Chapter 226: Tangled Italy

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Mussolini was very upset recently because his troops are still trapped in Abyssinia and can't extricate themselves. Although he ended the war in 1936, he still pays for the war until now.
Around 1930, Italy was also severely hit by the economic crisis, and the domestic economy was close to collapse. In order to get rid of the serious economic crisis in the country, Mussolini's government tried to militarize the national economy, stepped up arms expansion and preparations, and attempted to use force to expand and plunder the market and raw material production areas, thus serving his ultimate goal of leading Italy to become the world hegemony.
In order to re-segment the colonies of East and North Africa, dominate the Mediterranean Sea, and control the route of the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, thereby weakening the links between Britain and France and the Asian colonies, it formulated a plan of occupation of Abyssinia (that is, Ethiopia).
There are many reasons for choosing Abyssinia: First, Abyssinia is located between the Italian colonies Eritrea and Italian Somalia. If Abyssinia is occupied, the link between the two colonies can be opened. In this way, the Italian colonies in East Africa can be connected together, and the connection between the British colony Sudan and British Kenya can be cut off on the ground to facilitate further Italian action in Africa in the future.
Secondly, Abyssinia is an Italian knot. Thirty-five years ago, in 1896, the King of Abyssinia personally led his army to defeat Italy in Adwa in northern Ethiopia. The Italians who were beaten paid 10 million liras. They were also forced to recognize Abyssinian independence and signed "Addis Ababa Peace Treaty." This incident is a permanent pain for the Italians, so this time is also considered a battle of revenge.
With these needs, it is very reasonable to start a war against 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, the British initially opposed the Italian use of force against Abyssinia because of fears that Italy might shake its rule in East Africa and Egypt and Sudan. Because of the lack of French support, the British felt that the risk of starting a war alone was too great, and finally expressed Mussolini ’s vague statement: As long as Italy does not go too close to the Germans, then Britain will ignore Italy ’s actions in Abyssinia .
In order to weaken the British strategic purpose, the United States secretly supported Italy ’s efforts, and subsequently passed the Chinese legislation, saying that it would not export arms to belligerent countries, but this bill does not limit the embargo on the production of raw materials and strategic materials: for Italy, which is capable of self-sufficient weapons In other words, this Chinese legislation clearly has more advantages. Even Mussolini revealed in his personal letter to Akado: "If the League of Nations sanctions Italy by means of an oil embargo, then I can only withdraw from Abyssinia after a week."
The successful diplomatic operation made the international community lack interest in Abyssinia at the beginning. The annexation of Hungary by Germany and the deterioration of diplomatic relations between the tense German Soviet Union and Poland have brought the world ’s attention to Eastern Europe, and Italy ’s plan to fish in muddy waters has finally achieved unprecedented success.
In September 1935, when Germany was digesting and annexing Austria and Czechoslovakia, the Italian Army Command was determined to concentrate more than 300,000 troops in Italian Eritrea and Somalia under the command of General De Bono, commander-in-chief of the Italian Army in Northeast Africa. Central and South three roads, mainly north road, launched a centripetal attack on the hinterland of Abyssinia in an attempt to occupy the country in one fell swoop. Subsequently, Abyssinia began to counterattack, the Italian army suffered a slight loss, so on November 16 of the same year, Marshal Bardolio took over the command and began a full attack on Abyssinia.
The Abyssinian Army consists of approximately 10,000 Royal Guards and civilian groups of various provinces and tribes, with a total of about 450,000 to 500,000 people. However, the weapons and equipment of these troops are backward and the training is poor, but the morale is high. The supreme commander was personally emperor Haile Celassi I of Abyssinia. Under his command, the Abyssinian army launched a difficult battle with Italy.
The resistance plan of the Abyssinian Army Command is that the army first withdraws 30 kilometers from the border, guards the dangers, implements mobile defense operations in the mountains, and creates conditions for the subsequent turn of counterattacks.
On October 3, Italy launched a full-scale war against Abyssinia, and with the cooperation of a strong air force, invaded Abyssinian territory. The Italian-Afghan war broke out in an all-round way, and all the people of Abyssinia rose up to face the battle.
The entire war went through several stages: from the outbreak of the war to the fall of the Abyssinian capital in May 1936, it was a regular war stage. The Abyssinian Army mainly fought against the Italians with defensive positions. In the first five months of the war, the Egyptian army had reinvented the creative army in the battles of Adua, Gora, and Tampion. But then the Italian reinforcements arrived from home, the violent attack of the Italian tanks and the indiscriminate bombing of the aircraft recovered the defeat, and soon the war entered the confrontation stage.
