The decisive battle against the Third Reich

After breaking through the Gabusali defense line, the 21st Armored Division pushed forward like a sharp knife.

This was once again beyond Lieutenant General Cunningham's expectation. He originally thought that after the 21st Armored Division won, it would be stationed in Gabusali, or reinforce Tobruk, which was under attack. After all, that was the German supply center.

In this case, the British troops rushing to the Gabusali defense line from all directions can form an encirclement against the German 21st Armored Division.

Who would have thought that the 21st Armored Division would continue to advance...

In fact, Lieutenant General Cunningham should have thought of this earlier.

On the one hand, this is because Tobruk is not vulnerable... Although the Italian army's combat effectiveness is not strong, it still has troops that have fought in battles, and Tobruk has sufficient supplies, plus the Italian army has many soldiers and generals ( Rommel reorganized the Italian army into 1 armored division and 5 infantry divisions. They got a full rest in Tobruk and their morale recovered to a certain extent.

More importantly, the Italian army gained the confidence to fight inspired by the German army's successive victories...

This is often the case with the army. If they think that they are not as good as the enemy and will eventually fail, then everyone will think about how to escape, so no matter how many troops they have, they will be in disarray.

The Italian army not long ago had this kind of mentality, so it collapsed thousands of miles on the front.

But things are different now. The Italian soldiers all believe that the British army is vulnerable to the German attack, which means that the German and Italian armies will eventually win. So... why did the powerful Italian army run away? This was the time to wash away the shame of being famous all over the world, so everyone bravely took the lead in fighting the enemy, and as a result, they displayed unexpected combat effectiveness...

Although the tanks of the British 8th Armored Regiment broke through the Tobruk defense line and rushed into the Italian positions again and again, they were beaten back by the Italian troops again and again.

Of course, this also has a lot to do with the solidity of the Tobruk defense line. The tanks of the 8th Armored Regiment cannot fully deploy in front of the minefields and bunker groups, but the Italian army only needs to use artillery and anti-tank guns to attack the British entry point. One blast can easily repel it.

This caused heavy losses to the British 8th Armored Regiment. More than half of the tanks were destroyed in the two-hour attack.

Rommel, who understood the situation, certainly did not worry about Tobruk's safety.

More importantly, Rommel's combat style has always been dismissive of threats from his own rear, because he believed that when his own logistical supply lines were threatened, the enemy's logistical supplies would also be attacked at the same time, and both sides would be in difficulty. It depends on who can persist until the end.

In this regard, Rommel has always been confident in his troops.

Rommel's attack immediately confused General Cunningham, because all his arrangements would undoubtedly fail... The faster-moving "Stuart" tanks all penetrated deep into the German defense lines. Unable to rush back to fight the 21st Armored Division, what was left on one side of the British defense area were the extremely slow "Matilda" tanks and "Valentin" tanks. They were simply unable to contain and break into the defense line. German troops.

"It's over!" Lieutenant General Cunningham sat back on his chair and said, "We will be defeated because the supply line was attacked just like before!"

The staff officer didn't know what to say. He found that Lieutenant General Cunningham had completely lost confidence in this battle, and the war had just started a few hours ago.

Then, Lieutenant General Cunningham sent a telegram to General Auchinleck: "General, I think we should stop the attack and retreat immediately, otherwise we will suffer irreparable losses!"

General Auchinleck was shocked when he received this telegram. He knew that as a frontline commander, the most important thing is to have the determination to "not change his face even if the mountain collapses", so that he can give his subordinates and even soldiers the confidence to win. If even the commander of the Eighth Army loses confidence, what kind of chaos will the Eighth Army become?

So General Auchinleck didn't say anything, and immediately took a plane to fly to the British frontline headquarters at Fort Mona, Maleda.

When General Auchinleck stepped off the plane and walked into the command unit, he found that the situation was worse than imagined. People in the command post were panicked. The officers were arguing and arguing. Some people thought the battle should continue, while others were like Kan. General Ning'an believed that continuing to fight would not be beneficial to the British army.

Objectively speaking, the British army had a psychological shadow from being beaten by the German army. Time and time again, it was defeated by the German army when it had the upper hand. As a result, many people, including General Cunningham, were dissatisfied with the British army. He lost confidence in his fighting power and thought that this time he would repeat the same mistakes as before.

"Gentlemen!" General Auchinleck said solemnly and cautiously: "Although we failed at the beginning and the war situation did not develop as we imagined, I hope you will clearly realize that the reason for our defeat in the war was not because of How powerful and indestructible the German army is, but it is because you turn a blind eye to the balance of power between the enemy and ourselves and only think about retreating! It is not difficult to see that you are completely defeated at your own hands!"

General Auchinleck is right. All the losses of the British army so far are only the 9th Armored Regiment, the 8th Armored Regiment and some tanks on the defense line in Gabusali. The total number of tanks is only more than 100 tanks.

Even so, the British army has many more tanks than the German army... The 30th Army also has more than 300 tanks, and these tanks even exceed the total number of German tanks.

Of course, the performance and training of German tanks after being replaced with 50MM caliber tank guns are better than those of the British "Stuarts" that were urgently replaced. However, the British army not only has an advantage in the number of tanks, but more importantly There is also air superiority and troop superiority.

General Auchinleck could not imagine that his subordinates would lose the confidence to fight and plan to retreat before they had such a huge advantage.

"If you think we have no hope of victory in the face of such a huge advantage!" General Auchinleck said: "Then what do you think we have the hope of victory? Twice the equipment and troops or even more?"

Although he didn't say much, it made every British officer present unable to raise his head, and General Cunningham was even more speechless.

"Major General Neil Rich!" Then General Auchinleck ordered: "I have just received permission from London to appoint you to succeed General Cunningham as commander of the Eighth Army!"

The officers couldn't help but be stunned for a while, and General Cunningham's face turned pale. He realized that his military career had come to an end.