On the afternoon of December 1, 1944, in the warm winter sun, the French Führer Petain, who was becoming more and more depressed, waited in the garden for the visiting Darlan. The 89-year-old French statesman was entering the final stages of his life, and although he still had a firm grip on the supreme power in France, it was clear that the general routine was no longer sustainable, and he wisely divided the power in his hands, leaving the internal affairs and day-to-day administration to Reival, the diplomatic and military responsibilities to Darlan, and the economic, social and unspeakable tasks to his youngest son, who was also nearly 60 years old.

In stark contrast to his dying old age, Darlan, who is only 63 years old, energetic and ambitious, in the prime of statesmanship, has significantly increased his chances of making appearances in the past two years, and even replaced Pétain at the Axis summit in Cairo – not because Petain was afraid or afraid, but because his age and health no longer allow him to support such a long trip.

Hoffmann also expressed his understanding of this, and specially expressed his greetings to Petain to Darlan at the meeting, and the first thing he said at the dinner held after the meeting was to wish the French head of state Petain a long and healthy life, and to wish the Italian leader a speedy recovery.

France has not only become a permanent member of the European Union and the United Nations, but has also shaken off the shadow of the defeat in the 1940 war in all fields, with a stable domestic order, a peaceful life, and a good economic development.

In the French political arena, even the politicians with the strongest national pride have to admit that except for the cession of Alsace and Lorraine, Germany's conditions and treatment in all aspects are very friendly, even better than when Britain and France were allied, and at that time the fat man dared to point fingers at France.

Darlan walked briskly into the meeting place, he had no idea that his fate had actually changed - he had been assassinated at this time in history, where could he be so proud?

"It took the Germans 10 days to defeat Spodley and Bradley?" , Pétain asked, drooping his eyelids.

"Exactly, from the 3rd day, the South Africans and the Americans collapsed." Darlan lamented, "The Germans used thousands of rockets to open the way, quickly crushing the strategic points of the American army, and at the same time, equipped with high-performance jets - not only fighters, but also attack aircraft, which caused the American soldiers to turn on their backs, and with that kind of strangely shaped helicopter, it caused an unimaginable impact on the Allied forces." The German armored forces fought hardly fiercely, and the American and South Africans collapsed. In addition, the Germans also exerted powerful interference during the offensive, paralyzing the command and communication system of the American army...... I received reports that at least 230,000 of the more than 300,000 Allied troops had been taken prisoner, more than 20,000 had fled, and the remaining 40,000 were casualties. ”

As the future successor of the Führer de France, Darlan not only won the approval of Petain, but also won the support of powerful people in Germany and France, and his position was quite stable, so he said very directly: "I feel that the offensive strength of the German army has made new progress compared with the Battle of France and Barbarossa, and the situation in South Africa is that we may support 5-8 more days under the condition of 1:1 troops." ”

Petain nodded, he was a French hero of the First World War, he couldn't understand Blitzkrieg 1.0, and now he can't understand it in 2.0, but one thing is good, he understands military affairs. They don't think they can win because they have a lot of troops and good fortifications, like leaders who don't know how to do it. The key to winning a battle lies in command, no matter how many troops there are, a system must be maintained, and when the entire system collapses, what kind of victory can we talk about?

He thought for a moment and asked, "What do you guys think about this?" ”

"Now the German army is two principled military reform ideas, first, disarmament, both Hitler himself and the German High Command believe that there is no need to maintain such a large army size, Germany may want to press between 400-5 million, if we refer to this standard, we have 1.5 million to 2 million enough, no matter how much the Germans may not be at ease; Second, to improve the level of equipment, those No. 4 tanks, No. 3 assault guns, and Tiger have been clearly withdrawn from the German army after the war, and all the bulky large-caliber towed guns have also been removed, and the early propeller aircraft must also be dismantled as much as possible, and Germany is expected to achieve full jetization in 1950 - both by sea and land! Now Germany is looking for buyers all over the world to take over, Japan is showing great interest, and other small South American and European countries are also showing great interest......"

Dar Lang paused for a moment and added: "I think we will not only restart the development of a new generation of tanks and aircraft in France, but also introduce rockets. ”

Petain nodded, regarding the development of new weapons, the French Supreme Defense Council has held a meeting to discuss, and intends to take advantage of the good relations between France and Germany, and Germany has equipment to export, it is proposed to buy a batch of ME-262 and Tiger tanks to come over to "copycat" it, and at the same time digest and absorb other production technologies that have been mastered, and develop a new generation of main battle weapons.

