Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

Chapter 81: Idiot and profit fall into the trap 2



As early as December 1934, the Italian and Ethiopian armies clashed in the Eritrea border area, causing hundreds of casualties.

France and the United Kingdom, both European powers, do not support Italy's use of force against Ethiopia. Even at the League of Nations General Assembly, sovereign states passed a resolution 50 to 1 to take collective measures against Italy.

Mussolini issued a clear statement: Italy will deal with sanctions with discipline, economy and sacrifice. Although it didn't explicitly say that the sanctions would be met with war, that's what it meant.

Because of the revision of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany began to build up armaments and expand its army. Britain believed that Germany would be a potential and dangerous competitor to Britain. As for Italy, whose strength is inferior to Germany, Britain believes that Italy does not yet pose a fatal threat to itself. In addition, Italy and Germany were not in sync with each other, and Britain believed that Mussolini was "a little better" than Yannick.

France and Italy have conflicts, but in order to compete with Germany, France can only choose to "bury the hatchet" with Italy.

In January 1935, French Foreign Minister Laval visited Italy and made many concessions. This includes France sitting back and watching Italy occupy Ethiopia. Laval flattered Mussolini: Are you satisfied with the gift of Ethiopia?

France angered Britain by making sneaky under-the-table deals with Italy. The UK says France's food looks too ugly, so why can't they worry about public opinion?

Four months after Laval's visit to Rome, British Secretary of State for League of Nations Affairs Eden also came to Rome. Britain brought a gift each to Italy and Ethiopia. Italy received some areas in southern Ethiopia, while Ethiopia received the port of Zela in Italian Somalia to solve the problem of Ethiopia having no outlet to the sea. The British did not offend both sides, which angered Italy and France. France scolded Britain for being untrue, Italy said that I could annex this fat chicken of Ethiopia on my own, but why do I care about this chicken wing you threw away?

Britain and France are going around and around, sacrificing Ethiopia's interests, but it's just more or less. Before Britain and France expressed their stance, Mussolini was still hesitant to attack Ethiopia. Britain and France compromised with themselves, allowing Mussolini to boldly invade Ethiopia. Mussolini also boasted everywhere that Italy would conquer sheep-like Ethiopia like a lion. Finally, on October 3, the Italian army in Italian Somalia and Eritrea was ordered to attack Ethiopia from both sides.

Britain and France's appeasement of Italy has just begun.

Britain and France hypocritically denounced Italy's aggressive behavior at the League of Nations meeting, and then declared that they would unite other countries to impose an arms embargo on Italy and Ethiopia.

The League of Nations committee responsible for formulating sanctions plans eliminated all hidden dangers that might cause Italy to launch a war against members of the League of Nations: each grand embargo project was drafted.

It is absolutely prohibited to ship aluminum ore to Italy, but aluminum ore is the only metal mine among Italian minerals whose output exceeds its own demand; because the Italian metallurgical industry can only digest a small amount of scrap iron and iron ore, it is prohibited to ship aluminum ore to Italy. The transportation of iron ore and scrap iron, while steel plates and pig iron are not restricted; the oil necessary to maintain the war in Ethiopia is continuously shipped into Italy, because everyone understands that if the oil is embargoed, it means war.

This is simply a trick to Ethiopia. As a rare non-colonial country in Africa at that time, the northeastern corner of Ethiopia was Eritrea controlled by Italy, French Djibouti, and further east was British Somalia ( Later, the northwest corner of Somalia), and Italian Somalia to the southeast. To the west of Ethiopia are all British colonies (Sudan, Uganda, Kenya).

Under this situation, even if Ethiopia is extremely rich, it is subject to the so-called arms embargo and has nowhere to buy it. This embargo is actually a divine assist from Britain and France to Italy. After all, Italian weapons are already more advanced than Ethiopia's, and Italy can purchase them from Germany and the United States, which are not members of the League of Nations.

In October, the Italian army mobilized nearly 200,000 people to launch a war against Ethiopia. The equipment is quite luxurious: 126 aircraft, 112 tanks, 586 new artillery pieces, 4,200 machine guns, 3,700 cars, and 35,000 mules, horses and camels.

It seems that Italy is sure to win this war, but!

But!

Never fought again!

The Italian army was defeated many times! Even if the commander was changed, the battle would still be lost.

Mussolini was even in danger of stepping down, so he ordered the Italian army to use poison gas bombs on the battlefield in violation of the Geneva Convention. Although Yannick secretly transported gas masks to Ehanobia, unfortunately due to time and route constraints, the number of gas masks transported was only enough to equip several divisions.

Therefore, the Egyptian army was still retreating steadily, and the Italian army used poison gas attacks as the precursor and "succeeded in consecutive battles."

At this time, Britain and France also did something immoral. In December, Britain and France signed the Hall (British Foreign Secretary) Laval Agreement without Ethiopia's knowledge. The agreement secretly handed over 160,000 square kilometers of southern Ethiopia to Italy for "productive management" and allowed Italy to occupy nearly 160,000 square kilometers of Ethiopia's territory adjacent to Italian Somalia and Eritrea.

Apart from Britain and France, only Italy knew about this matter. With the connivance of Britain and France, Italy stepped up its aggression against Ethiopia and annexed Ethiopia in 1936. Because Britain and France allowed Germany to occupy the Sudetenland region later, they allowed Italy to occupy Ethiopia first. It can be said that the Hollaval Agreement was a rehearsal for the Munich Agreement.

There is an interesting fact here. Although Yannick aided Ethiopia purely to disgust Mussolini, during the Ethiopian War in the original time and space, the Germans actually dug holes for the Italians and secretly aided Ethiopia. Ya, Italy suffered a lot.

This is because when Germany was preparing to annex Austria in 1934, Italy stood firmly on the side of Austria (Germany and Italy were not allies at that time), and even assembled heavy troops on the border to put pressure on Germany, causing Germany's first annexation plan to go bankrupt. .

The Italians are causing trouble for the Germans, and the Germans will naturally not give up. Therefore, during Italy's invasion of Ethiopia the following year, the Germans secretly transported a large amount of weapons to Ethiopia, including 3 aircraft, more than 60 cannons, 10,000 Mauser rifles and 10 million Shoot bullets etc.

In this way, after seven months of arduous war and paying the price of 10,000 killed and 40,000 wounded, the Italian army finally occupied Ethiopia in May 1936.

This result surprised the top German military officials who were very optimistic about Italy's strength, and they were even more impressed by His Highness's foresight.

Yannick, on the other hand, didn't take this war seriously, otherwise he would have made a big mistake here if he had started planning a few years ago. However, he took advantage of Italy's use of poison gas in Ethiopia and was condemned by international public opinion to occupy Austria with lightning speed, turning it into the German Oriental Province.

In response, Britain, France and the United States recognized Germany's annexation of Austria after only a few words of verbal condemnation, and respectively changed their embassies in Austria to consulates in Vienna. And Mussolini, who was distressed by the quagmire of war in Ethiopia, could only stare, unable to do anything.


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