Rise of Australia

Chapter 956: Italian Army Tips
The sudden attack launched by Britain, France and Australia showed miraculous results.

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

In addition, Britain, France and Australia gathered a large number of air forces and naval forces to provide fire 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 do anything about the situation in North Africa.

Because the German government was preparing for an attack on Sudalingrad at that time, this battle would require at least 200 to 300 million German soldiers.

Although domestic recruits are already in training, it will take at least half a year for these soldiers to complete their training.

What Germany needs most at this moment is time.

Therefore, Germany can only place its hopes on its two allies who do not seem so reliable.

These two allies are naturally Spain and Italy.

Of course, this so-called unreliability is only in comparison with the great powers.

After all, the world is just a big makeshift team, and what the two sides are competing with is actually the number of mistakes they have made.

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

That is Australasia. Because Arthur had anticipated it and because the cost of the war was not great, no major problems had occurred.

In order to make Italy and Spain willingly transfer troops to North Africa for support, the Germans paid a heavy price and directly used the French colonies to tempt the two countries.

In fact, this temptation has worked really well 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. By the time Italy was established, its African colonies had already been divided up.

And Spain's failure is entirely due to its own weakening strength.

During Spain's most prosperous period, it and Portugal divided most of America.

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

In order to obtain France's African colonies, Spain and Italy were willing to do anything.

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

The British attach great importance to Gibraltar, so it is natural that they would not allow Gibraltar to be retaken by Spain.

Here we have to mention the unique topography 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 protruding peninsula area. The entire peninsula is surrounded by the sea on three sides and is only connected to the Libyan Peninsula in the north.

In addition, due to the mountains and other terrain on this small peninsula, the British built it into a very solid coastal fortress.

Although Gibraltar itself is not large in area and the British garrison in Gibraltar is not large, Spain's conquest of the entire Gibraltar will not only take a lot of time, but also challenge the entire Gibraltar fortress.

The Spanish besieged Gibraltar for two days, but not only did they fail to advance their front line very far, they were also met with retaliation from the Royal Navy.

On December 1937, 12, the British Royal Navy launched a large-scale 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 obedient. The Spanish government passed the ball of delaying the British and French troops back to Italy, hoping that the Italian government could find a solution.

The perspective shifts to Italy. At this time, the Italian ruler Mussolini is ambitious and drools as he looks at the map of France's North African colonies.

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

On December 1937, 12, the last day of the year, more than 31 Italian troops forced their way across the Mediterranean from Sicily to Tunisia.

The purpose of this army was 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 only by the Mediterranean Sea, it is this Mediterranean Sea, which is only a few dozen kilometers long, that seriously hinders the transportation of materials from Italy to Tunisia.

After all, the Mediterranean is full of British patrol fleets. Unless Italy risks suffering heavy losses to the transport fleet, it is impossible for it to send out a transport fleet at this juncture.

In addition to the 30 troops supporting Tunisia, Italy has also sent two armies to the Libyan region.

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

Retaking Libya is what the current Italian government dreams of.

As one of the few colonies of Italy, Libya's importance to Italy is undoubted.

For an ambitious man like Mussolini, it was totally unacceptable that Italy lost its colonies under his rule.

Faced with the dishonest Spain and Italy, the British, French and Australian troops will not be ambiguous.

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

The main target of the attack was naturally Rome, the capital of Italy.

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

As mentioned before, Italy's unification was too short and the development gap between north and south Italy was too large, which led to a sense of division in Italy.

Taking Rome as the dividing line, northern Italy north of Rome can be considered an industrial area with relatively large economy, industry and population.

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

Although southern Italy provided a very important grain output to the whole country, some northern Italians looked down on their compatriots in the south, thinking that they were just country bumpkins. Without the connection of the Roman region, it would be impossible for northern and southern Italy to merge together.

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

At this moment, the Italian finally realized the feeling of powerlessness of being humiliated by the strong man.

If the enemy's air force came to bomb Rome, Italy could fully use its own air force for defense, and could even rely on various anti-aircraft batteries and anti-aircraft weapons in the city of Rome to tip the balance of air combat victory to its side.

