On September 9, 1939, the whole of Europe was stunned by the sudden upheaval.
One of the three main subjects of the Polish Confederation, and also the largest and most resource-rich subject, the army of the Free State of Ukraine announced its surrender to the German army Hundreds of thousands of heavily armed troops surrendered to the thousands of German servicemen who were actually surrounded by them.
Foreign journalists in the city of Lviv saw the most absurd and joyful surrender of all time.
A war correspondent for the British Times wrote: "About 1,000 very tall and handsome German Waffen-SS soldiers in beautiful uniforms marched from the Lviv airport in a neat line.
They are certainly the most popular aggressor of all time, and along the way there are Ukrainians who welcome them, each with a paper German flag swastika in their hands, which seems to have been prepared a long time ago, waving desperately and shouting in German: Thank you As if these German devils were not evil aggressors, but saviors who came to liberate Ukraine In fact, this is the fact that most of the inhabitants of Lviv, including Jews and Ukrainians, are Ukrainians outside Lviv, and the inhabitants of Lviv are the most Ukrainians and Jews, and there are also some Polish opinions.
When they learned that it was not the Soviet Red Army but the Germans who had landed at the airfield, the whole city celebrated, and every Ukrainian looked like he had survived the catastrophe.
The parliament of the Free State of Ukraine in Lviv immediately passed a resolution to surrender to Germany, and asked the German emperor to immediately send more troops to complete the occupation of the entire Ukrainian state as soon as possible."
"Are these Ukrainians crazy, are they all crazy" At a meeting of the British Cabinet, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain could not believe his ears after listening to the report of the Foreign Secretary.
There are so many people in Europe who want to be Germans "Lviv was originally a German city, it was originally called Lemberg, 20 years ago it belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Austrian Empire, and now Germany and Austria have completed the merger, which can also be regarded as inheriting the legal system of the Austrian Empire.
Perhaps in the eyes of the citizens of Lemberg, Germany is their homeland."
Viscount Halifax tried to explain: "In other parts of the Ukrainian Free State, people may not welcome German troops like this. ” It turned out that the Ukrainians in Lviv were originally Germans "But this is not allowed" Winston Churchill was a little annoyed, he was so happy to be invaded, is Germany really that good "But it's not a bad thing for us," Churchill thought for a moment, and then said, "Ukraine was a problem, and now it belongs to Germany, and if Stalin wants to take Ukraine, he should declare war on Germany."
The question of Ukraine's affiliation has always been a difficult problem when it comes to drawing the Soviet Union into the war.
Ukraine is too rich and too big, it is impossible for the Polish Confederation to give up Ukraine for the sake of a denise, this is not to pick up a sesame seed and throw away the watermelon And it is impossible for the Soviet Union to give up its demands on Ukraine, not to Ukraine, and then to help White Poland, which must perish in Lenin's will, to fight Germany, even Stalin will not be able to sit firmly on the throne of general secretary.
"That's true," Chamberlain thought about it, and always felt that things were not so simple, "what if Hitler and Stalin reached an agreement on the partition of Ukraine" "In that case," Churchill frowned, "I'm afraid we'll be in big trouble, because Stalin won't just take part of Ukraine, he'll swallow along with the eastern part of the Polish state, which originally belonged to Belarus."
"The USSR will go to war with Poland" Churchill nodded.
Of course, if the Soviet Union took half or most of the Free State of Ukraine, then what reason would there be to let Poland go "Then what shall we do," Chamberlain felt a little tingling in his scalp.
If the Soviet Union had fallen to Germany, it would have meant that Poland would soon be doomed.
The armored forces of the Germans will soon be able to be transferred to the western theater.
"Perhaps we will have to think about carrying out our plan to bomb the oil fields of Baku," Winston Churchill said, "because most of the German oil comes from the big oil fields of Baku and Transcaucasia, and if we can blow them up, the German war machine will soon cease to function because of the lack of oil." ” At present, Germany's fuel supply is mainly in three parts, one is imported from the Soviet Union, the second is imported from Romania, and the third is domestic synthetic fuel.
In addition, there is the strategic petroleum reserve, which has been slowly hoarded since the early 20s and now has as much as 20 million tons.
However, Britain did not know the true situation of Germany's strategic petroleum reserves, nor did it know the production capacity of synthetic fuels, and the latest information told by the Bureau of Strategic Deception to Britain, France and the Soviet Union was that there were 3 million tons of oil reserves and 2 million tons of synthetic fuel per year, while Germany's wartime consumption of oil, including synthetic fuel, was 10 million tons.
