The Rise of the Third Reich

On December 9, 1940, the British army launched a counterattack code-named "Operation Compass" in North Africa.

The British counterattack was launched in the early morning, and by the early morning of the 9th, the winner had basically been decided - a brigade of the British 7th Armored Division defeated the Italian armored force Maletti Combat Group. However, Marshal Hessmann, who was far away in Zossen, theoretically did not know the outcome of the battle. At this time, he had just gotten up and was having breakfast with his wife, Chloe, several young children, and his eldest son, Rudolf Hersman, who was on vacation.

Breakfast was prepared by Chloe herself, fried sausages and eggs with bread and a cup of coffee. When Hessmann was just halfway through eating, his adjutant Schnetz sent him the latest organization list of the Italian 10th Army (the force on the Egyptian front). This was what Hessmann ordered Schnetz to do last night after he learned that the British army had begun to attack.

Hessman did not take the organization list in his hand, he just said one word. "read."

"Your Excellency, Marshal, according to the information obtained by the Southern Front Headquarters, the Italian 10th Army currently has four corps and one army group. Among them, the 20th Army has the 60th Infantry Division; the 21st Army has the 1st Blackshirt Division, 2 Blackshirt Division and 63rd Infantry Division; the 22nd Army has the 61st Infantry Division; the 23rd Army has the 4th Blackshirt Division and the 64th Infantry Division; the Libyan Army Group has the 1st and 2nd Libyan Colonial Divisions and Maletti Combat Group. The total strength of the Italian army is about 150,000, of which the Maletti Combat Group is a mechanized force with 70 tanks.”

"There are 150,000 people..." Hessman chewed a piece of pork sausage and asked, "So how many enemies are there?"

"What is currently certain is the British 7th Armored Division and the Indian 4th Division." Schnetz said, "The Australian 6th Division all arrived in Egypt in November, but intelligence shows that they are still in Alexandria."

"Two divisions launched an attack against 10 divisions. It's amazing." Hessman picked up the coffee cup, took a sip, and then looked at his eldest son, Lu, who had just been promoted to lieutenant and became a squadron leader. Dolph.

"Rudolph, it seems your vacation is going to end early."

"End early?" Chloe frowned slightly when she heard this, "My dear, the situation is not that serious, right? There are 150,000 Italians!"

It wasn't that she felt sorry for her son. As a German aristocratic woman whose ancestors had been knights and officers for eighteen generations, Chloe knew exactly what kind of life her husband and son would have.

But these days she is busy with her son's life-long events. Rudolf is the heir to Margrave Heinsberg. According to the inheritance rules of European aristocrats, he must choose a woman of noble origin as his wife. If he marries a commoner, Rudolf will lose his inheritance rights, but it is not easy to find a young, beautiful and noble enough lady. Moreover, Rudolph and the other party had to be able to see eye to eye, so Chloe took advantage of her son's vacation to arrange for him to attend several balls of noble families, but now it seems that there is no result.

Hessmann smiled apologetically at his wife and said: "Although they have several times the strength advantage, our Italian friends will still mess things up. I think they are probably defeated now."

"Father, have you been playing for only a few hours now?" Rudolf interjected while eating a poached egg.

"A few hours are enough to fight a defeated battle. The Italians are very efficient in this regard." Hersman said, "Then it's up to us Germans! Rudolf, this war depends on you and your people." Go fight, you are now real carrier-based aircraft pilots, are you ready?"

"Of course I'm ready!" Rudolph replied with certainty, "I was originally a pilot on the aircraft carrier, and now I just answered the original position."

Lieutenant Rudolf Herschmann and his team members are now finally on the aircraft carrier again. The fighter squadron led by Rudolf was incorporated into the 9th Carrier Aircraft Group of HNA in August.

The so-called "Hainan Airlines Carrier-based Aircraft Group" refers to the carrier-based aircraft unit on the aircraft carrier. The German naval aviation had only 8 carrier-based aircraft groups before August. The 1st group belonged to the aircraft carrier "Seidlitz", the 2nd group belonged to the "Sekt" aircraft carrier, and the 3rd group belonged to the "Graf Zeppelin" aircraft carrier. , the 4th Group belongs to the "Peter Strasser" (Zeppelin II), the 5th Group belongs to the "Bremen", the 6th Group belongs to the "Europa", the 7th Group belongs to the "Potsdam", The 8th Group belongs to the "Alsace". Each carrier-based aircraft group corresponds to one aircraft carrier.

