Romanian Eagle

While Eder was worried about Italy, Mussolini, the leader, felt good about himself. That's right, Italy is about to take Tunisia and complete this decades-old regret.

He is not worried at all about the French troops currently stuck in Tunis. Because of the brave Italian navy, the main force has been mobilized to the port of Palermo, and it is about to encircle Tunisia by sea and land.

As for the possibility of encountering the French fleet, he is not worried. Looking at the mighty Italian battleships, they are all 380 and 410 caliber cannons. No matter in terms of protection, speed or firepower, they can suppress the French battleships. Not to mention that you have a numerical advantage.

Before, the French fleet was hiding in the port of Toulon, relying on air force and terrain advantages to avoid being hit. If they dared to come out, just let the French know how powerful they are.

In fact, it is not only Mussolini who thinks this way, but also the upper echelons of the Italian navy.

The blockade of the Tunisian port this time may be an opportunity to draw out the French fleet and give it a severe blow.

However, Antonescu, who was besieging Tunisia by Italy's mind, was unaware that he and his Italian partner Messe were observing the outer fortifications of Tunisia.

"These fortifications are well built, and it is not easy for us to take them down."

After observing for a while, Antonescu left the added high-powered telescope and said to his partner.

"Indeed, I have seen three trenches on the hill, and it seems that the French have the housekeeping skills of the last war."

When the two of them left the telescope, they could see a trace of sadness in each other's eyes. It was very difficult for the French army to fight like this. Especially for them, it is even more difficult to beat.

That's right, for the Luo-I coalition, attacking fortifications is a bit difficult for them. Because when the coalition forces were assembled at that time, their equipment was mainly mobile warfare, and their mission was also responsible for interspersing behind enemy lines, in order to destroy the enemy in mobile warfare.

Now faced with a tortoise shell like Tunisia, they have a feeling that they have nowhere to go.

"How long will it take for the follow-up troops to arrive?"

Antonescu no longer thinks about his own breakthrough, but instead asks about reinforcements.

Facing Antonescu's question, Messer said. "Marshal Balbo is on the road with his troops, and the telegram says he has a week to join us."

What Messer was talking about was the newly recruited troops of the commander of Balbo,

They are dominated by the 18th "Messina" Division, the 25th "Bologna" Division, the 64th "Catanzaro" Division, and the 3rd Mountain "Julia" Division, all of which are elite troops transferred from China. In addition, Balbo also brought four independent artillery regiments, two siege artillery regiments, a huge establishment composed of a total of 310,000 officers and soldiers.

At present, some of these troops have merged with them, but the main artillery is still on the way. These troops are not there, they have been firmly chained here.

Antonescu is looking forward to leaving Tunis early, and there are others here who want to leave Tunis. General Dachanliu, who was in charge of commanding the French army in Tunisia, also wanted to leave.

Although he sticks to Tunisia, he clearly realizes that Tunisia is a dead place. If it weren't for the fact that the North African Legion came too fast at that time, he would never have stayed here. But now that the reinforcements in Tunisia have become defending Tunisia City, how could he be reconciled.

And what is more important now is that the Italian troops are reinforced. The 300,000 Italian troops under the command of Marshal Balbo are coming to Tunisia. If the Roe coalition outside the confluence city, then the enemy outside Tunisia will be As high as 450,000, his 130,000 soldiers in Tunisia could never stop him.

Not to mention that with the blockade of the Italian Navy in the open sea, the sea and land channels are cut off, then the city of Tunisia is a dead place. Therefore, in order to find a way for himself and his officers and soldiers, he must also ask Paris for help. At least one road needs to be opened up so that officers and soldiers can see that they have not been abandoned.

In Paris, the besieged General D'Champagne sent a telegram for help, which also made it difficult for the government to handle it. To save the French army in Tunisia, there is no need to think about it from the land.

The French Army Staff Department has done deductions. If you want to rescue the besieged French army, you need at least 300,000 well-trained troops. This is the lowest figure given by France considering the low quality of the Italian army.

So how many French troops are there in neighboring Algeria now?

240,000 troops, the vast majority of which were conscripts from the colonies. Not to mention rescue, even self-protection is not enough. As for the homeland, defending the Germans is much more important than rescuing Tunisia. Therefore, at present, France can only transfer troops recruited from southern Africa to Algeria. However, this also takes time, but currently relying on Army rescue cannot give this time.

Since the army can't help, it can only find a way from the navy. To this end, at the rescue meeting, Paul Reno, the Prime Minister, pointed out that now only the navy can rescue the French army in Tunisia, so he hopes that the navy can play an important role in this war.

Facing the words of Prime Minister Renault, Darlan, as a naval leader, of course knows how much pressure he has on himself. It can be said responsibly that, aside from personnel and other reasons, just from a technical point of view, the French navy is really not the Italian navy opponent strengthened by Edel.

If it is only the difference in the performance of the warships, Darlan is not necessarily afraid, because people are ultimately used. However, as an imaginary enemy for many years, the helm of the Italian Navy is also very clear that the quality of the Italian Navy officers and soldiers is not lower than that of France.

This is difficult to do. The battleship itself can't compare, and the quality of the opponent's officers and soldiers is not inferior to him, and now he must go to rescue General Da Shangliu. It would be very difficult to do this operation on my own.

But fortunately, he still has a strategic advantage, that is, the Atlantic Ocean is in the hands of Britain and France, and he can still ask for help. At this time, he couldn't care about his dislike of Britain, and took the opportunity to propose at the meeting that it would be no problem for him to go to sea for rescue, but he had to ask for the help of the British navy. The French navy alone cannot accomplish this task.

Although Darlan gave the government a difficult problem, considering the great effect of rescuing the French army in Tunisia and defending Algeria, the government finally agreed.

Now that Darlan's request has been agreed, the next step is to do it. Considering the situation of the Tunisian defenders, the French government is difficult and efficient. In the evening of the same day, it requested the United Kingdom to send a navy of no less than 2 aircraft carriers and 2 battleships for assistance. The message appeared on Churchill's desk.

In the face of the French's request, Churchill agreed after thinking for a long time. There are two reasons. The first point is that after several trials, the German Navy seems to have given up the tactics of breaking diplomatic relations. They no longer wanted to send warships to break through British defenses and into the Atlantic to disrupt British shipping lines.

And British intelligence also found that the German shipyard was still unaffected by the war, or more affected, and it was working overtime to build warships.

For this reason, the British intelligence department believes that Germany is currently waiting for the Italian and Romanian navies to open up the Atlantic channel, and they will be trapped in the British Isles after confluence.

So at this time, the importance of the French navy was revealed. As long as the French navy was still there, the Italian navy would not be able to target the Atlantic Ocean and give Britain enough buffer time.

Another point is that since the British Navy suffered the fiasco of the Alexandria air raid, there has been no exciting good news. As the proud British Imperial Navy, such a situation is unimaginable, and they desperately need a good enough news to cheer them up.

With the French Navy, against the Italian Navy, there is no better news than this great victory.

So Churchill decided to agree to the French request, and he not only agreed, but also very generously decided to send two aircraft carriers and three battleships to reinforce the French Navy.

The officer leading the team this time was Andrew Cunningham, who was reinstated after being transferred to the reserve.

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