The Rise Of Australasia-Chapter 1088 - 814: Hitler’s Temptation, France’s Concession

Upon learning that Hitler had taken action within Germany, Arthur had already been certain that Hitler's move would inevitably succeed.

Although the federal states of Germany possessed a certain level of power, this did not mean that they were united.

Because of Germany's defeat in World War I, Germany almost turned towards a republic. In such circumstances, the monarchs of the federal states were more or less restrained by the government, with some even completely sidelined by their state governments.

With their thrones at risk, the monarchs of the federal states were completely without the power to compete with Hitler.

In other words, as long as Hitler promised to secure the monarchs' thrones, he could win the support of the monarchs of the federal states.

With the support of the monarchs of the federal states, they could no longer pose any threat to the Imperial Government.

After all, wasn't the German Empire united because the Kingdom of Prussia, a significant part of the German Empire, had excessively strong military power?

As Arthur had expected,

it took Hitler less than two months to quickly take control of the two largest federal states of North and South Germany, the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Kingdom of Hanover.

After gaining control of these two kingdoms, the other federal states of the German Empire no longer posed a threat.

And through his actions, Hitler had also brought the entire 150,000 troop quota of Germany under his control.

Although the German Army only had 150,000 soldiers, under normal circumstances, each of these soldiers could fully qualify for the position of a junior officer at the rank of platoon leader.

All these German soldiers were carefully selected elite troops, each having served for more than five years and undergoing extensive training and testing.

It could be said that the combat power of these 150,000 German troops far surpassed that of the 600,000 troops of the Kingdom of Italy in Arthur's mind.

This point alone was enough to affirm the formidable status the German Army held in Arthur's heart. If it were not for Germany's current lack of a large-scale navy, Arthur likely would not be so content to watch the situation in Europe unfold.

This was also the greatest piece of good news. Even though Germany's industrial strength was not weak, it would be extremely difficult to develop a powerful navy from scratch.

Even if the Germans were given ten years, Germany's naval size was destined to fall short of Britain's, and it was even uncertain whether it could surpass that of Australasia.

Under such circumstances, defeating Germany in this world would be much easier than it was in history.

Having entirely united the interior of Germany, Hitler could be described as full of confidence. As the true ruler of Germany, Hitler understood that he could not stop his advance now.

The current state of Germany was not good; compared to the German Empire before World War I, contemporary Germany could be said to be a weakened version.

There is no need to mention the ceded territories, as Germany's industry and economy had also suffered tremendous losses, with only the population having grown somewhat compared to before the war.

Industrially, although Germany's industry had recovered to a world-class level and was not much different than that of the victorious nation, France.

The problem was that Germany's industry was not needed by Germany itself, but by other European victors.

Germany's industry was largely dominated by low-end processing products, which were also what other European nations heavily relied upon for German low-cost industrial products.

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Beyond that, there were only some highly noise-polluting and contaminating heavy industries that European nations had transferred to Germany.

Although these heavy industries were stationed in Germany, their ownership still belonged to foreign countries. These foreign factories employed German workers at low wages, subjecting German workers to high noise and heavily polluted work environments, and then sold a series of industrial finished products cheaply to foreign countries.

In this process, Germany could only extract a tiny amount of tariffs and a little income from those German workers.

Such development was extremely unhealthy and was the fundamental reason why Germany's industry appeared strong but in reality, did not contribute to Germany's overall strength.

If Germany wished to regain the power of the former second Empire, it had to boldly take its first step.

For someone as mad enough as Hitler, what would be the first step for the current German government? Naturally, it was to test the attitude of Britain and France.

Although Hitler very much wanted to abolish the demilitarized status of the Rhineland, he was also afraid of setbacks on this matter.

After some contemplation, Hitler decided to focus his first action on military expansion, adopting the principle of a small-scale expansion to test the attitude of Britain and France towards it.

If Britain and France only protested diplomatically, it would mean that Germany could boldly expand its military.

If Britain and France supervised Germany strictly, even threatening Germany by all means necessary to stop the expansion, then Hitler would have to contemplate how to deal with Britain and France's threats.

In June 1933, feeling prepared, Hitler officially issued a public statement.

He declared that due to Germany's chaotic society, the existing military was no longer capable of maintaining the security of the country.

