Chapter 529 Treaty, Nazis, and Olympic Games
Under the cover of all the major events, in February 1920, some small events worth mentioning happened.
The first is the Spitsbergen Islands Treaty signed by the World Alliance in mid-February, which recognized the Spitsbergen Islands as belonging to Norway and having full and complete sovereignty.
But at the same time, the World Alliance also stipulates that the area must never be used for war purposes, and citizens of all contracting countries can freely enter and exit and engage in legitimate production and commercial activities while complying with relevant Norwegian laws.
This treaty makes the entire Svalbard archipelago (Spitsbergen, Northeastern Land, Edi and Barents Island) the first and only demilitarized zone in the Arctic, allowing freedoms for all citizens of the contracting states In and out.
To put it simply, even though Australasia is a country in the southern hemisphere, because of this treaty, it has a scientific research base in the Arctic, which is still very important to Australasia.
Countries adjacent to the Arctic Circle may not care, but for countries far away from the Arctic Circle like Australasia, they can also be qualified for scientific research in the Arctic.
Of course, this treaty has drawn Arthur's attention to the development of the Arctic and Antarctic.
It is a good thing that Australasia can have a scientific research base in the Arctic. More importantly, Australasia also has to defend the Antarctic, which is very close to itself.
As the only great power in the Southern Hemisphere, Australasia still has a great influence on the Southern Hemisphere, and its sphere of influence can cover most of the coast of the Southern Hemisphere.
Especially since Australasia has a very large land area, there is actually a lot of Antarctic territory that can be occupied and claimed.
There is no so-called Antarctic Treaty yet. The Antarctic continent is an unexplored land and there is no development yet.
When it comes to Antarctic mineral resources, their richness is no less than that of Australasia. The first is coal mines and iron ores, which are very important for industrial development. Antarctica has the world's largest iron ore snow storage area, which contains extremely high iron grades and can be mined and used around the world for more than 200 years.
At the same time, Antarctica also has coal reserves of up to 500 billion tons, and its coal and iron reserves have considerable advantages.
In addition, Antarctica also has copper, lead, zinc, molybdenum and a small amount of gold, silver, chromium, nickel, and cobalt. The reserves and types of mineral resources are quite abundant.
Coupled with the much-talked-about oil and natural gas reserves, Antarctica has the status of a mineral continent. This is why Arthur plans to occupy most of Antarctica.
In addition, Antarctica also has quite rich marine product resources. The famous Antarctic krill is enough to catch 50 million tons every year without any impact on the reproduction of the species.
How exaggerated is the figure of 50 million tons? There are currently about 1.66 billion people in the world. On average, each person needs to eat 60 kilograms of Antarctic krill every year to consume up to 50 million tons of catch.
And this is an annual renewable seafood product that can generate huge profits whether it is exported or used as food reserves.
Of course, this must be done under the premise of protecting the marine environment. If events like this still happen in future generations, no matter how large the population of Antarctic krill is, it will become a radiation product that everyone talks about, let alone use it as food reserves or sell it to the outside world.
It also strengthened Arthur's confidence in protecting the ocean. As a country that relies heavily on the ocean, Arthur will never allow any country to cause serious damage to the ocean.
No matter how cold Antarctica is, it still cannot hide the fact that Antarctica contains many valuable resources.
Even if the resources in Antarctica cannot be developed for the time being, it is perfectly fine to occupy them and wait for the development of technological equipment in the future.
In order to have an early impact on the ownership of Antarctica, Arthur ordered the three major film studios to shoot movies about Antarctica to declare Australasia's sovereignty over this territory in various ways.
In addition to the Treaty of Spitsbergen, a very famous historical event also occurred in Germany on February 24, that is, the famous Adolf Hitler founded the Nazi Party in Munich and officially began his own political career.
Arthur still has some concerns about this. However, judging from the current chaotic political situation in Germany, it is unknown whether the mustache can climb to a high position as it did in history. After all, William II is still in power, and Germany is still A monarchy.
In March, there were no major international events. Except for the World League's official announcement of the reduction of the proportion of Germany's reparations, most of the remaining events were domestic events among the great powers.
It has just entered early April, and the peaceful international community is once again in turmoil.
Under the intervention of the World Alliance led by Britain and France, the Polish War of Independence broke out in Soviet Russia.
