Chapter 258—The Crisis of the British Empire (5)

After defeating the main Allied forces in the London area, the Germans led several armored divisions led by Rommel and Guderian quickly rushed towards the northern part of Britain, quickly crushing all resistance along the way. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. biqUgE。 info

When they heard that millions of troops in the London area had been annihilated, the Allied high-level was shocked, and they did not expect that it would be so soon, and the whole of Britain suddenly became a rumor, a large number of refugees went to the north, and the news that the royal family, cabinet, and army were preparing to flee had already spread unconsciously, and the people of the British Empire, who were once very proud, immediately felt abandoned.

Many people crowded to evacuate positions along the coast, snatching ships, hoping to escape from this place of right and wrong, and the scene was chaotic, and even the indiscriminate bombing of German planes could not stop their actions.

Civilians are like this, in fact, the army is not much better, because of the shortage of soldiers, the British army recruited a large number of new soldiers, training can not keep up, the quality of these soldiers is much worse, when the catastrophe comes, the management is chaotic, many people join the fleeing team, and even grab ships with civilians.

In the same way, many American troops are also doing this kind of thing, in their minds, they are here to help the British, and now they have done their best for the British, and the best way for the British to repay them is to let them evacuate first.

In order to snatch the way out, there were many riots, and most of the high-level people had evacuated, and many soldiers below who could not be evacuated were very angry and unmanaged, so there was a lot of bloodshed, which made the whole scene even more chaotic.

But even so, a large number of troops and supplies were still abandoned, there was no way, there were too few means of retreat, and the Germans sent thousands of sorties of planes to bomb every day, and the fleet also attacked everywhere, and the retreat itself was a history of blood and tears.

Under the limited resources, the top level can only retreat according to priority, and the vast number of ordinary soldiers and refugees can only selectively give up, and those who have the money, power, background and means can leave the land of Britain one step ahead of schedule.

Everyone knows that the later you escape, the less hopeful it is, so even if there is even the slightest hope of escaping here, people don't want to let it go, even if it is to flee to Ireland on the other side of the river first.

As a result, many people climbed into small wooden boats, even though they knew that it was dangerous, but they still had the mentality of luck, because they were too afraid of being slaves to the country.

As a result, a large number of ships capsized in the vast sea due to overloading, and tragedy was staged all the time.

The British Empire, which had conquered all over the world, finally experienced the pain of being conquered by other countries, and that pride was torn apart at this moment.

On the British continent, there was no strength that could effectively resist the German army, so the German offensive was very fast. In just two days, it swept through the northernmost part of the United Kingdom, and armored vehicles were already driving all over the coast.

The coastal areas are crowded with fleeing civilians, looking at the vast sea from afar, at a loss.

Because many soldiers were still mixed in the crowd, the Germans directly treated all these people as threatening militants and launched a fierce attack, many unarmed civilians were directly killed, and many more fled to the sea in terror, but they had no means of escape, and most of them were drowned.

The waves washed the corpses onto the beach, and the coastal areas of the northern British Isles were filled with alluvial corpses, while the birds and fish took the opportunity to feast for a while.

Churchill stood on the deck of the British Navy's aircraft carrier Ark Royal, looking in the direction of the British Isles, his face was gloomy, although when he took over the British, the situation was already very serious, but the fall of the British Isles in his hands was an indisputable fact, which made him arrogant if he could accept such a fact.

The British Empire is so powerful, and even at this moment, there are many colonies overseas, but so what? How ironic that he can't even keep his own homeland.

The Germans did not give up so easily, the German navy never gave up the attack, and the troops were divided into two routes, one from the Atlantic Ocean south to pursue the fleeing British to Africa, and the other way, north to the Atlantic, chasing the Americans to Iceland, because the Americans regarded Iceland as the largest transit point.

Regardless of whether it was the British or the Americans, they dragged their families with their families, and their morale was low, and in the face of the combined attack of the German Navy on the surface and under the water, they really had no temper at all, and they did not dare to make more contact with the Germans at all, and only hoped to flee all the way.

The Germans escorted the British all the way to Africa, and the British also paid very large expenses for the escort, two more aircraft carriers were sunk, nearly one hundred and thirty warships of various kinds were sunk, and more than three hundred transport ships of various kinds carrying non-combatants and materiel were sunk into the sea.

After paying such a big price, the British landed in the colonies of Africa, and with the response of the colonial army, they temporarily avoided the fate of annihilation.

According to a brief count, more than 514,000 British personnel have been successfully evacuated from the British mainland to Africa, of which nearly 200,000 are non-combatants, and the remaining 300,000 or so are troops that have been selected by the British top brass and considered to be more combative.

In addition, the British Royal Navy, known as the strongest in the world, also suffered very heavy losses, directly losing half of its combat strength. On the one hand, the German Navy was advancing too fast, and on the other hand, the German land-based air force was constantly attacking, and the main task of the British Royal Navy was not to fight the Germans, but mainly as a tool to cover the retreat.

Because of this, the British Royal Navy was dragged down by various circumstances and could only blindly be beaten passively, while the German Navy did not care about it and was always on the offensive, so this led to the situation that the British Royal Navy did not exert its real combat power and suffered heavy losses.

Of course, the Americans did not have a good time either, and when they evacuated from the British mainland, they parted ways with the British, one went north and the other went south.

The U.S. Navy itself is much weaker than the British Royal Navy, and when Little Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Wei Qidong took the opportunity to plot two aircraft carriers, and they only have three aircraft carrier battle groups in the Atlantic, and they also need to be responsible for protecting the evacuation of nearly 800,000 personnel and the safety of hundreds of transport ships without combat effectiveness.

This task is not insignificant, and even very onerous, even more than the British.

There is no way to do this, because the British have given up even their own homeland, so they naturally know how to make trade-offs, and they know that if they want to withdraw so many forces, it is simply a joke.