Chapter 759 One stone stirs up a thousand waves

Restoring relations with the British is certainly something Arthur would like to see. Apart from anything else, the hundreds of thousands of British immigrants every year are still very attractive to Arthur.

If there were fewer hundreds of thousands of immigrants, Australasia's annual immigration deficit would be close to one million.

But even so, it is basically impossible for Australasia to restore its previous close diplomatic front with the British.

Australasia wants to compete for Pacific hegemony, and the British want to support another competitor in the Pacific. This means that the interests of the two countries are already different.

When the interests are not the same, the best outcome for the two countries is to become strangers, and the worst outcome is to become antagonistic.

The talks with the British ended in hypocrisy and perfunctory, but some cooperation was still achieved.

Whether it is the import of grain and meat or the maintenance of stability in the Indian Ocean, the British cannot do without the help of Australasia for the time being.

Arthur also took the opportunity to re-sign the immigration agreement with the British. There is no need to worry about British immigrants in the next few years.

After Australasia's population exceeds 40 million, population growth will depend on the birth rate of the domestic population.

By then, the demand for immigrants will not be that high, and controlling it at around 500,000 per year is considered a good ratio.

According to the current population growth rate, it will take about three years for the population to reach 40 million.

It is hoped that no large-scale war will break out within the next three years and that the world will maintain basic peace, which will be beneficial to Australasia.

Having said that, there are still many local wars in the world today. Whether it was the war between Italy and the Abyssinian Empire, the British dealing with the crisis in the Indian colonies, or the war in Eastern Europe, they all attracted a lot of public attention.

This is a good thing for the British. After all, the chaos in India is much more serious than they imagined.

If so many wars had not attracted the attention of many countries, I am afraid that the British Empire would not be as easy as it is now.

Compared with the British indifference, there are still countries that have seen the impact that such a radical country like Italy has on the world situation.

So the question is, what changes did Mussolini bring to Italy after he took office?

Mussolini's reforms to Italy were more than just a few, covering economic, industrial and military aspects.

In addition to strengthening control over industry and vigorously developing state monopoly capitalism, Mussolini also revised Italy's military service law, forcing adult men aged 18 to 55 to perform military service, and significantly expanded Italy's reserve forces. .

The biggest change caused by this is that before World War I, Italy's conventional army only numbered 200,000, and now it has expanded to nearly 450,000.

The substantial expansion of the army was also the real confidence that Mussolini dared to dispatch 100,000 troops in this war.

For Mussolini and the Italian government, this war must either not be fought, or the war must be fought to wash away the shame brought to Italy by the war more than 30 years ago.

The person responsible for commanding this war was De Bono, the commander-in-chief of the East African Army who had just been appointed by Mussolini. This general was also considered one of Mussolini’s confidants in the Italian military.

In order to win this war, Mussolini mobilized the whole country.

In order to gain air superiority, Mussolini built multiple airports around the Abyssinian Empire and transferred most of Italy's aircraft to the East African battlefield.

The hostile Abyssinian Empire did not have a single aircraft. This could no longer be said to be air superiority, because the enemy had no way to get to the air.

However, since the war started, Mussolini quickly discovered that something was wrong.

The combat effectiveness of the Italian army is the same as before World War I, even though their government is very different.

In order to win this war and not repeat the mistakes of the previous Kingdom of Italy, Mussolini announced another hundred thousand troops, increasing the strength of the East African Front to 200,000.

It is worth mentioning that the hostile Abyssinian Empire only had about 150,000 troops, but the Italian army had an advantage.

With its superior strength, the Italian army seemed a little more confident when launching an attack.

The reorganized Italian army chose to divide its troops into three routes, starting from the east, south and north, trying to capture the entire Abyssinian Empire as quickly as possible.

But the Italian army faced the Abyssinians who rose up to defend their motherland and their enemies.

Just like the war more than 30 years ago, the Abyssinians took up a variety of weapons, and some even fought with vegetable cutting knives and wooden sticks picked up by the roadside.

Although they were completely backward in terms of weapons and equipment, these Abyssinians were more familiar with Ethiopia's unique mountainous terrain conditions and used the terrain to ambush the Italian army several times and even penetrated deep into the rear of the Italian army.

If the air superiority of the Italian Air Force was not too strong, I am afraid that Italy would not have made any progress so far.

Of course, what makes Italy the most arrogant is actually the tacit attitude of Britain and France towards Italian expansion in East Africa.

Because of the respective thoughts of Britain and France, Italy encountered no obstruction in launching this war, not even diplomatic obstruction.

