Rise of Australia

Chapter 949 Unlimited Submarine Warfare

In order to effectively respond to the possible material replenishment to Germany by various countries in the world, the United Kingdom, France and Australia, after continuous discussions, finally decided to promulgate a rather overbearing policy, that is, the unlimited submarine warfare policy.

The so-called unlimited submarine warfare policy was mainly aimed at effectively cutting off the export of resources to Germany through submarine attacks.

The scope of unlimited submarine warfare covers the entire Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. It can be said that the British have made up their minds this time to eliminate the possibility of any country transporting resources to Germany.

Of course, doing so will inevitably lead to accidental injuries.

Therefore, when this policy was promulgated, the United Kingdom, France and Australia jointly issued a statement requiring that all civilian ships passing through the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea must be registered with the exclusive agencies of the three countries to avoid being harmed in submarine warfare.

Such a statement is quite overbearing, which also means that all civilian ships of countries along the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts will be subject to joint control by the United Kingdom, France and Australia.

But the problem is that within the scope of these two oceans, apart from Britain, France and Australia, the only powerful countries seem to be the enemies of Britain, France and Australia.

The remaining neutral countries are generally not strong, and even if they have some complaints, they can only succumb to the tyranny of the Three Kingdoms Alliance.

Of course, judging from the current world situation, the country most likely to be dissatisfied with such policies is Brazil.

Because there is not much trade between other countries and Germany, it is nothing more than registering cargo ships, which basically will not affect the domestic economy.

But Brazil is different. Currently, more than one-third of Brazil's exports are in cooperation with Germany. Such a policy will severely hit Brazil's export industry and will also seriously affect the domestic economy.

However, Britain, France and Australia were not worried about forcing Brazil to join the Germans. Even for Australasia, if Brazil took the initiative to jump on the Germans' chariot, it would be a good thing, which would give Australasia more reason to declare war on Brazil.

The reason why Australasia agreed to this obviously offensive policy was not only to attract Brazil to directly join the German chariot, but also to force the Germans to launch a more proactive attack through such restrictive policies.

Only when the Germans go crazy will the battlefield in Europe become more intense. Only when the offensive becomes more intense will the casualties of various countries increase further.

Although this may also end the war earlier, I believe that the Germans will never give up any chance of winning.

The Germany in history was quite crazy. With a total population of only 8000 million, it armed an army of more than 1800 million.

Judging from the current size of the German army, it is still far from reaching its peak state.

Of course, the most exaggerated is Russia, which has suffered the most casualties so far. Based on the scale of casualties in World War II, the Russians are likely to be able to arm an army of more than 3000 million.

Of course, this was a bit of a stretch. Even most of the so-called soldiers were just farmers and workers in other industries. They hurriedly went through a brief training, put on their own uniforms, which might even be the uniforms of soldiers who had just died on the battlefield, and rushed to the battlefield with their own weapons.

Since the military size of European countries has not yet reached its maximum, Arthur does not mind adding fuel to the fire and asking them to arm their military to the maximum extent as soon as possible.

Soon, it was November 1937.

Unlimited submarine warfare did have some results, especially in Brazil, where the number of merchant ships heading to Europe was reduced by almost half, which also meant that the amount of supplies transported to Germany would likely be reduced by half.

Brazil is likely to suffer the greatest losses, but for any of the UK, France and Australia, Brazil's opinion is actually not that important.

For the United Kingdom, France and Australia, what they are concerned about is actually how long it will take for this war to end and how the benefits will be divided after the war.

Yes, even though the war is still in full swing, Britain, France and Australia have already begun discussing the division of post-war interests.

As we all know, war is just a form of diplomacy. No matter how the war situation evolves, there is only one final outcome, that is, one party swallows up the interests of the other party.

For Britain, France and Australia, which currently have absolute naval advantage, the longer this war lasts, the greater their chances of winning.

Especially after the policy of unlimited submarine warfare was promulgated, Germany's domestic supplies were bound to fail to keep up with the consumption of the war. Britain, France and Australia could replenish supplies through their vast colonies and trade with countries around the world, but the Germans could only rely on a small amount of resources from their own homeland and allies.

More importantly, Australasia has not yet used such powerful weapons on the European battlefield. Through the personal experience of the island nation, it can be known that such weapons can effectively target the enemy's large industrial bases and super-large cities, as well as the front lines where the troops are stationed densely.

No matter how powerful the German army was, it would not be able to withstand such weapons for long.

This also led to the fact that in the minds of Britain and France, there was only one possible outcome for this war, and that was that they would achieve final victory.

It is for this reason that it becomes necessary to divide the benefits after winning the war.

Discussing the interest areas to be divided among countries in advance can not only effectively avoid conflicts caused by the division of interests after the war, but also make countries more motivated to participate in the war.

After all, to put it bluntly, the only motivation that attracted Britain, France, Australia and all other participating countries to invest everything in this war was the division of territory after the war.

If this meeting on the division of benefits can ensure that all warring countries can get a piece of the pie, it can indeed increase the motivation of various countries in the war.

On November 1937, 11, a conference on the division of interests among the Allies was held in London.

There were countless countries participating in the conference, including Britain, France, Australia, as well as Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey from the Balkans, the three Nordic countries, the three Low Countries, and so on.

If we include the governments-in-exile of those countries that have already perished and the autonomous governments of the Commonwealth, the number of national governments participating in this conference has reached more than 20.

In a broader sense, this is more like a routine meeting of the now-disbanded World Alliance. Countries participating in the meeting are from all over the world, and the leading investors are still the three major powers of Britain, France and Australia.

It is worth mentioning that although this meeting was not open to the public, the related confidentiality was not very strict.

