As Italian Prime Minister Rossi personally supervised the arrival of a batch of strategic supplies urgently destined for North Africa, Rommel immediately gave the order to start a new war.

Although the reckless Italian attack cost a valuable amount of supplies, the French victory at Tobruk also captured a large amount of loot for the Allied forces, including ammunition, food, and all other military supplies.

In a sense, Germany's pig teammate Italy kept giving supplies to the British army, but another French teammate in Germany succeeded in stealing supplies from the British. Rommel was pleasantly surprised to find that he still had a lot of inventory in his hand, which was enough for him to play a good round.

As a result, Rommel ordered the Italians to keep the new supplies from Africa as a strategic reserve, and then transfer all the original reserves for the next offensive against Egypt.

According to the African intelligence network established by Italy in the early years, Rommel probably also knew a lot about the British camp.

Of course, the intelligence network provided by Italy is nothing more than using the low-level inside lines planted in Egypt and other British African colonies to transmit some intelligence information that is not as core, and it is no better than Reinhardt's omniscient God's perspective golden finger.

However, for Rommel now, this level of intelligence gathering is enough!

First of all, he learned that the strength of the British Eighth Army was now extremely weak, and its core was only a regiment-sized Australian infantry, plus three native Egyptian divisions equipped with Italian weapons.

As for the reserves of the British Eighth Army, it was just that the front line had just experienced the failure of Operation Tomahawk, and less than 10,000 troops had retreated, and only a few dozen tanks had escaped back.

The reason why Montgomery arranged these troops as reserves was not because of anything else, but simply because these broken troops and tanks lacking fuel could not form combat effectiveness at all now, and could only be barely restored after reinvigorating and replenishing ammunition and fuel. Therefore, anyway, we have to wait for a period of time to recover our combat strength, so it is better to simply put it in the rear as a reserve, and then put it into the front line after the combat effectiveness has recovered a little.

In short, Rommel concluded that his Allied forces were superior at this stage, and that what he wanted to do now was to launch a blitzkrieg as soon as possible and completely destroy Montgomery's African Commonwealth forces before the British reacted and mobilized fresh forces from the Middle East to support the Eighth Army in Africa.

Rommel had repeatedly confirmed the accuracy of the information in his possession.

He didn't just get the information from the Italians, and he immediately believed it all. As an old fox who was good at using deception and other means in battle, Rommel was also very guarded against the British from deceiving himself in turn.

In addition, the Italians were in charge of frequent problems, so Rommel still carefully calculated the accuracy of each piece of information.

First of all, as for the strength of the British Eighth Army in Egypt, Rommel has confirmed this many times by the simplest but least conceivable means.

Rommel, the "desert fox" full of all kinds of novelty ideas, ordered that all the captured British officers with the rank of major and above be scattered and taken to different rooms to torture and spy on them, and get information from them about the size of the British troops stationed in the rear.

This was a very successful tactic, after all, Rommel defeated Wavell's army and captured a full 72 officers of the Commonwealth army with the rank of colonel, and even 2 more with the rank of major general.

According to common sense, an officer at the rank of colonel should have a clear understanding of the size of the garrison after all. Coincidentally, because of the previous dispute between Montgomery and Wavell before the troops, the British Eighth Army almost spread the wonderful inside story of that combat meeting.

"Admiral Wavell had a serious disagreement with the newly arrived Lieutenant General Montgomery," and "Lieutenant General Montgomery was snubbed and sent to command three low-combat native Egyptian divisions and three unused Australian infantry battalions in Operation Tomahawk." ”

The circulation of such news invisibly revealed the size of the rear garrison commanded by Montgomery.

And among the 74 Commonwealth officers tortured by Rommel, there will always be some people who are not strict-mouthed. As long as the information provided by the officers in connection with the torture is consistent, then the size of the British rear garrison can basically be determined.

As for the number of British routs and tanks that fled back as reserves, it is also very easy to calculate. You only need to ask the captured Commonwealth officers, the size of the various units involved in Tomahawk operations, the number of tanks, and then subtract the number of people captured on the battlefield tanks, minus the number of killed heads and the number of tanks destroyed, and you can get an approximate calculation.

Using this data to compare and match the information provided by the Italians, the situation on the side of the British Eighth Army is basically completely determined.

In addition to the intelligence information he wanted to know, Rommel had heard some information about Montgomery personally, which he had learned incidentally from the British captives.

Listening to the losers, Montgomery had an eagle-like face, and his high, heavily nasal English voice made people not very friendly, as evidenced by Montgomery's previous argument with Wavell.

Of course, the current Wavell has been completely suppressed by Montgomery, and was reassigned by Montgomery to become the "Supreme Commander of Kotwo" on the Egyptian border called the Kotwo stronghold, commanding all 2 Egyptian infantry companies there.

In addition, a British colonel who had been close to Wavell but was now captured by Rommel revealed that Montgomery was similar to Rommel in many ways. Both of them enjoy sports, do not smoke or drink hard alcohol, and are focused on maintaining good health.

Perhaps it was the same thing that Bronte said of Montgomery earlier: "He is your nemesis, they say." Rommel paid some attention to it, or perhaps because Montgomery, as the supreme commander of the enemy forces in Africa, was worthy of attention. In any case, Rommel went out of his way to ask the colonel for more details about Montgomery.

Coincidentally, the colonel happened to be a well-informed person. From his mouth, Rommel discovered that Montgomery was still somewhat similar to himself.

For example, both of them tend to be withdrawn, they both have their own arrogance in tactical command, and when they obey the orders of others, they are like a fierce horse that is difficult to control, but they are both the kind of commanders who are sober-minded and have unique opinions.

Rommel had refused Reinhardt's guidance and had forcibly attacked the fortress of Tobruk with two battalions. And Montgomery also fell out with Wavell when he first came to Africa to take office, and he had serious disagreements and was excluded from being in charge of staying behind.

And, just as Rommel always wore the famous hat with plexiglass goggles, the colonel confessed that Montgomery also liked to wear a weird Australian bush hat with the team badge to show off his difference.

The more he listened, the more Rommel felt that he had met an interesting opponent this time!