Chapter 189: Tehran Conference (1)
With the temporary cessation of the war in Ukraine, the entire Soviet-German battlefield entered a truce period with the arrival of autumn. Both the Soviet Red Army and the German Army had suffered serious damage in the previous stage of the battle, and had to slow down the pace of combat, recuperate, adjust their deployment, and wait for the next wave of war to come.
The Soviet Union's size, industrial base, resource advantages and population welfare became the key factors in dominating the battlefield situation during this stage. The German army, which was aggressive at the beginning of the war, began to show signs of fatigue and became increasingly weak.
In western Ukraine, the Soviet army's troops were approaching the Carpathian Mountains, the Dniester River and the Prut River, posing a direct threat to Romania, Germany's staunch ally and major oil producing area. The Soviet air force was even able to take off from Ukraine and launch direct bombing on Romania's Ploiesti oil field.
The previous series of defeats, coupled with the huge gap in comprehensive national strength, caused the German army to completely lose air superiority in the border area of western Ukraine. The German Air Force, which once frightened the whole of Europe, finally lost its glory. Of course, it was not only the German Air Force that lost its glory, but also the German armored corps. On the Dniester River line, which was directly threatened by the Soviet army, the German army had only 154 tanks, which was simply unimaginable.
Moreover, the German army's troubles were not limited to the front line. Their rear was equally bad. Not to mention the Italian peninsula that had been broken through by the Allies, just look at the Eastern Front. As the situation became increasingly unfavorable to the German army, the vassal states that once stood firmly on Germany's side also began to become ambiguous in their attitudes.
In Romania, Germany's main oil supplier, the Antonescu government has been in an awkward position since the German army suffered a disastrous defeat at Stalingrad, which also resulted in the Romanian army suffering heavy losses. Since then, the power of the Romanian Communist Party has expanded rapidly, and the positions of the Peasant Party and the Socialist Party have gradually become ambiguous. In recent times, even the Romanian royal family no longer supports Antonescu.
The changes in the domestic situation in Romania have directly affected the position of the Romanian army. In recent times, the power of the Communist Party has developed rapidly among the officers of the Romanian vassal army, especially among the younger officers. Many Romanian troops are facing losses and possible riots.
In addition to Romania, the situation in Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia is also extremely grim. Of course, the most troublesome things for the Germans are Finland and Yugoslavia.
In Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav Communist Party led by Tito developed rapidly. Using the liberated areas of Bosnia as their base, they launched a large-scale counterattack against the German-controlled areas and defeated the German army in western Yugoslavia.
In Finland, with the overall reversal of the Soviet-German war situation, even shortly after the Battle of Stalingrad, the Finnish government core and senior military generals had made the correct judgment that the Germans could no longer win the war. In order to avoid being the target of liquidation after the war and to minimize losses, the Finnish government began to plan a unilateral peace with the Soviet Union. On February 3rd at the beginning of the year, the core members of the Finnish government and military generals headed by Mannerheim convened a secret meeting in Mikkeli and formally established a plan to withdraw from the war. Then, in March, under the coordination of the Americans, Finland obtained the armistice conditions from the Soviet Union. However, because the conditions were too harsh, Finland could not accept them, which delayed Finland's plan to withdraw from the war.
As the war continued to advance, especially after the blockade of Leningrad was broken by the Soviet army, and the Soviet side relaxed relevant conditions, Finland has once again restarted its peace plan with the Soviet Union and has made some progress.
For Germany, the changes in the situation of these vassal states were undoubtedly worse, forcing them to withdraw a large part of their limited forces to stabilize the situation in these vassal states while dealing with the Soviet frontal attack. Therefore, in the last few months of 1943, the calm of the German army on the Soviet-German front was not a tactical arrangement, but a strategic helplessness.
Thousands of miles away in the Pacific Ocean, Japan, as one of the Axis powers, suffered another heavy blow in the Guadalcanal Islands Battle at the beginning of the year. The most fatal thing was that in this defeat, the Japanese army lost not only the air force and navy, but also the army that it relied on, which had never been defeated. The elite 2nd Division of the Japanese army suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Guadalcanal, and more than 20,000 experienced soldiers became cannon fodder on Guadalcanal. This not only caused the Japanese army to suffer heavy losses in terms of manpower and resources, but also the morale of its soldiers was almost completely destroyed.
The failure of the Guadalcanal Islands Campaign completely destroyed the so-called outer defense circle of the Japanese army. Next, the US Pacific Fleet will be able to directly threaten the Philippine Islands, and thus pose a threat to Japan's homeland defense.
