NOVPUBChapter 1315: Chapter 957: The New Version of the Normandy Landings
Chapter 1315 -957: The New Version of the Normandy Landings
While Mussolini was busy finding tasks for the royal family, the British-French-Australian coalition wasn’t idle either.
Given the opportunity presented by Italian soldiers for the Allies to completely encircle Tunisia and Bizerte, the Allied North Africa joint operations command certainly wasn’t going to let it slip.
On January 6, 1938, more than 300,000 British-French-Australian troops rushed to Bizerte, trying to block the German-Italian forces’ retreat from the Tunisian region in a short time.
As for the prominent coastal strip of Tunisia, as long as they were encircled, they’d be hard pressed to escape.
The forces stationed in Bizerte originally consisted of less than 100,000 Italian soldiers.
After all, compared to Tunisia, Bizerte was not considered a strategic location. Additionally, due to its proximity to Tunisia, it naturally wouldn’t have harbors and airports constructed.
But after the Italian Army’s continued surrenders, the German Army suddenly became aware of something amiss.
In order to avoid being surrounded, the German Army, while reporting to the German High Command, already planned to break out towards Bizerte or even further west to Annaba.
Escape from the Tunisian region would mean the British-French-Australian forces’ encirclement would basically fail to form. Moreover, with many German-Italian forces in areas like Constantine and Algiers, and the Spanish forces to the far west, they could more or less ensure the safety of this German Army contingent in Africa.
But easier said than done.
Although it was known that breaking out from Bizerte would ensure their own safety, who could guarantee that the surrounding areas weren’t already teeming with waiting British-French-Australian troops?
This led to the German Army’s journey to Bizerte being one of advance while constantly reconnoitering. Despite the short distance from Tunisia to Bizerte, it took the Germans the better part of a day to arrive.
At this time, the British-French-Australian forces had also arrived not far from the vicinity of Bizerte.
Thanks to extensive Air Force reconnaissance, the British-French-Australian forces naturally detected this German force seeking to evacuate.
In order to ensure the encirclement of the German and Italian forces, the allied army, numbering only 300,000, was mostly composed of native soldiers from the three nations.
Compared to colonial troops, these forces still had a certain level of combat effectiveness. Although the combat strength of the native British and French Military compared to the Germans still had quite a gap, with the support of the Air Force and the navy, stopping these Germans was not a problem.
Thus, a battle that would determine the fate of the entire North Africa campaign officially began, with combatants being the 300,000-strong British-French-Australian forces on one side and the 400,000-strong German-Italian forces on another.
Although the German-Italian soldiers had the advantage in numbers, because of the 100,000 Italian soldiers, it actually dragged down the Germans’ odds of victory.
The Italian Army at this point was akin to the object of ridicule in World War II history; while Germany didn’t explicitly disdain Italy, at that time the Italians indeed became a burden to the Germans.
On the Allied Nations’ side, the North African joint operations command was well-prepared for the stronger German Army. To completely eliminate the German Army in the Tunisian region, the Britain-France-Australia coalition deployed over 2,000 Aircraft and a massive Royal Fleet along the Coastline, ready at any moment to bomb Tunisia and Bizerte with ship guns upon a single command.
This encounter lasted four days, ultimately concluding with a pyrrhic victory for the British-French-Australian forces.
On the side of the Allied Forces, the losses of Australasia were especially heavy, surpassing 150,000 casualties, with barely one in ten soldiers unscathed.
The casualties for the United Kingdom and France also approached 100,000, with nearly every soldier in the Allied Forces that halted the German retreat bearing injuries, despite having the advantage in both Air Force and navy strength.
Of course, the Germans’ losses were equally severe.
The number of combatants on the German-Italian side ultimately exceeded 400,000, as the Italian troops in the Tunisian region also joined the breakout.
Although it began as a medium-sized encounter with less than 700,000 combatants, as reinforcements for both parties continuously arrived, in the end, the total number of soldiers participating in the battle approached one million, and even neared 1.5 million.
The total casualties for the Britain-France-Australia Three Nations reached close to 340,000, with deaths exceeding 130,000.
The German-Italian side fared no better, with total casualties also surmounting 300,000 and deaths over 100,000.
However, a notable difference was that the 300,000-strong German Army bore the brunt of the casualties and led the primary assault on the British-French-Australian forces.
Despite having a greater number of 400,000, the Italian Army suffered under 100,000 casualties.
But this does not imply Italy’s losses were minor. Because the remaining over 300,000 Italian soldiers all chose to surrender, leading to the prisoner tally for the Italians in the North Africa region to instantly surge above 400,000.
Mussolini’s worries had come to pass.
The 400,000-strong Italian Army in North Africa indeed became prisoners of the Britain-France-Australia coalition. This was both fortunate and unfortunate news.
Fortunate in that the Italian soldiers suffered fewer deaths and injuries, which was somewhat tolerable for their families. But unfortunate because the fate of over 400,000 Italian POWs was now in the hands of Britain-France-Australia; if due to Mussolini’s decisions these POWs couldn’t return, their families would direct all their hatred towards Mussolini.
A powerless Mussolini could only pin his hopes on the Germans. Mussolini instructed his subordinates to send a telegram to the German government, inquiring whether Germany had any plans to continue Dispatching Military forces to North Africa to rescue the POWs.
