Chapter 842 Rome Peace Conference

Seeing that a border crisis is about to break out between Germany and Poland, the French can no longer sit still.

On August 3, 1935, the French Foreign Minister went to Berlin in person and made a request to the German government for a peace conference.

At the same time, the French diplomatic ambassador to Italy also contacted the Italian government, advocating that the two parties in this incident should sit down at the conference table and negotiate peacefully, instead of using force that no one wants to see and paying the price of bloodshed. final result.

Because the agreed attack time had not yet arrived, Germany and Italy also planned to see how the French made their choice, so they agreed to the French's request for peace talks.

As for Poland, facing the demands of France and Austria, it is impossible for the Poles to ignore them.

If Poland loses the support of European powers because it ignores the demands of France and Austria, Poland will have little chance of winning when facing Germany alone.

Even if the Polish government has great ambitions, it is impossible to lose its mind because of its own ambitions. After careful consideration, the Poles also agreed to sit at the negotiating table and resolve the issue peacefully.

However, several countries have different opinions on where the negotiations should be held.

As the initiator of the peace talks, the French wanted to hold the peace talks in Paris. Paris is not only the base camp of the French, but it is also far away from the dispute, making it one of the more suitable locations.

But Germany and Poland both rejected the French demands. The Poles demanded that the peace talks be held in Poland and that Poland's sovereignty over its existing territory be respected.

As for Germany, they did not ask for the peace talks to be held in a German city, but for the peace talks to be held in the capital of their ally, Rome, Italy.

The French are also unwilling to engage in too much stalemate regarding the location of the peace talks. In the end, the location of the peace talks was determined to be Rome, Italy, with participants including Germany, Italy, France, the Austrian Empire and Poland.

When the British have no time to think about anything else, the four countries of France, Germany, Italy and Austria are currently the most powerful and influential powers in Europe.

Therefore, the Rome Peace Conference also attracted the attention of a large number of Europeans. If the peace conference can properly resolve the recent conflicts in Europe, it will be a good thing for all Europeans.

On August 17, 1935, the Rome Peace Conference was officially held in Rome, the capital of Italy.

The standard of this meeting is relatively high, and the candidates participating in the meeting are all major leaders from each country.

France's new Prime Minister Pierre Laval was present at the meeting. Since the last conflict between the French president and prime minister broke out, President Albert dismissed Prime Minister Edouard from his post and replaced Pierre Laval as Prime Minister of France.

Pierre Laval is no stranger to the French cabinet either. Pierre Laval served in the French Parliament as early as World War I and has served as a member of the French cabinet several times in recent years.

In the French cabinet, Pierre Laval is an official who is relatively close to President Albert's ideological philosophy. In real history, Pierre Laval not only supported Marshal Pétain's rise to power, but also attended the premiership of Vichy France.

From this aspect, it can also be seen that Pierre Laval is a staunch peace advocate, and he does not even have much recognition of national honor and national interests.

The fact that France sent such a staunch peacemaker to participate in the meeting also proved the attitude of the French in this meeting, which was to exchange for a long-term peace at a certain price.

In addition to France, the members sent by several other countries to participate in the meeting were also famous figures.

As for Germany, the Prime Minister's personal attendance has proved Germany's attitude. On the Italian side, Mussolini also attended this meeting, and there was still a high degree of tacit understanding with the German side.

As for the Austrian Empire, the meeting was attended by the imperial crown prince Otto.

After all, other countries have sent their main leaders to participate. The Austrian Empire, without sending out its prime minister, can only match the status of these people, and the only heirs to the imperial throne are left.

As for the Republic of Poland, who they send is actually not that important.

The other participants in this meeting were all major powers. Although Poland was a party, its status was no longer that important.

Just like Czechoslovakia at the Munich Conference, the biggest role of the Poles in this conference was to prove to the outside world why this conference was held.

From this point of view, Poland is still stronger than several other countries.

At least so far, Poland is one of the few countries that can prompt the four powers to sit together for a peace conference. Looking at the whole of Europe, there are not many countries that can achieve this level.

