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Chapter 670 Greece Crisis

Before the ink was even dry on the terms of the alliance with Germany, public opinion broke out in Romania.

They published stories about Bulgarians in Greece being oppressed by the government. Many newspapers also published pictures of local Bulgarians being beaten by Greeks. The most quoted picture was of a Bulgarian woman with a bruised nose and face sitting on the ground, pregnant.

They were holding a crying little girl in their arms, and beside them stood several Greek teenagers with fierce looks on their faces.

This photo completely ignited the anger of the people in Romania. They all expressed their opinions and asked the government to provide protection for these poor people. In the original land of Bulgaria, the people were even more angry. They took to the streets to demand that the government take decisive measures against Greece and protect these foreigners.

of Bulgarians.

At the same time, outside the Greek Embassy, ​​demonstrators crowded the place, asking them to burn the Greek flag, throw paint at the embassy, ​​throw rotten eggs, stones and other things that could be thrown. This made the Greek embassy in a mess, and at the same time it was difficult to

The smell lingered here for a long time, and the staff in the embassy were not in the mood to work. For this reason, the Greek ambassador Aristin protested to the Romanian government, but only got a message asking him to stay calm.

When public anger reached its peak, Romania summoned the ambassador.

Costel, who is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania, looked at the Greek ambassador with cold eyes. "Ambassador Aristine, this is our country's diplomatic letter. Regarding the above request, please give a reply within three days."

Costel handed the letter of approval to the Greek ambassador in front of him and left without looking back, leaving Ambassador Aristine alone here, feeling a little uncomfortable.

This is a letter of approval from Romania regarding the oppression of Bulgarians in Greece. It also represents Romania’s attitude. However, Ambassador Aristin was frightened by Costel’s attitude just now. When he opened the letter of approval,

After reading its contents, he was even speechless.

In fact, there were not many clauses on it. They were nothing more than provisions to apologize and compensate the Bulgarians. However, there was one most critical condition that made Ambassador Aristin almost breathless.

This clause is in view of the racial oppression committed by Greece against the Bulgarians in the region. Now, as the successor to the original Kingdom of Bulgaria, the United Kingdom of Romania and Bulgaria requires Greece to return the territory set aside by the Peace of Neuilly to prevent the people in the region from continuing to suffer from the Greek government.

of oppression.

In a simple sentence, Romania is now disappointed with Greece's oppression of the Bulgarians in the region and demands that Greece return these territories.

Moreover, this diplomatic note also has a time limit, requiring Greece to respond within 72 hours. Looking at this note, which is like a declaration of war, Greek Ambassador Aristin has no other ideas at all. He just wants to send the letter as soon as possible.

This news was sent back to China.

When the urgent telegram from Romania was sent to Athens, Metaxas, as the Prime Minister of Greece and also the dictator, immediately realized that the situation was not good. On the one hand, he issued a mobilization order, and on the other hand, he asked Britain and France for help, asking the two countries to intervene with Romania.

dispute.

At this time, British Prime Minister Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Daladier were busy because of the crisis in the Czech Republic. At this time, Chamberlain had not yet taken a plane to meet Hitler, but he had already exchanged views with the French Prime Minister and Daladier.

That is to try our best to prevent Britain and France from falling into a new war.

Therefore, facing the sudden outbreak of the Greek crisis, the two countries are even more troubled. Because Romania is a newly emerging power, its attitude towards it needs to be cautious. If Britain and France strongly support Greece, a war may break out, although they can get help from Greece.

But Romania's strength is very impressive.

The two countries have made estimates for Romania. With its population of 48 million (the latest statistics in 1938), it is enough to form an army of three to four million. Moreover, Romania has a good military industry and can meet its own needs. For the army to fight with it, it is very important for Britain and France.

This is a very difficult matter for both governments.

The difficulty mainly comes from the people's aversion to war. The main reason is that World War I was too tragic, and the British casualties reached 2.4 million. Although there were colonial troops as cannon fodder, the main battles still had to be undertaken by British soldiers. (This is why World War II

, the reason why Britain uses more colonial troops is that the local casualties in World War I were too heavy, so cannon fodder is better)

France was even worse. As the main target of the attack, the total number of French military casualties reached more than 5 million, and it took almost a generation to defeat Germany. Moreover, after the victory, the two countries were deeply in debt, and their economies were in a slump due to the sequelae of the war.

.

Even in 1936, British pacifist organizations conducted a poll and found that 90% of people refused to participate in the war. The idea of ​​anti-war peace was deeply rooted in almost everyone.

Of course, this has a lot to do with the current economic downturn in Britain and France and the many social problems caused by the unemployed population.

In addition, the attitude of the British and French governments that they were more interested in the economy than anything else fully demonstrated that neither government was ready for war.

All these reasons combined made Britain and France fearful of war.

Therefore, after receiving Greece's request, Britain and France immediately sent a diplomatic note to Romania, requiring Romania to lift the time limit for the note and not to initiate any military action until the negotiations were fruitless.

Although the attitude of Britain and France seemed a bit tough, Edel had already seen through the weakness they revealed.

Previously, Romania's attitude of wanting a war with Greece was equivalent to saying that I wanted to burn down the house, causing others to quickly dissuade me. But now you say you won't burn the house, but I want to open a window.

Although this is just a matter of statement, it should also express a tough attitude. First, Romania mobilized 24 divisions of nearly 400,000 troops to the border area. At the same time, the navy consisted of four battleships (including the Vlad, which was undergoing sea trials)

, a large fleet consisting of two aircraft carriers, four heavy cruisers, and a large number of light cruisers and destroyers, passed through the Black Sea Strait in a mighty manner and was heading towards the Love Sea.

In addition, Romania issued a conscription order announcing the recruitment of 500,000 new soldiers nationwide. It is worth mentioning that in this conscription order, the largest number of soldiers were from the Bulgarian ethnic group. During this Greek crisis, the former Bulgarian territory completed 230,000 of the 500,000 conscription orders in one fell swoop.

(21 Romanians, 40,000 Ukrainians, 10,000 Hungarians, and about 10,000 other ethnic groups), which is worthy of being the country with the highest mobilization rate in World War I.

It was precisely because of Romania's actions that Britain and France thought Romania wanted to take action against Greece, so they had to stop the Greek crisis first.

As for how to solve the Greek crisis that broke out, we can simply sit down and talk about it slowly.


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