Ch.249MacArthur’s Anguish

# * * *

“It’s a shame about the Louvre Museum. If they had surrendered earlier, it wouldn’t have collapsed like that.”

“I heard that when the Commune was just taking control of the mainland, they sent the Louvre’s collections to Bordeaux and Marseille.”

Why bother? Was it in preparation for Paris falling?

It’s a bit unusual for the Reds to do something like that.

When you think of Reds, you’d expect them to destroy everything.

Ah, maybe I’m overgeneralizing because of the Cultural Revolution. I should correct my thinking.

“That’s surprising. Why did they do that?”

“During the German Revolution, Karl Liebknecht’s regime only attacked artists who didn’t create Communist propaganda. Perhaps they moved the collections preemptively, thinking Goebbels might do the same?”

I see. Well, now that it’s become a Communist state, art will only be used for propaganda activities. Cultural life will change accordingly.

They couldn’t do anything about what was already created, but they moved everything from the Louvre Museum.

“I’m surprised they didn’t destroy it all.”

“Reds or not, they’re still French after all.”

So they tucked it away in the back room.

It was too precious to throw away or destroy. I suppose there’s no reason for Reds to automatically destroy such things. Especially if they’re French. But still.

“Isn’t Marseille where our fleet is stationed?”

Marseille is where the Free French forces liberated the mainland alongside us.

And that’s where the Louvre collections are.

“Yes.”

“Let’s return only what’s in Bordeaux and have Russia take the rest.”

We should claim some spoils of war, shouldn’t we?

“But if we’re going to take anything, shouldn’t we take it all?”

Anton Denikin licks his lips regretfully. This isn’t so simple.

We need to show some mercy as the nation of the Holy Maiden, don’t we?

I’m trying to maintain a somewhat positive image by claiming I was moved by Pétain and Laroque’s efforts and allowed the allied leaders to return at least half of the French mainland, but still.

It makes sense to return some items since the Louvre Museum needs to be rebuilt.

“We should give them at least something, otherwise they’ll only obsess over art. France will become the region known for art, culture, and wine in the Constantinople Treaty Organization.”

If we took absolutely everything, they might give up entirely, but even taking this much will likely cause France to focus solely on art since they won’t have many other areas to invest in.

I do feel a bit sorry for them.

Pétain was half-dead after seeing the nuclear explosion. I should show this much mercy, shouldn’t I?

But the British thirst for revenge is stronger than expected. It’s hard to stop them.

It’s not like I’m going to kill Britain. Churchill, that old man, lost Brittany and became the ultimate Mr. Brittany. I would have told him to get lost. If the British people had risen up and overthrown Churchill, it would have been justified to take control of Britain.

But he desperately gathered all his strength and occupied two regions. Now he’s begging me.

How could Russia, which needs to embrace Europe, not accept Churchill who is willing to give up his colonies obediently?

If Britain quietly gives up its colonies, wouldn’t other colonial empires do the same?

This is a conversation to have later with the leaders of the colonial empires.

Well, for now, the French situation is resolved. If we say we’ll deal with the colonial issue after taking care of Japan, then within Europe, only the German and Serbian issues remain.

So I turned my attention to the Kaiser and Chancellor Hitler, who were surveying the hellish edition of Paris.

“Now what remains is to establish the Constantinople Treaty Organization and grant independence to the colonies. To do that, we need to resolve the remaining issues on the European front. Chancellor Hitler, will you take the southern German territory?”

“Hmm. How about making it independent as the Bavarian Republic? I think the Kaiser would be fine with that much.”

Hitler, who had been eyeing the south, seems to be thinking of making it independent instead.

This should be enough to reduce Germany’s power while clearly maintaining the claim that we liberated them from communism.

Personally, I think Hitler has become quite the opportunist.

The Danubian Federation is a state that succeeds the Dual Monarchy.

They might be able to recover Lombardy and Bosnia, which were part of the Austrian Empire, but taking southern Germany would look ugly.

“Bavaria, is it.”

The Kaiser seemed to sink into contemplation.

“Chancellor Hitler’s suggestion seems reasonable. The German mainland has undergone many changes under Communist rule. To transform from citizens of a Communist state back to subjects of the Empire would require completely overhauling the administrative system. Wouldn’t it be difficult to stabilize the entire mainland? You already took Alsace-Lorraine when we carved up France last time.”

This is true.

Although many troops surrendered to the Imperial Army, it’s questionable whether tens of millions of Germans would actually want to return to the Kaiser system.

