Chapter 766 Axis Powers' Cairo Conference - Greater Rome
When evening came, Hersmann and Adolf Hitler climbed up the walls of Saladin Castle, which was majestic and ancient, and had witnessed countless rises and falls over the past hundreds of years. A Roman eagle flag was hung on the spire of the Mohammed Ali Mosque in the castle, and it was motionless in the dim sunlight.
"In 621 AD, the Sassanid Dynasty of Persia defeated the Eastern Roman Empire and completely controlled Egypt." Hitler seemed to be a little emotional, looking at the eagle flag and said to Hersmann, "After 1,320 years, you have brought the Roman eagle flag back to Cairo."
"Leader, this is the Italian eagle flag, not the Roman eagle flag." Hersmann smiled sarcastically, "The Italians are not worthy of the name of the Roman Empire, they will never become Rome. In today's Europe, only our German Empire can become Rome!"
Rome has a special meaning for Europe. It symbolizes the era of glory and unity. In the era when the Germans led Europe, they called their empire the Holy Roman Empire. When Emperor Napoleon swept across Europe, the French emperor took the name of Rome from the Germans and made his son Napoleon II the King of Rome. There was no Roman Kingdom at that time, and the name of the King of Rome obviously meant the birth of the French Rome.
And now, Mussolini has raised the Roman Eagle Flag in Italy!
The transformation of the Kingdom of Italy into the Roman Empire is not as simple as changing the name, because the European Community can accommodate Italy, but it is absolutely impossible to accommodate Rome.
"Marshal of the Empire, our friend Mussolini does not think so." Hitler said, with his hands behind his back, walking slowly on the ancient city wall, "His Roman Empire has a vast territory of 7.5 million square kilometers, which is more vast than Rome in its heyday in history."
Mussolini did build a Greater Rome. His empire roughly included Italy, Albania, Egypt, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Abyssinia and Somalia (including Italian, French, and British Somalia), which is almost 7.5 million square kilometers!
According to the shameless Italian leader, the Roman Empire is now the second most powerful country in Europe in terms of territory, second only to the Soviet Union, and larger than the German Empire and the French Republic.
"Big but useless," Hessman smiled, "Except for Egypt and Italy, other places are barren and have little value. Now the Italians are just blinded by a kind of illusory power and have some illusions."
In fact, there are still many valuable territories in Mussolini's 7.5 million square kilometers, such as Libya and South Sudan, which are rich in oil. But now the oil in Libya and Sudan has not been discovered. Even if oil is extracted there in the future, the oil revenue will certainly not be able to cope with the development and governance costs of more than 7 million square kilometers of African land.
In the future, Italy will either turn its African territories into a simple resource collection area without development and construction, or it will bear a heavy burden-considering that Italy's industry is not developed at present, the burden of developing African territories will be very heavy.
France, which has swallowed Algeria and French Morocco, faces the same problem. Nearly 3 million square kilometers of land look quite pleasing on the map. However, it is very troublesome to develop and build, assimilate the people there, and truly turn it into a part of France.
Moreover, Algeria and French Morocco, like Italy's African territories, are not places where industry can be developed. Except for the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, other places are sparsely populated, with inconvenient transportation and poor land, and there are no low-cost industrial resources except oil and gas. Even the advantages of oil and gas resources cannot compare with the Middle East controlled by Germany.
In contrast, Germany is preparing to take over the territories as its homeland, such as Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, part or all of Belarus, and Ukraine. Although the area is not large, it is the real essence.
There is a very good foundation there at the moment, and the difficulty of integration and development is not too high. As long as it is done well, the future German Empire will have an area of less than 2 million square kilometers, but its economic and industrial strength will far exceed that of France and Italy.
However, the comparison between the 750 square kilometers of "Great Rome" and the less than 2 million square kilometers of "Little Germany" will still give Italians like Mussolini a sense of illusory power.
This illusory sense of power has now become the biggest obstacle to Italy's inclusion in the European Community. In the meeting this afternoon, Mussolini rejected the proposal to allow the Roman Empire to join the European Community, and also proposed to merge Bosnia (the Yugoslav part) and Montenegro (Montenegro) into Italy's Greater Albania - this is Italy's compensation for giving up Greece.