In 1943, the main equipment of the carrier-based aircraft of the Japanese and German navies was the German improved BF-219 (zero war modification), and then quickly transitioned to the stronger DO-412 and BF-319 in the second half of the year, but the BF-219 that had been mass-produced appeared in surplus, and it seemed that there was nowhere to go except for training and reserve. This 14-cylinder air-cooled engine can achieve a maximum output of 1,500 hp at 620 kg (compared to the Japanese 1,130 hp and 571 kg Rong 21 engine and the German 1,275 hp and 579 kg BM702).

Using this engine to improve the overall weight of the BF-219 increased by more than 200 kilograms - mainly used to strengthen the strength of the airframe and fuel tank armor, while increasing the reserve ammunition ceiling and fuel space (the new engine has a slightly larger fuel consumption, 65 liters of fuel is required to maintain the same range), and the combat performance is more perfect, and the modified BF-219 is renamed D.990 (the original French intended to be used for the aircraft carrier Charuffeury is the D. 790 carrier-based aircraft).

The Japanese side recognized the French improvement after testing, believing that although the performance was not as good as the new generation of BF-319, it was at least a low-cost solution to improve the BF-219, and the budget-conscious Japanese side immediately asked France to improve 100 BF-219 to D.990 according to this method, and called it a super-zero battle according to the Japanese naming rules, and also asked for authorization for the production of the Land-14-R engine. The Spanish Navy and the Portuguese Navy, which wanted to play with aircraft carriers but were shy of money, expressed similar wishes, and together with France's own order of 200 aircraft, the D.990 received a total of 400 orders and was fully operational, and the Chilean Navy is said to have expressed similar interest - the entire production line was enough to last until mid-1945.

Based on this idea, the French aviation community wanted to introduce German aircraft and try its own jet development, even if there was a 3-4 year technological gap, they thought they could catch up, and Dar Lun strongly supported this - he also won the support of the business community, especially the military industry, for his successor to the head of France.

At the same time, in order to win over the navy, Darlan, who was born as an admiral, has also spared no effort to promote the restoration and construction of the French Navy, taking advantage of the favorable conditions that the drawings of the Will Wheel, Axis-class aircraft carriers, and Rhine-class escort aircraft carriers are all in hand, and plans to build a new batch of warships -- he ambitiously maintains the future French capital ship force at a scale of 500,000 tons (only warships of more than 10,000 tons are counted). As for the several main warships of the French fleet currently under the command of the German army, there is a consensus that the battleships are completely outdated, and even if the Jean-Bar and Richelieu return after the war, the treatment will be completely different.

The Jean-Bar, which has been completely transformed into an aircraft carrier and has a large displacement, will probably last for 15-20 years, while the Richelieu will probably be decommissioned as a museum in 5-8 years.

If France wants to rebuild its navy, it urgently needs to build a new batch of aircraft carriers, ocean-going cruisers, and destroyers, the former can be used as an Axis-class aircraft carrier, and the latter needs to reflect France's own design strength.

At present, the focus of armaments is on the development of rocket weapons, and the government has communicated with French scientists many times in the early stage, and everyone acknowledges that this weapon is important, but the French foundation is too poor, and they say that it is far worse than Britain, and if the research from now on wants to reach the current level of Germany, it may need to invest tens of billions of francs (1 Reichsmark can be exchanged for more than 2 francs, this article simply takes a 1:2 relationship) and 5 years. In this way, Germany's offer of 14 billion marks for the sale of V2 rockets and a dozen finished products looks acceptable.

The current second-in-command, Reival, bargained, succeeded in bringing the price to 12.8 billion Reichsmarks, and agreed to offset it with German government bonds, shares in major French industrial enterprises, and other discountable things. Reival's position was also clarified under the coordination of Hoffmann, and he would remain second-in-command after Darlan took over as supreme head of state, so he was more committed to negotiations.

Petain, who listened to the full report, did not ask in detail how the war situation in South Africa collapsed, but only asked: "How many companies are willing to cooperate with the Germans?" ”

"If Germany really only buys 20-30% of the shares and does not have compulsory management, they think it is acceptable. After the war, the European defense market will be relatively small, and without German technical and political support, it will be difficult for many companies to sustain themselves. ”

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