Not to mention Governor Staveren—even for anyone else facing the situation in the Dutch East Indies colony, the first country they would guard against would only be East Africa.
But just as the Dutch East Indies colonial government stepped up its vigilance against East Africa, they never imagined that the Japanese Army was already bearing down from the north with fierce momentum.
Because history had taken a different course, Japan had committed far fewer troops to this attack on the Dutch East Indies than in its previous life. However, the Dutch East Indies had also been weakened compared to the previous life—for example, the colony on Borneo had been occupied by East Africa.
Another change was that Japan's expedition against the Dutch East Indies used the Far East Empire as its springboard.
When Japan had launched war against the Dutch East Indies in its previous life, it had already expanded into Southeast Asia and could use Indochina and the Philippines as springboards. Now, however, Japan's war against the Dutch East Indies had begun ahead of schedule, and Japan had yet to occupy those regions.
Therefore, Japan's army and navy could only first assemble at ports in the south of the Far East Empire, then pass through the South China Sea before charging straight at the islands of the Dutch East Indies.
North Africa, Egypt.
As Germany and Japan launched new large-scale wars, Italy, one of the three great powers of the Axis powers, was not sitting idle either. Aside from coordinating with Germany's war against mainland France, Italy's main offensive direction was North Africa.
In May 1939, Italy was the first to launch a war against Tunisia and achieved respectable results. Before the month was even over, it impatiently launched another war against Egypt.
At this moment, Britain's highest