Moreover, Wilhelm II doesn’t have many days left to live. Even excluding southern Germany now, it will be quite difficult for him to recover control of the mainland before he dies.

In the midst of that, isn’t it greedy to want the entire mainland when you’ve already sneakily taken Alsace-Lorraine?

The Kaiser clears his throat, perhaps wanting to hide the fact that he took Alsace-Lorraine.

“I’ll agree to it. Without the Tsarina, I couldn’t have accomplished this alone. I entrust my daughter Louise to you in the future.”

“Well, if the Kaiser says so, I’ll also recognize the Bavarian Republic.”

From my perspective, knowing the original history, it was quite surprising to see Wilhelm II of the restored Second Empire and Hitler of the Danube reach an agreement.

Next is Yugoslavia. No, Serbia.

Serbia ultimately fell with Belgrade’s collapse, and it seems the Danube recovered Bosnia and other territories of the Dual Empire, while the Serbian mainland was divided equally between Bulgaria and them.

I didn’t pay much attention to this area.

From the beginning of the war, I decided to leave this to the two countries, so I’m just curious to hear some news. That’s all.

“Chancellor Hitler. Have you reached an agreement with Bulgaria regarding Serbia?”

“Yes. We’ve decided to make Belgrade a demilitarized city in the future, with us establishing an autonomous territory in western Serbia, and Bulgaria annexing eastern Serbia.”

Hmm, not bad.

Fortunately, Danubian Hitler is different from Nazi Germany’s Hitler. I was prepared to deal with him if he got unnecessarily greedy, but now I don’t need to use force.

Churchill, Hitler, Wilhelm II, and the President of Turkey have all acknowledged Russia’s hegemony.

Since the Red Front government collapsed and the surrender procedures didn’t happen in one place, I’ll need to call the victorious leaders later to confirm the territories once more.

So, beyond Europe, next is Japan, but shouldn’t America be making contact soon, getting Russophilic?

We need them to participate so we can extract money for European reconstruction.

Before that, we should make our preparations.

“So, is the war over?”

“Not yet. The war isn’t over. Japan still remains in the Far East.”

In response to Wilhelm II’s question, I gently shook my head.

Although we haven’t had direct combat with them yet, Britain won’t sit still, and we need to strike Japan from behind.

“Is there any reason why we should deal with them?”

Hitler seems to lack understanding.

I understand his country has suffered greatly, so he’s reluctant to participate in a war against Japan, but going forward, the Constantinople Treaty Organization needs to promote the achievement of liberating colonies.

Colonial empires will be whitewashed in the process.

At least, from the perspective that we’re leading this, Hitler won’t have to bear all the sins and die buried with them like in the original history.

And above all, we have justification for this.

“Seeing how they’re coveting colonies, we’ll inevitably clash. And they’ve already attacked British and Dutch colonies.”

When the Constantinople Treaty Organization is established, Britain will fight Japan because its colonies were attacked, and we’ll automatically join the war.

One way or another, we have no choice but to participate.

“That Constantinople Treaty Organization.”

“Yes. The German Empire and the Danube have suffered greatly from the war, so it’s enough if you send just a portion of your troops as a gesture of goodwill.”

France will be maintained under military rule for a while, but dealing with Japan is a different matter.

We can’t handle everything alone now that we have European friends.

The image of us beating Japan together with them is like making Japan an outcast, isn’t it?

“When will the war crimes trials be held?”

“As soon as Goebbels, Thorez, and their minions recover. We’ll quickly process them together with Mussolini, and then hand Mussolini over to Ethiopia.”

Before fighting Japan, we need to hold war crimes trials for those people. It will be a historic trial announcing the end of communism.

It will be evidence that communism could never defeat Anastasia-ism.

“There will likely be many deaths. There won’t even be firing squads.”

The vermin who resisted to the end don’t deserve to live.

From the beginning, dropping a nuclear bomb on Paris was done with the attitude of “we’ll hit first and see if you die or not.” So those guys are destined to die.

After hanging them, burning them to ashes would be good to prevent future followers.

# * * *

Washington D.C., United States of America

Meanwhile, unlike in the original history, America still hadn’t properly secured control of the Pacific against Japan.

They were somehow holding onto the Pacific islands, but there were no significant achievements yet.

They would likely win somehow, but it was still far off.

And this prolonged war would stir up anti-war sentiment among the recently unified American people.

This would shake even MacArthur’s authority.

