ps: Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year, Shi Zhu wishes all readers and friends for the New Year! Wishing you all a prosperous Year of the Monkey! In addition, I don't do much about the red envelope system at the starting point, in order to enliven the atmosphere of the book review area, please comment enthusiastically, and when the time comes, I will mail physical books on history (or military) as prizes to enthusiastic readers, until the end of February. Thank you all for your support!

In the operations research room of the Supreme Command of the Berlin base camp, the head of the war bureau and artillery general Jodl had locked himself in for three whole days. In the past three days, except for pacing in the research room and observing the map and sand table, he has not taken a single step, and the only thing that can touch him is the orderly who delivers meals regularly, and no one dares to disturb him, others think that he needs to think in peace, but he knows that he is about to go crazy.

When the Führer made the strategic shift of the center of gravity to the southern front and launched the "Rolling Stone" plan, he did not make any prior preparations or plans, but only roughly stated the operational intentions and directions, and after outlining the strategic objectives, he handed out the whole matter and explained the whole thing to the high command. Since then, Jodele has been working on this plan, and the preliminary work of transferring troops and completing reinforcements has been progressing smoothly, but the determination of the details of the whole operation has really stumped him.

The Führer had hinted several times on different occasions that as long as the Rolling Stone plan was realized, the more than 200,000 men of Montgomery's Eighth Army would be eaten and the Middle East problem would be resolved, and both he and Guderian's ranks would be moved upward. During this time, the Führer had dealt with a lot of big names and vacated many positions, and the gold content of this upgrade to another level would have been greatly increased, and if this step could be successful, Yodel felt that it was not necessarily a fantasy to touch the marshal's scepter before the end of the war, but the problem was that the plan was too difficult to implement, far more than he had originally thought.

One of the difficulties: to send 2 armored divisions, 1 motorized infantry division, and 1 paratrooper division (the 7th Air Division suffered too many losses after the Cretan landing campaign, and has not recovered, and some paratroopers have been used as elite infantry in various battlefields, and the rest of the remaining troops have been reorganized into the 1st Airborne Chasseur Division, which is said to be a division with only 5,000 people) from Crete to the opposite shore, with a total strength of nearly 60,000 troops, not including the initial contingent of several hundred people.

Difficulty 2: In order to achieve suddenness, it is necessary to send 60,000 men and corresponding equipment to land without the escort of a large naval warship, and the entire distance is more than 250 nautical miles - almost twice the distance from Calais in France to the mainland of England.

Difficulty 3: To complete this plan within 48 hours, the time can be extended to 96 hours only if the enemy does not have the ability to threaten the first wave of landing forces.

This seems to be an impossible task from any point of view, considering that less than two months have passed since the attempted landing of the British and American allies at Dieppe, and they have more powerful sea and air forces, but they are still beaten to the ground, and they have to leave behind 6,000 corpses, which is only the achievement of Zeitzler's feat. Jodel approached Hoffman twice to explain the difficulties in person, urged the other party to change the plan, and even brought in Field Marshal Keitel, Chief of the General Staff of the Supreme Command, and General Zeitzler, Chief of the General Staff of the Army, to state the difficulties together, but Hoffman obviously did not listen to this persuasion, and only repeatedly emphasized: "This is the core strategy, and there is no room for change!" ”

Jodel calmed down and thought about it, and found the Führer's strategy very attractive: if this plan could be accomplished, the annihilation of the British Eighth Army would not be a problem. By then, there were 50,000 Afrika troops under Guderian's command (purely German troops, the Italians had been taken as air by yodel) and 60,000 landing troops later, and these two armies could hold Montgomery firmly in it like two big pincers. Although the combined strength of the front and rear forces was less than half of that of the Eighth Army, Jodel did not think this was a big problem: when the British army was caught in the predicament of being encircled in the front and rear and the supply lines were cut off, it was very promising to surround 230,000 with 110,000 men, even if the encirclement was not tight - he had studied the map, as long as he firmly held the two blocking positions, in the unfavorable environment of the Mediterranean Sea in the north and the desert in the south, let the British run and could not escape, Churchill was not so good at retreating from Dunkirk this time. What's more, once they fall into the difficult situation of cutting off water and oil in the desert, with the British temperament, they are afraid that they will completely collapse if they can't hold out for a week.

