Chapter 260: Impatience for Quick Success
While Jörg met his Far Eastern guests overnight, several He 111 medium bombers took off from the Paris military airfield and flew toward London.
Although Britain also possessed radar detection technology, the night provided the bombers with the best cover.
Of the three bombers tasked with propaganda harassment, only one was shot down by the Royal Air Force before reaching the skies above London.
The remaining two successfully carried out their mission, scattering countless surrender leaflets over the city.
Aside from announcing the details of the prisoner release, the leaflets emphasized that Britain would receive better treatment than France if it surrendered.
If Britain continued resisting, yesterday's large-scale missile strikes would only be the beginning. The entire British Isles would eventually be turned into ruins.
Germany would merely pay resources.
Britain would pay with countless lives.
Furthermore, a small number of rebellious British citizens had already learned of the German press conference through FM radio. They also learned that Germany would release prisoners of war through the neutral Netherlands.
Since Churchill claimed that these people had been massacred and abused, where had they come from?
Could it be that Jörg von Roman, besides being a devil, a mad dog, a warmonger, a dictator, and an ambitious schemer, was also proficient in necromancy?
Distrust of the government brewed into a storm that swept across the entire British Isles.
The next day, [The Times] failed to report the truth.
The police then broke down doors and demanded that citizens surrender the leaflets.
These actions further convinced the British public that what Germany had said was true.
The evidence was the ten thousand returning prisoners.
If the prisoners matched the list, then it would prove that Germany had not abused the prisoners of war, and that the entire matter had been a conspiracy fabricated by Churchill.
Having been checkmated by Jörg, Churchill found himself in a difficult dilemma.
Should he retrieve these ten thousand prisoners or not?
These people were not French.
They were genuine Britons.
Germany had proactively released them, yet if Britain told its own prisoners not to return, it would seem utterly ridiculous.
But if he did receive them, someone would inevitably exploit the situation.
If even one of those ten thousand prisoners spoke the truth, the hard-won fighting spirit of the British public would vanish without a trace.
After much deliberation, Churchill still decided not to receive them.
But he could not say that openly.
He turned to his secretary and said, "Announce that there is no true prisoner release."
"This is merely a German ploy. They intend to use the pretense of releasing prisoners of war to infiltrate a secret unit among them, a unit that has not undergone thorough vetting."
"We will neither receive nor repatriate the prisoners of war currently in the Netherlands."
"However, considering that a certain number of surviving British soldiers may indeed be among them, the British government will bear the expenses of these ten thousand people while they remain in the Netherlands."
The secretary nodded, then asked, "Mr. Prime Minister, how long will the vetting period last?"
Churchill rolled his eyes.
He did not answer.
Instead, he asked, "What is the progress of the Far East Fleet?"
"Two London-class heavy cruisers are leading the return."
The secretary answered truthfully.
"The Mediterranean Fleet is currently attacking the Jordanian port."
"Once the Far East Fleet returns, we will regain absolute initiative in the Atlantic."
Churchill's voice became firm.
"Coupled with American sanctions, I want to see how long Germany's periodic missile strikes can last."
"Once the Russians give us a definitive answer, the Germany ruled by Jörg von Roman will be nothing more than a short-lived leper."
The prospect sounded promising.
But reality was far worse than Churchill had imagined.
The delaying tactics failed to win public approval.
Under the continuous missile strikes, the public did not hate Germany, which had launched the missiles. Instead, they began to hate Churchill.
Every life lost was blamed on the government.
The relationship between the public and the government could no longer be described as mere distrust.
Using this as a pretext, factory workers began to strike, and recruitment efforts also met with obstacles.
To address the situation, Churchill gave two speeches in three days.
Only by promising an inevitable military victory within a month did he barely manage to calm part of the public sentiment.
But this placed enormous pressure on the British military.
Under the dual pressure of the public and the government, they could only order the Far East Fleet to escort transport ships while enduring attacks from German U-boats.
At the cost of three destroyers disabled and one heavy cruiser sunk, Britain forcibly dispatched one hundred thousand British Expeditionary Force soldiers to Portugal.
Their intention was to contest the tungsten mining regions of Spain.
At the same time, dozens of bombers and fighters landed in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.
This marked Britain's complete intervention in what the international community had previously regarded as a low-intensity conflict internal to the Iberian Peninsula.
Arron Hill, a border city in Spain.
After several months of offensive operations, Spain had in fact always held the dominant position. But due to the continuous news of battles across Europe, the Spanish Advance Army's offensive had not been particularly fierce.
They had advanced less than twenty kilometers.
Behind Arron Hill was the famous Madura region, known for its rich tungsten deposits.
More than ninety percent of these minerals had only one buyer.
Germany.
Most of these minerals were used to pay off debts, with only a small portion classified under export trade.
Over the years, Germany had provided enormous industrial assistance to Spain.
But this assistance had not come without a price.
Whether it was the arms supplied during the Spanish Civil War, or the industrial machine tools and skilled personnel now required for Spain's industrialization and modernization, or the foreign exchange needed to support the process, all of it had been obtained through loans from the German National Bank.
The price was that the vast majority of Spain's ports and mining areas had become German property.
However, these large national affairs at the macro level did not truly affect ordinary Spanish people.
Their lives had even improved somewhat compared with the years before the Civil War.
Furthermore, because of the war, the price of rare metals continued to rise. Many daring residents of the mining areas had managed to make sudden fortunes.
But soon, the peaceful lives of the Spanish people in the Madura region were once again plunged into the roar of war by the sound of Mk VII light tank tracks.
Early in the morning.
On the border watchtower, due to the importance of the Madura region and his fear that war would interrupt mineral extraction, José had abandoned the optimal attack route of moving large forces directly from Madura toward Lisbon.
As a result, the number of troops stationed here was not large.
Moreover, because Spain held the overall advantage in the war, many Spanish soldiers had relaxed their vigilance.
They casually chatted about women, while the officers paid more attention to the German-British war on the other front.
"How long do you think the Germans will need to capture Britain?"
"I feel it will be soon. The British Home Fleet suffered a massive loss in the Bay of Biscay. If the Mediterranean Fleet dares to return through the Strait of Gibraltar, our coastal defense guns and mines will not be easy to deal with."
Another officer, smoking a cigarette, replied, "Are you stupid? They can go through the Suez Canal. Is that not controlled by the British?"
"I would say you have not been reading the newspapers enough."
The officer with the German-style short beard laughed.
"Look at the country beside the canal. Saudi Arabia. Germany's oil production area."
"Do you think they would allow an entire fleet to cross the Suez Canal?"
"Well, they could also shell the Saudi ports, could they not?"
The other officer fiddled with his Civil War victory commemorative lighter.
"Speaking of which, I am actually quite curious why the British have not attacked Saudi Arabia."
"Could it be that the fighting in the Middle East back then hurt them too badly?"
He chuckled.
"Are they afraid of being strangled by endless sand?"
.....
https://discord.gg/KvMN2CFsMR
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03]