Rise of Australia

Chapter 946 Cambridge Five
After ending the war with the island country, Australasia completely focused its attention on the battlefield in Europe.

The current European battlefield is extremely fierce. All major European countries have participated in this war. The total number of soldiers involved in the war has reached a terrifying 3000 million, and there are dozens of countries participating in the war.

At present, the size of the armies of various countries has expanded to an extremely exaggerated number, with millions of troops, which has also caused casualties in Europe to increase at an extremely exaggerated rate every day.

If we talk about the country with the largest number of troops at present, it must be the German Empire, which fights on three fronts and has extremely strong combat effectiveness.

Currently, the total size of the German army is estimated to have exceeded 600 million, of which about 110 million are deployed in the Western European battlefield, 30 in North Africa, 55 in the Balkans, and 330 million in Eastern Europe.

The second country with the largest total number of troops is Russia. Because of the surprise attack, Russia lost a large number of troops in the early stage of the war. But the good news is that Russia has a population of over 600 million, and coupled with the cohesion of the country, Russia still has an army of nearly million.

However, Russia's situation was not good at this time. The German army's offensive in Eastern Europe was extremely successful. At present, major Russian cities such as Minsk, St. Petersburg, and Kiev have fallen, and the German army has already attacked the vicinity of Moscow.

If nothing unexpected happens, a defense of Moscow that is completely different from the historical one is about to begin.

The third country with the largest total number of troops is France. At least the current situation in France is much better than in history.

Although Paris had been occupied, France also controlled many areas of the original southern coast of the United States, which could provide France with very important oil minerals and financial support.

Combined with the manpower from Africa, France still maintains an army of nearly 400 million, which is a pretty good level.

After all, the populations of the two countries above have exceeded 100 million. France, relying on its own native population of less than 40 million, is maintaining an army of more than 4 million, and is absolutely doing its best.

Next are the United Kingdom and Australasia.

The current size of the British army is around 400 million, but more than half of them are soldiers from the colonies and the Commonwealth.

The number of troops actually mobilized from the British mainland was only over one million, which was also a clever point on the part of the British.

Although not many local troops were dispatched, the British suffered heavy losses.

There are currently no large-scale naval battles in Europe, but there are countless small-scale sneak attacks on civilian ships.

The Germans once again displayed the submarine warfare spirit of World War I, sending a large number of submarines to attack British merchant ships and transport ships. The sinking of each merchant ship was a real loss for the British.

Coupled with the losses from the German bombing of London and the military spending of the army and navy, the British losses were second only to Russia and even greater than France.

However, the loss of property and materials is definitely not as serious as the loss of manpower.

If the British took ten years to slowly recover from their losses, then the French would take at least twenty years, or even longer.

After all, population is not something that can be replenished in a short period of time. Moreover, the casualties of the war are all young and middle-aged people, which is one of the most important groups for a country.

The size of Australasia's army is currently one of the smallest among the major belligerents, only larger than Italy, and only slightly larger.

The current total number of Australasia's troops is approximately 340 million, including 140 million Australasia native troops, 50 Philippine troops, 150 million Kalimantan troops, excluding the West Coast United Kingdom and the Kingdom of California.

Italy's army is the smallest among the participating powers, with only a little over 300 million troops. Among these 300 million troops, Italy has deployed 50 troops in the North African battlefield, 110 million troops in the Western European battlefield, and nearly one million troops in the Balkan battlefield.

The current size of the military forces of just six countries, namely Germany, Russia, Britain, France, Australia and Italy, has reached more than 2600 million, which is more than the total population of most countries.

More importantly, the number of soldiers killed in the war by the current participating countries is not included. Adding the millions of troops from the defeated island countries, the total number of soldiers from various countries involved in the war has exceeded 4000 million.

Among all the participating countries, the Russians definitely suffered the most casualties. Although they joined the war relatively late, due to various reasons, the Russians' casualties exceeded those of the earliest participating countries such as France and Poland, and even far exceeded those of the already perished countries such as the Austrian Empire.

