Chapter 508: Peace
At almost the same moment that the German Führer’s special envoy arrived in the American capital of Washington, a German envoy arrived in the Soviet capital of Moscow. He subsequently met with Stalin and presented him with a peace agreement from the German Führer.
On the surface, there seemed to be no major problems with this agreement. After all, in this Eastern Front war, Germany was the country that had been invaded. All of the German army’s counter-attacks were part of a just war to defend their homeland, while the Soviet Union, as the shameful aggressor, was naturally despised on moral grounds.
And at this point in the war, both countries were in a very awkward position. The Soviet Union had originally wanted to invade Germany, but the German army had pushed all the way into Ukraine. Germany had originally wanted the war to start in 1939, but it had begun in 1938.
Both countries were actually very uncomfortable right now. One didn’t really want to fight, and the other wanted to fight but had lost. So for Germany to throw out this peace agreement at this time was an incredibly tempting offer.
Stalin wanted to end this failed invasion and consolidate the domestic dissatisfaction that had arisen from the defeat. He was summarizing the reasons for his defeat and had discovered that he was missing a general who could win the war.
Although people like Khrushchev were loyal and had no ideological problems, their shortcomings were also very obvious. Including Marshal Voroshilov and others, these men, while firmly supporting him, Stalin, were all lacking in ability. When it came to politics or choosing sides, Khrushchev and Voroshilov might be masters, but when it came to commanding a battle, they were clearly not as reliable as Timoshenko.
Another reason Stalin wanted to end the war was that his main forces had been more or less wiped out. The grassroots commanders he had carefully selected since the Great Purge had been mostly lost in this one battle. The 2 million elite Red Army soldiers loyal to him had been either annihilated or captured by the Germans. Now, the obedient troops he had left were pretty much only those near Moscow. For Stalin, this was clearly not an optimistic situation.
There were already problems in Kazakhstan. The country had been discussing the matter of joining the Soviet Union, but because of the defeat on the outskirts of Ukraine, the negotiations had been suspended. They were waiting for an outcome to the German-Soviet war, a clear outcome. Also waiting for the outcome was Lithuania. They were also delaying the announcement of their entry into the Soviet Union, waiting for a winner to be decided. If Timoshenko hadn’t been watching from the side, this small place would probably have started to cause trouble as well.
Another reason was that American material aid was not as timely as imagined. The main reason was the fall of the British mainland, which meant that most of the American transport ships bound for the Soviet Union could only sail from the West Coast to places like Vladivostok and then be transported overland to the western regions of the Soviet Union—a journey across more than half of the northern hemisphere to reach the front lines and be distributed to the Red Army.
This had led to a heartbreaking phenomenon. The parts of Siberia close to America had mountains of supplies piled up, while the amount of materials that could be timely transported to the Ukrainian front was pitifully small. In this way, the American aid that Stalin had been counting on as a lifeline was not as effective as he had expected.
Of course, Germany was also currently unwilling to fight a decisive battle with the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. On the one hand, the two-front war had already begun to drain Germany’s material reserves. On the other hand, the German army had not yet penetrated deep into the Soviet Union and did not have the strength to completely crush it.
The German forces that had entered Ukraine were only the 400,000 men with better mobility, namely Guderian’s Army Group G on the left flank and Keitel’s Army Group E. As a result, when this once-massive army entered the vast territory of Ukraine, they found that they were completely insufficient.
Most of the cumbersome German troops had only just entered the eastern part of Poland, where they had with great difficulty turned the million-strong surrounded Red Army into prisoners and corpses. Only then did they discover with surprise that the eastern part of Poland, on the other side of the border, was not much better than the central part of Poland controlled by Germany.
No wonder those partisans were unwilling to retreat to eastern Poland. No wonder the local people in central Poland would rather be persecuted and exploited by the Germans than migrate to the Soviet-controlled eastern part of Poland. This was entirely because the Soviets were even more ruthless than the Germans, their exploitation even more fierce.
But when the German generals led their massive armies into the Soviet Union, they finally realized that compared to the heavens and the earth, an army of millions was just an infinitesimally small existence.
Only then did they realize that they had, after all, underestimated the vastness of the Soviet Union, had underestimated the strength of the enemy. The Führer had been right. To defeat a country like the Soviet Union, it was impossible without a general mobilization. Without comprehensive war preparations and the establishment of an Eastern Front army of over 5 million men, it would be impossible to succeed.
