Chapter 107 The Czech Rebellion (2)

　　Listening to the persuasion of the people below you and me, Wilhelm's face showed an inscrutable smile.

　　Indeed, if it wasn't for the fact that he had traveled across and was familiar with the course of history going forward, I'm afraid he wouldn't have dared to mess with Czechoslovakia so easily.

　　Wilhelm didn't agree "A lot of times justice is not justice, it's all about strength." That's right, in his opinion a lot of times their own strength does not mean everything, also can not solve the trouble.

　　Why was World War I "the war to end all wars"? That's because the last war was too tragic. During WWI, military and civilian casualties totaled more than 41 million, of which nearly 18 million lost their lives - including 9 to 11 million soldiers and more than 6 million civilians.

　　In addition to the human casualties, the war consumed enormous social wealth, with direct economic losses amounting to some 300 billion dollars. The material and property losses of World War I amounted to 10 times the combined total of all the world's war expenditures in the 100 years since the Napoleonic Wars.

　　Such a painful lesson of war made many people believe that the First World War, which lasted from 1914 to 1918, would be the "war to end all wars".

　　One might think that the worst sufferers after the war were the dismantled Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany, which was suppressed by the Treaty of Versailles, but it was Russia and Hungary who suffered even more.

　　After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks led the Maoists to withdraw from the bourgeoisie's war to divide up the world, resulting in a fruitless Soviet Russia after the war. In terms of the course of WWI, although the Maoists withdrew before Germany's defeat, the decisive force that led to Germany's defeat was still not the hairy bears. Before Russia's withdrawal from World War I, Germany was already in decline, but the Mao Bear chose to withdraw at this time, so that the thieving eagle to take over the baton. The result is that the Mao Zi paid the biggest price on the side of the Allied Powers, after the war, nothing to share, but also let Finland independent out; and the white-headed eagle is the same as the later World War II, with the smallest cost cut to the biggest cake.

　　Hungary, on the other hand, lost the rest of Transylvania under the Treaty of Trianon as northwestern Romania; and Carpathian Rossenia as eastern Czechoslovakia to go along with the terms of the 1919 Treaty of St. Germain. Most of Burgenland was given to Austria, also in accordance with the Treaty of St. Germain, and the middle part of the Sopran region was given to Hungary in accordance with the results of the referendum of December 1921, which was the only referendum on the Hungarian territorial question.

　　According to the treaty Hungary lost a total of 72% of its territory, its population was drastically reduced from 20.8 million, and there were more Hungarians in the overseas territories than in the country itself.

　　At the same time, the biggest gainers were not Britain and France, but Poland and Czechoslovakia, Poland was raging, taking advantage of the aftermath, and beat up all the neighboring countries, the Soviet Union's territory he dared to grab, but also grabbed a part of Czechoslovakia's territory.

　　In the middle of World War I, Poland was just a battleground for Tsarist Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary to fight each other. After World War I, Poland became independent, and the Polish government was not satisfied with the eastern border stipulated in the Peace of Versailles, and wanted to restore the territory of 1772. in April 1919, the Polish government began to carry out the plan of "Greater Poland", and the Polish army invaded Lithuania and occupied Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania. in May, the Polish army invaded the Ukraine and started a war with the national independence government of Ukraine headed by Petriula. In August, the Polish army captured Minsk, a major military town in western Russia, and in the spring of 1920, Poland made a truce with the Ukrainian nationalists and signed a peace treaty in Warsaw on April 22: Poland recognized the independence of Ukraine and supported it in its confrontation with Soviet Russia.

