After the first day of negotiations ended, the Soviet officials returned to the hotel utterly exhausted in body and mind to rest. Though Minister Litvinov was tired, he was in a good mood.
These negotiations had finally produced a result. At the very least, they had learned one thing from today's talks: East Africa and Germany were not of one mind.
Otherwise, East Africa could never have agreed to cooperate with the Soviet Union. Cooperating with the Soviet Union at a time like this was not tantamount to rubbing Germany the wrong way?
Of course, the Soviets also knew perfectly well that East Africa would at most remain neutral. It would not stand on the Soviet Union's side.
Litvinov and several Soviet officials reviewed the day's negotiations. Then he suddenly said, "I wonder how the European situation has been lately!"
Germany was currently at war with Britain and France. The outcome of this war was also crucial to the Soviet Union's fate going forward.
Spiridonov said, "There are newspapers in the hotel. Perhaps we can find relevant information in East African newspapers."
Litvinov nodded. "The European War is now the focus of the entire world. Even in East Africa, it must be front-page news. Let's see how the East Africans report on the European fighting!"
They then easily found recent newspapers on the hotel's newspaper rack.
Just as expected, news of the war in Europe not only dominated the headlines, but related reports filled more than half the paper.
The first unlucky victim had already appeared in these pages. Yesterday afternoon, Germany had occupied Denmark. That same day, Germany had also launched an attack on Norway. Denmark had resisted for only a few hours before surrendering completely, while the fighting in Norway continued.
When Litvinov and the others saw this