Chapter 314 Victory Is in Sight?

"Bolshevik Party members, young league members, citizens, the Soviet motherland is being invaded by French imperialism, and the motherland needs every one of you..."

The voice of Comrade Shelov, the first secretary of the Autonomous Republic Party Committee, came from the loudspeakers on the streets of Batumi. He called on every Soviet citizen to defend the motherland and Batumi with actions.

This corrupt and embezzling person who was once ready to spend the rest of his life in the Gulag labor camp at 6 o'clock in the morning now showed the true colors of an old Bolshevik. In just a few hours, Batumi was fully mobilized. One after another "worker camp", "fire camp" and "labor camp" were quickly formed, and all young and middle-aged people, both men and women, were organized to fight in the struggle to defend the Soviet motherland.

Now it is 1940, not 1990. Although it has just experienced the Great Purge, the efficient organizational ability of the Soviet Bolshevik Party is still there! So when the confused French (the French who were responsible for throwing bombs did not know that the British had stood them up) were preparing for the third major bombing, Batumi had changed from a peaceful industrial city to a battle fortress.

Tens of thousands of citizens were involved in the action of extinguishing the fire in the chemical plant, using all the tools they could get and rushing into the sea of ​​fire without hesitation. Thanks to the efforts of these brave Soviets, the fire in the oil city of Batumi was finally brought under control the next morning and was completely extinguished three days later.

In addition, the same number of young men and women put on military uniforms within 12 hours after the bombing of Baku, and were trained by retired officers from various factories and institutions. The weapons to be issued to them were also taken out from the munitions warehouse controlled by the border guards.

As for the older citizens, they were organized to dig trenches on the high ground outside Batumi.

If the Turkish imperialist army really wants to attack Batumi, there will definitely be a bloody battle waiting for them!

At the same time, 150 TB-3 bombers of a heavy bombing aviation brigade stationed on the Crimean Peninsula have taken off and are ready to fly over Turkish airspace to Beirut and Damascus to drop bombs. Since these two places are more than 1,100 kilometers away from the Crimean Peninsula, those TB-3 bombers can't carry many bombs at all. But in order to express the anger of the Soviet Union, these TB-3 bombers had to fly over even if they only dropped a grenade.

And at the same time as these TB-3s, there were also Soviet Council Chairman and Foreign Affairs People's Commissar Molotov and former Foreign Affairs People's Commissar Litvinov - he had just been appointed as the Soviet ambassador to the United States of America, and he would go to the United States across the ocean via Britain.

"Prime Minister, Litvinov is coming to London again," Viscount Halifax told Chamberlain and other cabinet members who had already arrived a good news as soon as he walked into the meeting room at 10 Downing Street. "Nominally, he is going to the United States as an ambassador."

"This is good news!" Admiral Churchill immediately said, "Viscount, did Russia propose to arrange a meeting between you and Litvinov?"

Viscount Halifax nodded and said, "Yes, they proposed."

"It seems that Russia's losses in Batumi are really huge!" Churchill took a puff of his cigar and asked Aviation Minister Howard Kingsley, "Have you received the French report?"

"Yes," Howard Kingsley said, "They have completed two air raids, and the oil city of Batumi is engulfed in flames. Admiral Ted has seen the photos, and the bombing effect is very ideal.

The French themselves lost three planes, one of which was hit by ground fire and two were shot down by Soviet fighters."

The two LeO-451 bombers were shot down by several LaG-3 fighters that had just transferred from the Leningrad airport to Georgia. In addition, some I-16s barely flew to an altitude of more than 6,500 meters (because the first wave of bombing ignited the refinery, the French Air Force adopted a high-altitude penetration in the second wave of bombing to avoid ground fire), but because the I-16's high-altitude performance was too poor, no results were achieved.

"Are they still preparing for the third wave of bombing?" Churchill asked again.

"Yes," Howard Kingsley smiled, "the evil can only do it to the end."

Viscount Halifax added on the side: "The French are quite angry!"

The British let the French go and let the French bear the anger of the Red Empire alone. This is naturally infuriating. However, the French now have no choice but to bite the bullet and continue bombing, hoping to completely destroy the Batumi refinery.

"But we are already in sight of victory," Churchill was very optimistic, "without the Batumi refinery, Stalin has no other choice but to cut off Germany's oil supply!"

Fat Churchill, like most politicians and military strategists of this era, seriously overestimated the power of bombing.

