Time Slip Reiwa Japan

060 - Germany in Action

Germany, which successfully ignited the spark of a war of independence in Indochina, was not proactive in providing assistance thereafter. For Germany, the sole purpose was to hinder France's progress, and they had no desire for French Indochina beyond destabilizing it. Certainly, they had no interest in the success of independence or incorporating it under their own rule. In a sense, that was the reason they were able to ignite the straw of the independence movement — national independence.

Based on this policy, Germany maintained a dry relationship by only selling weapons and ammunition in response to requests from the Vietnamese independence movement after the start of the armed struggle. Furthermore, Germany took great care not to directly involve itself in the Indochina War of Independence by involving warlords in southern China in the Vietnamese independence movement. They drew from their experiences of plundering Italian and British colonies in East Africa and the Middle East and being scrutinized by the League of Nations Security Council.

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France

France, risking its national prestige, embarked on suppressing the rebellion in French Indochina. However, instead of deploying highly equipped and well-trained elite forces from mainland France, they primarily relied on troops stationed in relatively stable African regions. This was not because France underestimated the situation, but rather because they couldn't mobilize their mainland forces, which were needed to maintain domestic security and prepare for a war with Germany.

Nevertheless, due to insufficient personnel, France decided to recruit personnel from various kingdoms within the Indochinese Federation, offering them favorable conditions, taking inspiration from the United States' Frontier Republic Army. With attractive salaries and welfare benefits, they managed to gather a considerable force of around 40.000 personnel. However, many of them were civilians with no military experience. Although they were a rather sloppy group to be called an army or unit, France decided to assign French personnel as core members and conducted minimal weapon training before deploying them to the field, considering them as forces for maintaining public order.

These soldiers, enticed by favorable treatment but lacking proper training, had no hesitation in resorting to violence. Additionally, the fact that the main ethnic group of the Vietnamese independence movement and the Indochinese Federation Army differed contributed to the unrestrained use of violence. However, the unhesitant use of violence caused resentment among the non-Vietnamese population, apart from the Vietnamese independence movement.

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Germany/Argentina

Establishing contact and friendly relations with Argentina proved to be difficult.

While activists dreaming of fascism eagerly welcomed contact from Germany, the Argentine government was not proactive in engaging with Germany. This was because Argentina benefited greatly from trade with Britain, which was enjoying economic prosperity, and from trading with the G4 nations through Britain. *1 Therefore, Argentina failed to see the significance of establishing a favorable relationship with Germany, which had a less-than-favorable relationship with the G4.

Considering the military regime in Argentina, Germany proposed providing advanced military equipment, including licensing production and technology transfer, on favorable terms. However, this proposal did not go well either. The Argentine military sought equipment manufactured by Britain, the United States, and preferably Japan, rather than German-made weapons. Germany's track record in the Siberian War of Independence and the Spanish Civil War had tarnished the commercial value of German weapons, and a slightly better offer was not enough to overcome this stain. Furthermore, the Argentine Army had successfully acquired a small number of Japanese combat vehicles, *2 less than 200 at the time and they were not interested in German land equipment under such circumstances. As a response, the Argentine government informed the German diplomatic delegation that unless Germany offered the provision of large German vessels free of charge, which would be attractive, they would not consider Germany's proposal for weapon sales on favorable terms.