Chapter 226

Mussolini has been very upset recently because his troops are still trapped in Abyssinia. Although he ended the war in 1936, he is still paying for it.

Around 1930, Italy was also severely impacted by the economic crisis, and its domestic economy was close to collapse. In order to get rid of the serious domestic economic crisis, Mussolini's government vigorously promoted the militarization of the national economy, stepped up the military expansion and preparation, attempted to plunder the market and the origin of raw materials through military expansion, and then served his ultimate goal of leading Italy to become the world hegemony.

In order to redistribute the colonies of East Africa and North Africa, dominate the Mediterranean, control the route of the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, and weaken the links between Britain and France and the Asian colonies, Italy made a plan to occupy Abyssinia (that is, Ethiopia).

There are many reasons for choosing Abyssinia: first, Abyssinia is located between the Italian colonies of Eritrean and Italian Somalia. If you occupy Abyssinia, you can get through the connection between the two colonies. In this way, Italy's colonies in East Africa can be connected, and the connection between British colony Sudan and British Kenya can be cut off, so as to facilitate Italy's further action in Africa in the future.

Secondly, Abyssinia is an Italian knot. Thirty five years ago, in 1896, the king of Abyssinia led his army to defeat Italy in Adua, northern Ethiopia. He paid 10 million lira to Italy and was forced to recognize the independence of Abyssinia. He signed the Addis Ababa peace treaty. It's a permanent pain for the Italians, so this time it's a war of revenge.

With these demands, it makes sense to fight Abyssinia. All that remains is the attitude of France and Britain. But for Italy, the good news is that in order to win over Italy, France has secretly expressed its support for Italy's use of force against Abyssinia.

Without the support of the French, Britain, which opposed Italy's use of force against Abyssinia, chose to compromise at first because it was worried that Italy might shake its rule in East Africa, Egypt and Sudan. Without the support of France, the British felt that it was too risky to go to war on their own, and finally said to Mussolini implicitly: as long as Italy did not get too close to Germany, Britain would ignore Italy's actions in Abyssinia.

With the strategic purpose of weakening Britain, the United States secretly supported Italy's action, and then passed the Chinese legislation, saying that it would not export weapons to belligerent countries. However, this bill does not restrict the production of raw materials and strategic material embargoes: for Italy, which is self-sufficient in weapons and equipment, this neutral law is obviously more advantageous. Even Mussolini revealed in his personal letter to akado: "if the League of Nations sanctions Italy by means of oil embargo, then I can only withdraw from Abyssinia in a week."

Because of the successful diplomatic operation, the international community lacked interest in Abyssinia from the very beginning. Germany's annexation of Hungary and the worsening diplomatic relations between Germany and the Soviet Union and Poland made the whole world focus on Eastern Europe, while Italy's plan to fish in troubled waters finally achieved unprecedented success.

In September 1935, when Germany was digesting and annexing Austria and Czechoslovakia, the general headquarters of the Italian army was determined to concentrate more than 300000 troops under the command of general Debono, commander-in-chief of the Italian army in northeast Africa, to attack the hinterland of Abyssinia from the north, the middle and the south, with the North as the main road, in an attempt to occupy the country at one stroke. Then Abyssinia began to fight back, and the Italian army suffered a little loss, so on November 16 of the same year, marshal badolio took over the command and began to attack Abyssinia comprehensively.

The Abyssinian army is composed of about 10000 royal guards and civilian groups from various provinces and tribes, with a total number of about 450000 to 500000. But the weapons and equipment of these troops are backward, the training is poor, but the morale is high. The Supreme Commander is hale of Abyssinia? Under his command, the Abyssinian army fought hard against Italy.

The resistance plan of the general command of the Abyssinian army is as follows: the army will withdraw 30 kilometers from the border first, guard the critical points, carry out mobile defensive operations in mountainous areas, and create conditions for the subsequent counter offensive.

On October 3, Italy launched a full-scale war against Abyssinia and invaded the territory of Abyssinia with the cooperation of its powerful air force. The war between Italy and Afghanistan broke out in an all-round way, and the whole people of Abyssinia rose to fight.

The whole war went through several stages: from the outbreak of the war to the fall of the capital of Abyssinia in May 1936, it was a normal war stage. The Abyssinian army mainly fought against the Italian army in positional defense. In the first five months of the war, the Egyptian army paid more attention to the creative army in the battles of Adua, gorahai and Tampin. But then the Italian reinforcements arrived from the mainland, the fierce attack of Italian tanks and the indiscriminate bombing of aircraft saved the defeat, and soon the war entered the stage of confrontation.

