It took Tan Renhao three days to read this very detailed and complete battle situation report, which was a battle situation report that was completed separately by the staff officer of the Navy Command in combination with multiple battle reports and some other intelligence. In fact, there is no need for the naval command to do these things at all, after all, the Western European theater is a ground theater, and that side is the world of the army, which has little to do with the navy. However, the imperial army and navy have always been two sets of institutions, and in consideration of the overall war situation, the navy needs to grasp not only the situation on the battlefield at sea, but also the situation on the battlefield on the ground. No battlefield is isolated, but inextricably linked, and changes on the ground battlefield in Western Europe have a direct or indirect impact on the Pacific theater and the South Atlantic theater, so the navy also needs to accurately grasp the situation on the ground battlefield in Western Europe.

The focus of the entire war analysis report is only one, that is, the defeat of France, to be precise, the defeat of France in more than a month.

When Tan Renhao led the First Task Force and Spruance's Fifth Fleet in a fierce battle, on the battlefield in Western Europe, Gu Xunlei and Guderian's "Second Ancient Army" also rapidly expanded the results of victory. The cooperation between the two was not flawless, but the problem was secondary after all, after the second line of defense of the French army was broken, the situation on the battlefield in Western Europe was basically determined, and the defeat of France was only a matter of time.

The first decisive victory was the annihilation of the British Expeditionary Force besieged by the British Expeditionary Force under the command of Gu Xunlei. The British Expeditionary Force, which was besieged at Dunkirk, held out only until early September, only to be routed by the rapid assault of the armored forces commanded by Gu Xunlei. In these few days, the British Navy organized a large number of ships. Efforts were made to withdraw the besieged expeditionary force, but in the end less than 50,000 men were able to escape back to Britain, and nearly 300,000 British expeditionary officers and soldiers. and the annihilation of all mercenaries recruited from the Low Countries. During the battle, in addition to Gu Xunlei's armored troops. The Luftwaffe also played a very important role, with at least hundreds of large and small ships sunk and hundreds of British planes shot down.

This was a rather significant victory, given that Britain lacked an army and that the legions sent to the continent were Britain's most elite ground forces. Right now. This force was annihilated by the sea, and the British mainland was even more lacking. But the problem is that after completing this operation, Gu Xunlei's expeditionary force stopped, did not participate in the offensive operation in the south, but stopped outside the battlefield to watch the excitement.

The document does not elaborate on why the Imperial Panzer Expeditionary Force did not participate in the attack on Paris and the subsequent advance to the south, but Tan Renhao has already realized that there must be a problem between the commanders of the two sides, and perhaps Gu Xunlei has lost his temper with the German general. And. This must have affected the top brass on both sides, at least the top of the army, otherwise at this juncture. Gu Xunlei should never stop.

When Guxun annihilated the British Expeditionary Force, Guderian was rapidly advancing towards Paris, and the day before the British Expeditionary Force was destroyed, Guderian's armored troops reached the outskirts of Paris. On the same day, the mayor of Paris declared Paris an undefended city, and sent representatives to contact Guderian, hoping that the German army would save Paris and not destroy it. The two sides negotiated for two days, and then the Germans marched into Paris and occupied the French capital. At that time, Gu Xunlei actually had enough time to rush to Paris, at least symbolically arrange a force to go to Paris, so that the Tang Imperial Army could also win an honor, but he did not arrange troops to go to Paris, perhaps, this is not the reason for Gu Xunlei, and again, there is no explanation for this in the document.

The fall of Paris was a major turning point in the theater of Western Europe. It can be said that it was a watershed moment in the theater of Western Europe, and France held out on the battlefield for more than four years, but finally fell. Perhaps in the eyes of many people, France can hold out longer, but in fact, it is a miracle that France has been able to hold out for more than four years, and the credit for this is mainly attributed to two people, one is Charles de Gaulle and the other is Leclerc, and both of them are the best commanders of the French army.

