The Third Reich in Desperation

Third Reich Episode 450

Immediately afterwards, the entire convoy followed suit and parked on both sides.

The major general who finally didn't need to smoke second-hand smoke hurriedly opened the door, ran to the other side quickly, and opened the door for the colonel who had smoked himself all the way just now.

"Colonel, we're here. This is the Cairo National Defense Hall." The major general bowed his head respectfully.

"Yeah." The man in the car nodded, and stepped out of the car sideways: "Let's go, go and announce Prime Minister Gott's order."

......

Interior of the National Defense Hall in Cairo.

Wavell continued to threaten Montgomery with chatter: "Lieutenant General Montgomery, if you refuse to admit your dereliction of duty, then I have no choice but to fire you and take back the command of the Australian and Egyptian troops from you!"

"What did you say?!" Montgomery was so angry that he wanted to laugh.

Wavell lost the battle, losing troops and generals.Finally, Montgomery trained the Egyptian troops in the rear, initially replaced them with Italian weapons, and expanded the scale.In the end, it was all up to Wavell.

What is this called? I, Montgomery, worked so hard for you?After training so many troops and desperately strengthening their combat effectiveness, in the end they all have to be given to you, Wavell, for squandering.

It's fine to let people work part-time, but you still have to let people take the blame for you.

Montgomery will end up better no matter who is blamed.Even if he takes the scapegoat, he won't receive any major punishment.However, this is obviously not his fault, and he has repeatedly warned Wavell before.

The words are still in my ears, how can it be his fault?

Even if it is a small mistake, Montgomery will not bear it for others.In his opinion, whoever is at fault is at fault, why should he bear the infamy and responsibility for the mistakes he did not make? "I said, I want to take back your command and take over your troops. In addition, I will report to London in the name of the Supreme Commander of the Commonwealth in Africa, and report your crimes to the local side."

"Report to London?" Montgomery laughed back angrily, and said to Wavell with obvious sarcasm: "I'm afraid you are still living in a dream!"

Wavell, who had just lost the battle and rushed to the teacher, certainly did not know the local situation better than Montgomery in the rear.

"To tell you the truth, London has fallen, and the current capital has been moved to Belfast on the island of Ireland." Montgomery looked at Wavell with eyes like a fool: "General Wavell, you said you would report to London , is it to report to the Germans who occupy there?"

"Lieutenant General Montgomery!" Wavell, who was poked at the weak point of ignorance, was furious, so he had to yell loudly to cover up his inner guilt.When he called Montgomery, he bit the English word very hard, and the implication was that he wanted to use his own level to suppress Montgomery again.

"I want to remind you that I'm still your officer, and I won't allow you to be so unreasonable!" Wavell pointed at Montgomery's nose and cursed without grace.

Unexpectedly, Montgomery didn't like this at all. He crossed his arms quite contemptuously, and looked at Wavell with a sneer: "I know that your rank is one level higher than mine, don't you know if you are not higher than mine?" What should I say? Or, you already knew that you didn't take advantage of it, so you can only suppress me with your military rank?"

"Shut up!" Wavell, who was once again targeted, roared furiously: "At least I'm still your officer now, you have to listen to me."

"Oh?" Montgomery just snorted coldly, and then stopped talking.

"I finally have nothing to say." Wavell heaved a sigh of relief in his heart.The first level of the official rank crushes people to death, and he has used this theory today.

Just when Wavell was about to take advantage of his military rank and continue to reprimand Montgomery, the door of the conference hall was suddenly pushed open from the outside.

Immediately afterwards, everyone in the conference hall saw an unknown British colonel striding into the conference hall accompanied by a major general in Egyptian military uniform.Behind him followed about a heavily loaded Egyptian soldier with Italian weapons.

Obviously, this should be the Egyptian troops commanded by Montgomery.

Seeing these Egyptian soldiers rushing in with guns, Wavell subconsciously turned his head and glared at Montgomery: "Lieutenant General Montgomery, what are you trying to do?! Are you going to mutiny!"

"Don't look at me, this colonel was sent by the local government. I just assigned a company to serve as his direct guard company." Montgomery gave Wavell a cold look: "I didn't arrange this." , but I think this should be in my favor."

He knew the colonel, who was the liaison officer sent by Gott, and was responsible for conveying the latest government instructions as soon as possible.

After seeing Montgomery, the colonel smiled politely at Montgomery, turned his head at random, and changed his stern expression to the people in the conference hall, and solemnly announced: "The local high command informs the North African ministries, The new government has moved its capital to Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, and the Minister of the Army, the Duke of Gott, will also serve as the new prime minister. At the same time, the first order of Prime Minister Gott after taking office as prime minister is to promote Montgomery, who preserves the British military power in North Africa. Will."

"As for the second order..." the colonel sneered and looked at Wavell who had just yelled at Montgomery: "Forcibly relieve General Wavell of all his duties, and General Montgomery will take over for him!"

Text 679 Marshal Berente

In the original time and space, after conquering the Caucasus region of the Soviet Union, the German army went south to invade Egypt from the Eastern Front.

