The Rise of Australia - Chapter 975

c956 Italian army tricks

The sudden attack launched by Britain, France and Australia showed a miraculous effect.

Although the Germans had long been prepared for the counterattack by Britain and France, what the Germans did not expect was that the counterattack by Britain and France would be so fierce that the German defenders could not resist it at the beginning.

In addition, Britain, France and Australia gathered a large number of air forces and navies to provide firepower support. In just two days, the coalition forces quickly broke through all the small towns in southern Tunisia and pushed the front line to the city of Tunisia.

For the German army at this time, they were powerless to the situation in North Africa.

Because the German government was preparing for the attack on Sudalingrad at this time, this battle would require at least 2 million to 3 million German soldiers.

Although the new recruits in the country were already in training, it would take at least half a year for these soldiers to complete their training.

And what Germany needed most at this time was time.

Therefore, Germany could only put its hopes on its two allies who did not seem so reliable.

These two allies were naturally Spain and Italy.

Of course, this so-called unreliability was only compared with the great powers.

After all, the world is a big makeshift team, and the two sides are actually competing on how many mistakes they have made.

Whether in history or now, all countries have made some mistakes in wars.

That is, Australasia, because Arthur had expected it, and because the cost of the war was not great, there was no major problem.

In order to make Italy and Spain willing to withdraw troops to North Africa for support, the Germans also bleed a lot and directly tempted the two countries with French colonies.

In fact, this temptation is really useful for Spain and Italy.

Spain and Italy are both European countries with few colonies. The reason why Italy has few colonies is the same as Germany. When the complete Italy was established, the colonies in Africa had already been divided up.

And Spain is completely due to its own weakness.

In the most prosperous period of Spain, it once divided most of the Americas with Portugal.

But now, Spain’s colonies have been eaten up, and even Morocco, which is at its doorstep, is in the hands of the French.

In order to get France’s African colonies, Spain and Italy are also willing to go all out.

First, Spain organized several divisions to try to storm Gibraltar.

The British valued Gibraltar very much, so it was impossible for them to let Gibraltar be recaptured by Spain.

Here we have to mention the unique terrain of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is located in the southernmost part of the Iberian Peninsula, across the sea from the Spanish colonial city of Ceuta.

More importantly, Gibraltar itself is a prominent peninsula area. The entire peninsula is surrounded by the sea on three sides, and only the north is connected to the Libyan Peninsula.

In addition, this small peninsula has mountains and other terrains, which made it a very solid coastal fortress by the British.

Although Gibraltar itself is not large in area, and the British garrison in Gibraltar is not large. But if Spain wants to conquer the entire Gibraltar, it will not only take a lot of time, but also challenge the entire Gibraltar fortress.

The Spanish besieged Gibraltar for two days, not only did they not advance their front line far, but also ushered in the revenge of the Royal Navy.

On December 29, 1937, the British Royal Navy launched a massive bombing of Spanish cities along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, including Algeciras, Marbella, Malaga, Almeria, Gades and Huelva, all of which were on the bombing list.

After this bombing, the Spanish instantly became honest. The Spanish government kicked the ball of delaying the British and French troops back to Italy, eager for the Italian government to find a solution.

The perspective came to Italy. At this time, the Italian ruler Mussolini was ambitious and drooled at the map of France’s North African colonies.

Faced with this good opportunity to obtain a large number of French colonies, the ambitious Mussolini would not miss such an opportunity.

On December 31, 1937, the last day of the year, more than 300,000 Italian troops forced their way across the Mediterranean from Sicily to Tunisia.

The purpose of this army is not only to support the German and Italian defenders in Tunisia, but also to transport supplies to the front line.

Although Tunisia and Italy are separated by the Mediterranean Sea, it is precisely this Mediterranean Sea, which is only a few dozen kilometers long, that seriously hinders the transportation of Italian supplies to Tunisia.

After all, the Mediterranean is full of British patrol fleets. Unless there is a risk of heavy losses in the transport fleet, Italy will not send out a transport fleet at this juncture.

In addition to supporting the 300,000 troops in Tunisia, Italy also sent two armies to Libya.

One army landed in Libya by transport ship, and the other army directly infiltrated Libya by airdrop.

Retaking Libya is what the current Italian government dreams of.

As one of the few colonies of Italy, Libya is undoubtedly important to Italy.

For an ambitious person like Mussolini, it is completely unacceptable for Italy to lose its colonies under his rule.

Faced with dishonest Spain and Italy, the British, French and Australian troops would not be vague.

On January 1, 1938, on the first day of the new year, they attacked several coastal cities in Italy.

The focus of the attack was naturally Rome, the capital of Italy.

As the largest city in Italy, Rome played a vital role in connecting the past and the future.

As mentioned before, the time of Italy’s unification was too short, and the development gap between northern and southern Italy was too large, which led to a sense of division in Italy.

With Rome as the dividing line, northern Italy to the north of Rome can be regarded as an industrial area with a relatively large economy, industry and population.

Although southern Italy to the south of Rome also has a large population, its industrial and economic development is much worse.

Although southern Italy provides very important food production to the entire country, some northern Italians still look down on their compatriots in the south, thinking that they are just country bumpkins.

Without the connection of the Roman region, it would be impossible for northern and southern Italy to be combined together.

From this point, we can also see the impact of bombing Rome on Italy.

The Italians finally felt the powerlessness of being humiliated by the strong man.

If the enemy’s air force came to bomb Rome, Italy could use its own air force for defense, and even rely on various anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft weapons in Rome to tilt the balance of air battle victory to its side.

But unfortunately, all the bombers of Rome were the British Royal Fleet. Although Italian aircraft can also be used to deal with the Royal Fleet, the problem is that the enemy also has aircraft, and the scale is not inferior to Italy.

