Chapter 60: The Dark Tide Beneath the Calm

The MI6 agents that Karl had brought with him, knowing of the Vatican Bank’s willingness to cooperate, immediately removed the gold gems stored by the Croats, and then transported them directly onto military transport planes and out of Italy.

The whole process was done without the slightest delay, certainly so as not to be detected by the American forces in Italy. Germany’s four-nation occupation was of course a little more noticeable, but that didn’t mean that Italy, also a defeated country, was a calm mess.

The US, UK and France were happy in Italy? This was certainly not the case, and the division of Italy’s heritage was equally tit-for-tat.

The U.S. and the U.K. had provided many loans to Italy, with the U.S. alone loaning Italy a billion dollars. For Italy to pay reparations to the victorious powers, especially the Soviet Union, it would have to pay with loans from the United States alone. The United States, of course, refused, saying that Italy could pay reparations to the Soviet Union, but it must not use American money to lend money to the Soviet Union for nothing.

The Soviet Union’s move to replenish its own industry while dismantling machines in Germany had already aroused the alarm of the Americans. The United States was adamantly opposed to compensating the Soviet Union with industrial machinery in the case of Italy. In the end a compromise was reached whereby Italy was compensated with products, but only after Italy had recovered.

Italy also had overseas colonies, and the colonial issue became a battleground for the United States, Britain, and France to exchange blows. Italy had quite a few colonies in Africa, and Britain wanted to take over Italian Somalia, which Italy had previously controlled, and threw out a Greater Somalia scenario, incorporating Italian Somalia into British Somalia.

France didn’t want Britain to take too much advantage and didn’t think it could easily change the Italian colonies, after all Italy wasn’t as sinful as Germany.

The U.S. attitude towards the Italian African colonies, on the other hand, was that they should not be divided up so easily and should be given to the United Nations, which was already in the works, for trusteeship. The headquarters of the United Nations would certainly be in the United States, and the United States could use this to exert influence in favor of the United States in the Italian African colonies.

At this stage, the United States, Britain and France were in Rome, firing frequent shots at each other while working together to force the Soviet Union to make concessions. Regarding the status of Germany and Italy as defeated countries, a scramble was induced. This, naturally, had nothing to do with Alan Wilson!

Out of the fact that he was directly responsible for the discovery of the Croatian loot, after MI6 had taken the treasure, Alan Wilson was told that the operation had been a success, he just didn’t know what the value of the fortune was.

But it didn’t matter, he had never been bothered about the money itself, Britain was now desperate for money from anywhere, no less than the King of Thieves was possessed, and there was always a certain amount of credit to him, the liaison officer, for the money arriving in London.

At the same time that MI6 was traveling to Rome to dispense justice and recover the stolen money from the victimized countries, Mihajlovic had also arrived in Munich to meet the liaison he was looking for with General Patton, the German second grade army general and commander of the 11th Armored Division, Hermann Balk.

At the time of the Battle of Stalin, Hermann Balk, the division commander of the 11th Panzer Division, had been at the Don River, fighting south and north within the entire defensive zone of the German Don Line, making successive raids, hitting the Soviets hard between marches with swift action and inflicting huge casualties.

In May 1945, at the surrender ceremony held by the Allied Forces in Bavaria, Germany, a German armored division that surrendered voluntarily received a special courtesy from General Patton of the U.S. Army’s Third Army Group, who had always been known for his arrogance. Patton surprisingly told the panzer division commander, “We fought to a draw, and your troops are able to fight and are world class.”

Hermann Balk then came to live in Bavaria, already considered, by General Patton, to be a professional soldier carrying out the policies of the Third Reich, and the two men talked from time to time about the current situation, with the common denominator being that both men were very unhappy with the Soviet Union.

Whereas Hermann Balk had been fighting the Soviet Red Army on the Eastern Front for several bloody years, Patton believed that the Soviet Union had become an enemy of the American dominance of the world order, and that it must be eliminated while the present opportunity existed.

It was at this time that Mikhailovich met with Hermann Balk and made a tearful plea, “The time has come when we, the troops who have fought alongside the German soldiers, have had to ask for your help. On the Austrian border, the British are preventing us from surrendering to England and may even repatriate us back to Yugoslavia, and once we are back in Yugoslavia, everyone will be purged, Admiral Hermann, you know the Soviet style, Tito is just like the Soviets.”

“Weren’t the British former supporters of the Fatherland Army?” Herman Balk inquired with a frown, “How is it that they are so heartless that they simply abandoned you.”

“Admiral Herman, the British have always been like this.” Mikhailovich, who had already gone through Alan Wilson’s repeated indoctrination and because he was bound to be purged by Tito once he was repatriated, relentlessly followed Herman in cursing the British, “I understand that the only chance now is with General Patton, the military governor of Bavaria, who is rumored to be very lenient with many of the German servicemen. ”

“Admiral Hermann, I believe the Allies will need the forces to attack Yugoslavia as well, once war breaks out in the Soviet Union.” Mikhailovich pleaded with a saddened look, “Could you let me meet with him.”

“This?” Hermann Balk fell into a deep hesitation, if anything, he, a German second class admiral, was certainly dissatisfied with the current pattern of Germany being occupied by four nations.

Once the pattern of four-country occupation was established, from then on, Germany was divided and could never be unified. These are a group of German soldiers try every possible way to encourage the Americans directly into the east to attack the Soviet Union reason.

As soon as the war resumed, German soldiers in prisoner-of-war camps everywhere would be released, restoring Germany’s autonomy in the midst of the war, and this kind of agitation was not without its effects; the fact that General Patton, the military governor of Bavaria, was showing more and more dissatisfaction with the Soviet Union, was a huge achievement.

“I will find a private occasion for you to meet with General Patton. But I won’t say anything; you talk to him yourself.” After a long period of reflection, Hermann Balk, as if he had made up his mind of some sort, promised to create an opportunity for Mikhailovich.

The scenery of the Bavarian estates was always mesmerizing at night, and although calm had been restored to Europe, the secret strife continued, with the partitioned occupation of Germany, the division of the Italian colonies, and the refugees on the Austrian frontier. Further afield, there was the armed confrontation within Greece, not to mention the resistance of Japan in the Far East.

In the first half of 1945, the world could not be said to be at peace, and there was an even greater part of the population that wanted the war to continue.

“Unless Patton and Eisenhower are switched.” Allen Wilson shook his head, possibly coincidentally, and wondered if it was possible for the United States to continue the war, but still thought it almost impossible.