In addition, on the Chinese battlefield, although the Japanese army repeatedly won victories on the front battlefield, the frontal resistance led by the Kuomintang and the operations behind enemy lines led by the Communist Party of China were still developing with difficulty, and even growing step by step. The Japanese army failed to force the Chinese government to surrender, which meant that they had to continue to keep a large number of ground forces in China, which made their troops even more stretched.
The collapse of the situation on the Asian battlefield, especially the situation on the Pacific battlefield, made it impossible for Japan to withdraw troops to launch an attack on the Soviet Union from the east to cooperate with its ally Germany. The original intention of the Axis powers to form an alliance completely collapsed.
It can be said that at the end of 1943, there was already a glimpse of hope in the world's anti-fascist war. It was under this situation that summit meetings between the major anti-fascist countries became more frequent.
On November 22, the heads of China, the United States and Britain held a meeting in Cairo, the capital of Egypt. The entire meeting lasted for four days. After the meeting, the three countries jointly issued a unified declaration of war against Japan, demanding that the Japanese government surrender unconditionally, return all Chinese territories occupied during the war, and so on.
When the news of the Cairo Conference reached Moscow, Stalin, who was preparing to go to Tehran, was very annoyed.
Stalin was angry for two reasons. First, the Cairo Conference was held just before the Tehran Conference. Roosevelt and Churchill went to Cairo before going to Tehran and finalized the overall plan for fighting against Japan with Chinese representatives. This seemed to mean that the United States and Britain paid more attention to the situation in the Asian battlefield, but paid less attention to the tragic Soviet-German War.
Second, China, the United States and Britain made the Cairo Declaration at the Cairo Conference. According to the intentions of the three heads of state, the next step is that the US-UK coalition forces will increase their investment in the Asian battlefield and carry out a large-scale landing operation in the Bay of Bengal in the near future to defeat the Japanese troops entrenched in Myanmar and other areas of the Indochina Peninsula.
If the operational plan for landing in the Bay of Bengal in the Cairo Declaration is really expanded and implemented, then there is no doubt that the United States and Britain will have to mobilize a considerable number of landing craft in the battle. As for the Soviet Union, what are their requirements at the upcoming Tehran Conference? Undoubtedly, the most important requirement is to urge the United States and Britain to land in Western Europe as soon as possible and open up a second battlefield in the European war. If the British and American coalition forces want to carry out large-scale landing operations in Western Europe, they will also need a large number of landing ships. In other words, the anti-Japanese combat plan mentioned in the Cairo Declaration is actually contrary to the requirements of the Soviet Union.
With these two reasons in mind, how could Stalin not be angry? He even thought that this was a betrayal of the Soviet Union by the United States and Britain.
In this situation, a piece of news from an unknown source suddenly appeared before the public all over the world at the end of 1943 - the Soviets were secretly making unilateral peace with the Germans.
Although this news came out of nowhere, it was so convincing that people had to believe it.
According to this news, the secret peace talks between the Soviet Union and Germany had begun after the end of the Battle of Kursk. The negotiating representatives of both sides were Ribbentrop of Germany and Molotov of the Soviet Union - this is also the reason why Molotov's name did not appear on the list of the Tehran Conference.
The conditions for the peace talks between the two sides were that Germany promised to withdraw all its troops to the border before June 1941, and at the same time, the Baltic Sea coast and Finland were handed over to the Soviet Union for management. However , the Soviets, who had already taken the initiative on the battlefield, had a big appetite. They not only sought the coastal areas of Finland and Poland, but also coveted Romania's territory, intending to take this resource-rich land into their arms. This request was simply unacceptable to the Germans, who were heavily dependent on Romanian imports for oil resources.
It was precisely because of the differences in the terms of the peace talks that the Soviet Union and Germany were never able to reach a final consensus on peace. However, no one could guarantee that once the Germans made concessions, this peace agreement would not be directly released and catch the whole world off guard.
Although the Soviet-German battlefield and the Pacific battlefield fell into silence for a short period of time, this world filled with wars was obviously not stable. Since the anti-fascist war had shown signs of hope, the main and secondary contradictions were bound to change - the British, who always claimed to be gentlemen, had just climbed out of the ruins of the German bombing and began to find ways to stab the Soviets in the back; the Americans began to shyly establish a post-war system, preparing to seek more post-war benefits for themselves; the Soviets were naturally not fools, and Moscow also had its own plans. Stalin had already set his sights on Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and he was ready to plant the red flag in more places.
At this moment of hope and turmoil, Yuri officially left Moscow and went to Tehran, the capital of Iran.
