The reason why Mussolini is so confident is actually due to Reinhardt's contributions.

Reinhardt provided a piece of information to himself to subdue Rossi, the No. 2 person in Italy, so that Rossi relied on this information to find nearly 10,000 barrels of sealed crude oil hidden in three tunnels in La Spezia, northern Italy.

During World War II, the Italian Navy repeatedly canceled the battle plan for large warships due to lack of oil. Now, with nearly 10,000 barrels of crude oil, Mussolini's ambition to seize the Mediterranean will be more secure.

The Italian royal family, which had always complained about Mussolini's dictatorship, also reached a certain consensus with Mussolini because of its inexplicable relationship with this batch of private crude oil.

Everyone is not stupid, who in Italy still has the ability to hide so much crude oil in advance, both sides know it. Some things are just tacit. Mussolini did not pursue the relationship between the Italian royal family and the incident, and the Italian royal family also allowed Mussolini's dictatorship even more.

Prior to this, Mussolini, who hated being criticized, even handed over a second-rate corps of nearly 100,000 people on the Western Front (this is a second-rate unit in the Italian Army, if you count the Blackwood Army, they should be ranked third-rate) to Prince Pinsabeto of the Italian Savoy royal family.

Regard the heroes of the world as bull's ears, what a scenery!

Since Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Poland, the seventh, sixth, and fifth military powers in Europe, have been annexed by Germany one after another, looking at the European continent, there are only four countries, Britain, France, Germany and Italy, which can be regarded as a big country!

Yes, Italy is a great power, and it is an important role that determines the Vienna system and consolidates the balance of power on the European continent!

After all, it was only the end of 1939, and although Europe ushered in a strong emerging power such as the German Third Reich, on the whole, it could not be called a situation in which Germany was the dominant one.

To the south of the European continent, Italy has always been recuperating, with hundreds of divisions, but it has always been at both ends of the road, ushering in the competition between Britain, France and Germany, and taking advantage of it.

To the north, there is Britain, which has single-handedly controlled the development of the situation on the European continent for nearly a hundred years and is known as the "empire on which the sun never sets".

In terms of national strength, Britain can be called the world's largest colonial empire!

The British Empire is home to about 30 million square kilometers of colonies, equivalent to one-quarter of the world's land area.

In addition, it has a total population of more than 400 million, which is already 1/6 of the world's total population!

Since the last world war, Britain has controlled almost all the sea routes in the world except Panama, has a monopoly on world trade, and is a veritable superpower!

Not to mention anything else, Britain was able to compete with the Italian national navy in the Mediterranean with just one Mediterranean fleet. With another home fleet, it can even force the German naval commander Raeder not to dare to cross the thunder pool by half a step!

Technologically, at least until the end of the last world war, no country could match the level of the British Empire.

Such strength is enough to allow Britain to be at ease and boldly watch the fire from across the strait until now.

In the northwest corner, France, known as the "first power on the European continent", has now relied on its initial mobilization to have 123 infantry divisions, with a total of 2.5 million infantry. In addition, the French army already has 3,250 tanks, of which the main battle tank Soma S-35 medium tank is even better than the historical German No. 3 tank.

Counting the 10,700 large-caliber guns of the French army, it completely surpassed the German artillery in the pursuit of mobile performance in artillery firepower, and dominated the throne of the king of European artillery.

Not only is the army strong, but even the French Navy, which is overshadowed by the glory of the army, has 3 battleships, 7 heavy cruisers, 12 light cruisers, more than 50 destroyers of various types, 101 submarines, plus an aircraft carrier "Béarn"!

In terms of comprehensive strength ranking, the French Army claims to be the first in the world, and the Navy dares to claim to be the fourth in the world. The French Third Republic has been the most formidable force on the European continent since the end of World War I.

In terms of air force, the French Third Republic also has more than 1,500 combat aircraft of various types, including 700 fighters, 260 bombers, 180 reconnaissance planes and 400 ground attack aircraft.

Then there is Belgium, which has been closely on the same side as France since the invasion of the Ruhr area of Germany. In the event of any French war, there is a 99 percent chance that the Belgian army will provide a large number of troops to the French Third Republic.

Although the Belgian troops are poorly equipped and generally of low quality, their huge base of 22 infantry divisions is also a local force that should not be underestimated.

Needless to say, the Third Reich, in the heart of the European continent, has been arming itself with an astonishing speed since the day it re-established its presence in the Rhineland, openly reinstating the compulsory military system and expanding the army with a total of 500,000 troops in 36 divisions.

On the eve of the merger between Germany and Austria, the Wehrmacht of the Third Reich had expanded to 600,000 men! The peaceful annexation of Austria provided the Third Reich with 300,000 well-trained standing armies.

Through a "Munich Conspiracy", Reinhardt took advantage of the situation to annex Czechoslovakia, which had already expanded its army to a million, and more than doubled the number of troops in the Third Reich! Even if a large proportion of the million-strong army of Czechoslovakia was not trained, with time and training, it could become the main force of the German army in the future.

The unexpected invasion of Germany by Hungary provided Reinhardt's new Third Reich with 100,000 not very elite additional troops (the ownership of these troops was temporarily placed under the jurisdiction of the second-line SS), and provided a large forward base for German troops to enter the Balkans in the future.

By October 16, 1939, Germany, which had previously ranked fourth in military power in Europe, Poland in fifth, Austria and Czechoslovakia in sixth and seventh place, and Hungary, which was barely tenth, had basically become all parts of the same country.

Because of this series of miraculous expansions, the German Third Reich became the third military power in Europe in name, surpassing Italy, which was originally recognized as the third place.

Now, the actual strength of the Wehrmacht of the Third Reich, which has been concealed by Reinhardt, has in fact reached 3.35 million! Plus 350,000 Waffen-SS troops outside the Wehrmacht (100,000 of which were poorly equipped former Hungarian troops, which were not ideal in combat. ）

As for the German Imperial Air Force, with personnel secretly trained in the Soviet Union as the backbone, plus Germany's own production, annexation by Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and some captured in Poland, there are now a total of 3,950 combat aircraft, most of which are the latest fighters at that time.

There is no room for two tigers on one mountain, not to mention that there are still four major European powers on the European continent at the same time, and none of them has an absolute advantage. Only by co-opting allies and matching each other can we gain a firm foothold.

At this point, Britain and France came together, and Germany and Italy were mixed together.