Unfortunately, it was the British Royal Fleet that bombed Rome. Although Italian aircraft could be used to deal with the Royal Fleet, the problem was that the enemy also had aircraft, and their scale was no less than that of Italy.

If Italy sent out aircraft to attack the Royal Navy warships that were bombing Rome, it would face the double firepower coverage of enemy warships and aircraft, and the Italian Air Force against the old city would be at a disadvantage.

There is no way around it, because, ultimately, the fundamental reason for this situation is that the overall size of Italy's navy lags far behind that of the British Royal Navy.

Although the fleet in the Mediterranean was only a part of the British fleet, it was also mixed with the French and Australasian fleets, and the overall scale was still extremely powerful.

With the size of the available air force being similar, Italy's weak and pitiful navy was in a somewhat awkward situation.

Even if the navy is used, it will be completely unable to defeat the enemy, but if the navy is not used at all, the position of the Italian Navy will be extremely embarrassing.

This also resulted in the German and Italian troops in North Africa causing considerable chaos, but their reserves of weapons and ammunition were also decreasing day by day.

If the Italian Air Force had not occasionally transported supplies by airdrop, and if they had not been able to obtain enough food by looting the local indigenous peoples, the German and Italian North African troops would probably have run out of food long ago.

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

On January 1938, 1, the British and French air forces bombed the Tunisian region, focusing on bombing areas where Tunisian garrisons 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 in the bunker can ensure your safety, there will be all kinds of worries. Under such psychological pressure, a normal person obviously can't hold on for long.

If they were protecting their hometown and country, they might be able to hold out longer. But if they were invaders on another country's soil, they would face greater psychological pressure when facing such bombing.

The German army might be okay, but for the Italian troops, their will to fight is not as strong as imagined.

Although the overall weapons and equipment of the Italian army can be regarded as first-class among the great powers, the quality of individual soldiers is definitely not the worst.

But the problem with the Italian army was that they had a weak will to fight, and many soldiers even rejected such a war.

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

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

But when British soldiers received the surrendered supplies from Italy, they were shocked to find that each ammunition box was equipped with a crowbar, and the Italian army's ammunition supply was even more generous than theirs.

There is also an interesting story that says that after the Italian army surrendered, they were dissatisfied with the treatment given to their prisoners by the enemy, especially the fact that the food they ate at every meal was not what they wanted, so they directly launched a resistance. After defeating the enemy who was supervising them, they successfully made the enemy change the treatment of their prisoners.

Such anecdotes are undoubtedly a mockery of the fighting attitude of Italian soldiers in World War II. Regardless of the combat effectiveness of Italian soldiers, as long as they have little fighting will, the comprehensive combat effectiveness of the entire Italian army is the lowest among the great powers.

Germany could not count on Italy to turn the tide of the war, just as Mussolini could not count on Italian soldiers not to surrender when faced with an enemy attack.

Obviously, this is the situation faced by the British and French troops on the battlefield in Tunisia.

On January 1, after the second raid on a military fortress south of Bizerte, the British, French and Australian soldiers saw a shocking scene: hundreds of Italian soldiers holding white flags slowly walking towards them.

You know, they only launched an air strike on the military fortress in front of them, and now is not the time to attack.

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

But after the colonial troops sent out confirmed that there was no one in the military fortress, the British, French and Australian troops believed the fact before 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 material seemed to be the same.

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

The French, who were jaw-dropping at the moment, did not know that if it were not for Australasia, France would be the country whose national flag could be quickly transformed into a flag of surrender.

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 national flag of the Kingdom of Italy.

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

The surrender of the Italian army was of great significance. This was not the surrender itself, but the fact that after the surrender, Tunis 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 troops can fill this gap in time, the hundreds of thousands of German and Italian troops still remaining in Tunisia and Bizerte will be surrounded in a small salient area by the British, French and Australian troops.

This was a true siege, and the German and Italian troops would have no way of escaping except by breaking out from the front.

Because except for the land in the south, the other sides of the protruding area are all surrounded by the vast Mediterranean Sea.

There are a large number of British and French fleets in the Mediterranean, and Italy, whose naval strength is already weak, is obviously unable to 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 they can escape is to find a way to escape by land.

(End of this chapter)