In this life, now that the British army is collapsing on multiple fronts at the same time, the new plan of the German High Command is to arrange that after the African Army conquers Egypt, it will unite with the friendly forces of Vichy France and Italy to attack the Soviet Union from Egypt, through the Middle East, and northward. Caucasus region.

This plan is undoubtedly good news for Rommel.

Although the German troops under his command still only have two divisions, they have not been further supplemented.However, with the three Italian divisions fully under his command, Garibaldi's Italian army, and Berente's French army, it is not too difficult to complete this combat mission.

In fact, Rommel's African Expeditionary Force resembles a monstrosity, and its establishment seems to be just Reinhardt's promotion of his confidant general Rommel to admiral.

At the beginning, even Rommel himself wrote in a letter to his wife Lucy with confusion: "I don't quite understand whether this proves that I am a commander-in-chief. Officially, this rank can only be assigned to a corps commander. But in fact, there are only two divisions in the national army that I really command, and I can count as one army commander at most.”

However, the current Rommel has long since lost this confusion.

A series of victories made him realize that he was very much in line with Reinhardt's arrangement.Moreover, at the same time, command and dispatch the most convenient German army, command the servant army sent by the Italians in the name of the commander of the group army, and arrange the actions of the French army brought by Berente in the name of the supreme commander of the coalition forces.

This kind of experience is a rare opportunity that many domestic army commanders have not been able to get!

Even Reinhardt's most trusted Admiral Manstein is now only commanding the armies of Germany and Romania at the same time.

As a result, Rommel, who was completely accustomed to serving in Africa, had established his front-line headquarters in Gambut, just halfway between Tobruk and the Egyptian border.

The reason why Rommel dared to do this is actually because his teammates are no longer Italian teammates, but the famous French general Berente!

In the 6 days before Rommel fought against Wavell, Berente had been concentrating artillery on Tobruk for several days of fierce shelling, constantly weakening the defense of the British army.

After Rommel's instruction to attack by storm, the six French colonial divisions under Berente immediately opened a breakthrough in the British ring defense line, and then he coordinated with Garibaldi's Italian 6st Army to guarantee the flank To be safe, use the three main French native divisions in your hands to directly rush into the port of Tobruk, and immediately put the Commonwealth defenders of Tobruk Fortress to death.

Since most of the troops stationed in Tobruk are colonial native troops such as the 2nd Division of the British South Africa, the 11th Brigade of India, and the Commonwealth Allied Forces of New Zealand and Australia, this has caused the commanders from the British Army to be unable to dispatch various ministries in time. , The entire defenders moved slowly, and the reorganization work has not yet been completed, making it even more difficult to mention the careful organization of defense.

Originally, the Tobruk multinational defenders could still rely on rigid defensive tactics to defend their own.

Moreover, the terrain around the Tobruk Fortress is very complicated. The sandy ridge in the southeast is completely impassable for armored vehicles, and the desert flats in the south are full of dark bunkers and firepower points for attacking the armed forces. They are connected by tunnels and outside the independent stronghold. There are deep anti-tank trenches and dense barbed wire, and the periphery of the fortifications is also covered with countless anti-tank minefields.

But who knows, Rommel and his armored division didn't come at all, all the pure infantry commanded by Berente and Garibaldi, which made the anti-tank positions carefully arranged by the fortress defenders waste a great deal of effectiveness .

Such an arrangement can be regarded as weakening the power of the armored force that Rommel is proud of.

The most important thing is that the person responsible for capturing this fortress is the famous French general, General Berente!

At the same time that Rommel brought his German staff to fight against Wavell, Berente had already brought his French staff, and based on the defensive situation of the Commonwealth defenders, he and Garibaldi formulated a plan. The Italian 21st Army carried out the feint attack mission, and the French African Colonial Army and the Italian 20th Army were the main attack plan.

On the day when the storm was launched, Berente first concentrated more than 90.00% of the French and Italian cannons in Africa for bombardment, mobilized the main force of the French local division to advance to the crossroad leading to the port of Brutok, and arranged for Garibaldi to attack. The feint of the first route attacked westward to the Via Barbia road.

In the end, Berente did not forget to leave the Italian 20th Army in charge of occupying the British fortifications and destroying the colonial troops of the British South African Division.

As expected, on the day of the general offensive, less than 24 hours later, General Klopp, the commander of the British Fortress Brutok and concurrently the commander of the British 2nd South African Division, approached Belante on the Via Balbia Highway. The French surrendered the instrument of surrender.

Later, in order to commend Berente's achievements, the French head of state Pétain personally announced on the radio: "The French military has made a grand decision to promote Berente, the commander of the French African Army, to be the French field marshal."

Since then, Berente, who was regarded as the heir by Pétain, finally lived up to expectations and became the only French field marshal after Pétain!

This is the only World War II marshal newly born in the French army after the start of World War II. Its significance is far greater than the award of the title of marshal itself!

Subsequently, in order to take care of Italy's emotions, the coalition command arranged for the British general Klopp to conduct a surrender ceremony to the Italian general Garibaldi alone.