Father of France

Chapter 209 The Riot Subsides
It's not surprising that Latin America, a region subjected to intense pressure from the United States, would give rise to all sorts of fantastical ideas.

Nowhere is the Catholic atmosphere more intense than in Latin America, which is also where left-wing thought is most prevalent in 21st-century Western countries, with both coexisting in one region.

Moreover, unlike Western European countries, where there are still clear distinctions between left-wing parties like the Socialist Party and the French Communist Party in France, the two left-wing factions in Latin America are almost identical.

This brings us to the source of this situation: the United States. After the start of the Cold War, the United States became obsessed with threatening left-wing ideologies in Latin American countries.

Castro initially only demanded independence and autonomy, and was not close to the Soviet Union at all. He was forced by the United States to become a staunch pro-Soviet country.

Cuba was the Soviet Union's number one henchman during the Cold War, to the point that the Soviet Union could send Cuba wherever it wanted to attack. Cuban soldiers were seen in many countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The root of this shift was simply that Castro confiscated American plantations and was unwilling to remain a slave to American companies; the United States was unwilling to bear even a loss of several hundred million dollars.

Ultimately, after Cuba became the Soviet Union's number one henchman, the United States had to pay a hundred times the price to quell the trouble caused by Cuba.

Next came Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, where João Goulart, the leader of the Brazilian Workers' Party, took office as president. He was clearly a president with a socialist political niche, but he carried out a nationalization movement, which is also very common in Western European countries. As a result, he was seen as a thorn in the side by the United States, which joined forces with the Brazilian military to oust him from office.

Finally, there was Chilean President Allende. By the 1970s, the left-wing forces in Latin America, under the pressure of the United States, had lost much of their boundaries. Allende was a socialist.

During this period, the Socialist Party, a left-wing force in Latin America, had already shown a clear difference from the Socialist Parties in Western European countries, even though they were still nominally part of the Second International.

However, due to the long-term suppression of Latin American social parties by the United States and pro-Soviet communists, parties that should have held similar views to European social parties have become extremely radical and are clearly closer to Moscow than to the Second International.

At this time, the high-pressure tactics imposed by the United States have played a significant role in shaping the interdependent relationship between left-wing forces in Latin America.

Apart from their similar names, Latin American social parties and European social parties have almost completely different doctrines.

Even the socialist parties of the Second International in Europe have discovered that, although they are all called socialist parties, the left wing in Europe and Latin America is more radical than their own.

This is all due to the repressive policies adopted by the United States in conjunction with the military governments of Latin American countries.

Then, in the 1980s, the most surreal thing happened: during the Nicaraguan Civil War, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which was on the side of revolution, received support from the Soviet Union, Cuba, and European social parties led by the Socialist Party of West Germany. For the first time, European social parties were on the same side as Moscow in a major conflict.

Although the Nicaraguan Civil War eventually came to an abrupt end due to the Soviet Union's power, the Sandinista National Liberation Front was not disbanded during the war, thus demonstrating its value in united front work.

With the outbreak of the Latin American economic crisis, military governments in various Latin American countries began to be forced to step down.

Left-wing parties in Latin American countries that have emerged again from high pressure hardly emphasize whether their positions are socialist or Moscow-based, nor do they distinguish between socialism and communism.

The United States' decades-long strong suppression of the Latin American left has reduced the very different left-wing parties in Europe to a state where there is little internal distinction, and the only common language they share is anti-American political forces.

The influence of these left-wing parties in Latin American countries is much more stable in the 21st century than it was during the Cold War. The United States is struggling to control them one by one; as soon as one is removed from power, another country takes over.

Even Colombia, which has been pro-American since World War II, has seen its first left-wing president.

Given the current situation in Latin America, which has already drawn a major Eastern power into the Security Community (SCO), what else is impossible?

Latin American Catholicism has a theology of liberation, and even Catholicism and Communism, through the deep friendship forged in the Spanish Civil War and the Mexican Civil War, can be reconciled.

So, for some countries with a large proportion of Native American descendants, the idea that everyone is of Asian descent is only a reasonable conjecture, not a delusion.

“Send a telegram every five days to the French Gendarmerie Command in Paris, reporting the cause and effect of this ethnic massacre. Remember, because this is not a glorious thing, you must say a little bit every few days, and try to absolve the Madagascar Gendarmerie of any responsibility, even though our Gendarmerie here is small and has no responsibility to begin with.”

