"Report to the Prime Minister, the North African war report has returned!"

Churchill, who was in deep thought, was interrupted by the sound of the confidential secretary's debriefing.

With a wave of his hand, Churchill motioned for the confidential secretary to read out the contents of the war report.

To be honest, he was too lazy to read, or rather afraid to read, such a thing as a front-line battle report.

Even before he became Prime Minister of the British Empire, he pushed for an invasion of Norway.

As a result, except for some good news about the defeat of the Norwegian army some time ago, in the later stage of the battle, almost all of them were defeated one after another.

If it weren't for Chamberlain, who was the prime minister at the time, standing in the foreground and acting as a shield for him, he was held fully responsible for the defeat, maybe Churchill was in debt and couldn't have been replaced.

The pot of the Norwegian campaign can still be thrown on Chamberlain's boss, but when Dunkirk was annihilated by 200,000 main forces at one time, Churchill had already achieved the position of prime minister, can this black cauldron still be thrown on His Majesty?

No one will admit to the king, because His Majesty has nothing to do with this battle at all, and it is his Prime Minister Churchill who is responsible for carrying out the dispatch.

There was no way, Churchill had no choice but to put the blame on General Alexander, who accepted the British expeditionary force.

There is a theorem in ancient and modern China and abroad, that is, someone has to bear the responsibility for something wrong, and to put it bluntly, there must be someone as a representative to bear the blame.

Churchill was a bit of a slippery game, first blaming his boss Chamberlain and later blaming his subordinate Alexander for the new failures.

However, the disasters seem endless.

As the saying goes, there is no single line of disaster, but the bad things that have befallen Churchill have been four rounds in a row.

"Operation Ballista", a surprise attack against the French naval forces, was disrupted by the Italians.

The main French fleet was successfully disabled by the Forbes fleet sent by the British Royal Navy, but the Forbes fleet was also wiped out by the Italians who came from behind.

After the fiasco in the North Sea, the four aircraft carriers in the hands of the British home fleet were already short of carrier-based aircraft, so it was difficult to concentrate all the remaining carrier-based aircraft on the state-of-the-art aircraft carrier Ark Royal, and let the Forbes fleet take it to attack the French fleet.

As a result, that Forbes idiot actually surrendered!

The captured destroyers could be endured, but a good aircraft carrier Ark Royal could not be given to the Italians.

Churchill had always been concerned about Italy, the hegemon of southern Europe, and he had always focused his diplomacy on two fronts.

The first is to win over the United States to support Britain, and it is best if the United States can enter the war, and even if it cannot participate in the war, at least sell more weapons to the British army.

The second is to avoid Italy from entering the war, and once Italy enters the war, the last hegemon in Europe, which looks huge in every way, is definitely an existence that any power should be feared.

Today's Europe is no longer the era of 20 years ago.

Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, and a number of industrial and military powers have left only a handful of European powers.

The Third German Reich, which annexed the above powers, is undoubtedly the most powerful superpower in Europe at the moment.

After all, not to mention Denmark, Belgium, Hungary, and other small countries that were annexed by Germany, the entry of four European powers into Germany alone has increased Germany's national strength exponentially.

Once the top seven powers in Europe, now there are only three left: Germany, Britain, and Italy.

And the other four countries, without exception, were all defeated by Germany on their own!

Now Italy entered the war, as a military ally of Germany.

In other words, two of the last three major powers in Europe have chosen to join forces against the British Empire, which is losing one after another.

Different from the famous three-legged triumph in Chinese history, at that time, the two countries of Wu and Shu were the second and third forces of the powerful faction, respectively, and they joined forces to deal with the first powerful Wei State, which was also considered a balance of power.

But in today's Europe, Germany, which ranks first in military power, and Italy, which ranks third in military power, have joined forces to attack Britain, the second oldest. This is too much, and it is clear that you are playing an asymmetrical duel!

Mussolini's offensive in North Africa was something that Churchill had always feared, but could not avoid.

It did happen, but Churchill was powerless to change something.

He now has no troops to defend his homeland, and he is in danger of landing by the Germans at any time, where is the extra energy to care about the Italians who are showing off their military might in Africa?

"Don't read the process, just talk about the result." Churchill, who decided that North Africa would fail, waved his hand and instructed the confidential secretary: "It is nothing more than one more stain on my governing career." ”

"Yes, Prime Minister." The confidential secretary nodded respectfully, opened the telegram in the document bag, and read: "Under the leadership of General Wavell, the North African troops destroyed 30,000 enemies, captured nearly 20,000 Italian officers and soldiers at the same time, destroyed more than 200 artillery pieces of various types of Italian army, and destroyed more than 300 tanks and armored vehicles. And the losses of our army did not exceed 4 thousand people! ”

A big victory in North Africa?!

"What did you say?!" Churchill, who was ready to receive the bad news, suddenly stood up from his position and asked in an incredibly loud voice.

"Prime Minister, General Wavell successfully thwarted the Italian offensive. Moreover, they are still launching a counteroffensive! General Wavell reported that he was preparing to take Benghazi and seize the Libyan colony of the Italians! The confidential secretary also reported again with an excited face: "We won!" ”

"This guy Wavell really won against the Italians?" Churchill's lips trembled, and Nan Nan said to himself.

The British troops deployed in Africa totaled 90,000, and they were also distributed in two directions, East Africa and North Africa.

But the Italians, with their North African Corps alone, had 230,000 men, more than twice the total strength of the British army in Africa. If you count the 300,000 Italian troops in East Africa, the strength of the British army in Africa can be said to be less than 2 times that of the Italian army.

With such an absolute disadvantage in troops, Churchill really couldn't have imagined that Wavell actually had a classic battle of winning more with less!

Soon, Churchill proudly reported in detail in the House of Representatives the course of the war in North Africa.

At the end of the debriefing, all the parliamentarians stood up and applauded, a scene not seen since the failed invasion of Norway.

It has to be said that the British Empire has waited too long for a victory......

After the report, Churchill proudly held a press conference and said: "When I walked into the House to speak, the warmest applause I received was usually only from the Labour seats, and the Conservatives always treated me with some reservations. But today, in this solemn, resounding harmony, everyone is united! All the people of the British Empire are proud of it! ”