A hand pressed on the pistols of the five British officers, and the British officers subconsciously turned around and saw their commander O'Connor, shaking his head with a dejected face. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

I only heard this British front-line commander say to his adjutant: "No need! We are responsible for our own lives and those of our soldiers......"

The adjutant looked at his superior, wondering why the other party had suddenly become so negative. There were still many British soldiers around them, and if they wanted to resist, they might not be able to get out.

"Operation Compass has failed...... We are now ...... Even if you get out, what can you do? Unlike his own adjutant, O'Connor now sees very transparently.

If you want to go, it will be enough to have Admiral Wavell, his troops are almost completely annihilated, so it will be useless to escape all the way back to Matru.

"Go and deliver the order to surrender...... We have fought for the Motherland as much as we can, and the war that belongs to us is over. Looking at his adjutant, Lieutenant General O'Connor said helplessly.

As he spoke, a second German No. 3 tank had already rushed onto the road, and in the middle of several British trucks, its invincible and invincible slowly rotated its turret, sweeping the firing British troops to the ground.

The machine gun spewed tongues of fire, and tracer bullets connected almost in a straight line, piercing anything in that straight line.

One helpless British soldier after another lay in pools of blood, and in a short period of time, at least 200 people died under machine guns.

"Surrender! Surrender! A British soldier raised his hands in the air, and the soldiers who also raised their hands in surrender followed.

The British soldiers, who had lost their organization, naturally chose surrender as their retreat, after all, their legs could not outrun the tracks of German tanks.

On the south side of the roadbed, a German soldier with a weapon leaning behind an empty truck parked on the roadbed, holding a Mauser 98K rifle, watched in shock as the enemy walked out of the car and the other side of the road with his hands raised.

One by one, they came out, hundreds of them, and because they all raised their hands and threw away their weapons, the German tanks stopped attacking for the time being.

By the time the third tank hit the road, most of the British soldiers had already surrendered to the German infantry, which numbered only a few dozen men.

There were about 50 officers at all levels, because this was a logistics baggage unit with a command headquarters, so the number of officers in this section of the surrendered British army alone startled the company commander of the German tank company.

More than 300 British soldiers surrendered, and the Germans captured more than 30 cars, along with the supplies on them.

Many of the captured British trucks were arms transports, which were also the main requirements of the British to bring back military supplies to Matroux when they retreated.

After all, in the defensive operation backed by the port of Matru, food and fresh water were relatively easy to find, but weapons and ammunition became important military supplies that needed to be hoarded.

It is no wonder that the German tanks just hit a truck full of munitions with one shot, mainly because many of the trucks here are stuffed with some munitions, it is just a matter of how much.

A dozen German soldiers watched over the British soldiers, who had surrendered their weapons, and the remaining German soldiers, under the cover of tanks, swept along the road for a distance of about 1 kilometer or so.

As a result, at a distance of this kilometer, they captured about 300 more people, and then they saw the beaming battalion commander coming towards him with two other companies of tanks.

This victory was the first operation in which German troops entered Egyptian territory and was a prelude to the attack on Egypt.

And now it seems that the battle is clearly a brilliant one. At least 1,000 British soldiers were captured, which can be regarded as a complete annihilation of the British "Western Advance Corps".

The strength of the British Indian 4th Infantry Division is now non-existent, and the 7th Panzer Division is now dead in name. What's even more terrifying is that after this battle, the western border of Egypt has been opened.

"I heard you caught a big fish?" The commander of the armored battalion smiled and asked his subordinates.

The company commander of the 1st Company nodded with a smile and introduced himself to the battalion commander: "When the prisoners were counted, there was an officer who claimed to be Lieutenant General O'Connor, the supreme commander here. ”

"Oh, O'Connor, I've heard of it...... It was he who defeated the Italians. The battalion commander looked at his men and asked, "Are there any losses?" ”

"A soldier was hit by a bullet and died instantly...... Three others were wounded. The 1st Company Commander replied with some embarrassment.

He was responsible for attacking the British baggage troops, and did not encounter the serious combat troops of the British, so the fight was relatively easy.

The encounter between the 2nd and 3rd companies was more difficult, they just blocked the main force of the British, and the two sides fought hard around the road.

The German Panzers, who had hastily established defensive positions, suffered their first heavy losses, and a full 10 No. 3 tanks were destroyed by the enemy when they broke through to the death.