Judging from the geographical conditions, the depth of the battlefield, and even the national strength, etc., Germany is very likely to defeat France in the first year of the war, if it was not for Russia's sudden entry into the war at that time and the fact that Germany was taken by surprise, perhaps 23 years ago, the German tanks had already driven into the city of Paris, and France would have been finished.

Relatively speaking, the battlefield in Western Europe was very narrow, and in the early days of the war, Germany had the most powerful armored corps on the European continent, the best armored corps commanders, and the most complete armored corps tactical theory. At that time, in the entire West, I am afraid that only the Russian armored corps could compete with the German armored corps, and only the Russian army had a sufficiently good armored commander, on the contrary, France did not have this capital.

Before the war, France claimed to have the number one army in Europe (specifically against Germany), but the problem was that there was a certain gap between the quality of French equipment and the German army, especially in terms of tanks. In addition, the French army did not have a complete set of tactical theories of armored forces at that time, and was still limited to the scope of positional warfare, just like de Gaulle, Leclerc, these excellent commanders, were born in the war, before the war, De Gaulle was only a colonel, and Leclerc was only a lieutenant colonel, and the two were at the beginning of the 21st, that is, the beginning of the year when the war broke out, the French armored forces were formed, and in the months after the outbreak of the war, most of the tanks of the French army were even attached to the infantry units, There are not many armored units at all!

Unlike the Eastern Front in Europe, the Western European battlefield is very narrow, and the armored corps can advance 200 kilometers in a single assault, while the narrowest part of the Western European battlefield is less than 120 kilometers. That is, completely within the range of the assault of the armored corps. From this point of view, it is nothing short of a miracle that France was able to hold out, and it depended entirely on Russia's rapid entry into the war and the mortal threat posed to Germany.

The defeat of France was not a strange thing, because France itself did not have enough national power to compete with Germany. To a large extent, France is dependent on outside aid. In particular, American aid, if not for the American provision of ground war materials, and the protection of the British at sea. France has long been defeated. This was actually a common problem in continental Europe at that time, if Germany had not received strong assistance from the Tang Empire and the Persian Empire. I'm afraid it would have been defeated a long time ago.

After the fall of Paris, the French army was divided into two parts, one retreating near the Pyrenees on the border with Spain, in an effort to resist through the mountains of southwestern France, including a part of the armored forces commanded by Charles de Gaulle. The other part retreated to the Mediterranean coast of France, centered on Marseille. Ready to rely on the assistance of Britain, Italy and other countries to hold on, among them was part of the armored forces under the command of Leclerc.

The French government also moved to Marseille before the fall of Paris, and officially made Marseille the wartime capital. At the time of the fall of Paris, a new French wartime government was established in Marseilles, and officially assumed the task of the next war, declaring itself the true legitimate government.

Germany is doing the same.

The German army also divided into two routes to the south, among which the corps commanded by Guderian attacked the southwest of France, striving to reach Marseille as soon as possible and completely eliminate France. Another mountain force, which had only been transferred from Germany (almost all of the main mountain troops drawn from the southern front), advanced towards the Pyrenees under the leadership of Heinrich. Efforts were made to advance the front to the Franco-Spanish border, but no orders were received to enter Spain.

The German government was also busy setting up military districts and was also trying to prop up a pro-German French government. That is, the puppet regime. Of course, these political matters are only mentioned slightly, and as for what Germany does with France, this is a German matter. Just as the Tang Empire would not allow other countries to meddle in the Japanese issue. As a feud, Germany finally defeated France, and naturally it will not easily give up this opponent who has been fighting against Germany for hundreds of years.

