On January 1, 1940, at the beginning of the new year, all European countries were busy preparing to welcome the new year.
On the Finnish battlefield, although the Soviet Army and the Finnish Army entered a stalemate with the Mannerheim Line of Defense as the boundary, small-scale exchanges of fire never stopped. Finnish snipers such as the Simon Group always like to pick off the enemy.
They attacked isolated Soviet soldiers, and occasionally dared to snipe and kill the top leaders of three divisions at once in public.
In order to respond, the Soviet Union also recruited many soldiers with excellent marksmanship to form a counter-sniper team. It was intended to fight and eliminate those troublesome Finnish snipers.
The first sniper duel between the two sides actually involved two future Soviet super snipers, Fedor and Vasily. It also involved Simon, the greatest sniper of World War II who was eventually named the White Death.
While war was raging on the Finnish battlefield, the League of Nations, under the joint auspices of Britain and France, announced an expedition plan to aid Finland, claiming that it would send 100,000 elite British and French expeditionary troops to the Finnish battlefield to coordinate with the Finnish army.
However, in the final analysis, these so-called 100,000 elites are actually only two British infantry divisions and one French infantry regiment, with a total strength of less than 40,000. And even this French infantry regiment was defeated by Gamelin and his unwillingness.
Under such circumstances, Churchill seemed to be toughing him out before he reluctantly agreed to be transferred.
It's not that Gan Molin's defense layout really lacked the strength of this regiment, he was just simply stingy.
The narrow-minded Allied Commander-in-Chief was extremely reluctant when he heard that the Norwegian operation would be commanded by the British. In the end, Churchill thought of a way and gave up the nominal title of commander to Gamelin.
The British general served as adjutant and actually commanded the Norwegian war on behalf of Gamelin.
After the Swedish government learned of the announcement by the British and French coalition forces to send troops, they immediately emphasized their neutral position and reiterated that they would not allow the British and French coalition forces to pass through Swedish soil. Of course, the Swedish government's main purpose was to convince the Germans.
It's just a show.
However, Sweden dispatched a volunteer force of about 8,000 people to assist Finland with great fanfare, plus a small air force, in the name of civilian armed forces, ready to be sent to the Finnish battlefield to cooperate in the fight against the Soviet army. On this point, Swedish politicians obviously
They were trying to show off to the League of Nations and show their loyalty to the League of Nations.
Compared with Sweden, the Norwegian government seemed somewhat powerless. They imitated the Swedish government and sent less than a thousand volunteers to aid Finland, and at the same time submitted a protest application to the League of Nations.
However, the League of Nations did not support the Norwegian troops of less than a thousand people. In other words, in the eyes of Britain and France, the benefits brought by occupying the major ports in Norway far exceeded others!
Sure enough, Norway's protest was rejected by the unanimous vote of the two permanent members of the League of Nations, and the British and French coalition decided to "take advantage of" Norway.
Interestingly, neither Britain nor France mentioned the matter of "passing through" Sweden. They only passed through Norway but not Sweden. This is obviously inconsistent with the intention of Britain and France to aid Finland as soon as possible. As for what is the inside story, Norway
The royal family probably has some guesses now.
In Germany, on the pretext of celebrating the arrival of the New Year, Reinhard scheduled a small-scale exercise between the SS and the Wehrmacht to be held in the suburbs of Munich on January 2, and went to the Munich Tavern on January 1, which is today.
A speech was held before the opening of the exercise.
The participants in this speech were basically only officers from the National Defense Forces and the Army, so many people speculated that this speech might have other purposes.
The most interesting thing is the remarks made by Italian Prime Minister Mussolini at a party meeting at the beginning of the year: "In the new year, we must do something big. Since we have more than 40 million people in Italy living in more than 300,000
With a land area of more than one million square kilometers, why not relocate 4 million people to Ethiopia, which has more than one million square kilometers? In this case, in a few years, we will have a fertile land that is larger than the area of our country!"
The Ethiopian War was the most proud war of foreign expansion since Mussolini became Prime Minister. The victory of this battle allowed Italy to occupy the strategic location known as the "Horn of Africa" and greatly expanded Italy's African territory.
military base, and received Ethiopia's rich mineral resources and fertile land.
Although several years have passed since this battle, Mussolini still talks about it whenever he has time, fearing that some people will forget his historic contribution.
Knowing the leader's thoughts, Ciano, as Mussolini's son-in-law and Italian Foreign Minister, very smartly followed Mussolini's will and said: "The Ethiopian war has brought huge benefits to the kingdom, and this is all to drag the leader down."
Fu, we really can’t waste the success our leaders bring to the kingdom!”
After glancing at Mussolini and confirming that his father-in-law looked very satisfied, Ciano slightly raised the corners of his mouth and said: "Leader, leave this matter to me!"
"Well, my dear Ciano, you are indeed an outstanding talent, and you can always do things to suit my wishes." After listening to Ciano's flattery, Mussolini said intoxicatedly: "This
I can rest assured to leave this matter to you and handle it well. After the meeting, I will go and give orders to the finance side and ask them to do their best to meet your needs."
He made a big deal! Ciano was ecstatic in his heart, but with a respectful look on his face, he looked loyal and said: "Don't worry, leader! I will do my best."
Previously, Deputy Prime Minister Rossi led the construction of the northern defense line under Mussolini's instructions, which made a lot of money. This matter is well known to the top Italian officials, and it is probably only Mussolini himself who was kept in the dark.
Drum.
As for the reason why everyone is covering up Mussolini, of course they hope that this situation will continue so that they can wait for opportunities to make a fortune.
Anyway, not even his son-in-law Ciano said anything, so why should others worry about it?
As for Deputy Prime Minister Rossi, few people were free to sell the cement, concrete, landmines, barbed wire, fortress guns, and even reserve ammunition to Germany at low prices that should have been used for the northern defense line.
They ran to expose it for nothing. At most, everyone sighed at Rossi, the prodigal deputy prime minister - he sold it too cheaply, it was like giving it away for free, and he really didn't know how to do business!
Anyway, I heard that Germany and Italy have become military allies, and in northern Italy there is only one Germany and one Switzerland. Since the Germans are allies, it is useless to build this defense line. Could it be used to defend a small country like Switzerland?
?
Selling to Germany is considered selling to an ally. As long as it doesn't prevent him from making a fortune, no one will bother to care what Rossi does.
In this atmosphere, Rossi, a senior German Gestapo who was placed in high-level positions in Italy, not only placed a large number of Gestapo members for Germany in high-level positions in Italy, but also used his authority to protect each other and benefited Reinhardt's Third Reich from Italy.
With a lot of benefits, he also made a lot of money.
As for Rossi and the group under his command known as Mussolini's "Old Comrades Faction", which are actually the German Gestapo branch in Italy, the "Son-in-law Faction" headed by Ciano did not find out anything else.
I have learned a lot about reselling supplies.
As for Mussolini's grand immigration plan, in the hands of subordinates like Ciano, it was just a plan and would never have a chance to be realized.