The leader of the Polish War of Independence, the bourgeois nationalist Piłsudski, under the leadership of Britain and France, put forward the slogan of recovering Poland's land before it was partitioned in 1772, and formally declared war on Soviet Russia.
You know, before the partition of Poland, its territory also included parts of what is now Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine, all of which are currently controlled by Soviet Russia.
With the support of Britain and France, the Polish independent armed forces rapidly expanded from the initial few thousand to more than 100,000 people. They formed an alliance with the intervention troops sent by the World Alliance and were advancing towards Lithuania and Ukraine.
The current domestic situation in Russia can be said to be very complicated. A simple civil war in Russia has evolved into an intervention war involving many countries.
The parties participating in the war were Soviet Russia and other Soviet countries, with a total of 1.7 million troops. On the other side are the surviving Tsarist Russia and Poland, and the intervention forces of the World Alliance, with a total number of troops of up to 2 million.
The current civil war has lasted for several years, and the losses it has brought to Russia are almost devastating.
Since the beginning of World War I, Russia has entered a six-year war period, and the loss of national manpower has been huge.
In the First World War alone, Russia's death toll exceeded 3 million, the number of wounded and captured exceeded 8 million, and the total manpower loss reached more than 11 million.
The civil war in the past few years has not failed. Soviet Russia and Tsarist Russia combined have caused a tragic outcome of more than 2 million deaths and 4 million injuries.
What's even more terrible is that starting in April, Russia is experiencing a quite severe drought, accompanied by more serious diseases.
Typhus has killed tens of thousands of soldiers in the Russian army. Coupled with the civilian casualties of the civil war, Russia has lost at least 20 million people in the six years of war.
Of course, this still does not count those Russian civilians who immigrated abroad and died due to non-war reasons, such as influenza.
The population of Tsarist Russia before entering the war was as high as 175 million. After these six years, the population did not increase but declined, leaving only 152 million people, equivalent to the level of 1908.
Of course, millions of Russians immigrated to Australasia in the past six years, which is also one of the important reasons for the massive decrease in Russia's population.
It is worth mentioning that due to different policies and systems, most of the people who immigrated to Australasia were the population of Tsarist Russia, or the population of the previous Russian Provisional Government.
Such Russian immigrants are known internationally as White Russians and are mostly well-educated professionals.
Unlike the people of Soviet Russia, they did not support the Russian revolution, they just wanted a more stable life.
For Arthur, these were the Russian immigrants that Australasia really wanted, not the rebels clamoring for independence.
Compared with the domestic situation, Russia's current civil war is an area that Arthur cannot yet touch.
Arthur could only wait for the results, and try to avoid mentioning it at other times, so as not to get into trouble and bring disaster to Australasia.
While Australasia's Football King's Cup was being urgently prepared and promoted, time had quietly come to the time when the Olympic Games would be held in Antwerp, Belgium.
Eight years have passed since the last Olympic Games, but this Olympic Games still attracted a lot of international attention.
Although the King's Cup, which Australasia spent a lot of money to organize, took away part of the traffic, after all, the King's Cup is still being organized, so people's attention has been involuntarily shifted to the Olympic Games.
On April 20, 1920, the seventh Summer Olympics officially began.
Although this Olympic Games was not as grand as the Australasian Olympics, it also attracted a large number of countries to participate.
According to information released by Belgium, a total of 29 countries and regions have registered for the Olympic Games, and the number of participating athletes has reached 2,607.
It is worth mentioning that this Olympics used the oath-taking ceremony for athletes for the first time. This link was proposed by Coubertin in 1913. However, the Germans obviously did not have this blessing and successfully avoided the opportunity to host the Olympics.
In addition to the athletes' oath-taking ceremony, the Antwerp Games also used the Olympic flag designed by Coubertin for the first time, which is the famous Olympic rings.
Unlike the previous two Olympic Games, which had a large number of participants from the major powers, the host country Belgium has the largest number of participants in this Olympics, and the number of participants far exceeds the second and third places.
A characteristic can also be seen from this point, that is, when small and medium-sized countries host the Olympic Games, the great powers will not pay too much attention.
Of course, one reason cannot be ruled out, which is that the British Empire feels that Britain now has no rivals in the world, and therefore does not disdain to compete with other countries in this environment.
Without German competition, the British government and Prime Minister Lloyd George felt that the pressure on them suddenly decreased a lot.
France and the United States currently do not pose much of a threat to the United Kingdom, which has also caused the British government to relax in some places.
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