Chapter 374 Who Will Fall First?

Colonel William Joseph Donovan, an old classmate of Roosevelt, came to wartime London again in early July. When the whole of Europe seemed to be succumbing to the German Empire, only the islanders in London and other parts of Britain did not have the slightest intention of surrendering.

However, Colonel Donovan was very surprised when he came to England again. He was not surprised by the tense wartime atmosphere in London, but by the peace in London. Compared with London when France was about to fall in May, the smell of gunpowder in the city was not stronger but almost disappeared.

There were no trucks with anti-aircraft balloons tied to 10 Downing Street, and the anti-aircraft guns in the nearby square were also moved away. There were no crashed plane wreckage or buildings that had just been bombed in the city. Only some street sweepers were working hard to remove the leaflets dropped by German planes last night. Since late May, the harassment bombing between Britain and Germany no longer dropped real bombs, but changed to dropping "paper bombs". Every night, several Ju.88 bombers would break in from an altitude of 8,000 meters, drop several tons of paper bombs without any lethality, and then swagger away. The British Wellington bombers also went to Berlin to drop leaflets every night.

Colonel Donovan picked up a leaflet that had not been cleaned up, and looked at it as he walked. The Germans claimed on the leaflet that they had huge strategic oil reserves and advanced synthetic gasoline technology, which could fully meet the fuel needs of the entire Europe. At the same time, the Germans also announced the results of the joint submarine and aircraft sabotage that made people tremble with fear - they sank 88 British merchant ships throughout June, not including the number sunk by mines!

On one hand, the EU was sanctioned and blockaded Germany and Italy, and on the other hand, submarines were sabotaging and blockading Britain. Was the Second World War going to be decided by blockade?

Colonel Donovan walked into No. 10 Downing Street with this thought in mind, and then, under the guidance of a secretary from the Prime Minister's Office, he came to a room with a large fleet position diagram hanging on the wall. On the surface of the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, colorful thumbtacks are sparse, but densely packed around the British Isles. In addition, many thumbtacks are connected to form a thin line to mark the shipping route across the Atlantic. The British Prime Minister and two old men in military uniforms stood in front of this schematic diagram.

Seeing Donovan come in, Churchill pointed to the thin line on the map with his hand holding a cigar and said, "Colonel, the situation is now very clear. The key to determining the outcome of the world war is here. If the Germans cut off here before their own supplies are exhausted, we will be finished."

Unlike the situation in history, the German strategy led by Hessmann did not have the option of bombing or landing in Britain. Now Hessmann's method to deal with Britain is only one - disrupting the trade!

Before defeating France, the task of disrupting trade was mainly carried out by submarines, and after the German army took over Brest on the Brittany Peninsula, Fw-200, He-115 and Fokker Zero all joined the disrupting operation.

Now the latest tactic of the Germans is to use the long-range Fw-200C3 reconnaissance/maritime patrol aircraft to conduct reconnaissance in the Atlantic Ocean 1,000 kilometers northwest of Brest. When the Fw-200C3 discovers the British fleet, it will use telegrams to call submarines and He-115 torpedo bombers and Fokker Zero fighters (serving as escorts) at the Brest base to attack.

Such tactics were extremely successful in late June. On June 24, a convoy consisting of 48 merchant ships and 12 destroyers was attacked by German aircraft and submarines in the waters west of Ireland, losing 29 merchant ships and 4 destroyers, and another 10 merchant ships and 3 destroyers were damaged to varying degrees!

For this reason, the British Admiralty had to let the convoy sail on a more northern route, and calculated the time to enter the waters west of Scotland after dark, which was also within the combat radius of the He-115 and Fokker Zero.

However, passing through that not-so-wide sea area at night was very easy to be sunk and damaged by mines (laid by Fw-200 and German submarines), and the losses were also shocking.

The huge losses at sea were also the reason why Churchill chose to sanction the EU and prohibit the import of strategic materials (oil, steel, food, cotton, rubber, non-ferrous metals, etc.) regardless of the risk of neutral countries in Europe turning to Germany. It is worth mentioning that as soon as Churchill's sanctions stick was revealed, Sweden, the strongest of the three Nordic countries, backed down and temporarily did not join the European Customs Union. Therefore, the countries that have joined the European Customs Union are Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway (Quisling became the Prime Minister of Norway after the Battle of France), Denmark, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Galicia-Ukraine, Slovakia and other twelve countries.