According to reports from some Russian media with official backgrounds, plus rough intelligence from the intelligence agencies, it is currently certain that Russia's casualties in the war reached at least over 400 million, an exaggerated scale that no other country has achieved.

Of the 400 million casualties, more than half were Russian infantrymen who were surrounded and annihilated during the rapid advance of German armored forces.

However, there is a country that is even worse off than Russia, and that is Poland, which has been completely occupied by Germany.

In fact, Poland suffered only a few hundred thousand casualties in the war. Although tragic, it is definitely not on the list of casualties among all countries.

However, due to the various concentration camp massacres after Germany occupied Poland, Poland’s casualties suddenly increased by millions.

Currently, Poland's casualties rank ahead of France and second only to Russia, the island countries and Germany.

In this regard, Poland's treatment is simply incomparable to Austria's. As a country completely occupied by Germany, most of Austria's population is recognized by the German government, and the Czech region is currently Germany's second most important industrial center, so it is naturally impossible for a massacre to occur.

Considering the current number of troops and casualties in various countries, the only two countries that suffered heavy losses were Poland and Austria, which were completely occupied.

Even Russia, which suffered the highest number of casualties, did not suffer serious damage in the war, but only superficial injuries.

This clearly did not meet Arthur's expectations, nor did it fit Australasia's strategic objectives in this war.

This also means that this war cannot end at least now.

The good news is that after ending the war with the island countries, Australasia can mobilize an army of more than 200 million, which can play a vital role in the European battlefield.

It can be said that whether the war ends now is entirely up to Australasia. As long as Arthur wants the war to continue, the war will continue to develop in the current situation.

But if Arthur wants to end the war quickly, the deployment of more than 200 million troops and the threat of nuclear weapons can end the war as soon as possible from the perspective of benefiting Australasia.

So far, Australasia has played an increasingly important role in this war, and its status among the three countries of Britain, France and Australia has gradually been reflected.

Britain and France also had to consider Australasia's attitude, and were even willing to make some sacrifices to ensure that Australasia would still stand on their side. On September 1937, 9, Britain, France and Australia held a secret meeting in London to discuss the joint anti-espionage and anti-infiltration operations of various countries.

Mark, the Australian Ambassador to the UK, said at the meeting: "Australasian, British and French are all traditional Western technological and industrial powers, and should strengthen the protection of intelligence related to science and technology and industry."

Ambassador Mark said: "The three countries should cooperate in some anti-infiltration and counter-espionage operations to prevent outside forces from infiltrating the intelligence work of the three countries and defrauding the scientific and technological information and industrial design data of the three countries."

Although no one was named in the meeting to guard against anyone, based on the current situation, the United Kingdom, France and Australia all understand that the target of the anti-infiltration mentioned here is Russia.

In fact, this was in the interests of the British. Russia was already a very powerful enemy at this time. If they were allowed to obtain a large amount of scientific and technological information and industrial designs, or even some industrial equipment and production lines, the consequences would be disastrous.

A country with a dense population, vast land, rich mineral resources and oil is already quite scary. If they catch up in industry and some military technology, then Britain and France will never be able to deal with such a country.

The land area of ​​Britain and France is not large, which also limits the upper limit of Britain and France. From the current development of France, it can be seen that it is difficult for France to launch a charge towards the position of world hegemony.

The reason why the British are still the world hegemon is that India and other vast colonies are extremely important. If India is independent, Britain will never be able to maintain its position as the world hegemon.

It was precisely because of their own concerns that Britain and France quickly agreed to this anti-espionage and anti-infiltration convention.

The convention stipulates that the three countries share intelligence in counter-espionage and anti-infiltration, and jointly monitor each country's advanced military technology and industrial equipment to prevent them from being infiltrated and stolen by the enemy.

Why sign such a convention?

Although Arthur did not remember the specific events clearly, he vaguely remembered that Russia in history had made great achievements in infiltration and had also mastered a lot of advanced technology and information from the British.

Judging from the current developments in the world, Russia may be Australasia’s biggest enemy after the war.

