Chapter 166
Chapter 166
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Bluff (1)
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The Italian War plunged France's fascist regime into a serious crisis.
“Leotard, you mad warmonger! With war breaking out right next door, how can you justify fighting a war in the colonies?”
While other colonial empires had withdrawn from their colonies where wars had erupted, France still refused to let go of Algeria and Indochina.
Algeria was seen as an extension of the mainland and thus couldn't be abandoned, while Indochina was a highly profitable colony, so they were desperately trying to negotiate some kind of deal with the Viet Cong to salvage at least half of it.
With war now breaking out in Italy amid all this, calls to abandon the colonial wars were inevitable.
“Give it up already! The safety of the homeland comes first!”
“With the reds driving tanks and waging war in the neighboring country, what the hell are we doing in Africa?”
Voices demanding an end to the war in the name of national security were growing louder, but Leotard couldn't back down either.
‘If we retreat now, we're finished.’
Who would bear the responsibility for the tens of thousands of casualties, the massive war costs, and the wasted time if they just washed their hands of it?
All they could do was pretend not to see or hear and hold out to the bitter end.
“Wow, look at those bastards. Are they deaf or something?”
The Leotard regime deployed military and police to round up the protesters.
“Those trying to divide public opinion are reds intent on harming France's national interests. We will firmly counter the reds' schemes to tear France apart.”
Leotard threw everything he had into weathering the storm by branding them all as reds.
But the voices of resistance only grew louder.
In proportion, Leotard's grip on the military weakened.
It was then that the French military seized the opening and made their move.
“We can no longer allow that fascist to ruin the nation. Let's drag him down and bring back the General.”
The military resolved to reinstate de Gaulle, the man who had somewhat restored France's postwar status, as head of state.
On March 10, 1951, the French army launched a lightning coup.
Though it involved only about 20,000 troops centered on paratroopers, it was more than enough to seize the capital.
“A c-coup?”
Leotard and the top brass of the Golden Dawn Party fled in haste to Bordeaux.
They tried to rally a military command there to crush the coup, but the French army ignored their orders.
Chief of Staff General Alphonse Juin flatly rejected Leotard's request for suppression.
“The French people no longer support you, sir. Why should our military shed blood for a leader without the people's backing?”
With those words, the Leotard regime collapsed.
“Who would've thought those guys would crumble like that.”
Franco regretted the fall of the Leotard regime but firmly rejected their asylum request, mindful of the new regime that would soon take power in Paris.
“I didn't expect Spain to turn us down.”
“Salazar will take us in. Let's head to Portugal.”
Leotard and his cronies sought protection from Portugal's dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar.
The world was stunned by the Leotard regime's overnight collapse.
‘Could this lead to the communists taking power in France?’
In times of political chaos, the communists could exploit the gap.
Indeed, the French Communist Party eyed an opening right after the military coup.
But upon hearing that de Gaulle would be the military regime's figurehead, they abandoned all plans.
‘De Gaulle, that monster, is back?’
De Gaulle was a titan whose name alone deterred the communists from challenging him.
Remembering how he had purged both left and right without mercy after the war, the communists held their breath.
De Gaulle wasted no time cutting losses on the messy colonial wars once he seized power.
“We'll complete withdrawal from Indochina by 1953. Until then, France will administer the south, and North Vietnam the north.”
Ho Chi Minh agreed to de Gaulle's proposal.
He then made a forward-looking offer on Algeria as well.
“We'll grant Algerians citizenship equal to that of France and fully integrate Algeria as part of the French Republic. If desired, we can also allow autonomy.”
De Gaulle's proposal was certainly bold, but it held little appeal for Algerians who had already suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties.
“We want independence!”
After heated debate, de Gaulle offered unconditional independence to Algeria in 1953.
“That seems acceptable.”
The FLN, already overwhelmed by the sheer size of the French forces, was willing to accept a peaceful resolution.
Of course, the fascist sympathizers in the French military couldn't stomach de Gaulle's decision to abandon the colonies.
“De Gaulle has betrayed us.”
“To toss away the fruits of our ten years of fighting like this!”
