The Third Reich: The Return of the King

Chapter 989

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Baltic Sea, which is almost an inland sea, is very important to many European countries!

When Peter the Great ascended the throne, in order to make the bear stronger, he took the initiative to move the capital to Petrograd, abandoned Moscow, and set the capital in Petrograd, the easternmost coastal city of the Baltic Sea!

Doing so has brought huge development opportunities to the bear.

After having an outlet to the Baltic Sea, their exchanges with European countries have become more frequent, and frequent exchanges have enabled them to obtain advanced European culture and technology at the first time, which is crucial for the reform and development of the bear!

Moreover, in the battle with the Kingdom of Switzerland, which occupied the Baltic Sea at the time, the bear’s military and technology developed rapidly. After defeating the powerful Kingdom of Switzerland, their strength was also recognized by European countries, and they have since become a famous military power in Europe!

However, for the Russian bear, the biggest benefit of defeating the Kingdom of Swiss Point is that it greatly broadened its security borders, removed the power of Swiss Point from the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, and completely resolved the threat to its capital!

Not only that, after annexing the three Baltic countries, the Russian bear also further narrowed the distance with European countries, especially Western European countries, providing great convenience for their future expansion into Western Europe.

However, after the end of World War I, while the Russian bear was busy with the civil war, the regions and countries that had been conquered by the Russian bear began to become independent one after another.

In this wave of independence, almost all the countries conquered by the Russian bear in Eastern Europe broke away from them.

Finland, Poland, the three Baltic countries, etc., these countries are isolated to the west of the Russian bear, not only blocking their contact with European countries, but also becoming a major springboard for foreign enemies to invade the Russian bear!

For the capital Petrograd, with Karelia and the three Baltic countries not in their hands, they face huge military threats!

Simply looking at Finland and the three Baltic countries, with their own strength, they obviously cannot threaten the security of the capital of the bear. However, if there are powerful countries outside the region standing behind them to provide support, or even directly attacking the bear by relying on these countries as bridgeheads, it will pose a huge threat to the bear!

During the civil war, a large part of the Allied intervention forces set out from these countries to attack the bear!

Therefore, a long time ago, the bear people hated these nails around them, and they had long hoped to pull them out!

At this time, under the pretext of the three Baltic countries participating in the war plan against the bear, the bear chose to seize this excellent opportunity to take action and brazenly sent troops to the three Baltic countries, intending to annex these three countries in one sentence!

The war came very suddenly.

Although the three Baltic countries have always regarded the bear as the enemy with the greatest threat to themselves, they have always been extremely vigilant and cautious about the military strikes of the bear.

However, when the Soviet army suddenly crossed the border and started the war, the three countries were still somewhat caught off guard!

The first country to be hit was Estonia, which was the northernmost and closest to the important city of Grad!

It was followed by Latvia, and then Lithuania!

These three countries were not big in size, had similar populations, and their military strength was not very strong!

Estonia had a total population of only 1.2 million and an area of only 4 square kilometers, which could be described as a small country with weak people. With such a small area and such a small population, their army was also very small!

Estonia had only 120,000 troops, two armies, eight divisions and two mixed brigades.

Almost all of these troops were concentrated in the capital and border areas. Therefore, after being hit by the first wave of artillery fire and air strikes by the Soviet army, Estonia’s army was almost completely destroyed!

Even if the remaining troops were not destroyed, they were unable to retreat in the first place because their communication equipment was destroyed and the roads leading to the country were blown up, thus being isolated and soon surrounded by the Soviet ground forces!

In order to quickly annex the three Baltic countries, the Soviet army’s action this time was not only premeditated for a long time, but also used all its strength if it did not move!

In order to show its military power to European countries and deter European countries from launching an invasion war against their own country, the Russian bear chose to go all out, sending almost all of its most elite troops to participate in this war!

Among them, the performance of the two newly formed Guards Armored Groups was particularly outstanding. After the artillery attack, they rushed across the border before other Soviet troops and rushed into the positions of the Estonian army. Not only did they further defeat the organization of the Estonian army, but they also successfully wrapped dumplings with a large number of Estonian troops who were stranded on the front line and had no time to retreat!

After the Estonian army was surrounded, the capital Tatu was immediately exposed to the Soviet guns!

The Soviet armored forces did not delay, and handed over the task of encircling and annihilating the enemy forces in the encirclement to the friendly forces, while they galloped southward all the way to the capital of Estonia! On

February 2, less than 24 hours before the outbreak of the war, Tatu, the capital of Estonia, fell. The Estonian government fled in a hurry, sailed out of the Baltic Sea by ship, and fled overseas to become an exiled government. Without the unified leadership and command of the government, Estonia had no hope of turning the tables. The Soviet army quickly occupied the entire territory of Estonia!

After taking down Estonia, the Soviet army did not stay, but continued to attack southward, rushing towards its second target, Latvia!

Although Estonia did not resist for long, it was defeated in less than two days.

But two days was enough to warn the surrounding countries!

So, before being attacked, the Latvians were already prepared.

This time, the Soviet army faced a prepared enemy, so it could no longer launch a surprise attack as before!

The only option left for them is to penetrate the enemy’s defenses from the front, tear apart the enemy’s formation, and thus defeat or even annihilate the enemy!

This kind of thing is very difficult to accomplish, because although Latvia is still a small country, its land area exceeds 60,000 square kilometers, and its population is close to 2 million. It has 20 divisions and 250,000 troops.

These numbers have increased a lot compared to Estonia. More importantly, Latvia is a rectangular country running east-west, which gives them a certain degree of strategic depth.