Chapter 149: Our Lady of Great Britain

The day after meeting Einstein and Chaplin, a Rover car belonging to the British War Department picked up Hersman and his adjutant Paulus from the Langham Hotel.

"Colonel Alexander, do you remember me?" Hersman said to a British colonel who was about his age sitting in the co-pilot seat, "The last time we met was in Ambia, Tallinn."

The one who came to the Langham Hotel to pick up Hersman was Colonel Harold Alexander, the head of the military delegation sent to Tallinn by the Allies. More than ten years have passed, Hersman has been promoted from lieutenant colonel to lieutenant general, while Alexander is still a colonel - this is caused by Britain's traditional small army policy. Unless a large-scale war breaks out, it is difficult for British army officers to be promoted. In contrast, naval officers have more opportunities.

"Lieutenant General, we failed to reach a consensus last time. I hope we can achieve some results this time."

Hersmann went to London on official business this time - meeting Einstein was just a side job. His real mission was to meet with British Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson to discuss the convening of the "International Disarmament Conference".

"Yes, I also hope to achieve some results." Hersmann nodded and said with a smile, "Our country has just restored the compulsory military service system. There are some misunderstandings in the international community. I hope to clarify them by holding an international disarmament conference."

"That's great." Colonel Alexander's attitude was a little cold, and it seemed that he was a little hostile. He just dealt with Hersmann.

Perhaps in the eyes of this British colonel, Lieutenant General Hersmann is now the evil axis in the German military.

After working as a spy chief for more than ten years, Hersmann gradually surfaced. He is now the third most important person in the German Army after the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff. Such a position is too abnormal for a German officer who has never commanded a company and is less than 40 years old.

Therefore, British intelligence agencies and German affairs experts immediately investigated and analyzed Hersman, and then came to the following conclusion: Lieutenant General Hersman is the core figure of the German fascist group, the confidant of the fascist leader General Schleicher, and one of the culprits who tore up the Treaty of Versailles and pushed Germany to expand its military and prepare for war!

Moreover, Lieutenant General Hersman is also the think tank and theorist of the German fascist warlord group. He proposed the "currency war theory" as an excuse for expanding military preparations and confronting the international community. The man behind the recent anti-Semitism incident in Germany is probably this person.

In short, Lieutenant General Hersman is an extremely dangerous person to the British Empire and the world order.

After a detailed and in-depth analysis of Lieutenant General Hersman, the British studied the current German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. According to Hitler's words, deeds and assurances when he met with French Foreign Minister Briand in Geneva during his visit to Switzerland after being elected Chancellor. They believed that Hitler was actually a pacifist and his radical remarks during the campaign should not be taken seriously.

During the meeting in Geneva, Hitler assured Briand that Germany would abide by the spirit of the Rhine Security Treaty and the Locarno Treaty and recognize the existing western border of Germany. At the same time, he also promised to abide by the "non-war principle" of the Paris Non-War Pact and would not seek to change the status quo by German force.

At the same time, Hitler also privately promised Briand to reduce the scale of "Soviet-German cooperation" as much as possible and prevent Germany's advanced technology from flowing to the Soviet Union in large quantities.

Considering the consistently bad relationship between Hitler's Nazi Party and the German Bolshevik Party. The British believed that Hitler was an "anti-Bolshevik" and his persistence in Germany had a positive impact on curbing Bolshevism.

However, all signs indicate that German democracy is currently under threat from the military. Moreover, the fascists in the German military were all pro-Soviet. They tried to use the alliance with the Soviet Union to undermine the Treaty of Versailles, and they probably wanted to collude with the Soviet Union to eliminate Poland.

So Hitler and his Nazi Party were obviously the guarantee of German democracy and European peace...

...

In the meeting room of the Foreign Office on Whitehall Street in the UK, when Hirschmann left the Langham Hotel, an unusually dull cabinet meeting had come to an end.

Today, the ruling party in the UK is the British Labour Party, another ancestor of the European virgin bitch in history.

Unlike the Labour Party, which gradually became more upscale, the current British Labour Party is still a party that truly originated from the working class. The Prime Minister is Ramsay MacDonald, who came from a grassroots background. His father was a farm worker, his mother was a maid, and he was their illegitimate son. Later, he worked as a servant and a bill clerk. He went to university night school, but did not obtain a degree.

And the Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson, who was going to meet with Hirschmann to discuss the "Disarmament Conference", was the chairman of the British Labour Party, who was a foundry worker, and an authentic worker politician.