　　In the face of aggressive Poles, the Soviet Union, in view of the domestic war is not yet over, in order to avoid being internal and external two wars to get burnt out, but also for the "foreign must first secure the internal" to buy time, so on December 22, 1919 to the Polish government issued an invitation to the peace talks, the two sides sat down at the negotiating table. However, the gap between the two sides was too wide, and the negotiations went on for several months without any result. The delay was obviously detrimental to Poland, so on April 25th, Bielski resumed his offensive at Zhytomyr in the southwest and swung eastward to take Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, on May 7th, and the negotiations broke down completely. However, by this time, the Polish offensive was at its end, with the battle line stretching from Vilnius and Minsk in the north to Kiev in the south, the troops were far from their bases, the logistical supply was intermittent, and the Pripyat swamp area divided the Polish army into two isolated battlegrounds without any contact with each other. This came at a time when the Red Army was just about to defeat Gorchak in the Volga region and drive Dunnikin into the Crimean Peninsula, just in time to spare troops to deal with Poland.

　　On May 15, the Soviet Red Army launched a counterattack from both the north and south fronts, and although the northern attack failed, it shocked Bieszuski (the head of the Polish government). The following day, the famous Bujuni 1st Cavalry Corps moved back to Kiev on the southern front and attacked Zhimitov from the west, cutting off the retreat of the Polish 3rd Corps. 13 June, the Polish army broke through the siege and retreated in the direction of Lvov, and the Polish army retreated on all fronts, and the troops began to panic. 4 July, the Red Army general Tukhachavsky commanded four corps on the axis of the railroad line of Smolensk-Bristolitsk. The whole line pressed forward, recovering the major towns of Kiev, Brestritovsk, Minsk, Vilnius, and Grodno. Throughout the month of July, the Red Army advanced 300 miles westward and drove the Polish army to the line of the Vistula River and pressed under the city of Warsaw. The Polish army then organized a counter-offensive, and a tug-of-war ensued, with both sides winning and losing, before a truce was signed on October 10, 1920, essentially maintaining the Polish-Russian border as stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles.

　　Wilhelm raised his hand, signaling everyone to hold their peace, and asked. "Do you all feel that France and Britain wish to have a breakneck war or continue to avoid it?"

　　Before the outbreak of World War I, Britain was the world's financial center, and Britain invested as much as 4 billion pounds a year overseas, occupying 43% of the total world investment at the time. After World War I, Britain not only lost a large amount of gold reserves, but also became a net debtor country from the world's largest creditor, and its world hegemony was gradually replaced by the United States.

　　France, on the other hand, was economically devastated by the war, and its industry and infrastructure were severely damaged. France's most important industrial base in the northeast was severely damaged during the war, directly leading to a serious decline in French industry.

　　Before the war, France was the most famous usury empire in the world and could be said to be rich. The annual interest alone could make the French people live a very nourishing life. But in World War I, France not only consumed a huge amount of foreign exchange, the stocks, securities and other overseas assets sold off, and owed the United States a debt.

　　There is also the loss of population in the war, military deaths of 1.315 million, disabled more than 2.8 million, wartime production and front-line services and other reasons for the loss of the labor force of 1.365 million people, the total number of casualties more than 5 million. The population of France at the time was only about 40 million, so it can be said that France lost an entire generation, and all of them were young adults, the huge population casualties made France suffered a long-term difficult to heal the wounds.

　　Such a cost was enough to make Britain and France fear a new great war.

　　The crowd could not help but look at each other, only to hear Wilhelm continue. "If they want war, the Rhineland, Austria and Spain, would have started the war long ago. So I think that this time Britain and France will continue to appease and condone our occupation of the Sudetenland. Does anyone else question my judgment?"

　　"..." Joking! Who dares to question His Highness's judgment, from the moment His Highness held onto power, nothing has escaped his calculations. It's as if it's really like God is pointing the way forward behind him. (As the saying goes, there is no impermeable wall in the world. At that time, Wilhelm's fabrication about those few Jewish elders somehow got out.)

　　That very evening Foreign Minister Ribbentrop called a press conference and read out a warning message to Czechoslovakia.

　　The British and French, who had gotten the news, were quite nervous, and the top brass of both countries held a meeting almost immediately to seek countermeasures.