“How is it that we still haven’t secured control of the sea!”

“It won’t be much longer. Those bastards can’t even properly manage the territories they’ve occupied. If we drag this out, Admiral Nimitz will defeat them.”

Yes, we could defeat them.

But by then, the United States will have suffered excessive damage from those Far Eastern monkeys.

Are you asking me to accept such a future?

“Anti-war sentiment is brewing, and the Reds might rise again! How long are we going to drag this out? Remember that the KFC people rose up just recently!”

MacArthur, who had been given full authority to lead this war by Huey Long, didn’t want to drag out the conflict.

He wanted to somehow deploy the United States Army on those monkeys’ islands and make them suffer the same way they had made China suffer.

Admiral Nimitz seemed to be planning a major battle with Japan, but given the current situation, the war would drag on for a long time.

It was quite unsatisfactory when they needed to land on the enemy’s mainland as soon as possible.

“Let’s wait a little longer.”

“Listen, Ike (Eisenhower’s nickname). We can’t wait any longer. How did we obtain this military regime? We can’t let public support drop. Isn’t there a way?”

He wanted to end it as quickly as possible.

The longer it dragged on, the more those monkey bastards would look down on them.

It was clear that anti-war sentiment would brew.

“Well, there is a way. What we currently lack are highly skilled elite pilots and sailors, isn’t that right?”

That’s right. We have enough weapons and production capacity.

The problem is the lack of highly skilled soldiers.

The second civil war on the mainland wasn’t as fierce as the Red-White Civil War or World War II. People mostly just watched each other cautiously, and then the KFC collapsed quickly with Russian help, like there were only localized conflicts before unification.

The army might be fine, but the air force and navy were problematic.

There were no convenient aspects to the battle, and it was difficult to secure advantageous positions.

Japan was gradually being pushed back due to the expanded front, but ultimately, if we couldn’t secure control of the Pacific, it would be over.

“So?”

“I heard the European war just ended.”

“That’s right. I heard those French exile government guys erased Paris to reclaim their country.”

The determination of the old general Pétain to erase his own capital city for the annihilation of communism is truly remarkable.

Perhaps if Washington had been crawling with Reds, MacArthur wouldn’t have hesitated to drop that city-erasing new weapon.

In that respect, MacArthur could applaud Pétain.

“That weapon is said to be Russia’s new weapon. Russia’s technology is overwhelmingly superior now. Their skill level is also extraordinary.”

“Hmm.”

So Russia has become that powerful?

If they have the power to erase a city, then Europe has now fallen into Russia’s hands.

Then, the only country that can check Russia now is America.

But first, we need to quickly defeat Japan.

“Britain, despite losing its army, has trained many skilled pilots in the fight against Communist Germany. Above all, by focusing the Royal Navy on homeland defense, they’ve maintained their entire fleet intact. And that’s not all. There’s also Russia’s White Fleet.”

Currently, the European fleets with strong forces were the British Royal Navy, which once sailed the five oceans, and Russia’s White Navy.

Of course, if you compare just Britain and Russia, the Royal Navy is stronger, but at least they should be on the same side now. If they form a combined fleet and cross the Pacific, it would be a great help to America.

“Go on.”

“What if we received help from the British and Russian fleets and air forces?”

Yes, that sounds plausible.

But they must have suffered war damages too. Would they be in a position to help America now?

“Why would they help us?”

Those who just ended a war would hardly help us.

Moreover, isn’t Russia an ally of Japan?

Conversely, if Japan clings to Russia asking for help, wouldn’t that become dangerous?

“Communist Germany, which caused the most damage to the Anti-Comintern Pact countries, can’t pay reparations as the German Empire recovers its mainland, and the French Commune will struggle with post-war reconstruction when returned to France. And while we may not have skilled air and naval forces, we have something that can overwhelm all of that. That’s money, isn’t it?”

America somehow overcame the Great Depression during its civil war.

And the reunified United States was mobilizing tremendous productive capacity to push back Japan.

Naturally, that enormous financial power couldn’t be ignored.

“So you’re suggesting we help with their post-war reconstruction. In return, we receive support. Not a bad idea.”

That does sound plausible.

It feels a bit awkward to receive Russian help again, but judging from Russia’s actions so far, Russia is a materialistic country that will do anything for money.

Of course, they seem to be investing in developing their own country, but they’re openly just looking for money. So all we need to do is pour enough money into the Tsarina’s mouth to satisfy her.