This was only the situation on the main battlefield in Western Europe, and the defeat of France was assured, and even the US Army, which had planned to participate in the war on the European continent at the end of the year, remained in Britain without having time to set foot on French soil. The main reason is that the advance speed of the German army and the Tang Empire's armored expeditionary force is too fast, so fast that the US army has no time to prepare for entering the battlefield on the European continent, so that General Eisenhower can only sigh across the sea, if France can hold out for another half a year, at most a quarter, maybe the situation on the battlefield in Western Europe will be completely different, but the problem is that France did not hold out for so long!

With the defeat of France, Spain will certainly be in a very awkward position. Although Germany had no intention of attacking Spain, there was no fourth army in history that conquered the mountainous country except for the Romans, Arabs, and expeditionary forces of the Tang Empire, and the difficulty of fighting in Spain was also quite enormous. However, Spain will certainly consider its own safety, and after losing the French barrier, Spain will either be prepared for a blow on its own territory, or it will withdraw from the war with dignity, and of course, Spain will certainly try to retain some of the benefits gained in the war.

After the defeat of France, the situation in Italy will also be very embarrassing. Italy's industrial center is located in its northern regions, especially in the northern plains, with the cities of Milan, Venice and Bologna as its apex. And it was close to France, and if France was defeated, Germany would certainly attack Italy from the west and from the north. At that time, Italy would either surrender or abandon the North African theater and bring back the main forces to fight a regular ground battle with the powerful German army in the north of the homeland. Obviously, Italy has no choice, even France has been defeated, how long can it hold out?

The most awkward situation is the United Kingdom. After the defeat of France, Britain was directly exposed to the guns of the German army, although before the German navy obtained sea supremacy, it was unlikely to cross the sea and land on the British mainland, but the German submarines obtained the coveted access to the sea, and could easily and freely enter and exit the North Atlantic from the ports in western France, which alone was enough for the British to have a headache.

In addition, the Luftwaffe obtained a large number of airfields in northern France, and even tactical bombers could fly over London, plus the heavy bomber units sent by the Tang Empire to the European theater, now it is the turn of Germany and the Tang Empire to carry out strategic bombing of the British mainland, not the strategic bombing of Germany by Britain!

It can be said that the battlefield in Western Europe is like dominoes, and after the fall of France, the others will also fall. France is an important link connecting several countries such as the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, etc., and after this link is broken, the other links cannot be connected together, and they lose their unity. Of course, France was not completely defeated, and it was up to the Germans to see how fast they advanced, how tenacious the French will to resist, and how long they could hold out. It's just a matter of time. Germany had planned to defeat France in a year, but now it was less than half a year, and the Germans had plenty of time to complete the sweep in France.

At the same time, on the European battlefield, the heavy bomber forces of the Tang Empire commanded by Luo Yunchong also carried out large-scale strategic bombing of Britain. Especially after the German army and the Imperial Panzer Expeditionary Force seized a large number of front-line airfields, as well as large airfields in France, the thousands of heavy bombers in Luo Yunchong's hands could fly to almost any British town and drop bombs. And this is the most painful blow to Britain.

In more than two months, Luo Yunchong's bomber unit has dropped more than 200,000 tons of bombs over the British mainland, and since the beginning of September, the bombers have used a large number of incendiary bombs, imitating the British method of burning Hamburg, burning Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and several other British industrial cities. It has been proved that the power of incendiary bombs on the European battlefield is not as great as that on the Japanese battlefield, after all, most European buildings are made of stone, not wooden planks, but incendiary bombs are still very effective, especially those that have been improved and specially designed for the characteristics of European cities, and can often play a better effect than conventional bombs.

For example, on September 12, more than 600 bombers dispatched by Luo Yun rushed to drop nearly 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Liverpool, burning half of the city's urban area, the fire burned for three days before it was extinguished, more than 50,000 residents were burned to death, hundreds of thousands were injured, hundreds of thousands were homeless, and more than half of Liverpool's factories were destroyed! The bombing of other British industrial cities also had a very significant effect.

It can be said that the situation on the entire European theater of events is moving in favor of the Allies, and as part of this global war, this will also affect the other major theaters!