago.

The commander of the war was De Bono, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the East African Army by Mussolini. This general was also one of Mussolini's confidants in the Italian military.

In order to win this war, Mussolini mobilized the whole country.

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

The hostile Abyssinian Empire did not have a single aircraft, which could no longer be called air superiority, because the enemy had no way to go to the air at all.

However, since the beginning of the war, Mussolini soon discovered something was wrong.

The combat effectiveness of the Italian army was no different from that before World War I, even though their government had changed a lot.

In order to win this war, instead of repeating the mistakes of the previous Kingdom of Italy, Mussolini announced the transfer of another 100,000 troops, increasing the strength of the East African Front to 200,000.

It is worth mentioning that the hostile Abyssinian Empire had only about 150,000 troops, while the Italian army had an advantage in strength.

With the advantage of manpower, the Italian army seemed a little more confident when launching the attack.

The reorganized Italian army chose to divide its troops into three routes, starting from the east, south and north, trying to capture the entire Abyssinian Empire as quickly as possible.

But the Italian army faced the Abyssinians who rose up to resist in order to defend their motherland.

Just like the war more than 30 years ago, the Abyssinians took up various weapons, and some even fought with vegetable knives and sticks picked up from the roadside.

Although they were backward in terms of weapons and equipment, these Abyssinians were more familiar with Ethiopia's unique mountainous terrain conditions, 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 Italian Air Force's air superiority being too strong, I'm afraid Italy would not have made any progress so far.

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

Because of the different intentions of Britain and France, Italy did not encounter any obstruction in launching this war, not even diplomatic obstruction.

Although some European countries condemned Italy's aggressive behavior, who would care unless they were a powerful country?

Even the countries that expressed condemnation were mostly Balkan countries. Because the Balkans are too close to Italy, the Balkan countries are worried that after Italy occupied the Abyssinian Empire, it would turn its attention to invading the Balkan Peninsula again.

Speaking of the Balkans, this is also a relatively tragic region. The eyes of the major powers have gathered on this peninsula, making this peninsula a veritable powder keg.

The previous competition between Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and now the competition between Italy and the Austrian Empire, are all microcosms behind the smoke of the Balkans.

Coupled with the importance of the Strait of Constantinople, it is determined that the Balkan region cannot usher in lasting peace unless there is a certain breakthrough in the world situation.

Speaking of which, the war between Italy and the Abyssinian Empire has also lasted for one and a half months.

When Mussolini launched the war before, he claimed that the war would end within two months.

But now more than half of the time has passed, and the progress of the war has only advanced a little bit, which makes Mussolini very angry, and he is determined to teach the Abyssinians a lesson.

The most direct way, of course, is to massacre the Abyssinians in the occupied areas.

After all, they are natives of Africa. Italians don't care about the lives of Abyssinians, and European countries naturally don't care either.

As for the dissatisfaction of African countries, European countries don't care, and Italy certainly doesn't care.

On July 5, 1930, Italy launched a massacre in the border city of Abyssinia.

This massacre did not take into account the women and children of Abyssinia, which can be said to be quite fair.

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

Of course, in addition to venting anger through massacres, the Italian army has many other ways to vent its anger.

Some lucky Abyssinian men who were not massacred were forced to become slaves and became free labor for the Italian army.

Their daily work is to do heavy physical work, and their daily food is only a piece of moldy black bread and clear soup mixed with bran and sand.

The cruel behavior of the Italian army, as exposed by war correspondents, caused dissatisfaction among a large number of European people.

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

But the European people are different. First of all, human emotions are complicated, and naturally many people’s compassion cannot be excluded.

In addition, most people are kind. They oppose the government’s massacre, or at least they are very repulsive to the massacre.

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

Many British and French people expressed their anger and asked the government and the world alliance formed by various governments to stop Italy’s cruel behavior, because Europe is civilized.

These people’s demonstrations have caused headaches for governments. In fact, smart people know that this is just an exchange of interests.

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

After all, sacrificing the lives of people in other countries for the interests of one's own country will definitely cause more dissatisfaction among the saints.

There is no way. The domestic public opinion is already like this. Britain and France can only pretend on the surface and ask the World League to hold a meeting to deal with the massacre in Italy.

But smart people know that if Britain and France really want to sanction a country, they will never delay until the World League 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 reach a consensus on something, the World League will not come to the opposite result.

Britain and France generally pass the ball to the World League to deal with this matter, which actually means that Britain and France do not want to care about this matter.

Sure enough.

Italy started the massacre on July 5, and the march in Europe started on July 10.

When the World League announced the meeting, it was already a week later on July 17.

The meeting was held on July 22, and more than half a month had passed since the massacre began.

However, the goal of Britain and France was achieved.

Seeing that their own government had issued a statement urging the World Alliance to hold a meeting to propose a solution, the people simply thought that the government was also dissatisfied with Italy's behavior, but due to the influence of the World Alliance, they could only hand over this incident to the World Alliance for fair handling.

After all, compared with the unilateral remarks of Britain and France, the World Alliance joined by dozens of countries around the world symbolizes justice around the world.

Britain and France will not deliberately publicize the superpower status of the four Allied Powers in the World Alliance. At this time, the people still simply thought that powers like Britain and France were just ordinary members of the World Alliance.

But only when encountering special moments will people understand that the veto power held by Britain, France, Russia and Australia symbolizes the highest power to control the World Alliance.

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