Two Hundred and Twenty-Six Tangled Italy

Mussolini felt very troubled recently, because his troops were still trapped in Abyssinia and could not extricate themselves. (First appearance) Although he ended the war in 1936, he is still paying for the war to this day.

Around 1930, Italy was also severely hit by the economic crisis, and the domestic economy was close to collapse. In order to get rid of the serious domestic economic crisis, Mussolini's "government" vigorously promoted the militarization of the national economy, stepped up military expansion and preparations for war, attempted to expand by force, plundered the market and the origin of raw materials, and then served his ultimate goal of leading Italy to become a world hegemon.

In order to re-divide the colonies of East Africa and North Africa, dominate the Mediterranean Sea, control the shipping route from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, and thereby weaken the ties between Britain and France and the Asian colonies, Italy formulated an operational plan to invade Abyssinia (that is, Ethiopia).

There are many reasons for choosing Abyssinia: First, Abyssinia is located in the middle of the Italian colony of Eritrea and Italian Somalia. If Abyssinia is captured, the connection between the two colonies can be opened up. In this way, the Italian colonies in East Africa can be connected together, and the connection between the British colony Sudan and British Kenya can be cut off on the ground, which will facilitate further Italian actions in Africa in the future.

Second, Abyssinia is an Italian knot. Thirty-five years ago, in 1896, the king of Abyssinia personally led his army to defeat Italy in Aduwa, northern Ethiopia, and paid Italy 10 million lire in indemnity. He was also forced to recognize the independence of Abyssinia and signed the Addis Ababa Treaty. This incident is an eternal pain for the Italians, so this time it is also a battle of revenge.

With these demands, it makes perfect sense to go to war with Abyssinia. All that remains is the attitude of France and the United Kingdom. But for Italy, the good news is that in order to win over Italy, France has secretly expressed its support for Italy to use force against Abyssinia.

Without the support of the French, the British, which initially opposed Italy's use of military force against Abyssinia, finally chose to compromise because of fears that Italy might destabilize its rule in East Africa, Egypt and Sudan. Because of the lack of French support, the British felt that it was too risky to go to war alone, and finally made a cryptic statement to Mussolini: As long as Italy did not get too close to the Germans, the British would ignore Italy's actions in Abyssinia .

With the strategic purpose of weakening Britain, the United States secretly supported Italy, and then passed the Neutrality Act, stating that it would not export weapons to belligerent countries, but this act did not restrict the embargo on production of raw materials and strategic materials: for Italy, which is self-sufficient in weapons and equipment, In other words, this neutrality law is obviously more advantageous. Even Mussolini "revealed" in a personal letter to Accardo: "If the League of Nations sanction Italy with an oil embargo, I would have to withdraw from Abyssinia in a week. "

Because of the successful diplomatic operation, the international community lacked interest in the Abyssinia issue from the very beginning. Germany's annexation of Hungary, and the deteriorating diplomacy between the tense German-Soviet countries and Poland,

All the world's attention was focused on Eastern Europe, and Italy's plan to "catch" fish in muddy waters finally achieved unprecedented success.

In September 1935, when Germany was digesting and annexing Austria and Czechoslovakia, the Italian Army Command decided to concentrate more than 300,000 troops in Italian Eritrea and Somalia. Central and South Roads, with the North Road as the main route, carried out a centripetal attack on the hinterland of Abyssinia, in an attempt to occupy the country in one fell swoop. Then Abyssinia began to counterattack, the Italian army suffered a slight loss, so on November 16 of the same year, Marshal Bardolio took over the command and began a full-scale attack on Abyssinia.

The Abyssinian Army is composed of about 10,000 royal guards and militias of various provinces and tribes, with a total of about 450,000 to 500,000 people. But these units are poorly equipped and poorly trained, but their morale is high. The supreme commander was personally held by Emperor Haile Selassie I of Abyssinia. Under his command, the Abyssinian Army fought hard against Italy.

The resistance plan of the Abyssinian Army Headquarters is: the army first retreats 30 kilometers from the border, defends the key points, and implements mobile defense operations in the mountains, so as to create conditions for the subsequent counter-offensive.

On October 3, Italy launched a full-scale war on Abyssinia, and with the cooperation of a powerful air force, it invaded the territory of Abyssinia on a large scale. The Italian-Afghan war broke out, and all the people of Abyssinia rose up to face it.