“We won't follow that traitor's orders!”
Some French troops stationed in Algeria immediately rebelled.
But a rebellion by colonial garrison troops cut off from the mainland had no chance of success from the start.
France cooperated with Algerian forces to crush the rebels, putting an end to the colonial war.
The fascists' defeat followed by the end of the colonial war.
Narratively speaking, it was merely a replay of what had happened in Britain, just a bit later.
But when viewed alongside other events, the context was entirely different.
‘France has been freed from the colonial war.’
The Soviets were shocked to hear that the Algerian War had ended overnight.
‘This means the French can now throw their full might into Italy.’
Moscow couldn't help but seriously consider the possibility of over 600,000 French troops tied down in Algeria pouring into Italy.
That would make further reinforcements inevitable.
The problem was the backlash from the Eastern European communist states.
With hundreds of thousands of troops already committed, demanding more would get no takers.
Even if possible, sustaining such forced deployments risked toppling the communist regimes they had painstakingly built.
Just look at how the once-mighty Leotard regime had crumbled.
Moscow had no choice but to recalculate.
Retreating would shatter their prestige, stature, and credibility.
Directly deploying federal forces risked all-out war.
Withdraw, or push into Italy for a grueling fight?
“General Secretary, Comrade. What if we escalate the war crisis instead?”
Under normal circumstances, Stalin would have dismissed it as madness, but given the situation, he decided to hear it out.
“I'm listening. Speak.”
“What we're worried about is the West throwing more chips into this limited game, right?”
“Correct.”
“So we need to show that battlefields could open elsewhere. That way, the West won't dare commit more to Italy.”
Overcome the crisis through bluffing.
It sounded plausible even to the General Secretary.
As Stalin pondered, the attendees fell silent.
Finally, he tapped his pen on the desk.
“Not a bad idea. In this situation, going on the offensive seems right.”
Stalin didn't like gambling, but he knew when to go bold in high-stakes situations.
Hadn't he done just that with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact?
“Comrade Vasilevsky.”
“Yes, General Secretary.”
“Prepare to triple the troops stationed in Germany and Czechoslovakia.”
The Soviet forces currently deployed in Central Europe numbered one million.
Tripling that would require partial mobilization.
Everyone swallowed hard thinking of the repercussions.
The scale of the force in Central Europe was massive enough, but the partial mobilization order itself would rattle the West.
“We'll implement it immediately.”
War Minister Vasilevsky accepted Stalin's order without hesitation.
To maintain their bloated postwar influence, the military needed to prove its worth.
Vasilevsky knew all too well the fate of a hound that failed to prove useful.
“And while we're at it, we should create something like NATO ourselves.”
They had hesitated to directly confront the West, but with bayonets already crossed in the Italian War, there was no reason for further delay.
Stalin had none.
“Then how about basing it in Warsaw?”
Moscow was too far back, and Berlin too close to the enemy.
Warsaw struck the perfect balance—close enough to the front yet secure.
“That doesn't sound bad.”
Thus, the WTO—the Warsaw Pact—was born with a few words in the General Secretary's office.
Tripling the army to three million, partial mobilization, and creating a treaty organization to counter NATO.
The General Secretary's countermeasures exceeded all expectations.
Yet everyone agreed they were perfectly suited to intimidate the West.
The next day, the Soviet Union's shocking measures plunged the world into fear.
Partial mobilization across the federation sent millions of conscripts marching to their units.
Western observers were gripped by terror upon confirmation.
“P-Partial mobilization?”
“Confirmed intel suggests it's real.”
The real shock came after.
“They're sending two million more to Europe?”
“Have the Ivans lost their minds?”
“This is clear proof they're preparing for world war!”
Not just America, but all of NATO went on high alert.
It was unbelievable that the Soviets would go this far over Italy alone.
“Do we have to die for Rome?”
Anti-war murmurs began echoing across the West.
Especially in Germany, on the frontline, cries for peace rang loud.
“Peace over war! We want peace!”
Of course, those cries fell on deaf ears among the leaders of the US and USSR.
Before long, the specter of total war enveloped all of Europe.