Chapter 902 Balkan War

It is worth mentioning that although Paris had fallen, the fall of Paris did not undermine the confidence of the French in resisting the Germans.

After moving the government to Tours, French Chief of Staff Charles de Gaulle issued a "Letter to the French People" to all French people.

In this important document, de Gaulle mentioned: "France is not fighting alone. We also have allies such as the British Empire, the Austrian Empire, and the Australasian Empire.

Although we lost Paris, it does not mean that we have lost hope of defeating the Germans.

Whether you are an ordinary French citizen, an engineer and technician in an arms factory, or a soldier who was injured and retired on the battlefield, please listen to my call and devote yourself to every place where the country needs you.

No matter what happens, the flame of resistance in France will never be extinguished, and the French will never surrender.

Soldiers, behind us is not only Tours, but also the vast French people and our families.

For our families and compatriots, for the last glory of France, for the survival of France, please let us forget all the previous failures, stand together with one heart, and shout to our enemies: France is invincible! The French will never surrender!"

It has to be admitted that although France's performance in the war was far inferior to that of Germany, France is not short of true patriots.

With de Gaulle's call, a large number of French aspiring young people quickly gathered and completed the mobilization of up to 500,000 soldiers in a short period of time.

Do these French youths recognize the current military government? I'm afraid not. After all, it was a government established by a military coup, and it controlled France for a short time, so it is difficult to get the recognition of all French people.

But the phrase "not to be slaves of a conquered country" is enough to make more French people stand up, join the army enthusiastically, and join the camp to resist the Germans.

This is also the patriotism that cannot be explained or seen. When a country is in crisis, if countless heroes stand up, then the country will never perish.

While France is mobilizing a large number of people, Germany has declared war on many countries in succession.

It has been mentioned before that Germany is in great need of iron ore and other minerals from the three Nordic countries.

After capturing Paris, Germany could not wait to declare war on the three Nordic countries, and the army landed in Norway and Sweden.

Latvia and Estonia were also declared war, which also created a great spectacle. Germany fought against most of Europe at the same time, which was a crazier move than World War I.

In addition to attacking these small Nordic countries, Germany also began to bomb Britain in large quantities and sent a large number of letters of persuasion to Britain.

In fact, at the beginning of the war, the German Empire did not have the crazy idea of ​​attacking Britain in its plan.

The German Prime Minister even naively believed that if Germany could quickly defeat France, Britain would also accept peace talks.

But unexpectedly, not only did the British not accept the peace talks, but with the help of the British, even France gave up the plan of peace talks with Germany.

Although the German government contacted Britain many times and tried to resolve the war with Britain in a more peaceful way. But the news that the German government repeatedly heard was only one word, that is, a big "no!".

The new British Prime Minister Churchill even publicly announced in his speech to the British people: "I will always be in London and command the entire war here. If the Germans want to attack us, then let them come.

I will always sit here, sitting on this chair. Either the Germans surrender, or the Germans carry my body out of here!"

Britain's firm attitude surprised Germany, and some German people even laughed at the British as fools.

After all, Germany had already occupied an absolute advantage in the war at this time, and had even occupied a large amount of French land.

Wherever the German army went, any country could only defend, and even defense was difficult to achieve.

Under such circumstances, Britain actually insisted on the war. Isn't this just waiting for defeat and then the division of colonies?

Although the German people did not understand it, Britain's attitude at this time was indeed very firm.

In order to respond to the British attitude, the German Prime Minister also made his own speech in the new parliament. This speech changed the previous hysterical style and became gentle and elegant.

"Unfortunately, I only heard one voice from Britain, that is, the war must go on. Is this the voice of the British? I'm afraid not.

This is not the voice of the British, but the voice of British politicians. From a conscientious point of view, I feel that I have the responsibility to once again call on Britain and other countries to show your reason and common sense.

I think I am qualified to make such an appeal, because I am not a defeated person begging for grace, but a winner speaking in the name of reason.

Excuse me, you have no confidence to continue this war. In addition to increasing casualties, this is a completely unnecessary thing, but you are still doing it."

On the night when the German Prime Minister gave a speech, hundreds of German planes dropped a large number of leaflets printed with the full text of the speech in major cities in Britain.

