On December 9, 1940, the British launched a counterattack in North Africa, codenamed "Operation Compass".

The British counterattack was launched in the early hours of the morning, and by the early morning of the 9th, the winner had been largely decided—a brigade of the British 7th Panzer Division had routed the Italian Panzer Maletti battle group. However, Marshal Hersmann, who was far away in Tsosen, theoretically did not know the outcome of the engagement. He had just gotten out of bed with his wife, Chloe, several young children, and his eldest son, Rudolph, who was on vacation. Hersman had breakfast together.

Breakfast Chloe prepared herself, fried sausages and omelettes with bread, and a cup of coffee. Halfway through his meal, his adjutant Schnetz brought him the latest Italian 10th Army (the unit on the Egyptian front). This was ordered by Schnetz to get it last night after knowing that the British were on the offensive.

Hersman didn't have the table in his hand, he just said a word. "Read."

"Your Excellency Marshal, according to the information available to the Headquarters of the Southern Front, the Italian 10th Army currently has four corps and one corps cluster. Among them, the 20th Army is under the jurisdiction of the 60th Infantry Division; The 21st Army has jurisdiction over the 1st Blackshirt Division, the 2nd Blackshirt Division, and the 63rd Infantry Division; the 22nd Infantry Division under the jurisdiction of the 61st Army; The 23rd Army has jurisdiction over the 4th Blackshirt Division and the 64th Infantry Division; The Libyan Army Cluster has jurisdiction over the 1st and 2nd Libyan Colonial Divisions and the Maletti Combat Group. The total strength of the Italian army is about 150,000 men, of which the Maletti battle group is a mechanized unit with 70 tanks. ”

"150,000 ......men," Hesman asked, munching on a piece of pork sausage, "and how many enemies are there?" ”

"What can be determined at the moment are the British 7th Panzer Division and the Indian 4th Division." "The Australian 6th Division arrived in Egypt in November, but there is intelligence that they are still in Alexandria," Schnetz said. ”

"It's amazing that 2 divisions are attacking 10 divisions." Hersman picked up the coffee cup, took a shallow sip, and then looked at his eldest son, Rudolph, who had just been promoted to lieutenant and became squadron leader.

"Rudolph, it looks like your vacation is coming to an early end."

"Ending early?" When Chloe heard this, she frowned slightly, "Honey, it's not that serious, is it?" There are 150,000 Italians! ”

She didn't feel sorry for her son, as a German aristocratic woman whose ancestors had been knights and officers for eighteen generations, Chloe knew very well what kind of life her husband and son would have.

But these days she is busy with her son's life's affairs, Rudolph is the heir to the Marquis of Heinsberg, according to the inheritance law of European nobility, it is necessary to choose a woman of noble origin as a wife. If he marries a commoner, Rudolph will lose his inheritance, but it is not easy to find a young and beautiful lady who is noble enough. And Rudolph and the other party had to be able to look at each other, so Chloe took advantage of her son's vacation to arrange for him to attend several balls of the nobles' house, but now it seems that nothing has come of it.

Hersman smiled apologetically at his wife and said, "Despite the superiority of forces, our Italian friends will still mess things up, and I think they are probably defeated by now." ”

"Father, it's only been a few hours now, right?" Rudolph interjected as he ate a poached egg.

"A few hours is enough to fight a losing battle, and the Italians are very efficient in this regard." "Then it's up to us Germans!" Rudolph, this war is up to you and your people to fight, are you ready now that you are real carrier-based pilots? ”

"Of course it's ready!" Rudolph replied in the affirmative, "I was originally a pilot on an aircraft carrier, and now I just answered the original position." ”

Rudolph. Lieutenant Hersman and his crew are now finally on the carrier, and Rudolph's fighter squadron was incorporated into the 9th Mixed Air Group in August.

The so-called "mixed naval aviation group" is a carrier-based aircraft unit on an aircraft carrier. The German naval aviation had only 8 mixed groups until August, the 1st Mixed Group belonged to the aircraft carrier "Seydlitz", the 2nd Mixed Group belonged to the aircraft carrier "Seckert", the 3rd Mixed Group belonged to the aircraft carrier "Count Zeppelin", the 4th Mixed Group belonged to the "Peter Strassel" (Led Zeppelin II), the 5th Mixed Group belonged to "Bremen", the 6th Mixed Group belonged to "Europa", the 7th Mixed Group belonged to "Potsdam", and the 8th Mixed Group belonged to " Alsace". 1 mixed group corresponds to 1 aircraft carrier.