Due to the sanctions and blockades by the United Kingdom, these twelve countries now have no way to import materials by sea. Therefore, Germany can only bear their strategic material supply-using the strategic reserves stored before the war and the strategic resources imported from resource exporting countries such as the Soviet Union, Romania, Turkey and other resource exporting countries to supply the entire European Customs Union.

However, Germany in this time and space had accumulated a large amount of reserves through Soviet-German cooperation and barter trade before the war. The oil reserves alone were as high as 20 million tons before the outbreak of the war (in the battle on the Western Front, Germany also seized the oil reserves of France, Belgium, Luxembourg and other countries)!

In addition, Germany now produces 5 million tons of synthetic fuels and hundreds of thousands of tons of shale oil every year. The Soviet Union provided another 250,000 tons of oil to Germany every month (the Soviet Union reduced its oil supply after the Batumi incident). Moreover, Germany also controls oil fields in Poland, Western Ukraine and other places, and can get 700,000 to 800,000 tons of oil every year, and the large oil fields in Romania are about to fall into German hands... All of them can also get 10 million tons a year. The above various oils are enough to meet Germany's wartime needs.

Therefore, Germany can now rely on the release of strategic reserves to maintain the basic consumption of oil in the European Customs Union countries. Other resources that need to be imported from outside Europe can also be maintained for a period of time by strategic reserves.

Therefore, even if Churchill's blockade could bring down Germany, it would be a few years later. But Britain itself is very likely to fall first because of Germany's submarine + aircraft tactics to break diplomatic relations.

"It won't be over, we should join in when the time comes." Donovan said with a smile, "The results of the Republican primary show that the American people are not willing to see Germany dominate the world, and it is only a matter of time before full intervention. But in my opinion Come on, what determines fate is not just the thin line across the Atlantic Ocean, but the direction of the Germans' next attack. If the Germans get enough oil, nonferrous metals and food, I think even if we join, it will be impossible. It will be difficult to liberate the continent from them."

The issues Donovan mentioned were actually the views of Roosevelt and his think tank advisers. The industrial strength of the European continent is no less than that of the United States, and its population is much larger than that of the United Kingdom and the United States. However, its weakness is the short-term resources, especially oil, which is very dependent on imports, and there are insufficient grain, cotton and non-ferrous metals.

If Germany can solve the problem of resource supply in Europe, it will be difficult for the United States to win even if it joins the war.

Churchill took a few puffs of his cigarette, and a trace of worry appeared on his fat face. He said: "You mean the danger in North Africa and the Mediterranean, right? Yes, it is very dangerous there. We don't have enough troops there, and we don't have enough troops in North Africa and the Mediterranean." We only have about 100,000 people in Northeast Africa, and some of them are Indians. Italy probably has more than 500,000 troops there. Fortunately, we bombed the port of Toulon in May and let the French fleet go. Temporarily paralyzed, at least for the next 12 months, we can still maintain sea control in the Mediterranean.

Also, the mistakes the Germans made in the Balkans may well help us. Colonel, do you think it is possible for the Serbs to rebel against the German verdict? If they are willing to resist, they may be able to contain the German forces... After all, Yugoslavia has a relatively large army. "

Donovan had just visited Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, and met the young and energetic King Peter II. The king and the Yugoslav military, as well as most Serbs, firmly opposed the Geneva Judgment.

Prince Paul, the regent in power, was in a dilemma. On the one hand, he knew that Yugoslavia was unable to resist Germany, but on the other hand, he was afraid that his compromise line would lead to death. Therefore, after he returned from Geneva, he adopted a line of "fake resistance, real surrender". In the name of defending Belgrade, Yugoslav troops were transferred from Croatia and Slovenia and then deployed in Vojvodina (which was the gateway to the north of Belgrade). At the same time, he also began to purge the Croats and Slovenes in the Yugoslav army. The name was to purify the army, but the actual purpose was to draw a clear line with Croatia and Slovenia, and then allow these two provinces to secede from Yugoslavia on their own.

"Prime Minister," Donovan frowned and said, "Most Serbs are willing to resist, but the problem is that Yugoslavia is in a very remote location. Its coastline is on the Adriatic Sea, which is completely surrounded by the Italian Navy. Control. There is no way the Serbians can persist without external assistance.”

"There will be a way," Churchill grinned slyly, and he continued, "I have just received a very reliable intelligence that the Italian leader is planning to invade Greece. The Serbs only need to endure for two or three months, and we will I can fight alongside them.”