NOVPUBChapter 1311: Chapter 955: Italian Army’s Clever Trick
Chapter 1311 -955: Italian Army’s Clever Trick
The sudden offensive launched by Britain-France-Australia had a surprisingly effective outcome.
Although the Germans had long been prepared for a counterattack by the British and French, they did not expect it to be so fierce, overwhelming the German defenders right from the start.
Moreover, due to the massive air and sea fire support provided by the British, French, and Australians, within just two days, the allied forces had quickly broken through all the small towns in Southern Tunisia, pushing the front lines to the outskirts of Tunis.
At this point, the German Army was powerless regarding the situation in North Africa.
Since the German government was preparing for an attack on Stalingrad, this campaign required between 2 million and 3 million German soldiers.
Although new recruits were already under training domestically, it would take at least another six months before these soldiers were ready.
And what Germany needed the most at this time was time itself.
Consequently, Germany could only place its hopes on its two seemingly unreliable allies.
Naturally, these two allies were Spain and Italy.
Of course, this so-called unreliability is only relative to powerful nations.
After all, the world is just a large stage of makeshift arrangements, where both parties compete based on the number of mistakes each makes.
Whether in history or now, every country has made some mistakes in war.
Australasia, under Arthur’s foresight and minimal wartime sacrifices, hadn’t yet encountered any significant issues.
To persuade Italy and Spain to willingly deploy troops to support in North Africa, the Germans paid a hefty price, using French colonies as bait for the two countries.
In fact, this enticement was indeed effective for Spain and Italy.
Spain and Italy were among those European nations with few colonies. Italy, like Germany, found most of Africa had already been divided up by the time a unified Italy had been established.
As for Spain, it was entirely due to its own weakening power.
During its most powerful era, Spain, along with Portugal, had once divided up almost half of the Americas.
But now, Spain’s colonies have been largely consumed, and even Morocco, right on its doorstep, was in the hands of the French.
For a shot at France’s African colonies, Spain and Italy went all out.
First came Spain, which organized several divisions in an attempt to forcefully seize Gibraltar.
The British greatly valued Gibraltar and naturally would not allow it to be reclaimed by Spain.
This necessitates mentioning the unique topography of Gibraltar. Located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, it faces the colonial city of Ceuta across the sea in Spanish territory.
More importantly, Gibraltar is a prominent peninsula, surrounded by water on three sides with only the north connecting to the Libyan Peninsula.
Moreover, because this small peninsula also boasts mountainous terrain, the British have turned it into an extremely robust coastal fortress.
Although Gibraltar is not expansive, and the British garrison there is not large, for Spain to conquer all of Gibraltar, it would not only require a vast amount of time but also challenge the entirety of Gibraltar’s fortresses.
The Spanish siege of Gibraltar lasted for two days. Far from advancing their front, they also faced retaliation from the Royal Navy.
On December 29, 1937, the Royal Navy launched a massive bombing raid on Spanish cities along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, including Algeciras, Marbella, Malaga, Almeria, Cadiz, and Huelva, all in the south of Spain.
After this bombardment, the Spaniards quickly fell into line. The Spanish government kicked the ball back to Italy, hoping the Italian government could find a solution.
Turning to Italy, at this time, its ruler Mussolini was highly ambitious, salivating over the map of the French North African colonies.
Faced with this excellent opportunity to gain a significant portion of French colonies, the ambitious Mussolini would not miss such a chance.
On December 31, 1937, on the last day of that year, over 300,000 Italian troops forcefully crossed the Mediterranean from Sicily to the Tunisian region.
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 lines.
Although the Tunisian region and Italy are only separated by the Mediterranean, it is this very stretch of sea, just a few dozen kilometers wide, that severely hindered Italy’s transport of supplies to Tunisia.
After all, with British fleets patrolling all over the Mediterranean, unless risking heavy losses to the transport fleet, Italy could not afford to deploy transport vessels casually at such a critical juncture.
Besides supporting Tunisia with 300,000 troops, Italy also sent two armies to the Libyan Region.
One army landed in the Libyan Region by transport ship, while the other directly infiltrated Libya via parachutes from airplanes.
Reclaiming Libya was a fervent goal of the current Italian government.
As one of the few colonies of Italy, Libya’s significance to Italy was indisputable.
And for someone as ambitious as Mussolini, losing colonies under his rule was utterly unacceptable.