Among them, the 1st and 2nd mixed brigades have been put on combat duty. Hersman and his good friend Novotny were both fighter pilots in the 2nd Mixed Group. The 3rd to 8th Mixed Brigades are still undergoing training and have not yet formed combat effectiveness.

As for the 9th Mixed Group, it was an improvised unit, and the aircraft carrier was the Italian aircraft carrier "Eagle". In addition, a 10th Mixed Group was formed in August, corresponding to the Italian aircraft carrier Sparrowhawk.

The reason for this was the fact that during the operations on July 8, 9 and 10, the pilots of carrier-based aircraft of the Italian Navy were lost, and the G.50 also turned out to be completely useless. As a last resort, Germany had to send carrier-based pilots on board (the Italian Air Force had no carrier-based pilots and was unwilling to accept naval command).

In addition, the carrier-based aircraft on the two Italian aircraft carriers were also replaced by German Fokker Zero and Fokker 99, each with 2 squadrons and a total of 48 carriers, with another 4-5 in reserve.

And Rudolph. Hersman and Walter. Novotny was a carrier-based pilot and had a very good track record (Hersmann had already shot down 5 and Novotny had 8 enemy planes), so he became the leader of the 1st and 2nd Fighter Squadrons under the 9th Mixed Group.

Looking at his confident son, Hersman smiled and nodded. In his plan, the operational focus of the Mediterranean theater of operations was not North Africa, but the sea of the Eastern Mediterranean!

A truly decisive victory on land can be achieved only if a decisive victory is achieved in naval battles.

……

General Halder, the commander-in-chief of the German Southern Front, had hurried to the Venetian Palace at about 10 o'clock in the morning on December 9, and it was Mussolini's secretary who called him. Halder had already known that the British were launching a counteroffensive on the Egyptian front, and had guessed that the situation was not very good - this is something that anyone could guess!

Since the victory in Somalia in August (Italian troops in East Africa occupy LinkedIn Somalia), Halder has not heard of the Italian army's victory. First, the 290,000-strong East African Cluster (90,000 Italians and 200,000 Hercules) suffered a defeat in Sudan and was stopped by the Indian 5th Division, which was much smaller than them.

Then there was a strange halt in the attack on Egypt, and the army of more than 100,000 men advanced for only three days, and without being met with a strong resistance from the British, they settled down in the Egyptian desert and confronted an enemy far outnumbered of them—something that seemed to Halder incredible! Because the British were close to their supply ports, it was very easy to get reinforcements. And the supply port of the Italians was far away in Benghazi, almost 1000 kilometers from the front line. And the Italians are several times more numerous than the British, and it is completely unthinkable that there are no trains for hundreds of thousands of people plus 1000 kilometers of land supply lines. Therefore, as soon as the Italians stopped in September, he immediately made a proposal: either attack immediately, or simply withdraw to Libya.

He was even more shocked by the disposition of the Italian General Staff, ignoring the large army in the desert and instead sending troops to invade Greece when the logistics were already very tight...... To this end, it is necessary to divert supplies that were originally supplied to North Africa.

As a result, the hundreds of thousands of Italian troops in the desert of North Africa confronted the enemy for more than two months, draining their vigor and physical strength. And the invasion of Greece turned out to be a complete disaster!

By this morning, Halder knew that the British had launched a counteroffensive in Egypt, and immediately estimated that the Italians were about to lose again. But when he saw a "Caesar" who looked like an ant on a hot pan, he knew that the situation might be worse than he had imagined.

"General," said Mussolini, whose eyes were red as if he had not slept all night, as soon as he saw Halder, "Marshal Graziani reports that our army in Egypt is under attack as fierce as it has never been seen in history!" ”

Halder was almost amused by Mussolini's words, could the British offensive in Egypt be compared to the German attack on France and Belgium?

Then Mussolini told Halder the dumbfounded news, "The British have attacked near the West Termeni (in fact, the Indian 4th Division), and our line is about to be breached." Our armored cluster was also defeated, the tanks of the British were too powerful, our tanks were not at all an opponent, General Maletti (commander of the Maletti cluster) was killed, and the entire cluster was routed...... Now our flanks were completely exposed, and Marshal Graziani asked for a retreat. General, what do you think should be done? Shall we retreat? ”

Marshal Graziani should be shot! Admiral Halder was tempted to say this, but after a moment of silence, he said according to Hersmann's words: "Leader, now it is time to ask for help from Germany, and only the German army can defeat the British...... You have to go to Germany in person, the sooner the better! (To be continued.) )