On this leaflet, there is also a striking sentence printed: "Surrender, this is a war between politicians, and ordinary people should not be implicated."

What the Germans didn't expect was that long before they dropped the speech leaflets in large numbers, the German Prime Minister's speech had already been broadcast to all parts of the UK.

Not only did the British government not have the slightest fear about Germany's threatening speech, it actually went along with the situation and made all the British people prepare for Germany and prepare them for the continuation of the war.

On October 17, 1936, in a new round of negotiations between the British and German governments, the British Lord Halifax officially mentioned in the radio: "Unless the Germans are willing to maintain the pre-war borders, the British will never May agree to peace.”

The German bombing of Britain not only did not make the British retreat, but instead aroused the British desire to fight.

On October 19, 1936, Britain, France and Australia gathered more than 2,000 aircraft in the UK. The purpose was self-evident.

From the morning to the evening of that day, more than 2,000 aircraft carried out very large-scale bombings on the German-occupied areas of the Netherlands, Belgium and France, and carried out carpet bombing in some important areas.

This was not over yet. Large-scale bombings were also carried out in Frankfurt, Dortmund, Bremen, Hanover and other places in Germany, and at least tens of thousands of bombs were dropped.

Such a bombing was not only a response to the German bombing of London, but also a response to Germany's threatening speeches.

While Germany was anxiously launching an attack on the three Nordic countries, the Balkans finally slowly united together.

On October 21, a large-scale conflict broke out between Yugoslavia and Italy on the border. The armies of both sides even opened fire on each other, just like a war.

The conflict that day resulted in hundreds of Yugoslav soldiers being injured, and more than 10 of them died on the spot.

This was not over yet. Bulgaria, who had boarded the German tank, also had extraordinary ambitions at this time.

You know, in the previous Balkan War, most of the land occupied by Bulgaria was divided up, and even its original homeland was forced to cede part of it to Romania.

Now Bulgaria naturally wants to regain its own land.

On October 23, conflicts also broke out between Bulgaria and Greece on the border. Haskovo's Bulgarian troops attacked the Greek troops at Alexandrospoli and captured the Greek outposts on the border.

Such an attack would naturally not be tolerated by the Greek army.

Although there was no direct declaration of war, the Greek army also organized troops to launch an attack on the Bulgarian army in Haskovo the next day, October 24, resulting in the death of dozens of Bulgarian soldiers on the spot.

The so-called powder keg naturally explodes at one point.

In two consecutive conflicts, neither the German camp in Italy and Bulgaria nor the British camp in Yugoslavia and Greece were satisfied.

After Italy made preparations, it directly launched a larger-scale attack, which was no smaller than a battle.

The unprepared Yugoslav army was directly attacked by the Italian army, with more than a thousand casualties.

Now Yugoslavia couldn't stand it anymore.

On October 27, 1936, Yugoslavia directly occupied Zara in Dalmatia, which was controlled by Italy, and hoisted the Yugoslav flag in the Zara city hall.

This was tantamount to an undeclared war, and such a loss was naturally unacceptable to Mussolini.

On October 28, Italy declared war on Yugoslavia.

On the afternoon of October 28, Germany declared war on Yugoslavia.

On October 29, Yugoslavia declared war on Germany, and Greece and Albania declared war on Italy and Germany.

On October 30, Bulgaria declared war on Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece, and the Balkan War officially began.

Although the war in the Balkans has begun, the current situation is obviously beneficial to the British side.

Before Romania entered the war, the three Balkan countries only had to face Italy and Bulgaria.

Because of France's 500,000 troops, Italy could mobilize less than one million troops.

Among the three Balkan countries, Yugoslavia has the largest population and the number of troops it can mobilize is around one million.

Although Greece has a small population, it is still no problem to scrape together an army of 500,000. As for Albania, which has the smallest population, it can play a relatively small role. It is already good to have an army of 150,000.

The total number of these armies is almost 1.7 million, and they will not suffer a loss against Italy and Bulgaria.

Because the land occupied by Bulgaria was divided among other Balkan countries, Bulgaria's population is not large among the Balkan countries.

At present, the army that Bulgaria can mobilize is basically at the same level as Greece, which is about 500,000 people.

Although it can barely scrape together 1 million, for Bulgaria, which has a small population, it is likely to hurt the country.

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