Chapter 1342: Chapter 969: Every Country Has Its Own Ulterior Motives Chapter 1342: Chapter 969: Every Country Has Its Own Ulterior Motives The Germans chose to deploy an encirclement on the Eastern Front; on the Western Front, they could only opt for a strategic contraction to cope with the offensive from the Britain-France-Australia Three Nations.

Strategic contraction meant that they had to reluctantly give up vast swaths of land in Northern France, and even Paris had to be handed over to the Frenchmen.

That was an unavoidable decision, as the Frenchmen were very persistent about Paris. If the Germans were to engage in a fight to the death over Paris, it would tie down over 2 million German soldiers.

For Germany at that time, this was simply impossible, let alone 2 million troops, they could not even afford a million.

Therefore, urban cities such as Orleans, Paris, Amiens, and Lans were included in the list of territories the Germans planned to abandon.

Although they intended to give up these cities, the Germans would not just hand them over to the French for nothing. Rather than reverting these cities back to France, the Germans preferred to allow Britain or Australasia to take over, and perhaps even find opportunities to stir trouble between the Allied Nations of Britain-France-Australia.

To achieve this goal, the German Army decided to temporarily hold the defensive line from Tours to Orleans, adopting a gradual retreat strategy against the British-French-Australian Forces in the Normandy area.

An important reason for this was that the main force of the French Army was located south of the Tours-Orleans defense line, with most of the troops that landed in Normandy coming from Britain and Australasia.

If the army that landed in Normandy took over territories like Paris and Amiens, it was uncertain whether the British would hand these cities back in their entirety.

In addition to planning further strategic withdrawals, the German forces on the Western Front were also gradually relocating their main forces to the areas of Belgium and Luxembourg.

The sturdy fortresses within Belgium still had their uses; if deployed for defense, they could slow down the pace of the British-French-Australian Forces’ attacks.

Of course, another very important reason was the abundant local populations in Belgium and Luxembourg.

If the Britain-France-Australia were to bomb Belgium and Luxembourg indiscriminately, it would inevitably generate discontent from the governments in exile of Belgium and Luxembourg, and could even provoke hostility towards Britain-France-Australia among the Belgian and Luxembourg populations.

However, if these areas were not bombed, Germany’s defense lines there would become exceptionally strong. Without the harassment of the Air Force and solely relying on the army’s defense, holding out for several months or even a year wouldn’t be a problem at all.

This effectively left the choice entirely in the hands of Britain-France-Australia. Whichever option they chose, it wouldn’t make their offensive go smoothly.

The reason for constructing defense lines within Belgium and Luxembourg was to protect Germany’s Ruhr District.

As the heart of Germany’s industry, the Ruhr District was located in the western part of Germany and was quite close to the borders.

The distance from Belgium and the Netherlands to the Ruhr District is much shorter than from Berlin, the capital of Germany. If Belgium and the Netherlands were to be handed over to Britain-France-Australia, they could organize an attack from these areas and quickly reach the Ruhr District.

As long as native land Germany was still standing, they could try to resist a bit, but if the native land was occupied, what would Germany have left to win the war with?

Starting from March 1939, the British-French-Australian Forces that landed in Normandy surprisingly found that their attacks against the German forces had become much easier.

Positions that previously required many days of fierce fighting could now be taken down with just a few charges. Although a considerable number of soldiers still had to die or suffer injuries, the difficulty of capturing these positions had dropped significantly from before.

Although the British-French-Australian Forces did not understand what had happened on the German side, it was obviously good news.

Seizing the opportunity presented by the issues on the German side, the forces that landed in Normandy swiftly launched an attack on the entire Normandy and completed the full occupation of the region within weeks.

Thereafter, the liberation of Paris, the capture of Troyes, the march into Amiens, and the northern push towards Lille became a matter of course.

Even before the French themselves could come to terms with the situation, the French Army had recaptured Paris by March.

In fact, it would be more accurate to say that the French Army entered Paris following the British-Australian forces rather than on their own.

Because in the entire process of attacking Paris, the French contributed very little, you could even say nothing at all.

The total German garrison in Paris did not even exceed ten thousand men, and under the continuous bombardment by the British-Australian Air Force, this German garrison stationed in Paris soon chose to flee north.

Thus, Paris was liberated, something neither the British-French-Australian Forces nor the governments of the Three Nations, nor the majority of European citizens, had expected.

Although the Germans had taken Paris quite easily at the time, Paris should not have been recaptured so effortlessly either.

This led almost all nations’ governments and their people to reach a consensus that Germany must be facing internal issues, hence not having enough forces to defend such an important city as Paris.

Hearing such news, the most excited was not the Britain-France-Australia trio, but Russia Nation, which had just achieved two major victories in the battles of Moscow and Stalingrad.

Since Germany was having internal issues, it was an opportune time for Russia Nation to launch a major counter-offensive. Their goal was not only to fully recover the territories lost by Russia Nation but also to completely occupy Poland, and even station their forces in East Prussia, aiming to be the first to capture Berlin, the capital of Germany.