"General Guzoni!" At this time, Rommel couldn't hold back any longer: "I don't care what you think, or how much advantage the Italian army has, you Italians can surrender to the Allies and save your life after defeat, but sorry, we Germans are different." So, why do you think I'm stupid enough to put the lives of 100,000 German soldiers in your hands? We all know that this will not lead to anything but to turn this war into a catastrophe! How stupid do I have to be to do this?! ”

The interpreter was stunned, not knowing whether to translate these words to Lieutenant General Guzoni.

Rommel ordered: "Translate as it is!" ”

"Yes, General!" As the interpreter spoke, he told Lieutenant General Guzoni Rommel's words word by word.

Lieutenant General Guzoni's face became very ugly, and before he could finish listening, he stood up and said, "Enough, if that's the case, there is no need for us to cooperate!" ”

As he spoke, he turned around and was about to leave the office.

Of course, the guards would not let him leave so easily, and the two raised their hands to stop Lieutenant General Guzoni.

"What do you mean?" Lieutenant General Guzoni asked.

"General Guzoni!" "You have to understand that this meeting that you are participating in today is highly confidential, and if you are not going to cooperate, there is no problem," Rommel said...... I will contact Prime Minister Mussolini and ask him to remove you from office. In the meantime, you'll have to stay under our watch until the end of this battle! ”

"You can't do that!" Lieutenant General Guzoni said angrily: "We are allies, you have no right to do this!" ”

"You can try!" Rommel said.

After a pause, looking at Lieutenant General Guzoni with some horror in his eyes, Rommel continued: "Either choose to be a prisoner in prison, or continue to be your lieutenant general, tell me your choice!" ”

Guzoni had no choice but to sit back in his place.

But even so, Lieutenant General Zoni still refused to show weakness: "I will not agree to a plan that harms the interests of the Italian army!" If you want my soldiers to be cannon fodder, it can't be! ”

"Don't worry, Lieutenant General!" Rommel replied: "Actually, I never thought that Italian soldiers could be cannon fodder!" ”

The implication was that the Italian soldiers were not qualified to be cannon fodder, because they would flee to the enemy's trenches at the first opportunity.

And this was true, especially in the Battle of Sicily, in which the Italian army was so fragile that it was outrageously weak.

The ensuing war proved this.

Within three days of the conference, the Allies launched a heavy air raid on the nearby island of Banterella...... As Qin Chuan said before, the allies need a place as a base for the allies to advance.

The bombardment lasted for three days, destroying the island's fortifications, transportation and communications equipment. On the second day of the bombing, the British cruiser "Orion", the destroyers "Chivalry" and "Truebridge" also participated in the bombing.

In just a few days, the Allies carried out 5,285 attacks on the island of Bantellella, raining more than 6,200 tons of artillery shells and bombs.

But in reality, all this was a waste, and the 11,000 Italian troops stationed on the island had actually hoisted the white flag a long time ago, but the Allied artillery fire was so fierce that the pilots could not see the white flag at all.

So, when the Allies organized a large-scale landing of tens of thousands of men on the island of Bantarella on the third day, they found that they had met no resistance at all...... They were all misled by Montgomery into believing that it would be a hard-fought battle, but in fact only one soldier was wounded...... The soldier was bitten by a mule after landing on the island.

Then came an even more bizarre event: after capturing Bantarella, the Allies were preparing to attack another island: Lampedusa.

However, while Eisenhower and Montgomery were discussing how to attack the island, a correspondent reported to the two: "General, we have taken the island of Lampedusa!" ”

"What? How is this possible? Eisenhower was surprised and asked, "We haven't even given the order to attack, but which daring force disobeyed the order to occupy this island?" ”

"General!" The correspondent replied: "Not a unit, but a pilot!" ”

It turned out that a pilot piloted a plane to bomb Sicily, because the plane malfunctioned and could not make a forced landing on Lampedusa, he had planned to surrender to the Italian troops on the island, but he did not expect it...... Hundreds of Italian troops on the island lined up to surrender to him.

"That's good news, isn't it?" Montgomery said.

Eisenhower glanced at Montgomery.

Eisenhower didn't say anything, but he was thinking about it in his heart...... Montgomery was perhaps wrong in his estimation of the battle, and they should have attacked Messina as Patton had planned, for the Italian army proved to be vulnerable and the capture of Messina would end the battle in the shortest possible time.

Of course, now that the plan was made and was underway, it was too late to say anything, and Eisenhower had no choice but to continue the battle as Montgomery had planned.

The Allies then built airfields and stockpiled supplies on the two islands, while sending aircraft carriers with a fleet to Crete...... This was to cooperate with the "minced meat plan", so that the Germans thought that the Allied bombing of Sicily and even the capture of two islands as a forward base was still a feint.

A week later, the airfield on the island of Banterella had been built, and the strategic supplies were sufficient for the Allies to launch a large-scale military operation, so the Allies decided to carry out a landing operation on Sicily.

The general battle plan was that Vice Admiral Hewitt of the US Navy instructed the Near West Task Force to transport three infantry divisions of the US 7th Army commanded by Patton to land in southern Sicily; The Eastern Task Force, commanded by Vice Admiral Ramsay, transported four infantry divisions and one infantry brigade from the British 8th Army under the command of Montgomery to land in the southeast of the island.

Two other airborne divisions (the US 82nd Airborne Division and the British 1st Airborne Division) were airborne before and after landing...... Before landing, the airborne landing will be carried out to seize the advantageous terrain to assist the landing, and after the landing, the airborne landing will be carried out in the depth of the enemy's defense to assist the rapid advance of the landing force.

There was nothing wrong with this, as the airborne forces of the amphibious landing operations should have done so, as the Germans had done in Crete.

The problem is that this is the first time that the Allies have used airborne troops on a large scale, and there are two forces, Britain and the United States.

To make matters worse, the Allies chose to parachute before dawn in this situation.