Chapter 71: Can't See Through Him

In fact, Akado had been continuously troubled because a series of his actions that changed history had caused something that was supposed to happen on January 30, 1926, not to happen. Great Britain was originally supposed to withdraw from the Rhineland region on this day. However, because the two sides had signed a series of treaties allowing Germany to expand its Reichswehr, it had lowered Britain’s trust in Germany, causing this withdrawal not to occur.

So right now, in Germany’s Rhineland region, a small-scale British expeditionary force was still stationed. Although this force was not large in number, its existence represented the incompleteness of German territory—of course, Belgium and France also had troops stationed in the Rhineland. These several countries jointly controlled this demilitarized zone of Germany.

Germany’s gradually improving economy also benefited Britain. So, under slightly improved economic conditions, the largest workers’ strike in history, which was supposed to break out in Britain in May 1926, was postponed until December 29, 1926.

This time, Akado decided to trust Stresemann again, entrusting his ideas to him as a diplomatic mission. Stresemann did not delay either, immediately organizing personnel to go to Britain and launch a diplomatic offensive.

In addition, Akado dispatched Jellinek Cassia, Mercedes’s father, who had just become his trusted confidant, to secretly travel to the Middle East to meet with Ibn Saud, who had become the de facto ruler of the Saudi Arabian region in January 1926.

This Ibn Saud, his life story could simply be written into a novel. In 1891, his father, to escape the continuous armed incursions of the neighboring Rashid tribe, led his entire family to flee to Kuwait. The 12-year-old Ibn Saud settled there with his father. During this time, he studied the Quranic commentary, the Hadith, Islamic law, history, and military affairs under a teacher, and accompanied his father in social activities.

The turning point came at the end of 1901. He led his troops back to the Arabian Peninsula and, in January of the following year, captured Riyadh through a surprise attack, re-establishing the Saudi dynasty. Between 1903 and 1907, he defeated the Rashidis and their supporters, the Turkish army, and unified the Qassim region.

In 1913, he seized the Hasa province on the west coast of the Persian Gulf from the Turks. Between 1919 and 1925, he successively conquered the Asir Emirate on the Red Sea coast, the Rashid dynasty in the Jabal Shammar region north of Nejd, and the Kingdom of Hejaz, ruled by Sharif Hussein of Mecca (who had declared himself Caliph in 1924), occupying Mecca, Jeddah, and Medina. At this point, the vast region between the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea was all under the territory of the Saudi dynasty.

In this war of Ibn Saud’s unification of Saudi Arabia, the German Reichswehr and the British government played the very disgraceful roles of military advisors and arms dealers. It could be said that the reason Ibn Saud was able to take the entire Arabian Peninsula so smoothly was inseparable from the support of Britain and Germany.

For some reason, no country in the world had yet recognized this uncrowned king of Saudi Arabia. Akado decided to be the first to offer congratulations, and by the way, to talk with this ruler about the oil import and export trade in the Saudi region. Of course, he had no intention of eating alone. Instead, after leaving a good impression on Ibn Saud, he wanted to pull the British and French in together.

And so, a magnificent German diplomatic combination punch began, making January 1927 a famous month of German diplomatic victory in history.

In the spirit of the Locarno Pact, the Commander-in-Chief of the German military, General von Hammerstein, personally visited France and signed a memorandum of understanding with the French. The two countries would cooperate in the military field and reached an agreement to strictly prevent communist infiltration.

Immediately after, Stresemann visited Britain as an envoy and reached a series of economic agreements with the British government. The German government would use potatoes and canned goods to repay its war reparations to Britain ahead of schedule, and the British government would use these materials to appease the striking workers—the British government then issued a statement, announcing that before Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1927, it would withdraw all its expeditionary forces stationed within German territory.

Following this, Germany established equal and friendly relations with Saudi Arabia. The very next day, both Britain and France recognized Ibn Saud’s rule in the region and signed friendly treaties with him. Subsequently, several countries, led by Germany, signed the “Saudi Arabian Regional Mineral Resource Allocation Agreement” with Ibn Saud, abbreviated as the “Resource Agreement”—the content of this agreement was very simple. Britain, France, Germany, and the United States would invest 10 billion US dollars to purchase the resource extraction rights for the entire territory of Saudi Arabia. Any resources extracted would be divided into 10 shares: 2 shares for Germany, 2 for Britain, 2 for France, 1 for the United States, and 3 for Ibn Saud himself.

And in the second month after signing the agreement, that is, February 1927, exploration experts from Germany and Britain discovered oil in the Saudi Arabian region. Immediately, oil exploration teams from various countries entered Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other places, and began to set up equipment to extract the local oil resources.

