Chapter 48:
Chapter 48
The real fight begins now.
Germany has adopted a strategy of eliminating Britain, the threat in the west, first, and then concentrating its forces in the east.
“Tell Zhukov and Kirponos that the ‘annoyance’ will start soon.”
The Romanian troops were distributed across the entire front of the German Southern Army Group in divisions and brigades.
However, they seemed to be very confused by the news of the coup in Bucharest.
The dictator Antonescu was arrested by the revolutionaries and exiled somewhere, and four divisions of loyalist troops loyal to the king occupied the capital and cut off their supply lines.
It was not a situation to be taken lightly.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.
“We must launch a general offensive at the moment when the German army is shaken and defeat them!”
“Yes, Comrade Chief of Staff!”
The grand strategy of isolating Germany from its resources was still in operation.
Many resources were needed for military production, and we wanted to cut them off one by one and strangle Germany’s breath.
First, the Ploiesti oil fields in Romania.
The Ploiesti oil fields, which accounted for one-third of the oil production of the Axis countries, were now on the verge of falling into our hands.
If Germany lost Ploiesti, it would have no way to produce new gasoline except to dig from the small oil fields in Hungary or use liquefied coal.
Neither was a very efficient method.
“Is Ploiesti burning?”
“Yes. We dropped hundreds of Victory missiles and completely destroyed the refinery facilities.”
“Good. If King Mihai complains, promise him compensation and appease him.”
We bombed the refineries and oil fields so that Germany could not occupy them even if they pushed back into Romania.
We didn’t have to worry about oil shortage anyway, since we had planted plenty of American refineries in the Caucasus.
Did we envy that little Ploiesti oil field when we had Baku, the world’s largest oil field in this era?
Next were the remaining countries in the Balkans.
“The Yugoslav partisans are taking a positive attitude. They say they welcome anyone’s help, as they are in a state of isolation.”
“Bulgaria secretly expressed its willingness to surrender, saying that it wanted to avoid fratricide among Slavic peoples. They say they will send a special envoy.”
Germany and Italy used both diplomacy and force to secure the Balkans in their hands before invading the Soviet Union.
They first threatened Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria to join the Axis alliance.
They trampled Albania and Greece with military force, and also suppressed the anti-Axis coup that occurred in Yugoslavia with guns and swords, completely pacifying the Balkans.
But they didn’t want to get involved in the war with the Soviet Union.
Except for Romania’s Antonescu, who was greedy for land, and Hungary’s Horty, they were only half-hearted participants.
Bulgaria even refused to send a single soldier.
Now that Romania has fallen into the hands of pro-Soviet forces, a domino effect was slowly happening in the Balkans.
“We have to give as much support as possible to the Yugoslav partisans after we take over Romania. The German troops they are holding in the Balkans...”
“It’s close to 300,000 men, Comrade Chief of Staff.”
The Yugoslav partisans under Tito’s leadership were too large to be called ‘partisans’.
In actual history, they were powerful enough to roll tanks and fighter jets and fight head-on with German troops.
They relied on the support of the people in the mountainous areas near the Adriatic Sea to create liberated zones and resist.
To control the partisans, Germany had to station a huge force of one field army in the ‘rear’ of the Balkans.
“Yes. The more German troops are stuck in the Balkans, the less German troops are humiliating our motherland. Let’s do everything we can to help the partisans’ struggle. Next is...”
The map showed each country painted in red, black, or gray.
Black was Germany and its allies, red was our allies, gray was neutral countries
With Romania turning red, we had broken out of isolation, but still, most of Europe was either gray or black.
They had to turn their heads around Europe to get back to Turkey and the Balkans now that they were operating in Britain.
We would use this gap to take everything from Yugoslavia, Romania, Turkey to Iran.
“On the contrary, act as if you will agree to anything they ask for in negotiations with Iran. You can agree verbally as much as you want. Just don’t hand anything over right away and stall for time. Once Turkey is settled, we can turn our direction and threaten Iran.”
Iran had been suffering from the pressure of Britain and Russia-Soviet Union for a long time. Since the Great Game of the 19th century, these two powers had invaded this region for hegemony in Central Asia, and public opinion was inevitably leaning towards pro-Germany.
In reality, they drove out Reza Shah and installed young Pahlavi as a puppet by invading Iran in 1941 with Britain and Soviet Union... But now Britain was too busy to do that.
“Underwater, negotiate with Iranian nationalists-socialists led by Mohammad Mosaddegh. Our long-term goal is to overthrow Pahlavi’s monarchy and let them take power on our side. But for now, just make sure Shah doesn’t go over to Germany. If we get involved in that region for too long... We’ll only lose on our main front.”
Resource nationalism would also work here.
Look at the greedy behavior of Germany! What do they want from Iran and the Middle East other than oil?
If the Soviet Union falls here, there will be no one to check Germany.
Then Iran will only have to wear a new yoke of Germany instead of Britain.
But if they maintain a pro-Soviet neutrality – at least opening up the lend-lease to Persia – Iran can exert some leverage between the two powers. With their resources.
In actual history, in 1951, Mosaddegh resigned as prime minister due to a coup supported by Britain and the United States.
The anger of the Iranians, who had been manipulated by foreign powers since then, erupted into the Islamic Revolution of Khomeini.
On the other hand, the Soviet Union only offered cooperation secretly.
Let’s shake the world together someday.
We were solving what Germany had to bleed for with just showing our guns while they were absent. Germany made too many mistakes in diplomacy, and acted as if they could solve everything with military force.
We were not much different, but... only compared to Germany.
“Everyone, go out. Beria, you stay.”
“Yes!”
As people left, Beria approached me with a brisk walk.
He had a mischievous curiosity in his round eyes.
“Comrade Chief of Staff, do you have something to say?”
“Katyn. The Katyn Forest...”
It was time to pay for our sins.
The Soviet Union had committed many disgusting massacres, not as much as Germany, but one of them was the Katyn Forest.
The Soviet Union and Germany, who had signed a friendly non-aggression pact, attacked Poland, their common enemy.
They destroyed Poland and divided its territory, and dragged the officers they captured as prisoners.
The Soviet Union dragged them out of the camps where they were held and slaughtered them.
In the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, which was recently occupied by Germany, there were ‘evidences’ of that crime.
They would destroy the credibility of the Soviet Union in the international community as much as Germany.
“Ah? I didn’t know that Comrade Chief of Staff would care about such trivial things. But... everything has been ‘taken care of’. Hahahaha!”
Beria laughed. ‘Taken care of’?
Did he kill them all?
“I ordered NKVD to dig up the Polish corpses that had turned into skeletons from the burial site. We did it while there was a stalemate near Smolensk. And we buried the dead without distinction in the pits we dug up, so they can’t be identified!”
“...”
I couldn’t stand looking at Beria, who seemed to be asking if he did well.
He did such things to look good to me.
Sins should be exposed and punished.
The Nazis did, the Japanese did, the colonial empires and the Soviet Union did, and many more countries would do so.
But if we hide it like this... can we really get our deserved punishment?
He left the room with a chuckle at my faint words.
I hated myself