In March 1936, the Italian army finally could not bear the endless war of attrition, launched a new offensive and released a large number of poison gas to carry out brutal massacre. The Abyssinian army began to lose one after another. At the end of March, the emperor of Abyssinia, hale? Emperor serrasi I personally went to the front line to command the battle of mayjou and counterattacked the Italian army which was pressing towards the capital. However, his counterattack was not successful, and he also buried the remaining reserves of the Abyssinian army.

May 3, Haier? Selassie I went into exile. On the 5th, the capital, Addis Ababa, collapsed. On the 9th, Mussolini, Italy's contented actual ruler, announced that he would merge the territory of Abyssinia into the kingdom of Italy. Since then, Abyssinia's fight against the Italian invasion has entered a new stage - guerrilla war. A part of the Abyssinian army dispersed in the western and southern provinces, formed guerrilla units with the local people, and extensively carried out guerrilla warfare. The guerrillas often attacked Italian army bases, bombed warehouses, demolished power lines and disrupted traffic. They smashed the Italian Army's "clearing operations" many times, making Italy's "colonial development plan" bankrupt. Guerrilla warfare persisted until November 1937, and there was still no sign of an end. With the cooperation of the British army and the local residents, the Abyssinian guerrillas brought endless troubles to the Italian army. In the whole war, more than 700000 people died in Abyssinia, including more than 290000 people who died of chemical warfare agents. But it also cost Italy 140000 casualties. Obviously, Italy's unprecedented success in diplomacy did not extend to the military. The Italian army with low combat power was not as good at fighting as its diplomats. After seven months of fierce war, Italy paid 12 billion lira for the operation, but it failed to achieve the goal that it thought was simple and unusual. What makes Mussolini feel even more sad is that, compared with Italy's attack on Abyssinia, which is a second rate African country, Germany is challenging Poland, the first power in Eastern Europe, and the gap between the two countries' opponents is almost unparalleled. In fact, the results are not comparable: Italy has been fighting in Abyssinia for seven months and is still trapped in the mire of war; However, it took only 22 days for Germany to attack Poland, which achieved remarkable results and won a brilliant victory in the war of Poland. Most of the time, we think that Italy lagged the Germans in World War II, which is reasonable. However, few people know that it was the Germans who cheated the Italians before Italy cheated them. In fact, in the Real World War II, Germany, Italy and Japan were harming each other more than cooperating with each other: originally, Italy hoped that Germany would launch another war in 1942, so that Italy could complete the war preparation. As we all know, Hitler started the war in 1939, Italy was not prepared and was dragged into the war, so it naturally played a bad role. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the world seemed to think that the Soviet Union and Germany were about to start war. Japan had intended to go north to attack the Soviet Union, but Germany went back to deal with France... Of course, the result was that Japan was slapped by the Soviet Union and began to go south, not to mention the destruction of going north. If you take into account Italy's repeated victimization of its ally Germany in the Balkans and North Africa, and Japan's sneak attack on the United States in the Pacific, which has made Germany not want to fight with the U.S. military... It seems that the whole world War II is a comedy in which the Three Axis powers pull each other's legs and pit their teammates. In this time and space, German head of state Ricardo disrupted the whole process of history: Italy, let alone being prepared, Mussolini, as an ally, did not even have a plan to prepare for the war... But in October 1937, Germany finished Poland, which should have been eaten two years later, and now Mussolini is like a petrified broken statue, Completely out of order in the wind. Germany slaughtered Poland with such a clean cut and disrupted the deployment of Britain and France. Not to mention, it also scared Mussolini as an ally: several important breakthroughs in his Italian revival plan have been threatened by Germany. Italy has always regarded itself as the successors of the Roman Empire, and they are more keen to restore the vast territory of the Roman Empire and turn the Mediterranean Sea into their own internal lake. However, if we want to complete this plan, we should at least guarantee Italy's voice in North Africa, East Africa and the Balkans. But now there are many wars in Africa, and Italy still has a long way to go to completely control northeast Africa. On the other hand, the Germans have swallowed Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and half of Poland. Now that Romania, Bulgaria and most of the Balkans are within reach of the German people, how can the Italians not worry------------------------------ Dragon Spirit Knight wish you readers a happy Valentine's day, I wish all lovers get married. The Fuehrer bless you! Long live Germany! In addition: for monthly tickets, recommended tickets! Your support is the greatest power of Longling! Thank you for calling Longling! Your names are remembered by dragon spirit knights. Thank you!