That is, without oil from the USSR and Romania, the German war machine would last only a few months at best.
Therefore, now the British envoy is lobbied in Romania with a cheque book: as long as Romania is willing to destroy the Ploiesti oil fields, Britain will immediately pay 60 million US dollars, and if Romania is not willing to destroy the oil fields, then Britain is also willing to buy Romanian oil at a high price.
However, Romania's oil production is not at all comparable to that of the Soviet Union, and the two are not the same grade.
Britain naturally judged that once the Soviet Union stopped supplying oil to Germany, Germany's war machine would not be able to fight for a long time.
Stalin actually knew a little bit about the British and French massing bomber groups in the Middle East at this time, and the Soviet intelligence services were still capable, even if they suffered a purge.
However, the British and French massing bombers in the Middle East was aimed at bombing the Soviet Union, and the military intelligence of the Soviet Red Army did not dare to make this conclusion, and it could not listen to it.
This matter is basically the top military secret of Britain and France, and only a few high-ranking officials such as the new commander of the Eastern Army, General Wei Gang, are known in the Middle East.
As a result, the General Staff of the Red Army came to a conclusion that seemed more reliable: Britain and France deployed bombers in the Middle East to deter pro-German Iran and Iraq, and also to put pressure on Turkey, which was the source of German chromite, an important raw material for the military industry.
But Stalin was not in the mood to think about what the British and French planes were doing in the Middle East, because he, like the British cabinet ministers, was stunned by the upheaval in Ukraine.
"I was wrong" Stalin had not admitted his mistake for many years, but when he heard that the Ukrainians were happily surrendering to Germany, he admitted his mistake at a meeting of the Political Bureau, "I seriously underestimated the counter-revolutionary situation in right-bank Ukraine" Stalin remarked in a very somber tone: "I was wrong to approach the Ukrainian question with empiricism without investigation and study, and what is happening in Lviv now shows that on the west bank of the Dnieper, the number of reactionaries of all kinds in the proportion of the population is not 8 or 10, but tens of percent" He glanced at Khrushchev, who also looked distressed.
Khrushchev said: "Comrade General Secretary, it is not your fault, the main thing is that I, the first secretary of Ukraine, did not do a good job, I underestimated the counter-revolutionary situation on the Right Bank, which is clearly the last bastion of all kinds of reactionary elements in all Russia, a stronghold of counter-revolutionaries" "Well, Comrade Khrushchev," Stalin's tone was already relaxed, "do you have the confidence to destroy them" Khrushchev immediately stood up and said categorically: "I promise to complete the task and completely destroy the reactionary elements of the right-bank Ukraine, leaving not a single one" It's a daunting task Stalin was very satisfied with Khrushchev's statement, but in order to eliminate all kinds of reactionaries in right-bank Ukraine, Khrushchev alone could not do it.
"Comrade Voroshilov" the leader of the Soviet Union named the People's Commissar of Defense.
"Comrade Stalin, the Belarusian and Ukrainian fronts of the Red Army are ready to launch an offensive against reactionary Poland and reactionary Ukraine at any time" Stalin looked at Voroshilov, "Comrade People's Commissar of Defense, who do you think is the enemy of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army" This is a question, now that the Free State of Poland Ukraine has happily surrendered to Germany, then whether Voroshilov's Red Army is now going to fight against the German-Ukrainian coalition forces, and looking at how the Germans behaved when they beat Poland, it seems that it is very difficult to deal with Can the Soviet Red Army fight "Comrade General Secretary, if we are going to war with Germany," Voroshilov felt that the problem was a little tricky, "we must enter into an alliance with Britain and France. ” "In alliance with Britain and France," Stalin snorted, "the same as Tsar Nicholas II" Voroshilov shuddered for a moment and quickly changed his words: "Comrade General Secretary, I don't mean that, I mean that a war with Germany is very bad for us. ” Stalin nodded and said thoughtfully: "It is necessary to avoid war with Germany, but it depends on Germany's ambitions for right-bank Ukraine."
Comrade Molotov, what do you think" "Comrade General Secretary, I think that what the reactionaries in right-bank Ukraine want most of all is for us to go to war with Germany," Molotov pondered, "and Germany's position is very unclear at the moment, and if they insist on the original Brest Treaty, which was based on the historical Brest Treaty, and that Germany did not occupy Ukraine, then the question of right-bank Ukraine would be easily resolved." ” "There will be such a good thing," Stalin looked at Molotov, "Comrade Molotov, you immediately go to Berlin and tell Hitler where we stand."
We call for the demarcation of the future border between the two countries on the basis of the Brest Treaty. ” t1706231537: