Chapter 871: Comparing Allies

Brauchitsch also admitted that Akado’s point about a short, sharp pain being better than a long, dull one was very reasonable. The German army emphasized swift and decisive battles. Even if the losses were greater, as long as the battle could be concluded quickly, the price the German army would have to pay would be much smaller.

As for Akado, the frustrating things on his mind right now were not limited to just Stalingrad. There was another matter that was vexing him: the issue of the alliance between Germany and Turkey. Back when Germany was eager to bring Turkey into the fold, it had offered many favorable conditions. Now, Turkish influence was seeping into the Balkan region, at one point turning the security situation there into a complete mess.

The German Foreign Ministry had to repeatedly summon the Turkish ambassador, hoping that Turkey would restrain its actions in the Balkans and at least adopt a more moderate ethnic policy to deal with the already collapsing Balkan social system.

The Balkan Peninsula has historically been a complex and eventful region in international relations, known as the “powder keg of Europe.” Here, due to various historical reasons, thorny issues such as ethnic problems, religious conflicts, cultural differences, border disputes, and political disagreements were both intertwined and seemingly irreconcilable.

And Turkey’s infiltration of its administrative area into the Balkans had made the region even more chaotic. Originally, within the Balkan Peninsula, the Yugoslav region was the area where contradictions and conflicts were most concentrated and intense. Now, due to Turkey’s extreme immigration policies, the Turkish-occupied area of the Balkans had become the most chaotic place in the entire peninsula.

Because the Balkan region is located at a crossroads of transportation and has always been a strategic point of contention, the major European powers, out of self-interest, have always paid close attention to the dynamics and changes here and have actively interfered in various contradictions and conflicts. These reasons have made the ethnic problem in the Balkans a very sensitive regional issue. Both Germany and Italy have handled it with great care, while only Turkey has been recklessly creating trouble.

If one wants to know just how chaotic the Balkan region is, one must first start with the number of ethnic groups there. In this region, there are a total of eight ethnic groups with a population of more than 500,000, and it seems that every one of them has a strong interest in ruling this region. The arrival of Turkey had added another person to the cake-dividing, but had left much less cake to be divided, and the consequences had become very bad.

Now, the basic formation sequence of the resistance forces in the Balkan region was as follows: a resistance army would generally be born in the Turkish-occupied area of the Balkans, then would move to the Italian-occupied area within the Balkans to grow and strengthen, and then would return to the Turkish-occupied area to stir up trouble.

As for the German-occupied zone, those resistance forces did not dare to provoke it easily. After all, the troops under General Hoth were not there to eat for free. Those resistance forces that had earlier gone to the German-occupied Balkan region and Bulgarian territory to make trouble had, without exception, been annihilated. General Hoth was actually happy to see what Turkey was doing, because after the comparison, the native Balkan people in his jurisdiction had become much more obedient, as their neighbors’ lives were much harder than theirs.

“I have also heard about Turkey’s reckless actions in the Balkans.” Since the topic had been brought up, Field Marshal von Brauchitsch had no choice but to continue the conversation. After a sigh, he said to Akado with resignation, “But that is Turkey’s occupied territory. We can only offer some slight opinions and cannot interfere with the actions of the Turkish army.”

“Italy, Turkey… if we don’t bring them in, they will be brought in by the British. But bringing them in only causes us trouble,” Akado said, feeling that his allies were really infuriating. When he mentioned these allies, he always felt as if he were a kindergarten teacher playing with a group of small children.

Italy was just “playing soy sauce” (being useless) in North Africa, and Turkey was also just going through the motions. Northern Britain, to this day, could only live in the shadow of reconstruction. Vichy France could only stand behind Germany and cheer with all its might. And then there was Franco’s Spain… just thinking about it made him feel sick all over. So Akado had even privately told his subordinates that Romania was Germany’s most useful ally, bar none.

Apart from asking Germany for benefits, the more skilled skills of these countries included requesting that troops be sent to help them fight for territory; blaming each other within the Axis group for their own interests; and procrastinating when the German army needed help…

“Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, tell me, why can’t we have some decent allies?” Akado asked, his heart full of complaints as he thought of these Axis allies.

“My Führer, sometimes, allies are not something we can choose freely. At least, for Germany, it is so,” Brauchitsch said with a helpless sneer. If it had been Field Marshal Rommel in North Africa complaining, then the Führer and the Field Marshal could probably have squatted together and cursed Italy all day long.

