"Why is the Prime Minister so angry?"

"I heard that General Montgomery captured 40,000 Italians."

"What's there to be angry about?"

"Because Guderian and the Germans were let go."

"Run, run, ah...... Only caught some Italian waste? ”

Aiden and Attlee were a little tender after all, and they looked at the telegram several times and did not see the catharness in it, but felt disapproving of Churchill's anger, and persuaded: "Your Excellency, we should look at this matter from a more positive attitude, at least we have won the Battle of El Alamein, thwarted the Axis coveting Egypt, defended Cairo and Alexandria, captured tens of thousands of Italians, although there was a little loss and did not capture the Germans, but the overall result is still acceptable. Our personnel losses are not very large. Do you suggest that they continue to advance, take Tobruk as soon as possible, and give supplies at the right time? ”

Churchill grimaced, "I want you to look at this telegram in reverse." ”

"The other way around?" Everyone was confused, only Menzies knew the inside story more clearly, but he didn't dare to say anything.

But not saying anything does not mean that Churchill will let him go, but is directly named: "General Menzies, you must understand the actual situation inside, please immediately coordinate your intelligence personnel in Egypt, I want to know the real and complete situation within one hour." Churchill bit the words "truth and completeness" very hard.

"As you wish, Your Excellency, Prime Minister." Menzies reluctantly took on this errand that offended the man.

It didn't take long for the Egyptians to call back, and Menzies understood the whole thing through the personnel in the Eighth Army, and everyone was dumbfounded.

Lunatic! The high-ranking generals of the Third Reich were all crazy! How dare a dignified general lead less than 70 tanks to launch an assault on the Eighth Army? No matter how you look at it, it looks like a suicidal act, but it can get such a good effect. The Eighth Army is also a waste, and the fact that more than 100,000 troops were beaten like this by the Germans with 70 tanks and two armored battalions is discouraging to watch.

Everyone wonders why the British Empire has no such figures? The war against France made Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, but where are Nelson and Wellington in the new era? I thought that Hitler replaced Rommel to self-destruct the Great Wall, but I didn't expect that the new Guderian was not a fuel-efficient lamp. And General Montgomery, who everyone had high hopes for, seemed to be doing something at first, and after a long time, it looked like he was following Auchinleck's old path - if so, it would be better to let Auchinleck continue to do it.

"There is only one explanation, Guderian's forces are far from enough, and he had to launch a counterattack with such a weak force to confuse our army, but it has also received good results." After learning the exact news, Churchill's mood calmed down, and he sneered and asserted, "Those three divisions and 40,000 Italians are not the results of the Eighth Army, they were obviously abandoned by the Germans on their own initiative, in order to delay our pursuit, and the Germans are so embarrassed that they have to give up tens of thousands of friendly troops." Immediately send a telegram to Montgomery asking them to pursue the enemy resolutely and quickly, and to be sure to deal with Guderian before he retreats to Tobruk, and I do not mind continuing to adjust the command officers of the Eighth Army until this task is completed. ”

"As for the supplements...... he viciously snuffed out the cigar in the ashtray, "and it will be given to them only after the battle has been won." ”

Everyone looked at the Prime Minister's hideous expression and realized that Churchill might have been very disappointed with the performance of the Eighth Army, not only because Montgomery or General Alexander tried to hide something, but also because Guderian had achieved such a jaw-dropping result with his small forces and finally retreated with a swagger, which was tantamount to a slap in the face of the Prime Minister, no wonder he was so angry.

"Did the Prime Minister call back?" Montgomery, who was a little depressed, was nervous, and this was the third time he had asked the chief of staff, de Lacan, that he had a sense of gain and loss, for he didn't know what to do now.

After listening to the advice of Major General Langton, Montgomery commanded the Eighth Army to quickly crush the Italians on the northern front with a large force, and the other side put up a pretentious resistance at first, and not long after the British army had strengthened, they sent negotiators to raise white flags and demand surrender. Montgomery was puzzled by this, and the capture of the Italians was not once or twice, but it was the first time he had encountered such a crisp and complete situation as it was today.