The whole war went through several stages: from the outbreak of the war to the fall of the Abyssinian capital in May 1936, it was a stage of regular war. The Abyssinian army mainly fought the Italian army with positional defense. In the first five months of the war, the Egyptian army had re-created the army in battles such as Adua, Gorahai and Tampine. However, then Italian reinforcements arrived from the mainland, the fierce attack of Italian tanks and the indiscriminate bombardment of aircraft saved the defeat, and soon the war entered the confrontation stage.

In March 1936, the Italian army, finally unable to endure the endless war of attrition, launched a new offensive and launched a brutal massacre of poison gas. The Abyssinian army began to lose one after another. At the end of March, Emperor Haile Selassie I, the emperor of Abyssinia, came to the front to direct the Battle of Maichou, and countered the Italian army that was "pressing" towards the capital. However, his counterattack was not successful, and Abi was buried. The only remaining reserve of the Xenia Army.

On May 3, Haile Selassie I went into exile. On the 5th, the capital Addis Ababa fell. On the 9th, Mussolini, the proud de facto ruler of Italy, announced the annexation of Abyssinia to the Kingdom of Italy. Since then, Abyssinia's battle against the Italian invasion has entered a new stage - the stage of guerrilla warfare.

Part of the Abyssinian army was scattered to the western and southern provinces, and formed guerrillas with the local people to carry out extensive guerrilla warfare. The guerrillas often attacked the Italian army's garrison, bombed warehouses, dismantled power lines, and destroyed traffic.

The guerrilla warfare continued until November 1937 with no sign of ending. With the cooperation of the British army, the Abyssinian guerrillas brought endless trouble to the Italian army with the cooperation of the local residents. Although more than 700,000 soldiers and civilians died in Abyssinia throughout the war, more than 290,000 died of chemical warfare agents. However, it also caused a heavy price of 140,000 casualties to Italy.

Obviously, Italy's unprecedented diplomatic success did not carry over to the military, and the underpowered Italian army was not as good at fighting as their diplomats. After seven months of fierce war, Italy paid 12 billion lire for the operation, but failed to achieve what it thought was a simple and abnormal goal.

What made Mussolini even more dumbfounded was that compared with Italy's attack on a second-rate African country like Abyssinia, Germany challenged Poland, the No. 1 power in Eastern Europe, and the gap between the two opponents was simply incomparable. And words.

In fact, the results are indeed different: Italy fought in Abyssinia for 7 months and was still mired in the quagmire of war; while Germany attacked Poland only took 22 days to achieve an amazing victory that attracted worldwide attention. A glorious victory in the Battle of Poland.

Many times we think that it was Italy that dragged the Germans behind in World War II, which is actually justified. But few people know that in fact, before Italy cheated the Germans a few times, it was the Germans who cheated the Italians first.

In fact, the three countries of Germany, Italy and Japan entangled each other and even more than cooperated with each other in the real World War II: Italy originally hoped that Germany would start the war again in 1942, so that Italy could complete the war preparations. As a result, it is well known that Hitler started the war in 1939. Being dragged into a war naturally sucks.

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the world seemed to think that the Soviet Union and Germany were about to go to war. Japan originally tried to attack the Soviet Union from the north, but Germany turned back to clean up France. Of course, the result was that Japan was slapped by the Soviet Union and began to go south, not to mention The uproar in the north.

If you count Italy's repeated attacks on Germany in the Balkans and North Africa, and Japan's sneak attack on the United States in the Pacific, Germany, which did not want to fight the US military... It seems that the whole World War II was a spoof comedy of the three Axis powers pulling each other's backs and teammates.

And in this time and space, the German head of state Arkado disrupted the entire historical process: Italy is not prepared, as an ally Mussolini estimates that the plan to prepare for war has not yet been drawn up... And Germany is in In October 1937, Poland, which should have been eaten two years later, was settled in one breath. Now Mussolini is like a petrified and broken statue, completely messed up in the wind.

Germany slaughtered Poland with such a neat knife, disrupted the deployment of Britain and France, and frightened Mussolini as an ally: several important breakthroughs in his Italian revival plan have been blocked by Germany. people are threatened.

For a long time, Italy has regarded itself as the heir of the Roman Empire, and they are more keen to restore the vast territory of the Roman Empire and turn the Mediterranean into their own country's inner lake. But in order to complete this plan, at least Italy should ensure the right to speak in North Africa, East Africa, and the Balkans and other regions.

But now the war is raging in Africa, and Italy still has a long, long way to go from taking full control of the Northeast African region. On the other hand, the Germans are lightning fast and have already annexed Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and half of Poland. Now Romania, Bulgaria, most of the Germans in the Balkans are within reach, how can the Italians not be in a hurry?

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