While Akado was complaining that his allies were not very reliable, far across the Atlantic, the President of the United States, Roosevelt, was also, in his wheelchair, complaining to his aides, Marshall and Eisenhower, that America’s allies were really not very good.

“The list of supplies requested by the British this month is simply unbearable! Who do they think they are? Is our America still their colony? Does His Majesty the Emperor just have to sneeze, and we have to obediently hand everything over with both hands?” an official in charge of production complained to Roosevelt from his left.

This month, the United States and Britain had had a full 114 ships sunk by the German army. Among them were destroyers, but more were supply ships. Nearly two-thirds of the supplies being shipped to Iceland and the Middle East had been sunk by the German army. Even with its vast wealth, the United States couldn’t help but have a headache over its losses.

The Middle East was still manageable. Because the United States had opened up a very long shipping route, although the losses were greater, the American forces in the Middle East were not short of food or ammunition; they just needed to transport heavy industrial products like tanks from the United States. Even so, the United States had already had a full 500 Sherman tanks “sunk” by German submarines.

Iceland was the real disaster area. The German Navy’s submarine force had deployed a new type of submarine in Iceland. The underwater speed of this submarine gave the U.S. Navy a headache, and they still had no good way to deal with it. This had also led to the German army running rampant on most of the Iceland routes. The losses of the British and American transport ships were heavy, and the Iceland route was basically in a state of paralysis.

The frontline base on Iceland, which the British royal family had prepared for the counter-attack on the homeland, was now, let alone preparing for a counter-attack, even struggling to maintain itself, which was consuming a large amount of American supplies. From grain to heavy weapons, the list of needs that the British government had provided to the United States gave one the feeling of being robbed.

“Look at what they’ve asked for! 5,000 tons of grain! Do they have that many people to feed? 15 destroyers, 1,000 fighter planes, and 20,000 tons of aviation fuel… why don’t they just go and rob someone?” The more this official spoke, the more agitated he became, pounding the document in his hand and shouting.

“Faster than robbing!” Marshall sighed and “corrected” his colleague. He then said to Roosevelt with a bitter smile, “We must be more cautious with the supplies we provide to Britain. Most of the supplies have already been sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic. Is our plan to build a bridge from the bottom of the sea to Iceland?”

General Eisenhower had always been an American general who supported the British counter-attack plan. At this moment, he was also speechless and could only force out a sentence to deal with his colleague’s accusation. “The supply request made by the British is based on the premise that a large amount of our supplies has been sunk. In fact, their needs are pitifully small. Most of the Iceland base has already stopped operating.”

Roosevelt, sitting at the head of the table, also had to lament that these allies of America were really too garbage. Look at Germany’s allies. Why can every one of them show their proper value at a critical moment?

Italy had helped the German army sweep away the Anglo-American joint forces in North Africa. The Axis now controlled North Africa, radiated into Central Africa, and was already improving its own shortage of rubber raw materials.

Turkey was straddling a four-war zone, blocking the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and threatening the security of the northern Middle East. This Middle Eastern troublemaker had nearly a million troops in its hands. Whether it went north or south, it was a threat to the strategic key points of the Allied countries.

And then look at Gibraltar’s Spain, the oil-producing Romania, the Vichy France that was beginning to transfuse blood for Germany, and the Northern Britain that was preparing to take over Britain’s legacy. So many excellent allies, how come not a single one of them was American?

The more Roosevelt thought about it, the angrier he became. He almost threw the document in his hand and had someone push his wheelchair to leave the meeting. Because in his hand was a pile of aid requests from his allies, of all various types—simply a pile of life- demanding talismans.

From the Soviet side, they were requesting that the United States provide 1 million tons of fuel, 3,000 advanced Sherman tanks, and 5,000 armored cars within six months. What was even more terrifying was that the Soviet Union hoped the U.S. military would urgently provide air force equipment: a full 5,000 advanced fighter planes and 500 large transport planes…

Roosevelt really wanted to grab Stalin by the collar and ask him, with such a lion’s-mouth-opening demand, did his parents know! The aid the United States had provided to the Soviet Union was by no means small, but what was the result? The Soviet army was now fighting a hard battle in Stalingrad, and they were still at least a hundred thousand miles from defeating Germany.

“That… Mr. President,” an official in charge of Asian affairs in a corner coughed twice and, embarrassed, pointed to a forgotten pile of documents on the table in front of Roosevelt. He said in a low voice, “I’m sorry, you’ve forgotten to look at China’s aid request.”

Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com