He was worried about some kind of trap, so he deliberately summoned several major officers of the headquarters to participate in the negotiation process, but he was surprised by the information he received: Guderian had run away, not only did he run but also took almost all the troops on the southern front, and only the Italian infantry divisions remained on the northern front, and they lacked ammunition and supplies, and even transport vehicles and armored forces were very lacking, so they had to surrender to Montgomery. In this way, Guderian sent a telegram asking them to resist the British attack for three days so that they could rearrange their positions, and pretended that they would arrange for troops to respond. This "tactic" was seen through by the Italians at a glance, and several division commanders first sent a telegram to Mussolini to complain in a fit of anger, and then simply sent representatives to surrender.

"Where is Guderian at the moment?"

"The Germans' armoured forces were mostly in Treakkill, and the infantry units were retreating to Tobruk." The angry Italian negotiators did not hide anything from it, and told Montgomery everything they knew, and many of the news were told without waiting for the British to ask, and the only condition for their surrender was that the British would provide sufficient logistical supplies.

Therefore, after only one day of fighting, the Eighth Army achieved the "victory" of the Battle of El Alamein, and captured 3 divisions of 40,000 troops, but the British army did not capture much useful weapons and equipment, but also had to provide supplies and supplies to these tens of thousands of Italian prisoners, out of the "reward" for the Italians to surrender happily, Montgomery decided to meet their needs. After disarming the Italians, the situation in the process of advancing to the southern front was as the other side said, the German positions were empty, and the fortifications, artillery, and tanks that were seen in advance were all fake models made of various materials, occasionally mixed with one or two scrapped wreckage, but the minefields laid by the Afrika Korps made the British army suffer a lot, losing more than a dozen tanks and armored vehicles, and hundreds of officers and soldiers barely opened up a passage after that, and the desert was densely covered with minefield markers, The Eighth Army also did not have the energy to sweep them all up.

In view of this particular circumstance, several staff officers racked their brains and spent hours of hard thinking before drafting the "victory" message, which Montgomery did not want to do, but reluctantly agreed under the persuasion of de Lacan, and took great pains to report in advance to General Alexander in Cairo in very cryptic terms, I wonder if the latter understood the meaning between the lines, and the reply was equally vague, reading both as if it were approval and as if it implied that he could act freely without interference. In short, the Eighth Army was allowed to pass by. Montgomery then shut himself in his room and pondered for a day, until he could not drag it out anymore and sent the message to Churchill in a hesitant manner.

He had no idea that the reason why London called him back so late was because Churchill had asked the intelligence officers to verify what had happened - de Lagan had a good idea and did everything he could, he just didn't expect that the immediate boss he met had slipped through these tricks 25 years ago when he had covered up the defeat at the Battle of the Dardanelles.

"Telegram, telegram from London is coming." The adjutant walked in with a gloomy face, and at the sight of this posture, Montgomery's heart sank suddenly, and it took a long time to take the thin piece of telegram, the content of which made him feel like a blow to the head: it did not contain a single word of encouragement to the "great victory", but coldly demanded that he continue to work hard to quickly and completely eliminate Guderian.

"It seems that the prime minister is very dissatisfied with our performance." He smiled bitterly and handed the telegram to Dragan, scratching his scalp in annoyance, "Judging from the content and tone of the telegram, the Prime Minister should have seen something, and I didn't want to hide it from him, but ...... Perhaps we should send another telegram to tell him the truth. ”

"Sir, this has come to this, and we should not worry about what has happened, but look forward. As long as we catch Guderian, the prime minister can still give an account, and take a step back and say, even if we can't catch Guderian, as long as we can inflict heavy damage on Guderian, we can also give an account to London. De Lagan, apparently more open-minded than Montgomery, dissuaded his irrational impulses at critical moments, saying, "I don't think there is much point in making another telegram of defense." Indeed, as you said, the Prime Minister was a little harsh, so I think London should have understood what was going on here, not the other way around, and we don't need to explain it at all. And the homeland did not refuse our request for supplies, but only put forward additional conditions, and all we had to do was to accomplish the task - at least I am very optimistic about it. ”

"Let's talk about it." Hearing that the chief of staff was so confident, Montgomery's nervous mood finally relaxed, and even his emotions eased a little.