Chapter 179 The Future Commander 4
Although the Baltic Republic was not the territory of the former German Empire, William II, who set foot on this land, was surprised to find that he seemed to have been ruling this country all along.
When he walked down the gangway of the "Germany" at the port of Riga, got on a Maybach luxury convertible and drove into the city of Riga, he found that the whole city was rejoicing for his arrival.
"Long live the emperor! Long live Germany!"
On both sides of the street, there were citizens of Riga wearing festive costumes, and some people came from other places to witness the style of His Majesty the Emperor.
Unlike the situation in Germany, the Baltic Republic has been promoting "imperialization" education in the past decade. In the history and German textbooks of the Baltic Republic, the content glorifying the Hohenzollern dynasty and William II can be seen everywhere.
In Riga and other cities in the Baltic Republic, there are squares, streets, schools and hospitals named after the monarchs, ministers and generals of the Hohenzollern dynasty.
Any words or deeds that attack and smear the Hohenzollern dynasty and the monarch will be punished accordingly according to Baltic law. And few Baltic people will do this - after all, most Baltic Germans are beneficiaries of the policies implemented by William II.
According to the official Baltic propaganda, the homes of the Baltic people were liberated with the help of His Majesty William II, and their land was also granted by His Majesty the Emperor. Without the emperor, there would be no Baltic today.
And this is almost true. Although the Baltic Republic, with a population of nearly 4 million, has some industries - such as aircraft manufacturing and shipbuilding. But it is mainly an agricultural country, and about 300,000 small family farms are the economic foundation of the Baltic Republic. The owners of these small family farms are mostly Germans who moved from Russia and Poland. They got the land from the Baltic government free of charge.
Moreover, after granting the farms, the Baltic government did not ignore these family farms and let them fend for themselves. German-style meticulous management is vividly reflected in the Baltic.
A system called "family agricultural cooperative" has been implemented in the Baltic Republics for more than 12 years.
In Hirschman's view, this system is between family farms and collective farms. According to Rosenberg, this system originated from the Volga German settlements in Russia - there is a tradition of "cooperation" and "communalization" in Russian agricultural history. This tradition influenced the Germans who immigrated to the Volga River Basin (Russian Jews were also influenced by it and implemented "moshav agricultural collectivization" after immigrating to Palestine), and they also formed small family farms into communes.
Later, they brought this system to the Baltic Republics, and also had a real "German-style scientific management", forming a multi-level agricultural cooperative system supported by the government.
At the top is the Baltic Agricultural Cooperative General, below are the provincial and county branches, and at the bottom are agricultural communes composed of family farms - this is a complex and peculiar system. The agricultural commune is actually an operating entity, similar to an agricultural joint-stock company, and needs to be responsible for its own profits and losses. The cooperatives at all levels above the "commune" are non-profit agricultural service agencies, responsible for providing technical support, small low-interest loans, product sales and procurement to the "commune" (the daily necessities, production tools, etc. needed by the commune are all provided by the cooperatives).
Under the operation of the Germans who are more disciplined and not very sneaky, the agricultural cooperative system in the Baltic Republic has been running well in the past 12 years. It has allowed most citizens of the Baltic Republic to have a relatively stable and affluent life - compared with neighboring Poland and the Soviet Union, it is very good.
Moreover, this system has also made the Baltic Republic a major exporter of agricultural products, exporting at least 1.3 million tons of grain to Germany every year (accounting for one-third of Germany's grain imports) and a large amount of meat products, seafood, and dairy products.
In this case, the wealthy and stable Baltic German farmers are of course easily deceived by their royalist government and follow the royalists in a muddle - in Europe, small and medium-sized farmers with relatively stable lives are often symbols of conservative forces, and the grassroots of royalists in various countries are these people. The working class and urban intellectuals are often more radical, and they are the main force of the revolution. If Hitler could deal with these radical workers and intellectuals, he could unite Germany and turn it into a powerful war machine.
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"Mr. Prime Minister, have you seen this? The 4 million Baltic people all support the emperor. Unless the emperor is restored in Germany, they will not support the merger of the Baltic and Germany."
The President of the Baltic Republic, Goltz, sat in another Maybach car with Chancellor Hitler and Infantry General Hessmann.
Hitler arrived in the Baltic one day earlier than the German Emperor. He came not only to welcome William II, but also to observe the "Iron Fist-1935" military exercise. At the same time, he wanted to discuss the merger of Germany and the Baltic with the President of the Baltic Republic, Goltz.