To put it bluntly, Britain, France and Australia also wanted to use such a conference arrangement to undermine the morale of the Allied Powers led by Germany as much as possible.

After all, Britain, France and Australia are already discussing how to divide the Allied countries. If Germany does not have any countermeasures, then it means that their only fate is to be divided.

Do the Germans have any countermeasures?
Of course there is, and you have to have it even if you don’t have it.

To be honest, regardless of whether there is a need to divide the interests, the response to the London conference alone forced the German government to organize a similar conference as a counterattack.

The meeting was held in Berlin, the capital of Germany, and many countries participated, led by Germany and Italy, and also joined by Romania, Bulgaria and Spain.

If we count the puppet governments set up by Germany in Northern Europe, the Allied Powers actually participated in the conference with more than 10 countries. And because it was a counterattack, the conference organized by the German government was completely open, and even the German Prime Minister did not shy away from saying that the conference was to divide up the colonies of Britain and France.

But what’s funny is that because the island nation has been completely defeated and surrendered, the current Allied Powers look more like a two-man show between Germany and Italy.

The so-called division of Britain and France's colonies was actually just the two countries of Germany and Italy, and at most Spain, discussing the division of Africa.

As for the remaining so-called Romania, Bulgaria and other countries, they were destined to have no chance of becoming African colonies.

Firstly, it was because of the distance, and secondly, the country was not strong enough, and there were not so many colonies in Africa for them to divide up.

It is also because of this that the meeting hosted by Germany looks a bit like playing house.

There are only a few truly sovereign countries, and they have to rely on Germany for survival, just like the United Kingdom hosting a Commonwealth conference decades ago.

Let’s get back to the Allied Conference in London.

London was very lively because dozens of countries participated.

In order to prevent the Germans from joining in the fun at this time, Britain, France and Australia gathered more than two thousand aircraft and chose a relatively secret bunker in London as the venue for the meeting.

Combined with the security forces around the bunker, the British could proudly declare that unless Germany used the kind of weapons used by Australasia on the island nation, there would be absolutely no danger in the bunker where the meeting was held.

As time came to the morning of November 11th, representatives from various countries drove to the bunker and entered the heavily guarded meeting room.

The representative of Australasia at the conference was the ambassador to the UK, Mark. For a country like Australasia, the level of the diplomatic representative sent is no longer that important.

At the diplomatic level, a country’s own strength is the most important.

As long as Australasia's strength remains among the top three in the world, diplomatic representatives sent out at any level will be respected and will have some say.

In other words, it is the famous saying that a weak country has no diplomacy.

Although there were many countries participating in the London Conference, in reality, the only countries that had real say were Britain, France and Australia.

The remaining countries such as Yugoslavia and Greece are not strong enough and can only hope to get a share of the soup from Britain, France and Australia while they are eating the meat.

The good news is that the remaining countries will indeed get a piece of the pie.

It's not even just a mouthful of soup, because most countries can get a mouthful of meat because of the proposal discussed by Britain, France and Australia to lure other countries to increase their troops.

The first region to be discussed for division is the Balkan Peninsula, where the fighting is currently the most intense outside of Eastern and Western Europe.

There are currently two places in the Balkan Peninsula that can be divided, namely Bulgaria and Romania.

The countries that were able to participate in the division were all Balkan countries, such as Türkiye, Greece and Yugoslavia.

At this time, the voice of Britain, France and Australia was fully reflected. If the Balkan countries wanted to eat more meat, they had to obtain the consent of Britain, France and Australia.

In fact, Britain has the most say in the Balkans.

France had suffered heavy losses in the war and its army performed very poorly, completely falling out of the first tier of world powers.

Although Australasia’s current strength has surpassed that of France, it is not much different from that of the British.

But the biggest problem is that Australasia is too far away from Europe. Even the distance to the Balkan Peninsula is far greater than the distance between Britain and France and the Balkans.

As a result, Australasia's influence in the Balkans will naturally decline, even to the point of being inferior to that of France.

However, in terms of the statements made at the conference, the statements made by Australasian diplomatic representatives are still relatively important.

If Australasia is unwilling to allow a certain country to gain too many benefits, Britain and France will also be more inclined towards Australasia for the sake of their own relations with Australasia.

This further proves the idea that weak countries have no diplomacy. Even if a truly powerful country has no idea about a certain region, other countries will involuntarily consider the opinions of Australasia.

Regarding the division of interests in the Balkan Peninsula, the British still adhere to the policy of regional balance.

If Germany was defeated, a very powerful country would rise in the Balkan Peninsula, that is Yugoslavia.

This is a loss to the interests of Britain, France and Australia.

Generally speaking, if there is only one powerful country in a region, then this powerful country will inevitably have more say in this region.

This also means that if Yugoslavia is not controlled, the situation in the Balkan Peninsula in the future will be decided by Yugoslavia.

You know, the Balkan region is no less important than any other region, and it has the St. Petersburg Strait that is powerful enough to restrict Russia.

Therefore, the British absolutely could not accept losing control of the Balkan Peninsula, especially to a not-so-strong country like Yugoslavia.

This also means that it is necessary to support a country in the Balkans that is capable of countering Yugoslavia in order to maintain the so-called regional balance policy of the British.

It is precisely because of this that Yugoslavia would not be able to gain much benefit distribution after the war.

Otherwise, there would be no country in the Balkans strong enough to confront Yugoslavia, and the British policy of regional balance would no longer be valid.

So the question is, which country should be supported to fight against Yugoslavia, which is obviously very powerful?

You know, Yugoslavia is not an ordinary medium-sized country. Yugoslavia is currently considered a second-strong country, and it must be contained by a second-strong country.

(End of this chapter)