I have to say, the Spanish war was a great way to train your troops with live exercises, especially the Navy. The Army had already fought in 4 wars, or perhaps 5 if we consider Albania. Although, in my view only the Yugoslav War was a real one, as proved by the equipped loss and the lost lives too. Italy was still fighting this war in occupied Croatia, and another similar war in Ethiopia and had little troops to spare for Spain, as they were not willing to mobilize and lose 20% of their workforce.

Germany was still chaffing at the Versailles Treaty limits, but they were getting ready to invade Rhineland.

'The German Reich invades the Rhineland, ignoring the demilitarized zone status. You can decide to: protest, whine, declare war.'

Thanks game! Even if I wanted to declare war, my Empire doesn't have a border with Germany for now, being separated by Austria and Czechoslovakia.

I sent an angry telegram to Paris, urging them to bomb the troops entering Rhineland, and the same to the British, urging them to use their fleet and blockade Germany.

I got only whining in return.

Oh well. At least I tried. Actually, I haven't tried enough.

A royal household plenipotentiary diplomat was sent to Holland, offering them 200 Wolf tank destroyers armed with 65mm guns, and 200 brand new 65mm anti-air guns, in exchange for 1 heavy cruiser almost finished in their construction cycle.

To both our surprise, the deal went through and my Imperial Navy gained a brand new flagship, while Holland had tripled they armored capability in land warfare.

A similar offer was made to Belgium, gaining me 2 destroyers and a light cruiser.

Luxembourg didn't have a Navy, but they were rich, so I sold them the same for enough gold to buy a new heavy cruiser from Britain, albeit one specifically devoid of radar or unrotated projectiles. No matter, a few upgrades could be carried out in Salonic, including installing a radar set of our own design.

The rest of the ships were ordered in America, a country far less likely to confiscate my unfinished ships when the war started. 30 submarines and destroyers, plus 8 cruisers and 5 small carriers was a pretty penny for any shipyard, especially in America were people were fighting for job, any job.

And if they commented at the small carriers with external elevators being ordered, I didn't care. I know they were interested why were only demanded diesel engines and spare engines too, for all ships. Simply put, we didn't have the technology to build big engines in my Empire, and after the war started the Mediterranean Sea would be quite dangerous for shipping.

Anyways, people in America were quite confused where Romania was, especially which continent. Most of them guessed South America, which was pretty close.

In Spain, the war was not very civil, despite its name. Priests and nuns were butchered by the communists, while the Nationalists also butchered intellectuals, doctors and suspected communists. German planes dominated the sky, since most Soviet planes were either sunk or captured en route. The special sound of the Stuka became the motif for the Spanish War, used in movies and cinema reels all the time.

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France had built over 800 Wolf tank destroyers already, but refused to deliver them to me, even though it was my order that got them built. So I eventually backed down a little, and asked them to deliver the tank destroyers the Low Countries instead, using only 600 Wolfs and the rest of the order being covered by 600 65mm Anti-air guns, to counter plunging Stukas if necessary.

Again, this offer went through and much better, since France's own security was guarded by the Low Countries in the North. So I basically got my ships and gold for free.

Truly, the French were great friends, when doing things in their own interest.

I didn't have a big hope with the extra tank destroyers though. Be it 800 or even 8000 it wouldn't matter. Soviet Union lost 80000 tanks against Germany, and 30000 of them in the first 3 months of the war. The Blitzkrieg as a doctrine was extremely powerful, allowing for amazing coordination via radio and independent decision for ground commanders. Compared to the French messenger pigeons used instead of radios, and the archaic command chain, they weren't even in the same century with Germany.

Sadly, the Romanian Army was almost as bad for now, although the tanks' locomotive horns were slowly being phased out in favor of radios.

For now, I focused on logistics, after consulting my logistic map mode, and consulting professional officers. Ammo depots, secondary ammo depots, fuel depots, new roads and railway tracks, more trains, artillery movers, trucks, and so on. The Soviet Army menacing our Eastern border numbered about 8 to 10 million, and we could only mobilize 1 million soldiers to withstand that. Which is why I was building the Dacian Wall, since prepared defenses gave the defender a 10 to 1 advantage, given equivalent weapons.

We would also need at least 500000 women to help with secondary tasks, everything from cooking, washing, mending uniforms, mending wounds and so on.

The aluminum splinter vests were also providing +1 armor to the infantry, but their effect was far larger in a long war. Most injuries in a war happen through artillery, not bullets.

The front line units would also receive sown silk skirts with aluminum plates, since femoral artery bleeding was even faster than a body injury.

Officers were being trained now to try to act like a proper soldier in the field, even if more silk was being produced in Albania for body armor. They would need to use metal helmets instead of cool French style caps, but that would save their brains from artillery shells and the occasional sniper.

And speaking of snipers, 5000 soldiers with good marks in marksmanship were being trained as Army snipers, using the best rifles and scopes that money could buy from America. My own money, not the Imperial budget. In general, snipers were the only soldiers in the Army who didn't waste all the bullets they fired for nothing. In a year of war, a soldier might fire 1000 bullets and don't even hit any enemy. It was a bit sad, but true.

If I could obtain 1 million snipers instead of regular soldiers, the Soviet army would last less than a week. But alas, it took a special type of mentality and training to accurately hit targets at a long distance, beside a good weapon and a quality bullet. I had the officers comb their troops for any decent marksman to send for sniper training, but no luck so far.

In Brasov, Henri Coanda had just produced the first operational jet plane in the world, but he didn't allow me to fly it. Not fair!