At the beginning of the meeting, Germany and Italy expressed extremely firm attitudes. Different from the attitudes of Germany and Italy, the French's attitude is more inclined to give in, and Austria's attitude is even more ambiguous, without a specific idea at all.

The firmness of both sides in their respective needs has largely determined the direction of this meeting.

The only dispute at this meeting was actually the territorial scope required by Germany. According to the Germans' demands, Poland not only had to cede the entire Polish Corridor but also gave control of Lithuania to Germany.

Needless to say, the Free City of Danzig will rejoin the embrace of the German Empire.

In this way, a medium-sized country in Central Europe that is not inferior to Germany in area will be directly reduced to a small country like Hungary.

What's even more terrible is that Poland will lose all its outlets to the sea and once again become flanked by Germany and Russia.

Such a requirement is fatal to a country whose foundation is not strong to begin with. If France agrees to Germany's request, it will be difficult for the Poles to maintain their independence between Germany and Russia, let alone realize the idea of ​​a greater Poland.

The French were naturally unwilling to lose so much territory to Germany. This has gone far beyond what the French had said before to take back the territory ceded to Germany.

The French said that Germany could re-establish ties with East Prussia and regain the sovereignty of the Free City of Danzig.

But the rest of the Polish Corridor, including Lithuania, should still belong to the Republic of Poland.

The French proposal retained a certain strength for the Poles. At least Poland could still be regarded as a middle-level country, rather than a fat mass that could be slaughtered by others.

As a result, the negotiations reached a stalemate.

But it no longer matters to Germany and Italy. Regardless of the outcome of the negotiations, Germany always has only one goal, which is to fully annex Poland.

The current peace talks with France are mostly just to delay the French so that they can prepare for war.

This is also the reason why the Germans could have chosen the location of the peace talks in Germany, but gave up doing so.

For the Germans, George V was critically ill, and the British were destined not to have much energy to manage European affairs.

Australasia is still being restrained by islanders, and it will be impossible to reach Europe for a while.

This also means that the real enemies of Germany and Italy are currently only France and the Austrian Empire. These two countries look powerful, but in fact they have many limitations.

Austria is flanked by Germany and Italy from the north and south, and the French are also likely to face the risk of a three-front war.

From this point of view, Germany, which only has to face France and Austria, is not as stressed as imagined.

As long as the Spanish National Army can gain an advantage in the Spanish Civil War, this two-on-two battle between European powers will be a novice level that Germany can easily win.

On the other side, news of Rome's peace negotiations also reached Arthur's ears.

Up to now, the situation in this world has completely changed compared to history.

Germany did not annex Austria and Czechoslovakia, but placed its primary expansion goal on Poland.

This resulted in Britain and France not fully understanding Germany's insatiable appetite. In the French plan, they even simply believed that as long as the current demands of the Germans were met, they could at least buy France several years of peace.

The question is, can extreme countries like Germany and Italy really maintain peace for several years?

If what these two countries wanted was peace, they would not have expanded their armies from the beginning and constantly tested the final bottom line of Britain and France.

One step back leads to another step back. Britain and France made wrong choices at the beginning, and now Britain and France can only bear the consequences of their wrong choices.

As expected by Arthur, the Roman peace negotiations came to an end in less than a month.

France, Italy, Germany, Austria and Poland jointly signed the "Rome Agreement", officially announcing the end of the peace talks.

In Rome, French President Pierre Laval was interviewed by media from Italy and all Europe. He smiled and said confidently: "We have adopted a more peaceful way to solve the crisis in Germany and Poland. Now, let us cheer and celebrate this hard-won peace!”

This sentence even made the front page of French media reports that day, and also caused the French people to celebrate and cheer.

President Albert is also very proud. He believes that his administrative philosophy is currently the most suitable for France. The attitude of the people in Paris also proves his point of view.

For a time, media from various countries reported on the peace brought about by this agreement.

However, neither countries nor the media noticed that Germany, which had obtained the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor through the Rome Agreement, had not satisfied its ambitious appetite at all.

A large number of German troops are being mobilized. Their purpose seems not to occupy and control the newly obtained Polish corridor, but to march eastward into Warsaw and deep into Poland.

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