Ps: Today is Chinese New Year's Eve, Shi Zhu wishes all readers good health, good luck and happiness for the family!

In the middle of the night of 11 September, the atmosphere in the headquarters of the Eighth Army was so dreary that it was almost frozen, and everyone was sitting on their knees listening to the lecture of Chief of Staff de Lagan, and the mood of everyone was the same as the situation of the battle today—it was terrible!

Chief of Staff de Lagan was expressionless in announcing the battle for the day (in fact, mainly in the last half hour of the afternoon): "According to preliminary statistics, the Germans took us by surprise, we paid the price of 217 tanks destroyed and damaged, the air force lost 178 planes after 5 o'clock, of which nearly 100 were killed on the ground, and the preset positions we deployed around Ragille were scattered by the Germans, with a total of 4 field artillery regiments, 23 anti-tank companies, 14 anti-aircraft artillery batteries, a total of more than 300 guns of different calibers were destroyed, and we suffered more than 3,000 casualties and missing officers and men, including 1 colonel, 3 lieutenant colonels, 2 majors, more than 70 casualties among officers above the rank of second lieutenant, and a large number of professional sergeants were killed or wounded. ”

Every time de Lagan reported a number, the faces of the people became ugly.

"In addition, we have a large number of munitions, trucks, armored vehicles, and fuel destroyed by the enemy, and the direct losses are very serious, although the results cannot be counted for the time being, but according to the information that has been available, we know that at least two divisions of materials for three months have been destroyed, and the losses of the complete result will only be greater."

"Today, when encountering a sudden attack by the enemy, there are serious problems in the operational command and coordination of various units." Montgomery's voice was not loud, but everyone could tell his anger, "I told you to wait until we have agreed on a reliable line of attack before attacking, but the troops fell into a marked lax in the afternoon, so as to give the enemy an opportunity. What disappoints me even more is that many of the troops were extremely poor in their ability to respond to a surprise attack, and instead of quickly organizing resistance on the spot in accordance with the rules of battle, they jumped around like a swarm of headless flies, shaking their own defensive lines, affecting morale, and even attacking other friendly forces that still had the will to fight, causing even greater chaos. The command posts on the front line also failed to transmit information and give alarms in accordance with the regulations, and the officers responsible only cared about themselves fleeing for their lives, and they should bear the main responsibility for today's operational failure. Many of our soldiers were not crushed by the enemy, but were completely frightened by themselves and dragged down by their commanders, such as ......"

Montgomery listed a bunch of disorganized and disorganized troops during the battle, and many British-born officers were less nervous when they heard this, because most of them were Dominion troops or unreliable allies like Greece and Free France, and they still felt good about themselves. Montgomery, perhaps noticing their appearance, said in an emphatic tone, "...... The most infuriating of these units was the unit of an infantry battalion of the 9th Armored Brigade, and the command called to inquire about the past battle front, and a captain trembled and said that they had been captured, and asked who the unit that captured them was, how many of them, and you know how the guy answered? Montgomery raised his voice an octave and raised his eyebrows, the commander of the 9th Armored Brigade, who was already sitting in the back and did not dare to look up, subconsciously shrank his neck when he heard the commander call the name of his troops, and almost hung his head to his chest.

"He said, the German tanks are gone, they don't bother to capture us, and they want us to surrender to the infantry who came up later, but the German infantry hasn't ......come yet," Montgomery tapped on the table, "but in fact, there hasn't been a single German infantry in today'......s battle, and these soldiers are completely captured by rumors and fears."

"Poof!" Someone couldn't help laughing out loud, but after thinking about it, he felt that it wasn't a funny thing, so he forcibly suppressed his emotions and put on a look of righteous indignation.

Montgomery's voice suddenly changed from anger to anguish: "What have we gained or eliminated at such a heavy price? The results are terrible! We did not capture a single prisoner of the enemy's ground forces, except for the pilots of the planes we shot down, and we probably shot down less than 20 planes, most of them by ground anti-aircraft fire, and the tanks were said to have more than two dozen victories, but I am very skeptical of these figures, because we could not find so many German tank wreckage - this number is not low, but high! ”

"What?" Everyone was shocked, this insignificant result was very rare compared with the losses reported by the chief of staff just now, and the commander actually said that it was an overestimate?

"Until now, not a single unit has been able to tell me exactly which unit the enemy is fighting with you and how many?" Montgomery showed deep helplessness, "The officers of the staff department went to the field to inspect the battlefield situation, and also asked the soldiers fighting on the front line, their initial reaction was extremely exaggerated and outrageous, but after careful comparison, they all said in the end that it was not like a large army of the enemy, only the commander of the airport, Colonel Christopher, insisted that the enemy was an unprecedented large formation, otherwise the air force would not have such heavy losses." Gentlemen, as mid- and high-ranking officers and front-line commanders of the British Empire, can you accurately describe the situation of the enemy to me instead of using words like 'probably, probably, probably'? ”

Everyone listened to the silence, and no one dared to say that what they saw was the truth.

Montgomery's adjutant suddenly sent a telegram with a telegram from the airport, which was an urgent message from the airport, and after reading it, he was furious, and slapped the table fiercely, and the cups and decorations on the green velvet tablecloth were shocked to fly, and the commander had never seen such a fire, and everyone was startled.

"The airfield captured the German pilots who had parachuted after several planes had been shot down, and they used some 'means' to obtain the enemy's confession: according to the enemy's account, not a single German infantry took part in the attack - they had retreated a few days earlier, only two armored battalions and less than 70 tanks had arrived, led by General Guderian himself, and the task of the air force was to facilitate the assault of these tanks on our lines and cover their retreat, The large Fw-190 group was an Udet fighter wing that was urgently redeployed from the direction of Italy......"

"What?" The conference room was all stunned, Colonel de Lagan's mouth was so wide that he could almost stuff an entire egg, just two armored battalions and 70 tanks turned the entire southern front of the Eighth Army upside down and was in chaos, if Guderian was given the strength of 2 armored divisions, he would not be able to swallow the Eighth Army in one go?

The expressions on everyone's faces were embarrassed and ashamed, and their hands were hot, if it weren't for the large temperature difference between day and night in the desert area, and the rapid drop in temperature at night, they were afraid that they would burn themselves.

"This ......" Major General Gatthaus had already stood up and opened his mouth to say something, but in the end he only sighed deeply, and sat down again without saying anything, with a depressed face, and there was no longer anger in his eyes, only deep frustration.

Looking at the dejected appearance of his subordinates, Montgomery could only continue to cheer them up: "Gentlemen, we have undoubtedly lost this battle shamefully, and I will not shirk the responsibility that should be borne to London and Cairo, but we cannot continue to lose and decadent like this forever, we must find a way." I admit that perhaps we met a German commander who was no less than or even better than Rommel, and from a tactical point of view Guderian could have scored a perfect score today, but I don't think he was a winning general, in fact he had weaknesses, and they were great, and if we found his weaknesses, we could win......"

"Huh?" The attention of the crowd was firmly drawn to Montgomery's words, and they discovered that the commander, who had been overly cautious in their minds, could even be described as timid, had such an indomitable side. Under the influence of Montgomery's sentiment, the fighting spirit of the officers was quickly boosted, and the shame of losing the battle turned into eagerness for revenge, and one by one they jumped up and shouted that they would return fire to the enemy with a hundred times the strength.

Although I don't know how long this effect will last, at least the atmosphere of the battle meeting is no longer solemn and dull, and he glanced at Montgomery with admiration, only to find that the corners of the other party's mouth are all wry smiles......