However, most of these British politicians who had worked as servants and foundry workers were law-abiding people. They followed the most traditional approach in fiscal policy. In fact, they did not understand it themselves and listened to the bad advice of economic experts. Even in the Great Depression, they tried their best to maintain the balance of government revenue and expenditure. They did not dare to use deficit spending as a means of stimulating the economy, nor did they want to stimulate exports by significantly devaluing the pound.

Neither willing to devalue the pound nor to allow the overvalued pound to depreciate, and in order to maintain social stability, a large amount of unemployment benefits had to be issued - unemployment in the UK at this time and space was more serious than in history, and by 1931, 3.2 million people were living on benefits!

In this case, the British Labour government could only save money by cutting "unnecessary" government spending, such as cutting military spending and cutting civil servants' salaries.

The International Disarmament Conference was held against this background - for the sake of world peace, Britain could not be the only one to disarm, but the whole world had to be disarmed together.

But Germany just happened to rearm at this time! It expanded its army by 600,000 at once and also established an air force...

This really caught the Labour Cabinet off guard - considering the position of the British Labour Party at this time, going to war with Germany was out of the question. As for expanding its armaments and preparing for war like Germany, it was obviously unrealistic because there was no money in the British treasury.

"Gentlemen, the German representatives are coming soon. Let's end today's meeting here," said British Prime Minister MacDonald with a heavy heart. "Fiscal balance must be maintained... The British people did not elect us to power to completely destroy the pound!"

The British people are really unlucky. First, they met Churchill, the incompetent Chancellor of the Exchequer, and now they have elected a group of servants and worker politicians who don't know how to do things to power... and it's during the Great Depression!

"Prime Minister, negotiations with the Germans..." Foreign Minister Arthur Henderson, who later won the 1934 Explosives Award, frowned, "What if the Germans don't agree to control naval armaments?"

"Try to persuade them as much as possible," MacDonald shook his head, "They don't have money now, and it should be a heavy burden to expand the army so much at once. In terms of the navy, there shouldn't be too many problems... For us in Britain, as long as the Germans don't have a strong navy, we can basically rest assured."

It turned out that the British wanted to discuss naval arms control with Hessman - Churchill would definitely be furious if he was in this meeting room. What naval arms control are we talking about with the Germans now? Where does the Germans have a navy? What are you trying to control?

Talking about naval arms control with them now, isn't it just recognizing the legitimacy of Germany's expansion of its army?

And there is no room for the German navy to reduce at all. If it reduces further, it will be gone. Negotiating naval arms control with Germany will only increase the strength of the German navy, and it is impossible to reduce the German navy, which already has few ships.

"35%." The British Prime Minister stood up and said this number with his teeth. "At most 35%. The tonnage of their battleships and aircraft carriers cannot exceed 35% of that of the UK. This is our bottom line!"

...

"What? Mr. Foreign Secretary, what are you talking about?"

"Mr. Lieutenant General, I'm talking about the issue of controlling German naval armaments!" Arthur Henderson was talking to Hersman in a small narrow meeting room with the smell of cigarettes and coffee.

"Talk in Geneva, or somewhere else?" Hersman didn't expect the other party to suddenly raise this question. He originally thought that this disarmament meeting was just a quibble.

"I hope we can talk in Geneva," said Arthur Henderson, "The Soviet delegation may also attend the meeting... There will be similar negotiations between Britain and the Soviet Union, or a naval agreement between Britain, Germany and the Soviet Union will be signed."

"So what are the principles?" Hessman paused. He knew that there were the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the Anglo-Soviet Naval Agreement in history. Among them, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement allowed Germany to develop naval armaments on a large scale.

Thinking of this, Hessman asked again, "How many tons of battleships and aircraft carriers can we have in Germany?"

"We will talk about the specific issues later," the British Foreign Secretary said thoughtfully while smoking a cigar, "This requires the participation of naval professionals. At present, we can only determine the general principles... Germany's naval strength should not exceed 25% of Britain's."

25%? Isn't it 35%?

Hessman grumbled in his heart, but did not argue with the other party. He just nodded and said, "Mr. Foreign Minister, I will pass this information to Chancellor Hitler. In addition to controlling naval armaments, does the British side have any other requirements?"

"There are no other conditions. The specific matters can be discussed at the disarmament conference. Now we just need to determine the venue and time of the meeting... I want to hold this meeting in May this year, in Geneva."

"Okay, no problem." Hessman nodded and smiled, "I think Chancellor Hitler will be very willing to attend the disarmament conference in person."