Time Slip Reiwa Japan

045 - Middle East Crisis

Hitler was furious.

He was so angry that he drank coffee, ate salad, and ate meat that he had forbidden himself. He longed for the hammering of that treacherous traitor, Italy. Then, one day, he had a flash of inspiration. At this stage, Italy could not be punished militarily. But what about the colonies that were its limbs?

In Libya, Italy is doing its best to maintain security due to the presence of Japanese and British investment, but Italian East Africa, despite its role as a trade base, has little in the way of natural resources, so Italy is not so keen on it. In addition, Germany has its own connections with local powers, as it uses the region as a foothold to sell arms to Britain's colonies in the Middle East. Italian East Africa was an easy place for Germany to light a fire.

. . .

Germany

The SS, under Hitler's orders, conducts operations in Italian East Africa. They collected weapons and ammunition such as rifles and grenades from the meager state budget and sold them at low prices to both anti-Italian protesters and underground residents alike.

The effect was extraordinary. Riots broke out in various parts of Italian East Africa. The riots were small in scale and were easily suppressed by the Italian security forces stationed in Italian East Africa, but there was also looting of goods, and the security situation in Italian East Africa deteriorated drastically. However, Germany acted with extreme caution to prevent the riots from spreading to the southern part of Italian East Africa, which was used by Germany for smuggling to the Middle East. Thanks to this, there were few riots in the region.

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League of Nations

The deteriorating security situation in Italian East Africa was a major blow to the authority of Italy and Mussolini. For this reason, Italy dispatched two divisions from the Italian mainland to suppress the situation. At the same time, the Italians had to find a way to obtain weapons and ammunition to be used in the riots. Even though there was an excess of weapons and ammunition available in the third world (less developed country) due to the end of the World War, Italy judged that it was too abnormal to have frequent riots on a scale that required the mobilization of troops. Therefore, through the League of Nations, Italy confirmed that there were no large-scale sales of arms and ammunition to other countries.

Britain, which has been experiencing frequent rebellions in the neighboring Middle East region, took advantage of this. An agreement on the distribution of arms was concluded among the member countries of the League of Nations in order not to bring chaos to the Third World (less developed countries). At the same time, as part of the security operations by the League of Nations, countries with interests in the Middle East and East Africa—Italy, Britain, France, and Japan—signed an agreement on the distribution of arms from the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, in order to monitor the illegal sale and distribution of arms in the region.

This decision by the League of Nations was greatly opposed by Germany. Whether it is a warship or a civilian vessel, they are all controlled by their respective flag states, and they firmly argued that it would be unacceptable for any national organization to violate their control rights in peacetime. On top of that, the German ambassador to the League of Nations declared in a strong tone that if there was any attempt to inspect German warships or civilian ships, he would be willing to stop them by force.

The Italians and British, whose suspicion of Germany was increased by this reaction, responded strongly against Germany. They said that refusing to cooperate in security operations in the vicinity of riot zones was a violation of the condition for granting the right of innocent passage, which was that it would not harm the peace, order, and security of coastal countries. They also declared that the ships of the countries whose right to freedom of navigation had been suspended would be immediately removed from the territorial waters of the four countries.