The German army was somewhat surprised by the frantic attack of the British soldiers, and the two sides fought fiercely on the road, and the British infantry destroyed 10 German tanks with the anti-tank guns they carried.

During the fighting, at least 40 members of the German tank crew were killed and three others were seriously wounded.

And the British soldiers on the opposite side fell at least 400 people, and then more than 1500 soldiers surrendered.

To the surprise of the Germans, they were lucky enough to catch another British commander, Admiral Wavell, the Supreme Commander of North Africa, in the midst of the chaos......

In other words, during this battle, neither of the British commanders and the two senior commanders involved in Operation Compass escaped, and both became prisoners of the Germans.

And after this battle, at least 30,000 Italian prisoners hoarded on both sides of this road were freed.

Ironically, it was precisely these Italian captives that stretched along the road, blocking the way for the British troops to retreat, that allowed the German tanks to catch up with the retreating British troops.

As a result, the period from Salem to West Dubai Nila was suddenly occupied by the German army, and the Italian prisoners in this area were freed from the fate of being transported to Alexandria.

By the time Rommel's counterattack stopped, they had already fought back under Matroux and were living in the siege fortifications that had been built by the Italians.

What Rommel did not expect was that some of the cannons that the Italians had not had time to destroy when they retreated were still in the fortifications, with intact ammunition piled up next to them.

More than 300 pieces of artillery were recaptured, and 2,000 German soldiers escorted 10,000 Italian prisoners to complete the second siege of Matru.

"General! On behalf of the Nile Army, which commanded the British 7th Armored Division and the Indian 4th Infantry Division...... Surrender to your troops! I hope you will abide by the Convention and treat prisoners of war reasonably. Admiral Wavell now looked yellow-skinned, stood in front of Rommel's car and whispered his lines.

On his side were some of Rommel's photographers with him. As in history, the Führer's henchman will be fond of photography, to the point of obsession.

The supreme commander of the Afrika Korps took himself a photographer and photographic equipment with him wherever he went.

If he was happy, he would take pictures of himself, and he was willing to take good photos and take the risk of riding gliders and improvised reconnaissance planes, which were more dangerous at the time.

History has left many photographs taken by Rommel himself, and in order to take a picture of his troops moving down, he even leaned out of the plane to take pictures.

As for the current scene of accepting the surrender of enemy generals and lieutenant generals, Rommel naturally wanted to leave a photo to commemorate such an important moment.

He stood on his car, and although the adjutant had wiped the door of the car for the sake of photographic effect, he could still see the old age of the car.

"Allow your surrender! Mr. Admiral! On behalf of Germany, I promise that the prisoners of war will be treated fairly! Rommel smiled and said to Admiral Wavell.

As the commander of the Afrika Korps, Rommel had no record of maliciously abusing prisoners, which is why his charisma and command skills were admired by later generations.

Now, of course, his promise was just a promise -- he had changed history by taking General Wavell, who would be transferred to India next year, into his own prisoner-of-war camp.

Although the photographic equipment at this time was not small, there were already very small devices such as small Leica cameras.

It is very enviable that Rommel is one of the richer people in Germany and likes Leica cameras.

The officers held their cameras to record this great moment in history: about 36,000 British troops, who had defeated 200,000 Italian troops, were annihilated by 3,000 German soldiers!

Of the more than 36,000 British soldiers, less than half fled back to Matrou, and the rest were either killed in Libya or taken prisoner by the Germans.

And now, the British garrison in Matrune has dropped to less than 20,000 - a very dangerous number, considering that behind the 3,000 German troops, there are 100,000 Italian soldiers who have gradually recovered their breath!

In any case, although these Italian soldiers could not fight, they could still do it with 20,000 men to support the German army in the case of triumph all the way.

"Send a telegram to the Führer! We have lived up to his hopes......" Rommel stood in his car, looked at the countless dejected British prisoners in front of him, and commanded his men.

On August 30, in the scorching heat of Egypt, the German Afrika Korps troops approached Matru, and the Second Battle of Matru began.

This time, the two sides involved in the war, the British side was the remnants of the Nile Army Group and the Australian 6th Infantry Division, which had just been replenished to Egypt.

On the Axis side, there were 3,000 German Afrika Korps, escorting the reluctant 20,000 defeated Italian troops......