Although some European countries have condemned Italy's aggressive behavior, as long as it is not a powerful country, who will care?

Most of the countries that even expressed condemnation were Balkan countries. Because the Balkans are too close to Italy, the countries in the Balkans are worried that after Italy occupies the Abyssinian Empire, it will set its sights on invading the Balkans again.

Speaking of the Balkans, this is also a rather miserable region. The eyes of the major powers have focused on this peninsula, making this peninsula a veritable powder keg.

The previous competition between Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and now the competition between Italy and the Austrian Empire, are the epitome of the smoke-filled Balkans.

Coupled with the importance of the Strait of Constantinople, it is determined that the Balkans cannot usher in lasting peace unless there is a certain breakthrough in the world situation.

Speaking of which, the war between Italy and the Abyssinian Empire lasted for a month and a half.

When Mussolini launched the war before, he claimed to end the war within two months.

But now more than half of the time has passed, and the progress of the war has only advanced a little. This made Mussolini very angry and determined to give the Abyssinians some color.

The most intuitive way is, of course, to massacre the Abyssinians in the occupied areas.

After all, they are natives of Africa. Italians don't care about the life and death of Abyssinians, and neither do European countries.

As for the dissatisfaction of African countries, European countries will not care, and Italy certainly will not care.

On July 5, 1930, Italy launched a massacre in the border cities of Abyssinia.

This massacre did not take into account the women and children of the Abyssinians, and it can be said to be quite fair.

According to statistics from some war reporters, in just three days, the Italian army massacred at least 20,000 Abyssinian civilians, many of whom were pregnant women and unarmed old and weak people.

Of course, in addition to venting their anger through massacres, there are many other ways for the Italian army to vent its anger.

Some Abyssinian men who were lucky enough not to be massacred were forcibly turned into slaves and became free labor for the Italian army.

Their daily job is to do heavy physical work, and their daily food is only a piece of moldy black bread and clear soup mixed with bran and sand.

Such cruel behavior of the Italian army, as war reporters exposed it, aroused the dissatisfaction of a large number of European people.

This is also the fundamental difference between the government and the people. The top leaders of European governments don't care about the lives of these people, and they don't even care much about the lives of European people.

But European people are different. First of all, human emotions are complex, which naturally cannot exclude the compassion of many people.

In addition, most people are also kind-hearted. They are opposed to the government's massacre, or at least they are very repellent to the massacre.

The indiscriminate massacre by the Italian army aroused dissatisfaction among these people, and even large-scale demonstrations broke out in various countries.

Many people in Britain and France expressed anger, demanding that the government and the world alliance formed by various governments stop Italy from committing such cruel acts, because Europe is civilized.

These public demonstrations have caused great headaches for governments around the world. In fact, smart people all know that this is just an exchange of interests.

The problem is that such an exchange of interests is naturally impossible to make public, let alone explain it to these people.

After all, sacrificing the lives of people in other countries for the benefit of one's own country will definitely cause more dissatisfaction.

There is no way, domestic public opinion is already like this, and Britain and France can only pretend on the surface and ask the World Alliance to convene a meeting to deal with the massacre in Italy.

But smart people all know that if Britain and France really want to sanction a country, they will never be able to wait until the World Alliance to respond.

After all, to put it bluntly, the World Alliance is also under the control of Britain and France. As long as Britain and France agree on something, the World Alliance will not reach the opposite result.

Britain and France generally leave this matter to the World League, which actually means that Britain and France do not want to deal with this matter.

as expected.

The massacre began in Italy on July 5th, and in Europe on July 10th.

By the time the World Alliance announced the meeting, it was already a week later on July 17.

The meeting was held on July 22, more than half a month had passed since the massacre began.

However, the British and French goals were still achieved.

Seeing that their own government has issued a statement urging the World Alliance to convene a meeting to come up with a solution, the people simply thought that the government was also dissatisfied with Italy's behavior. However, due to the influence of the World Alliance, they could only hand over this incident to the World Alliance. Just deal with it fairly.

After all, compared to the unilateral remarks of Britain and France, the World Alliance, joined by dozens of countries around the world, symbolizes justice around the world.

Britain and France will not deliberately promote the superior status of the Four Entente Powers in the World Alliance. At this time, the people simply believed that great powers like Britain and France were just relatively powerful ordinary member states in the World Alliance.

But only at special moments will people understand that the veto power possessed by the four countries of Britain, France, Russia, and Australia symbolizes the highest power to control the world alliance.

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