They had captured thousands of tanks of all types, millions of artillery shells, and thousands of cannons. They had taken millions of Red Army soldiers prisoner. Yet the number of Soviet troops blocking their path was still just as large, the soldiers still just as numerous.
Now, Germany had to adopt a posture of desiring peace to appease the people’s resistance to the war. The Germans didn’t want to fight anymore; they hoped to restore peace. This was all nonsense, of course. When a country has occupied several other countries, everyone hopes to be able to develop peacefully. The key is whether the other countries are willing to watch such a powerful nation rise.
So this time, the German special envoy had come, with a group of reporters and propagandists, in the most high-profile manner possible, to Moscow. They seemed to want to tell the whole world of their desire for peace. “The German people love peace. As long as there is a hope for peace, the Germans will continue to strive for this hope.”
“Border conflicts often occur between great powers. This is caused by the high level of military preparedness that results from mutual suspicion. Our two countries have signed a non-aggression pact, and I believe that this pact was not torn up by the Soviet leader, Mr. Stalin.” This was the German special envoy’s original statement to the press. He did not discuss the issue of compensation, nor did he specify the various conditions for a ceasefire. He just tried his best to explain the decisive battle between the two million-strong armies as a border conflict.
Millions of men have been fighting for almost a month, and you’re calling this a small-scale border conflict? You’re burning newspapers at a grave—who are you trying to fool, the ghosts? If this is a border conflict, then tell me, how many people would it take for a strategic showdown? Three hundred million? Five hundred million? The whole of humanity? All the reporters felt like cursing, but they could only record the German special envoy’s wild claims with a smile on their faces.
Stalin, of course, knew that Germany was in a difficult position, but the Soviet Union he led was also in a difficult position. If it were just a matter of mutual difficulty, then a simple peace treaty could undoubtedly solve the problem.
But now, the conflict of interest between the two countries was simply too great. In the Middle East, Germany wanted to assert its right to speak and supported Turkey’s expansion, which infringed on the Soviet Union’s border interests. In Poland, Germany was strengthening its military deployment, which also made Stalin lose sleep at night. If one also included the interests in the Far East and the Arctic Ocean, it seemed that Germany and the Soviet Union had more of a blood feud than anything else.
And the terms of the German armistice treaty were also somewhat unacceptable to Stalin. The treaty stipulated that the entire former Polish region would be ceded to Germany, that Germany would only return 500,000 Soviet prisoners of war, with the rest being permanently classified as German population, and that the Soviet Union would have to compensate Germany with 4 million barrels of oil and 30 million U.S. dollars as reparations for unilaterally starting the war.
What was this? This was an unequal treaty! Ceding territory, paying reparations, and even confiscating prisoners of war! Did the Germans think they had won? Well, it was true that the Germans had won. But as long as he, Stalin, did not agree to this treaty, the war was not over, and the Germans had not yet won!
How could such a treaty be signed? If he signed this, what would be the difference between him and the Qing government? Stalin would certainly not easily accept the conditions offered by the Germans. On the one hand, he secretly ordered Khrushchev and Marshal Voroshilov to defend the southern region to the death to atone for their sins. On the other hand, he ordered the strengthening of the troops under Timoshenko’s command, preparing to fight a battle in Ukraine and then talk about a treaty with the Germans.
Soon, the 300,000 Soviet Red Army soldiers in the north, who had not suffered fatal losses, began to move south, joining the 200,000 troops that had been sent to support them from the central region, and launched a massive battle against the German army that was advancing on Kiev.
This time, the Red Army was no longer being led into a pit by a leader who did not understand warfare, because Stalin had decided not to appoint any supervisory personnel for Timoshenko, allowing him to command the frontline operations on his own. This was a bold experiment, marking Stalin’s first questioning of the model of politicians leading military experts.
“As long as a single German soldier stands on Soviet soil, the Soviet people will never yield! The war will never end!” Stalin stood on Red Square and shouted, inspiring the Soviet people. “When we have driven the Germans from our homeland, then we will talk to them about our peace!”
And later that day, Akado, at the Führer’s residence in Berlin, also delivered a speech to the whole nation. “Will someone go to the Soviet Union and help me remind Stalin that he is provoking 80 million resilient German people! Germany’s tanks and fighter planes will tell him that the German people love peace, but have never feared war!”
The applause on the scene was like thunder. The peace that the Führer had proclaimed was about to arrive. What could be more exciting than this news? In the square in front of the Führer’s residence, the cheers of “Long live Akado Rudolph!” rose and fell.
Published: 2025-08-31T02:25:28.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2025-12-04T13:48:53.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c508-peace-137750404
Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com