In fact, although the bombing ignited a lot of stored fuel, the damage to the production capacity of the Batumi oil city was not fatal - because the oil warehouse was far away from the core production facilities of the refinery. It just looked terrible in the photos.

According to later intelligence, two weeks after the "Batum bombing ended", the daily output of the refinery recovered to 50% of the original capacity, and 70% of the capacity was restored after one month, and it was fully restored after three months.

However, Stalin deliberately exaggerated the losses...

"Marshal, the Soviet Embassy sent photos about the Batumi incident." On the afternoon of April 5, 1940 (the day after the Batumi bombing), the General Staff Intelligence Office had just attended the meeting between Hitler and Molotov. Colonel Galen brought Hersman a stack of aerial photos of the Batumi refinery area shrouded in fire and smoke.

"Albert, come and take a look." Hersman handed the photo to Air Force Commander Kesselin, who was with Hersman in the First Operations Command Center of the General Staff.

"You can't see anything, it's all obscured by smoke." Air Force General Kesselin looked at the photos carefully. "What did the Russians say? What are their losses?"

Colonel Galen replied: "The losses were very heavy... The French bombs hit several newly built large oil storage tanks, igniting millions of gallons of gasoline, and these large oil tanks were very close to the refinery. After the oil tank ruptured, a large amount of gasoline flowed into the plant, causing a terrible fire. The fire is still burning. According to Russian estimates, it will take 12 months to repair the refinery. In at least 6 months, the Soviet Union will lose 70. % of the oil processing capacity. Therefore, Molotov proposed that we take on part of the Soviet crude oil processing business within 12 months and process 250,000 tons of crude oil for the Soviet Union every month.”

"250,000 tons per month for 12 months is 3 million tons," Kesselring said with a frown. "This accounts for more than half of our oil processing capacity."

Germany's current annual oil processing capacity is only 5.5 million tons (actual output is about 5 million tons), and it also has about 4.5 million tons of synthetic fuel (mainly used by the air force) production capacity, and less than 180,000 tons of shale oil production. (The Estonian province of Baltic State has a large oil shale mine, which began mining in 1918. The first retort plant was built in 1924. Currently, the main product is phenolic chemicals).

The sum of the three can fully meet Germany's wartime needs for fuel and petrochemical products. However, if 3 million tons of crude oil processing capacity is allocated to the Soviet Union, Germany's own fuel and chemical supplies may be insufficient.

"This is not a problem," Hersman smiled and nodded. "We can agree that we still have a lot of refined oil and chemicals in stock. Even if all refineries produce for the Soviet Union, we can still support it for three months. And France It will collapse within two months!" He asked thoughtfully, "What else did Molotov discuss with the leader? Did he mention the conditions for the Soviet Union to join the war?"

"The Soviet Union demanded access to Finland, Russian Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Turkey, French Syria, Iraq and Iran. In addition, the Soviet Union was responsible for the liberation of India."

"Hmph!" Kesselin snorted coldly, "Stalin really dares to think!"

Hessman smiled and said: "Stalin did not want to participate in the war, so he made such an impossible request. I think... he wanted to wait until we and Britain and France were exhausted before joining!"

Kesselring said: "He can't wait for that day!" Then he asked Galen, "What else does Molotov ask for?"

"He said that the Soviet Union's aviation technology was relatively backward and unable to fight against French bombers. If we could not immediately improve the technology of the BF-109 and Fokker Zero, then the Soviet Union would most likely be unable to protect the oil-producing areas of Baku, Batumi and Grozny. "

Hessmann and Kesselring looked at each other and frowned. This Stalin is really difficult to deal with. He will use everything to benefit the Soviet Union!

At this time, Lieutenant General Paulus, director of the Meteorological Bureau of the General Staff, walked in quickly holding a folder.

"Marshal, the weather forecast for April 10th to 20th is out." Lieutenant General Paulus reported, "Our experts predict that the weather will be very good from the 10th to the 20th."

"Albert," Hessmann took the weather forecast with a smile, and then said to Kesselring, "April 10th is the time when Operation Sickle will begin, and before that... our aircraft cannot If we continue to actively violate French airspace, I will also notify the Navy to take the same action. In addition to the activities of submarines, all surface ship and long-range combat aircraft activities will be temporarily suspended.”

This was a temporary method that Hessman came up with to paralyze the enemy. The navy and air force were kept still to pretend they were short of fuel. At the same time, he also planned to put pressure on Romania and Hungary at the high command meeting in the evening - this was to force Romania to immediately provide a large amount of crude oil to make up for the gap caused by the reduction in Soviet crude oil exports.