On the fourth day, a clueless Yodel decided to take Keitel and Zeitzler to meet the Führer again, and the two were reluctant to touch the nail again, but they were still shocked to see Yodel's haggard face, and had to reluctantly try.

The audience recounted the difficulties and their concerns, and Hoffman did not get angry, but only asked, "What do you think should be done?" ”

The three of them had discussed many times before coming, and the consensus was to continue to strengthen Guderian's forces, slowly consume the Eighth Army at Tobruk, and then pull out the nail of Malta, and then consider the next move, which was more tactically sound and more calmly deployed.

"It can't be!" Hoffman slammed his fist on the table and roared, "The Americans are going to make a landing on the coast of Northwest Africa in November, and the preferred location is likely to be Morocco, and the result of your slow consumption is that the Guderian cluster will be attacked by the British and Americans from the east and west......

Everyone was taken aback by Hoffman's angry look, and it seemed that the Führer had not been so angry for a long time. No one knows where the Führer learned of the Anglo-American landing in Morocco in November, but no one is amused to ask about the relevant sources of information, and consider this as a presupposition for the campaign. Nor was it proposed to resist the Anglo-American landings on the coast of North Africa, which could not be done militarily, and the fools who fought against the Allied forces with air and sea superiority far from the European continent knew that something would go wrong unless Spain could immediately declare its accession to the Axis.

Morocco is still a colony of Spain and France, and has always been garrisoned by the armies of the two countries, and Spain's neutral status may not be destroyed by the British and American allies, but Vichy France and Germany have signed an armistice agreement, although it is acceptable that German military observers and part of the air force are stationed in French Morocco, but the deep contradiction between Admiral Darlan, the actual leader of French West Africa, and Marshal Pétain, the head of Vichy France, determines the different political positions and ways of doing things between the two. The future of French Morocco was already in contention, and if the Germans entered in violation of the agreement, it would be a political confusion - the High Command did not yet have the courage to do so.

Zeitzler boldly asked: "Why did the Führer insist on destroying the Eighth Army?" ”

"This is the best equipped, most well-staffed, most trained and combat-capable unit of the British, and after taking the Eighth Army, the door to the Middle East is open for us."

Keitel frowned and asked, "Assuming that our landing is successful and we successfully eliminate Montgomery, wouldn't the Allies land in Morocco?" ”

Hoffman turned his head and said, "Not necessarily. Once we have eliminated Montgomery, we can march on Alexandria and Cairo at once, and take advantage of the situation to pull out the nails of Britain and America in the Middle East - those colonial armies will not be able to stop us. If I were Churchill, I would abandon the landing and move my forces to the Arabian Peninsula to save the Middle Eastern colonies of the British Empire, and the threat of a Moroccan landing would be eliminated. ”

Yodel interjected: "The main force of the landing should be the Americans, and they will not take the blame for Churchill." ”

"The Americans probably won't listen to him, so Churchill will have to gather troops from India and the Far East and land on the Arabian Peninsula, and by the time he comes, we'll have already cleared the Suez Canal." Hoffman stressed that "Britain and the United States have principled differences in strategic line and operational direction, and in the face of the threat of our engulfing the Middle East, it will be in our interest whatever the British respond to - if they continue to land in Morocco, our pressure in the Middle East will be reduced; By diverting the landing force to the Arabian Peninsula, Guderian's threat of being attacked from both sides was eliminated. You can imagine the strategic significance of controlling the Middle East: first, we can control the oil there, second, we can pose a threat to Russia's southern flank together with Turkey, and finally we can cut off the Anglo-American pipe to Stalin through the Suez Canal and Iran. This is a move that will change the entire pattern of the war, and it is a very crucial move! ”

Although Turkey is still a neutral country, none of the three think that the Führer is wrong: as long as the Third Reich can effectively control the Middle East, Turkey, which is caught between two sides, will immediately abandon its neutrality and join the Axis - they were allies of Germany in the last war, not to mention that the Turks and the Russians have been mortal enemies for hundreds of years, and as soon as Turkey changes its position, the southern flank of the Russians will be completely exposed - they will not only directly feel the edge of Turkey's million-strong army, The Grozny oil fields in the Caucasus Pass would also be in jeopardy, and if the Turks had had been more courageous and combat-ready, they would have been able to capture Baku by advancing another 500 kilometers from the eastern tip of their territory.

The three opposing generals fell into deep thought.