This discovery caused the economies of Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, which had been on the verge of collapse, to slightly improve. The British government was very satisfied with Germany’s generosity and deference in diplomacy and immediately ordered the withdrawal of the British expeditionary force from the Rhineland region.

Under a flood of propaganda, Akado Rudolph, for leading this diplomatic activity as the chairman of the Greater Germany Party, was once again sung and praised by the masses. Even the elderly President Hindenburg, despite his illness, attended the celebration ceremony and even publicly praised Akado as “the number one person in restoring German sovereignty in the last five years.”

This diplomatic victory reassured the worried Hindenburg a great deal. Originally, he had been troubled by the conflicts between the SS under Akado and the Stormtroopers under Hitler. Because these conflicts had caused great turmoil in German social order, bloody street incidents occurred daily, and there were even vicious incidents of murder in broad daylight.

But Akado’s diplomatic victory once again draped him in a sacred halo. Hindenburg’s original plan to punish both sides equally was abandoned, replaced by a one-sided purge of the Stormtroopers. The police department dispatched personnel to shut down many branches of the Nazi Party, confiscated all Nazi Party flags and armbands. The Stormtroopers were told they were not allowed to wear their medals and armbands, nor were they allowed to hold up flags in parades. This caused the Nazi Party to suffer heavy losses for a time.

However, Hitler did not sit idly by. Relying on the secret funding from the French, he annexed several small, powerless parties, secretly developing his formal political power, preparing to concentrate his strength to win the upcoming parliamentary election.

The diplomatic activities in Saudi Arabia allowed Akado to make a huge profit, and also replenished the strained funds of the Reichswehr. In the mountains of Bavaria, the armored forces of the Reichswehr were expanded to 900 vehicles. According to Akado’s vision, this was enough to equip three nearly full-strength tank divisions. And these armored soldiers drilled day and night, making final preparations to crush their opponents.

But on this day, an old acquaintance of Akado’s came to the Reichswehr High Command. This person was none other than the British colonel, Smith. When Akado heard it was him, he made some brief preparations and then had someone invite Smith to his office.

“Akado! My dear friend, thanks to you, I’ve received a medal,” Colonel Smith said, showing off the badge on his chest as soon as they met.

Akado motioned for Anna to pour a cup of coffee for Smith, then said with a smile, “Then you should treat me to dinner, Mr. Smith.”

“Hahahaha! There are too many people who want to treat Major General Akado to dinner now. I’m afraid I won’t even be able to get in line!” Smith said with a laugh, then looked at Anna, who was pouring coffee beside him, with an appreciative glance and a raised eyebrow. “You’re getting better and better at enjoying life. Even your secretary is such a stunning beauty.”

“Stop changing the subject. The last time I was at my wit’s end and came to see you, you should have already met Secretary Anna,” Akado laughed along. “What brings you to see me?”

“To tell you the truth, this time I’ve come to ask for a favor for a friend in the navy. I heard you have connections on the navy side as well. My friend would like to ask you for a favor,” Smith said, taking a sip of coffee and smacking his lips with a “tsk, tsk.” He then lamented, “The way you people brew coffee is really average. I still think the taste of black tea is better.”

“If you’re here for a drink, then I’ll serve you red wine. But let me say this first, I don’t talk business when I’m drinking,” Akado said with feigned annoyance.

Smith waved his hand and sighed. “You really can’t take a joke. I’m starting to suspect you’re the German Emperor, unable to tolerate anyone saying anything bad about Germany.”

He didn’t wait for Akado to speak and continued, “Alright! No more joking! One of our transport ships has gone missing in the North Atlantic. This military transport ship was carrying a large shipment of arms, as well as several of our important engineers. Our government will spare no expense to find this ship.”

As he said the words “spare no expense,” he emphasized his tone and looked at Akado, hoping to see some clue on his face.

Unfortunately, he saw nothing. Akado was normally surprised for a moment, then asked, “You mean, you want us to help you find a missing transport ship?”

“That’s right,” Smith nodded. He was only under orders to test Akado’s reaction, because Britain had confirmed a few days ago that this ship had already sunk, and had found some wreckage near the sinking site. But regrettably, no survivors were found.

“Germany will dispatch 10 destroyers to participate in the search and rescue,” Akado said after some thought. “But searching for a single transport ship in an area as large as the North Atlantic is no easy task.”

“Thank you,” Smith said, standing up. He extended his hand with a grateful look and shook Akado’s hand.

As he walked out of the Reichswehr High Command, the naval officer Smith had brought with him asked with a frown, “It seems this Akado really doesn’t know about our ship sinking incident.”

“No! I can’t read this man at all!” Smith waved his hand, his ‘nice guy’ image from Akado’s office gone, his gaze becoming sharp. He narrowed his eyes, sighed, and then said slowly, “All we can say is that we didn’t get a result from our test! That’s all.”