If Italy dispatches aircraft to attack the Royal Navy warships that bombed Rome, it will face the double firepower coverage of enemy warships and aircraft, and fall into the disadvantaged Italian Air Force against the old city.

This is also a matter of course, because in the final analysis, the fundamental reason for this situation is that the overall scale of the Italian Navy is far behind that of the British Royal Navy.

Although only a part of the fleet drawn by the British is in the Mediterranean, it is also mixed with the fleets of France and Australasia, and the overall scale is still extremely powerful.

With the size of the available air forces not much different, Italy’s weak and pitiful navy was in an awkward situation.

The navy was completely defeated, but if the navy was not used at all, the position of the Italian navy was very embarrassing.

This also led to the fact that although the German and Italian armies in North Africa caused considerable chaos, their weapons and ammunition reserves were also decreasing day by day.

If it were not for the Italian Air Force occasionally transporting supplies by airdrop, and if they could obtain enough food by looting local indigenous peoples, I am afraid that the German and Italian North African armies would have run out of food long ago.

The blood country army in North Africa finally waited for supplies, but the British, French and Australian coalition forces were not panicked at this time.

On January 2, 1938, the British and French organized air forces to bomb the Tunisia region, and focused on bombing the places where Tunisia might be stationed.

This time, not only the navy participated in the bombing, but also a large number of air force bombers joined in.

This was undoubtedly another blow to the German and Italian defenders in Tunisia. Although they had just received material support, the days of being subjected to severe bombing every day were definitely a double torture for an ordinary soldier, both physically and mentally.

Even if hiding inside the bunker could ensure their safety, there would be all kinds of worries. Under such psychological pressure, normal people obviously could not hold on for long.

If it was to protect their hometown and country, they might have been able to hold on for a longer time. But if they were on the land of another country as invaders, they would face greater psychological pressure when facing such bombing.

The German army might be okay, but for those Italian troops, their fighting will was not as firm as imagined.

Although the overall weapons and equipment of the Italian army were considered first-class among the great powers, and the quality of individual soldiers was definitely not the worst.

But the problem of the Italian army was that their fighting will was not firm, and many soldiers even rejected such a war.

There were also some interesting stories in history, such as the Italian army in North Africa surrendered to the British army immediately when they saw the British army.

While surrendering, the Italian soldiers complained that the logistics department did not provide a crowbar when transporting the ammunition boxes, making it difficult for them to open the ammunition boxes to obtain ammunition supplies.

But when the British soldiers received the surrendered supplies from Italy, they found that each ammunition box was equipped with a crowbar, and the ammunition supply of the Italian army was even more arrogant than theirs.

There is also an interesting story that after the Italian army surrendered, they were dissatisfied with the treatment of their prisoners given by the enemy, especially the food they ate for each meal was not what they wanted, so they directly launched a resistance. After defeating the enemy who supervised them, they successfully changed the treatment of their prisoners.

Such anecdotes are undoubtedly a mockery of the combat attitude of Italian soldiers in World War II. Regardless of the combat effectiveness of Italian soldiers, as long as they do not have much fighting will, the comprehensive combat effectiveness shown by the entire Italian army is the lowest among the powers.

Germany could not count on Italy to turn the tide in the war, just as Mussolini could not count on Italian soldiers not to surrender when facing the enemy’s attack.

Obviously, on the battlefield in Tunisia, the British and French troops faced such a situation.

On January 3, after the second raid on a military fortress in the south of Bizerte, the soldiers of the British, French and Australian coalition forces saw a very shocking scene, that is, hundreds of Italian soldiers holding white flags slowly walked towards them.

You know, they just launched an air raid on the military fortress in front of them, and it is not time to attack yet.

Even the French soldiers thought it was a trick of the German army. They let the Italian soldiers pretend to surrender to let the British, French and Australian troops relax their vigilance, and then raided in secret.

But when the colonial troops sent out confirmed that there was no one in the military fortress, the British, French and Australian troops believed the fact in front of them, that is, the Italian army had surrendered.

It is worth mentioning that the white flags held by the Italian army when surrendering seemed to be of different sizes, but the materials seemed to be the same.

The British, French and Australian troops were also curious about where Italy got so many white flags for surrender. After asking, they found out that they were all cut from the flag of the Kingdom of Italy.

The French, who were shocked at this time, did not know that if there was no Australasia, France should be the country whose national flag could quickly turn into a surrender flag.

It is worth mentioning that the design of the Italian flag originated in the Napoleonic era. When Napoleon Bonaparte led the Italian Legion, he established a green, white and red tricolor flag for the legion.

In the long development that followed, the green, white and red tricolor flag gradually evolved into the flags of the Italian states, and eventually became the current flag of the Kingdom of Italy.

Of course, the emblem of the Savoy Dynasty was added to the white in the middle of the kingdom flag, which is why the white flags held by Italian soldiers are not of uniform size.

The surrender of the Italian army is of great significance. This is not about surrender itself, but after surrender, Tunisia and Bizerte became the salient part of the entire Tunisian region, and were completely surrounded by the British, French and Australian armies.

Although there is still a certain gap in Bizerte in the north, as long as the British, French and Australian armies can fill this gap in time, the hundreds of thousands of German and Italian troops still staying in Tunisia and Bizerte will be besieged in a small salient area by the British, French and Australian armies.

This is a real siege. Except for breaking out from the front, the German and Italian armies will have no way to escape.

Because the salient area is surrounded by the vast Mediterranean Sea except for the land in the south.

There are a large number of British and French fleets in the Mediterranean. Italy, which has weak naval strength, obviously cannot rescue these troops from the sea.

This is not the Dunkirk evacuation led by Britain and France. Italy’s naval strength is doomed. If these troops are besieged, the only way to escape is to find a way from the land.