"Imperial Marshal, I know Mussolini is a little hot-headed." Hitler pointed to his head and smiled bitterly, "But he is our friend after all, so we can't order 100 divisions to march to Rome... Although that would make us the master of Italy within 3 months."
"Leader, you overestimate the Italians," Hessmann smiled and shook his head, "We don't need 100 divisions, nor do we need 3 months... With 10 divisions and 2 weeks, we can occupy the whole of Italy."
"Really?" Hitler looked back at Hersmann. Seeing the serious look on the Reich Marshal's face, Hitler knew he was not joking, but he still shook his head. "This won't work. Italians are a Latin race, different from us Aryans. These people are too cunning. The Holy Roman Empire spent hundreds of years not turning them into Germans. I don't want the Third Reich to be in Italy anymore." It’s a waste of energy on people. Germany… can only expand eastward!”
"Yes," Hessman nodded, "I don't think it's possible for us to assimilate the Italians... In fact, the peoples who are more similar to us Germans are the ethnic groups in Eastern Europe that have not been ruled by the Mongols for a long time. For example, the Poles and Lithuanians , Belarusians and right-bank Ukrainians, they are relatively similar to us and close in blood.”
This is the national view of the Prussian Junkers represented by Herschmann, which is different from Nazis like Hitler who came from South Germany.
Because many knight families in Prussia and East Prussia were aristocrats with transnational development in their ancestors. They spread their branches in Poland, Lithuania, Western Ukraine and the Baltic Sea coast. It is inevitable that they have West Slavic or East Slavic (under the rule of Lithuania) in their lineage. (East Slavic), so these Slavs were not regarded as outsiders. But at the same time, they regard the Russians as half-barbaric Tatars and do not regard them as authentic Europeans.
"But how should we cure the Italians' illusory feeling of strength?" Hitler looked at the Roman eagle flag hanging high and felt a little embarrassed.
Feeling too good is a disease and must be cured!
"Leader, there is still a small country in the Balkans today that is not very obedient." Hersman said slowly, "It also needs to be treated. Why not let Mussolini treat it, and treat the Italian leader himself at the same time."
"Serbia?" Hitler frowned, "But the Hungarians don't want to see Italy expanding in the Balkans..."
"Actually, we don't want to see the Italians expanding their power in the Balkans!" Hersman shrugged. "Let the Hungarians, Serbs and Italians compete... We just need to control the scale."
"scale?"
"Hungarians and Croatians cannot compete directly with Italians," Hersman said.
What he meant was that the Italians could go to war with the Serbs, and the Croat-Hungarian Kingdom could provide some assistance to the Serbian resistance. But belligerence between Italy and Croatia-Hungary must be prohibited. In other words, Yugoslavia can exist as an "ulcer" for educating Italians...
"There will be a lot of refugees again," Hitler still shook his head. "Mussolini is an insatiable guy. Once he takes advantage in Bosnia, he will definitely invade Serbia. At that time, many people will flee to Croatia and Hungary. On the land, we can’t ignore it.”
Already many Ukrainians, Belarusians and Poles have fled to Western and Central Europe as refugees. Because they will all become Germans in the future, they have to be taken care of no matter how troublesome they are. But the Serbians did not receive this treatment, and no one prepared German passports for them.
"Send it to the Middle East," Hessman thought for a while and said, "You can send it to Lebanon and Syria. I think Syria is a good place to resettle European refugees."
…
While Hessmann and Hitler were discussing how to cure Mussolini's illusory sense of power, the greatest Roman after Chaszinni the Great was greeting Easterners from Japan at Cairo's Caesar Airport. Hideki Jo, Isoroku Yamamoto and others - because the host country of the Cairo Conference was Italy, Mussolini was also the one who welcomed the guests, while Germany only sent Foreign Minister Ribbentrop to accompany them.
Not seeing Hitler and Herschmann, Tojo Hideki and Yamamoto Isoroku were inevitably a little disappointed.
However, Mussolini was also one of the three giants of the Axis Powers (the other two were Hitler and Tojo himself), and the European Combined Fleet also had Italian shares. In terms of aviation technology, the Italians are now ranked third in the world after Germany and the United States (a ranking the Axis powers vaunted), and they seem to be able to provide some help to Japan.
Therefore, Tojo Hideki and Yamamoto Isoroku simply tentatively raised the issue of "sneak attack on Panama" and aviation technical assistance to Mussolini at the dinner held for them by the Italians that day.