Reinhardt's apparent brother, Mussolini finally fell ill.

That's right, it's angry.

When he returned to Italy, he first received the entire war reparations of 40 francs from Germany.

Reinhardt then sent another messenger to inform Italy to go to the port of Oran as soon as possible to claim the abandoned French ships.

In addition, the Congo, which got the news and knew that it was about to be "claimed" by the Italian army, was inclined to the colonies of Free France, and quickly fell to the governor of Belante in Algeria, which was regarded as joining Vichy France.

As a famous anti-Italian hero of France, he counterattacked the 32nd division of Italy with 5 divisions in the Alps, directly rejecting Italy's claim to colonize France.

Now Belante has more than 5 divisions under his command.

Not to mention that Vichy France had become a member of the Central Powers, on the same side as Italy.

If Mussolini didn't mind letting his generals challenge the famous French general Béronte again, he would certainly have the opportunity to send troops to "claim".

However, this time, it is no longer possible to send only a "measant" 32 divisions.

As for how many people to send, Mussolini himself could not say.

As a result, Mr. Leader, who was still happy when he got off the plane, was admitted to the most famous San Giovanni hospital in Italy the next day for treatment.

A person familiar with the matter broke the news that Mussolini was so angry that his face turned blue, and when he was sent to the hospital, he was already delirious.

The next day, Mussolini, who came to his senses, did the first thing he did, which was to fight a battle that would impress the whole world and the Germans, and re-establish the world prestige of Italy and himself.

Come to think of it, Mussolini made this rival the former superpower and the British Empire, which is now being pressed by Germany.

"We can't just follow Germany anymore." Although his lower body was still covered with a white quilt on the hospital bed, Mussolini did not act like a patient now.

He said ambitiously: "Tomorrow's Europe will no longer have a place for small countries." Therefore, if the Kingdom of Italy wants to regain its international voice, it must launch a military operation of great scale and attention to the world as soon as possible. ”

No one understands whether Mussolini woke up and regained consciousness, or slept more stupidly.

A huge military operation, what kind of fame does he want to make?!

However, without waiting for everyone to speak to advise, Mussolini gave the first order to wake up: "I order you, as the leader, to quickly change the deployment of the Italian army stationed in Libya from the previous defensive posture to the offensive." The British are no longer to worry about, and now is the best time for us to eliminate them! ”

"Balbo." Mussolini coldly called out the name of his personal friend.

As Italy's governor of the Libyan colony, Italo Balbo had spent seven years transforming Libya from a backward colony into a model of Italian provinces, known as Italy's fourth coast.

And this time Mussolini was angry and was admitted to San Giovanni Hospital by Reinhardt, Balbo also rushed back to Rome, the capital of Italy, from Libya overnight to see the leader.

But Balbo didn't expect that when he came back, he would immediately take on such a big task.

"Leader, do you have any instructions?" Hearing Mussolini call his name, Balbo probably guessed that the Libyan army would probably let himself, the Libyan governor, command the attack on the British army.

So, he took two steps forward and walked to the head of the hospital bed on which Mussolini depended.

"This decisive battle in North Africa will be handed over to you." Mussolini, with unprecedented confidence, said to Balbo: "Take Egypt for me, take control of the Suez Canal." ”

After that, Mussolini snorted coldly and said, "This time, I won't give the benefits of Suez to that bastard Reinhardt." When the time comes, enough will he beg me. ”

In fact, in order to dominate Africa and plunder the British colonies there, Mussolini gathered a large number of troops in Africa as early as the beginning of this year.

This time Mussolini was not confident, after all, Italy already had about 220,000 troops stationed on the coast of North Africa.

In Tripolitania, the Italian Army deployed 6 regular divisions and 2 militia divisions.

In Planica, the Italian Army also deployed 2 regular divisions and 2 militia divisions.

In addition, Italy has a large number of scattered border guards in North Africa, equivalent to about 3 divisions.

In other words, the total number of troops that Balbo can deploy in North Africa is a total of 15 divisions.

But the British were different, according to Reinhardt's instructions to the German Gestapo to provide friendly information, and the Italian intelligence service itself corroborated that the total strength of the British army in Egypt was only about 50,000.

Among them were the full strength of the British 7th Armoured Division, two-thirds of the 4th Indian Division, one-third of the New Zealand Division, in addition to 14 British battalions and 2 Royal Artillery Regiments.

Moreover, the British forces to defend the western border of Egypt and maintain the internal security of Egypt were also to be drawn from the above-mentioned forces.

As a result, Britain actually had less than 45,000 troops to mobilize in the North African theater.

Moreover, Italy's deployment of air forces in North Africa is also far greater than that of the British Royal Air Force in North Africa.

The situation of the British army in North Africa was becoming more and more difficult, and the threat from Kassala was stretching to Kashammu to the west, and panic was pervading Kenya.

The British feared that the Italian expeditionary force would march 400 miles south from Abyssinia, toward the Tana River and Nairobi, and invade British Somalia.

But all these worries were insignificant compared to the Italian armed invasion of Egypt.

It is clear that as long as Churchill's intelligence services are not paralyzed, they will find out that Italy is preparing to invade Egypt on the largest scale.

Not long ago, Mussolini brazenly continued to send troops to the east of Egypt and built a wide road along the coast, starting from the main Italian base in Tripoli and passing through Tripolitania and Cyrenaica to the Egyptian border.

In recent months, the transport of arms along this road has been very busy.

And, along this road, Italy has slowly assembled and deployed an army of 70,000 to 80,000 with some modern equipment, at the end of the border near Egypt.

Mussolini thought to himself that if his mighty army, equipped with modern equipment, could continue to advance eastward, victory would surely belong to Italy.

If it can gain access to the fertile land of the delta, the conquest of Egypt will be a sure victory.

Faced with this situation, Mussolini decided that the opportunity could not be lost, and forced his subordinates to act quickly.

However, Graziani, the chief of staff of the Italian army, was slow to act, and they knew very well the equipment and morale of the Italian African troops, so they dissuaded Mussolini and said: "This is simply going to fail, fighting in the desert will inevitably lead to a disaster quickly and comprehensively!"

This is justified, not only the Italian garrison in North Africa, but the entire Italian army is outdated and has very few anti-tank weapons.

Especially in North Africa, where the Italian army had almost no artillery, motorized transportation was scarce, and gasoline reserves were poor.

To defeat the British in North Africa, it is not always possible to win by relying on a large number of people......