Among them, the 1st and 2nd Carrier Aircraft Groups have already boarded the ship to undertake combat missions. Rudolf Hersman and his good friend Nowotny were both fighter pilots of the 2nd Carrier Aircraft Group. The 3rd to 8th Carrier Aircraft Groups are all newly formed units. Since the corresponding aircraft carriers will not be delivered until the end of 2041, these groups now only use training ships and two Seydlitz-class ships for training. At the same time, they are also the training brigade of the HNA carrier-based aircraft force, responsible for providing carrier-based aircraft pilots to supplement battle losses.

As for the 9th Carrier Aircraft Group, it is a temporarily formed unit. The corresponding aircraft carrier is the Italian "Eagle" aircraft carrier. There is also a 10th carrier-based aircraft group that was also formed in August. This group corresponds to the Italian aircraft carrier "Sparrowhawk".

The reason for this is that in the battles on July 8, 9 and 10, the Italian Navy's carrier-based pilots were almost completely lost, and the G.50 was proven to be completely useless. As a last resort, Germany had to send carrier-based pilots to board the ship (the Italian Air Force had no carrier-based pilots and was unwilling to accept the Navy's command).

In addition, the carrier-based aircraft on the two Italian aircraft carriers were also replaced with German Fokker Zero and Fokker 99, each with 2 squadrons, a total of 48 carrier-based aircraft, and 4-5 backup aircraft.

Rudolf Hersman and Walter Novotny were carrier-based pilots and had very good combat records (Hersman had already shot down 5 enemy aircraft, and Novotny shot down 8 enemy aircraft), so they became the captains of the 1st and 2nd fighter squadrons under the 9th Carrier Aircraft Brigade.

Looking at his confident son, Hersman smiled and nodded. In his plan, the focus of the Mediterranean battlefield was not North Africa, but the sea in the eastern Mediterranean!

Only when the sea battle achieves a decisive victory can a truly decisive victory be achieved on land.

…

General Halder, the commander-in-chief of the German southern front, had hurried to the Venice Palace at around 10 o'clock in the morning of December 9. He was called by Mussolini's secretary. Halder had already known that the British army had launched a counterattack on the Egyptian front, and guessed that the situation was not very good - this is something that anyone can guess!

Since the great victory in Somalia in August (the Italian army in East Africa occupied British Somalia), Halder has not heard of the news of the Italian army's victory. First, the East African Cluster with a large army of 290,000 (including 90,000 Italians and 200,000 black uncles) was defeated in Sudan and blocked by Indian troops (Indian 5th Division) with far fewer numbers than them.

Then there was a strange pause in the attack on Egypt. The army of more than 100,000 only advanced for three days, and without being effectively blocked by the British army, it settled in the Egyptian desert and confronted an enemy with far fewer numbers than them - this was simply incredible to Halder! Because the British were very close to their supply port, it was very easy to get reinforcement supplies. The Italian supply port was far away in Benghazi, nearly 1,000 kilometers away from the front line. Moreover, the number of Italians was several times that of the British. It was completely unimaginable that there were more than 100,000 people plus a 1,000-kilometer land supply line without a train. Therefore, as soon as the Italians stopped in September, he immediately made a suggestion: either attack immediately or simply withdraw to Libya.

The handling of the Italian General Staff shocked him even more. They ignored the army in the desert and sent troops to invade Greece when the logistics supply was already very tight... For this purpose, they had to divert the supplies originally supplied to North Africa.

As a result, more than 100,000 Italian troops in the North African desert confronted the enemy for more than two months, wearing down their spirit and physical strength. The invasion of Greece turned into a complete disaster!

This morning, Halder knew that the British army had launched a counterattack in Egypt, and immediately estimated that the Italians were going to lose the battle again. But when he saw a "Caesar" who was like an ant on a hot pot, he knew that the situation might be worse than he imagined.

"General," Mussolini, whose eyes were red as if he had not slept all night, said immediately when he saw Halder, "Marshal Graziani reported that our army in Egypt is facing a fierce attack that has never been seen in history!"

Halder was almost amused by Mussolini's words. Could the offensive launched by the British in Egypt be compared with the German attack on France and Belgium?

Then Mussolini told Halder another speechless news, "The British have attacked near Sidimalani (actually the 4th Indian Division), and our defense line is about to be broken. Our armored group was also defeated. The British tanks are too powerful, and our tanks are no match at all. General Maleti (Commander of the Maleti Group) was killed, and the entire group was defeated... Now our flank is completely exposed, and Marshal Graziani requested to retreat. General, what do you think we should do? Should we retreat?"

Marshal Graziani should be shot! General Halder wanted to say this, but after hesitating for a moment, he still said what Hessmann had told him: "Leader, we need to ask Germany for help now. Only the German army can defeat the British... You must go to Germany in person, the sooner the better!"