For Arthur, the natural thing is to cut off the enemy's rapid growth in military and industrial technology as much as possible.

Fortunately, Arthur's emphasis on intelligence work over the years has not been without results. The three major intelligence departments supervise and cooperate with each other, ensuring that it is difficult for spies from enemy countries to infiltrate.

Because even if one intelligence department is conquered, there are still two other intelligence departments to supervise each other. Unless the enemy can infiltrate three intelligence departments at the same time, it will be difficult to obtain intelligence on advanced weapons and technology from Australasia.

But it is unimaginably difficult to infiltrate three intelligence agencies at the same time, and no country has been able to do it so far.

The first is the National Security Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for preventing enemy spies from infiltrating the country and directly controls all the population in the country, including all incoming immigrants and tourists.

Even if they escape the supervision of the National Security Intelligence Agency, various important factories and enterprises are basically supervised by Royal Security Intelligence Agency personnel.

It is easy to imagine how difficult it is to infiltrate various institutions and enterprises under the supervision of the two major intelligence agencies and obtain important information and intelligence.

The Military Intelligence Bureau, which is responsible for external affairs, can also supervise the domestic situation. The Military Intelligence Bureau will send a large number of spies to infiltrate other countries. These spies can also control some important departments of foreign countries and then discover some spies sent by the enemy to the country.

After the United Kingdom, France and Australia signed the Anti-Infiltration Convention, the anti-espionage and anti-infiltration work between the three countries has indeed become much easier.

Some false identities are also easier to investigate, and Australasia can pay more attention to anti-infiltration situations in Britain and France.

Just half a month later, the intelligence agencies of Australasia made a discovery.

The discovery was made by the foreign intelligence service, the Military Intelligence Service, which was responsible for the British being severely infiltrated by the enemy.

Arthur was also surprised when he received the intelligence, because according to the situation, the enemy had infiltrated British institutions for several years, and a considerable amount of intelligence and scientific and technological information had been transferred to Russia.

If the Australasian intelligence agencies had not discovered it in time, the various information and intelligence leaked from the British alone would have been enough to allow the Russians to become an industrial power more quickly.

This is terrible and definitely bad news.

Arthur acted decisively and decided to quickly interrupt Russian infiltration into Britain and eliminate as many Russian spies in Britain as possible.

Donald Maclean was born in 1913 into an aristocratic family in London. His father was a Liberal Party politician and served as chairman of the Education Committee.

In June 1934, Maclean passed the Cambridge graduation examination with honors. In August 6, he began to prepare for the examination to enter the British Foreign Office. During the interview, the examination committee asked him about his "support for Russian ideas" in Cambridge. He thought for a moment and replied: "I have had such ideas, and I have not completely given up this idea." His honest answer satisfied the interviewer and agreed to let him join the British diplomatic department.

In the two years since joining the diplomatic department, Donald Maclean has conveyed at least 11 intelligence reports to Russia, including the deployment of the British Expeditionary Force, the production situation of the British military industry, and some cooperation between Australasia and Britain.

Arthur almost wanted to laugh when he saw the spy material. Donald MacLean had shown support for Russian ideas when he was at Cambridge University, but the interviewer of the diplomatic department accepted him because of his seemingly honest behavior.

You have to know that this means being admitted as a diplomat in a national department, and it is possible to come into contact with government officials at the core level of the country.

At this time Arthur finally remembered that there was a famous event about Cambridge University, that is, the Cambridge Five.

Five outstanding talents born in the UK were infiltrated by Russia one after another, and all of them went to important British institutions and departments.

During World War II and even in the decades after World War II, they provided Russia with countless intelligence, which was also one of the reasons for Russia's rapid rise in history.

It also includes some specific drawings and materials of important military equipment, as well as information on related industrial technology.

Although Arthur has no ill will towards those who pursue their own ideas, is it really a good thing to betray one's country for the sake of ideas?

Moreover, Arthur is now in an enemy position with them, so naturally he won't let them go.

(End of this chapter)