While Eder was worried about Italy, Mussolini, as the leader, felt good about himself. True, Italy is on the verge of seizing Tunisia, completing this regret of a few decades ago.

He was not at all worried about the French army, which was currently entrenched in the city of Tunis. Because the brave and warlike Italian Navy has already mobilized the main force to the port of Palermo, and is about to encircle Tunisia by land and sea.

As for the possible attack of the French fleet, he is not worried, look at the Italian mighty battleships, they are all 380 and 410 caliber cannons, whether in protection, speed or firepower, they can suppress the French battleships, not to mention that they still have a numerical advantage.

In the past, the French fleet was hiding in the port of Toulon, relying on the air force and terrain to avoid being attacked, and if they dared to come out, it would be good for the French to know that it was powerful.

In fact, it is not only Mussolini who thinks so, but also the upper echelons of the Italian Navy.

This blockade of the port of Tunis may have been an opportunity to lure the French fleet out and deal it a heavy blow.

Unbeknownst to Antonescu, who was besieging Tunisia with the Italian mind of besieging Tunisia, he and his Italian partner Messer were observing the fortifications of Tunisia.

"These fortifications are well repaired, and it will not be easy for us to take them."

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

"That's true, I have already seen three trenches on the hills, and it seems that the French have shown their skills in the last war."

When the two of them left the binoculars, they could see a trace of sorrow in each other's eyes, and it was difficult to fight such a stubborn French army. Especially for them, it is even more difficult to fight.

That's right, for the Loys-Italian coalition, it was a bit difficult for them to storm the fortifications. Because at that time, when the coalition forces were assembled, their equipment was mainly based on mobile warfare, and its task was also to be responsible for interspersing behind enemy lines in order to destroy the enemy in mobile warfare.

Now in the face of a tortoise shell like Tunisia, they have a feeling that they have nowhere to start.

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

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

Faced with Antonescu's inquiry, Messer spoke. "Marshal Balbo is already leading the troops on the road, and the telegram says he has another week to join us."

Messer was referring to the new additions of Commander Balbo, which consisted mainly of the 18th "Messina" Division, the 25th "Bologna" Division, the 64th "Catanzaro" Division, and the 3rd Mountain "Julia" Division, all of which were elite units transferred from the country. In addition, Balbo also led four independent artillery regiments, two siege artillery regiments, and a huge establishment of 310,000 officers and soldiers.

At the moment some of these units have joined them, but the main artillery is still on the way. When these troops arrived, they were firmly chained here.

Antonescu is looking forward to leaving Tunis City sooner, and there are others here who want to leave Tunis City as well. General Dashanliu, who commanded the French army in Tunisia, also wanted to leave.

Although he was stuck in the city of Tunis, he was soberly aware that Tunisia was a place of death. If it weren't for the fact that the North African Legion came too quickly, he wouldn't have been able to stay here. But now that the reinforcement of Tunisia has become a stubborn defense of the city of Tunisia, how can this make him willing.

And now what is more important is that the Italian troops are being reinforced, and the 300,000 Italian troops under the command of Marshal Balbo are rushing towards Tunisia, if they converge with the Romanian coalition forces outside the city, then the enemy troops outside Tunisia will be as high as 450,000, and their 130,000 soldiers in Tunisia will definitely not be able to stop them.

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

In Paris, the besieged General Dashanliu's telegram asking for help was also difficult for the government. To save the French army in the city of Tunis, there is no need to think about it from the land.

The French Army Staff has done a deduction that if you want to rescue the besieged French army, you need at least 300,000 well-trained troops, which is the lowest number given by France considering the low quality of the Italian army.

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

240,000 troops, the vast majority of which were colonial-drafted soldiers. This amount of troops, not to mention rescue, is not enough for self-protection. As for the homeland, defending the Germans is much more important than rescuing Tunisia. Therefore, at present, France can only transfer troops conscripted from southern Africa to Algeria. However, it will also take time, but at the moment it cannot be given by relying on army rescue.

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

In the face of Prime Minister Renault's words, Darlan, as the leader of the Navy, of course, knew how much pressure he was on. It can be said responsibly that, aside from personnel and other reasons, from a technical point of view alone, the French Navy is really not an opponent of the Italian Navy strengthened by Eder.

Just the difference in the performance of the battleship, Darlang is not necessarily afraid, because in the end it is people who are used. However, as an imaginary enemy for many years, the situation of the Italian Navy is also very clear to the helm, that is, the quality of the officers and men of the Italian Navy is not lower than that of France.

This is difficult to do, the battleship itself cannot be compared, the quality of the other party's officers and men is not below him, and now he must go to relieve the siege of General Dashanliu. This operation would be very difficult to do on your own.

Fortunately, he still has a strategic advantage, that is, the Atlantic is in the hands of Britain and France, and he can still call for help. At this time, he didn't care about his antipathy to Britain, and took the opportunity to propose at the meeting that there was no problem in letting him go to sea to rescue, but he had to ask for help from the British Navy. The French Navy alone could not accomplish this task.

Although Darlan gave the government a difficult problem, the government finally agreed to save the French troops in Tunisia and hold Algeria.

Since Darlan's request was agreed, the next thing to do, considering the situation of the Tunisian defenders, it was difficult for the French government to be efficient, and in the evening of the same day, a telegram requesting Britain to send no less than two aircraft carriers and two battleships for naval assistance appeared on Churchill's desk.

Faced with the request of the French, Churchill, after thinking about it for a long time, agreed. There are two reasons for this, the first is that through several trials, the German Navy seems to have given up on the tactics of breaking diplomatic relations. They no longer had much desire to send warships to break through the British lines of defense and enter the Atlantic to disrupt British transport lines.

Moreover, British intelligence has also found that German shipyards are still unaffected by the war, or more affected, and are working overtime to build warships.

For this reason, British intelligence believes that Germany is currently waiting for the navies of Italy and Romania to open up the Atlantic passage and merge with them to trap the British Isles.

So at this time, the importance of the French navy was revealed, as long as the French navy was still there, then the navy of Italy could not give Britain enough buffer time against the Atlantic.

Another point is that since the British Navy suffered a crushing defeat in the air raid on Alexandria, there has not been a single good news. As the proud British Imperial Navy, such a situation is unimaginable, and they desperately need a good enough good news to be exciting.

Together with the French Navy, against the Italian Navy, there is no better news than to fight a great victory.

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

The officer who led the team this time was Andrew Cunningham, who had been transferred to the reserve and reinstated.