The merger was supposed to be implemented in 1933, but Britain, France, the Soviet Union and Poland successively expressed opposition, which made the merger postponed again and again. The opposition of the Soviet Union need not be taken seriously, as Stalin had already expressed his opinion of "non-interference" to Hersmann in private. Among the remaining three countries of Britain, France and Poland, Poland's attitude made Hitler most worried - before Germany completed the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, it was necessary to maintain relations with Poland.
However, the news that Piłsudski was suffering from liver cancer and would soon die made Hitler feel that the opportunity to merge the Baltic Republic was ripe.
But President Goltz proposed the condition of "restoring the Hohenzollern dynasty" at this time.
"The restoration of the dynasty is not something that I can say alone," Hitler said in a cold tone, "This requires a referendum!"
Hitler agreed to put the issue of "restoring the Hohenzollern dynasty" to a referendum, which was already a big concession.
However, the vote was not easy to pass. Now the Junker Group was the one who was really interested in restoration. Although the Junkers had a strong military force, they were too few in number, and the votes they could control were even fewer.
In today's German parliament, the largest party, the National Socialist Workers' Party, holds a majority of more than 60%. The "Junker Party" in the coalition government, the Fatherland People's Party, only has 28% of the seats - this is the result of a by-election after the Social Democratic Party was banned.
"Chancellor, perhaps we can put the merger with the Baltic Republic and the restoration of the dynasty together for a referendum." Hersmann suggested.
He is much more clear about the rules of democratic elections than Goltz - Goltz implemented military dictatorship and enlightened rule in the Baltic.
"It is certainly easy to pass the two bills in one," Hitler said, "but the support of the National Socialist Party is the key!"
"If the empire is restored," Hessmann said slowly, "of course a new constitution needs to be formulated... We need a constitution that can win victory for Germany! Under the leadership of the emperor and the chancellor, the upper, middle and lower classes of Germany will truly unite. We will be invincible!"
"Invincible?" Hitler glanced at Hessmann, "Ludwig, are you confident about the results of the exercise?"
Hitler was talking about a military exercise code-named "Iron Fist-1935", which will start on May 1, 1935 and end on May 10, for a total of 10 days.
More than 135,000 German and Baltic Republic officers and soldiers will participate in this large-scale exercise. The purpose of the exercise is to test the correctness of the "mechanized warfare theory".
According to the plan, these 135,000 officers and soldiers will be divided into the "Blue Army" and the "Red Army".
The Blue Army is composed of a temporary armored army, including the German 1st Armored Division, the 3rd Motorized Infantry Division and the Baltic 1st Motorized Infantry Division. It is not wartime now, and even "high-tech" troops such as armored divisions and motorized infantry divisions are not fully equipped, so the three divisions have a total of only 45,000 people.
In addition, there is a battalion of Hs123 ground support aircraft assigned to the Blue Army.
The Red Army is composed of nearly 90,000 officers and soldiers, including two Baltic infantry divisions and four German infantry divisions. The number is twice that of the Blue Army, but there is no air force assigned.
In the exercise plan, the Blue Army with fewer people will be responsible for the attack, and the Red Army with more people will deploy a 100-kilometer defense line in the south of the Courland Peninsula. The Blue Army must break through the defense line within 10 days and advance more than 20 kilometers to the north to win.
In Hitler's view, unless it is cheating, the possibility of the Blue Army successfully completing the task is zero. However, if Hitler really wanted to cheat, he was confident that he could find out.
If it was Hitler in 1935 in another time and space, he would definitely not have the idea he has now. Because in another time and space, this "corporal" is the supreme commander of the German armed forces, with a lot of brilliant military generals around him as advisers, and he can get the latest reports on the development of military technology at any time. With his little talent, he can keenly capture the general direction of the military revolution.
But in this time and space, although he also has military adjutants and several military staff, their levels and levels are not high, and most of them are not active officers. Generally speaking, he is still the head of a civilian government, and his understanding of professional military issues is very limited.
"Mr. Prime Minister," Hitler certainly understood Hitler's mind, he smiled, "The exercise will start the day after tomorrow, and tomorrow you and His Majesty the Emperor can listen to the combat plan reports of the commanders of both sides. Then on May 1st, go to observe the breakthrough of the blue side."
Hersmann did not intend to cheat, and he also wanted to convince Hitler that he was completely unable to command the war. So there is no point in falsifying the facts. Although Hitler did not understand mechanized warfare, he was not a rookie who had never been on the battlefield.