To uphold national stability, the government decided to expand the military from 150,000 to 250,000 troops, and thoroughly resolve the previous divisions among the federal states, transforming the German Empire back into a unified nation.

Although the scale of the expansion was not large, and the number of German troops after the expansion would still be less than either Britain or France individually.

But Germany was, after all, bound by military restrictions; previous contracts only allowed Germany a military of 150,000.

Hitler's overt military expansion naturally raised anticipation about how the British and French would respond.

As expected, Britain and France immediately commenced with righteous diplomatic protests and even attempted to submit the issue of German rearmament to the World Alliance in hopes of eliciting global sanctions against Germany.

Hitler felt he detected a glimmer of hope in the reactions of Britain and France, so he decided to push the envelope further to truly understand their stance.

To this end, he specifically dispatched his most trusted subordinate, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, to France and the United Kingdom for persuasion.

Knowing that the British Empire was the de facto leader of the World Alliance, the Germans primarily targeted their persuasion efforts at the mightiest British Empire.

The reasons remained the same, but Germany also presented its own conditions.

First, the German military would absolutely not enter the Rhineland demilitarized zone and the German military would not be equipped with large-scale heavy weaponry.

Second, the weaponry of the German military was still limited, and all weapons related to firearms and machine guns would be solely produced by British factories.

Third, Germany committed to not expanding its navy and would not retract the already opened Kiel Canal.

Fourth, the expansion of the German military should be limited to 250,000, and unless the French also rearmed, Germany would not expand its military in the short term.

Only after Germany had agreed to these four points did the British openly and covertly express a unified stance.

Having dealt with the British, France, as the only remaining concern, wasn't so difficult to handle.

The appeasement policies of Britain and France toward Italy showed that neither the United Kingdom nor France wanted to see a war at this time.

Hitler's foreign policy revealed an element of madness. After the German Minister of Foreign Affairs entered France, besides promising not to station troops at the Franco-German border, he maintained a firm attitude.

Having clearly understood that Britain would not oppose, the Germans gained a certain amount of confidence and could now engage in a diplomatic game with the Frenchmen.

As the negotiations reached a stalemate, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs declared that, regardless of France's agreement, the rearmament of Germany would proceed as planned.

The German government also expressed its stance, which was to strengthen cooperation with Italy.

In mid-June 1933, Italy publicly announced that it would engage in a military exercise on its northern border and invited the German military to observe.

Before the French could even react, the Austrian Empire to the north of Italy became restless.

There was no choice, as the most important core area of the Austrian Empire, Austria, lay between the pincers of Germany and Italy to its north and south.

The purpose of this exercise was simple: by threatening Austria, they sought to achieve a tactic of relieving the state of Zhao by besieging the state of Wei.

So the question arose: Italy could use its military for covert threats, but would France use its military for similar retaliatory threats?

If it weren't for Italy's previous war with the Abyssinian Empire, perhaps the French would.

But the question was, knowing that Italy was already a belligerent nation capable of igniting war, would the French take the risk of waging war against the entire German-Italian Alliance just because Germany expanded its army by only 100,000?

Of course not.

This wasn't just Hitler's guess; it was also the ultimate answer given by the French diplomatic posture.

France backed down.

It seemed surprising to many, but upon closer inspection, it wasn't surprising at all.

Nevertheless, Hitler had succeeded in proving his hypothesis, allowing the Germans, after more than ten years since the end of World War I, to seize an opportunity for resurgence.

The expansion of the German military from 150,000 to 250,000 represented how significant a change for Germany?

Firstly, the additional 100,000 military personnel essentially meant 100,000 job opportunities for the nation.

Hitler certainly wouldn't fall short on paying these soldiers' salaries, which effectively meant that these military positions were the kind of work many Germans dreamt of.

One could see from the overcrowded recruitment centers that Germans were very interested in these positions, which provided room and board, and a chance to avenge the former Germany.

Under Hitler's compelling rhetoric, the Germans' hatred was successfully redirected toward the French and Jewish capitalists.

One major advantage of this was that these troops not only wouldn't oppose Hitler when he persecuted the Jews but would even be the first to step forward with a grimace.

For Arthur, the news of Germany's successful military expansion was undoubtedly the biggest story of the first half of 1933.

Because this signified that Hitler's path of madness would officially commence and the constant concessions of the appeasement policies by Britain and France would begin from that moment.