Could an 800-strong military police force prevent ethnic violence? This is 600,000 square kilometers of land, the size of Ukraine. How could a military police force of less than 1,000 people possibly manage it? After preparing the telegrams to prolong the time and shirk responsibility, Koeman immediately invited the experts from various industries that Martin had brought with him, mainly from agriculture and mining, to draft a development plan for the aftermath of the riots.

What? You're part of the expeditionary force and you're not going to fight?
Koeman is a member of the military police, so he naturally has a duty to respond to the critical situation. They clearly have an absolute advantage now, so why would he go up there?

The question was not whether the French Expeditionary Force could capture the port of Tuamasina, but rather when they would decide to attack it.

The once prosperous coastal plain, now devastated, has found new owners. All that remains in the hands of the insurgents is the ruined port of Tuamasina, which has been almost completely razed to the ground by shelling and bombing.

The rioters lacked weapons and even bullets; many of them were armed only with cold iron weapons.

They built their last line of defense around the port, using the ruins of bombed buildings, the river blocked by sunken ships, and the hastily dug trenches to resist.

The port of Tuamasina, once a jewel of the French Empire on its eastern coast, is now an isolated island besieged by enemy forces.

But now, they were no longer facing a single-pronged attack. The French command structure displayed ruthless efficiency, and in this final battle, the French Expeditionary Force Commander deployed four attack groups. Before the formal offensive even began, the port of Tuamasina, already reduced to ruins, was once again subjected to a combined naval and air assault.

After the bomber and fleet display ended, the French artillery positions deployed on the rear highlands began their final barrage. Shells rained down on the remaining fortifications of the harbor like hail, churning up the ruins once more.

Immediately afterwards, the ground offensive began. Vietnamese National Army, Algerian infantry, and Senegalese snipers, under the cover of machine guns and mortars, launched a simultaneous assault on the core area of ​​the port from three directions.

The battle entered its most brutal urban warfare phase. The insurgents fought a desperate yet valiant resistance, utilizing every broken wall and every shell crater. Gunfire, explosions, and the cries of the dying echoed fiercely through the ruins as the various squads of the attacking group advanced along a street strewn with rubble. Bullets whizzed past from all directions.

They had to clear the house by house, using grenades to clear the way and bayonets and rifle butts to deal with the last resistance.

The fighting at the docks became more open, with French soldiers treading over charred ashes and twisted metal. The French army's overwhelming superiority in manpower, firepower, and morale was relentlessly crushing the last vestiges of the resistance.

Madagascar's largest port was littered with corpses and abandoned weapons. Surviving rioters began to emerge from every corner, their eyes filled with exhaustion, hatred, and utter despair.

French soldiers quickly took over key positions, established a defensive perimeter, and began hunting down the remaining enemy forces.

The reports of the occupation of the port of Tuamasina and the emergence of ethnic violence were sent to the French Ministry of Defense almost simultaneously. Compared to the news of the swift suppression of the Madagascar riots, the ethnic violence mentioned in the report was not of any concern to the Ministry of Defense.

The Ministry of Defense only knows that this riot, described as involving millions of people and being the worst in Madagascar's history, was quickly quelled within three months of the arrival of the French expeditionary force. Compared to this outcome, what do a few ethnic clashes and conflicts matter?

As for international relations, there's no need to worry. Nobody cares about the fighting in Madagascar. This brings us to France's good friend, the British Empire. Although British India still exists, the partition of India and Pakistan happened right when the riots broke out in Madagascar, and Mountbatten announced it in April.

After the partition plan for India and Pakistan was announced, in addition to the Congress Party and the Muslim League preparing to establish India and Pakistan respectively, Hindus and Muslims also began a great migration. The two groups fled to each other, and along the way they faced interception and killing by hostile religions. The mutual elimination campaign never stopped.

As the jewel of the British Empire, British India's status in the eyes of the world, especially Americans, certainly far surpasses that of an island in southeastern Africa.

The jewel of the British Empire did not disappoint the Americans either; religious conflict led to the deaths of half a million people during their migration, which is no less concerning than the riots in Madagascar.

The riots in Madagascar have now been suppressed, but religious violence continues in British India, and the United States is even less likely to care.

The current administration has easily dismissed concerns raised by some members of the U.S. diplomatic community regarding France's crackdown in Madagascar.

When Prime Minister Paul Ramadier learned that the riots had been quelled, his stern expression finally relaxed a little; at least there was some good news.

Paul Ramadier's cabinet is now in turmoil because of disagreements within the cabinet over whether to accept the Marshall Plan. The tripartite coordination model established in postwar France has become precarious due to the massive injection of funds from the United States.

(End of this chapter)