In March 1936, the Italian army finally could not endure the endless war of attrition, launched a new offensive and cast a large amount of poison gas for brutal slaughter. The Abyssinian army began to lose one after another. At the end of March, Emperor Haier Selassie I of Abyssinia came to the front to command the battle of Majcio, and countered the Italians who were advancing towards the capital. The runner-up reserve team.
On May 3, Haier Selassie I went into exile. On the 5th, the capital Addis Ababa fell. On the 9th, Mussolini, the proud Italian real power, announced the merger of Abyssinian territory into the Kingdom of Italy. Since then, the battle of Abyssinia against the Italian invasion has entered a new stage-the stage of guerrilla warfare.
A part of the Abyssinian army was scattered to the western and southern provinces, and formed guerrillas with the local people to conduct extensive guerrilla warfare. The guerrillas frequently attacked Italian military sites, exploded warehouses, dismantled electrical wires, and disrupted traffic. They repeatedly smashed the Italian army's "clearing operations" and bankrupted Italy's "colonial development plan."
The guerrilla warfare persisted until November 1937, and there was still no sign of ending. With the cooperation of the British army, the Abyssinian guerrillas, with the cooperation of the local residents, caused endless trouble to the Italian army. Although throughout the war, Abyssinian soldiers and civilians killed more than 700,000 people, of which more than 290,000 people died of chemical warfare agents. But it also caused a heavy price for Italy's casualties of 140,000.
Obviously, Italy ’s unprecedented diplomatic success did not extend to the military, and the low-powered Italian army failed to fight as well as their diplomats. After a fierce war of seven months, Italy paid 12 billion lire in military expenses for the operation, but it failed to actually accomplish what was originally considered a simple and abnormal goal.
What makes Mussolini even more cry is: compared with Italy ’s attack on Abyssinia, a second-tier African country, Germany challenges Poland, the largest power in Eastern Europe, and the gap between the opponents of the two countries is almost the same. And language.
In fact, the results are indeed quite different: Italy has been stuck in the quagmire of war for 7 months in Abyssinia, but it has not been able to extricate itself from the war quagmire; while Germany ’s attack on Poland took only 22 days to achieve the amazing results achieved by the world A glorious victory in the battle of Poland.
Many times we think that Italy dragged the Germans in World War II, which actually makes sense. But few people know that before the Italians pitted the Germans, it was the Germans who pitted the Italians.
In fact, Germany, Italy and Japan in the real World War II pitted each other and even more than cooperate with each other: originally Italy hoped that Germany would wage war again in 1942, so that Italy could complete the war preparations. As a result, it is well known that Hitler started fighting in 1939, and Italy lacked preparation. Being dragged into war, it is naturally bad to play.
In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, the world seemed to think that Sud was about to go to war. Japan had attempted to go north to attack the Soviet Union, but Germany turned back to clean up France ... Of course, the result was that Japan was slapped by the Soviet Union and began to go south. A broken thing going north.
If you count Italy ’s ally in Germany in the Balkans and North Africa five times, and Japan ’s attack on the United States in the Pacific, Germany does n’t want to fight the United States. It seems that the entire World War II was a spoof comedy that pitted teammates among the three axis countries.
In this time and space, the German head of state Akado disrupted the entire historical process: let alone prepare for Italy, as an ally Mussolini, it is estimated that even the plan for the preparation of the war has not been drawn up yet ... while Germany was in 1937 In October, Poland was supposed to be eaten two years later, and Mussolini is now like a petrified broken statue, completely messed up in the wind.
Germany has slapped Poland with such a clean knife, disrupted the deployment of Britain and France, not to mention, and also frightened Mussolini as an ally: in his Italian revival plan, several important breakthroughs have been threatened by the Germans Arrived.
Italy has always claimed to be the heir of the Roman Empire. They are also more keen to restore the vast territory of the Roman Empire and turn the Mediterranean into the inner lake of their own country. But to complete this plan, at least Italy should be guaranteed a voice in North Africa, East Africa, and the Balkans.
But now there is a lot of war in Africa, and Italy has a long, long way to go before it can completely control the Northeast Africa region. On the other hand, the Germans were lightning fast and had annexed Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and had eaten half of Poland. Now in Romania and Bulgaria, most Germans in the Balkans are at their fingertips. How can Italians not be worried?
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