Chapter 254—The Crisis of the British Empire (1)
London was being captured by the powerful German army step by step, and the Allies could not come up with effective means of resistance, so they could only continue to increase their troops. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
The continuous fighting has mostly depleted the elite of the British army, and now most of the reinforcements are new recruits, and the only thing that is effective for the British is that this is their homeland, plus Churchill's constant calls, they are still relatively fast in organizing troops.
At present, Britain's strength has exceeded five million (including the Commonwealth army), of which nearly two million are concentrated in London, while the U.S. army before joining the war, only a few hundred thousand troops, although this period has been expanding, but because the time is too hasty, the short-term training of the army is less than two million, of which nearly 1.1 million people are sent to Britain.
In addition, there are French troops in exile in Britain, and troops from Poland, Belgium and other countries, but these add up to only a few hundred thousand.
That is to say, at this moment, in the British Isles, the total strength of the Allied forces is about 6.6 million, of which 3 million are concentrated in the London area.
The Germans, after several months of hard work, have successfully completed the Sea Lion Project, and 2.8 million elites have been sent to the British mainland, of which 2 million have been used to attack London.
Of course, the success of the Sea Lion plan did not mean that the Germans stopped sending more troops to the British. After all, the main purpose of the Sea Lion Project was to open up the British battlefield, and if the 2.8 million troops who had already landed in Britain could not quickly take Britain, Hitler would definitely continue to increase his investment, because to conquer Europe, it was necessary to conquer Britain.
Today, nearly five million troops are concentrated in the London area, which has undoubtedly turned the area into a huge meat grinder. As the capital of the British Empire, as a symbol of the empire on which the sun never set, London is of great significance to the proud British, so they will protect it at such a great cost.
The Germans also knew that taking London directly from the British would undoubtedly have a huge blow to the British confidence in resistance, so they did not hesitate to mobilize elites for siege.
At this time, for the Allies, the only advantage was the strength of the troops, but in terms of equipment and soldier quality, the Allies were quite different from the elite German army. To make matters worse, the Germans had a clear air superiority, and the British, though more than anyone else, wanted to keep their capital.
However, the glory of the British Empire was gone, the once invincible British army was gone, and the German army advanced almost at a distance of more than a kilometer a day, and by January 15, 1940, half of London had fallen.
With the fall of half of London, the Allies also paid a huge loss of millions of attrition, while the losses of the German army were only about one-fifth of theirs, and the balance of victory was further tilted in favor of the German army.
Naturally, the Allies were not willing to accept defeat and continued to increase their investment in London, and another million troops were sent to the London area, and the battle situation was gradually led to the edge of a decisive battle.
On January 25, the Germans suddenly drew three panzer divisions and twenty-five mechanized divisions, bypassing the London area and rushing directly along the line of Oxford, Aylesbury, Northampton, and Peterborough to Water's Bay.
The German army's dozen elite divisions advanced very quickly, once again showing the power of blitzkrieg, with several armored divisions as the vanguard, and 25 mechanized divisions were actually equipped with more than 1,000 rocket artillery in addition to the permanent artillery.
The German rocket artillery, on the one hand, borrowed from the Katyusha rocket artillery of the Soviet army, and more importantly, on the other hand, it borrowed from the more advanced rocket artillery provided by Wei Qidong.
The Soviets were too quick to carry forward the rocket artillery they invented first, but instead succeeded the German army.
Hundreds of rocket launchers fired in a volley, and the terrifying scenes and whistling sounds made the British soldiers who saw them unforgettable for life, and of course, the lives of many of them were stopped at the moment when they saw the rocket artillery rain.
Everywhere the Germans passed along the line, almost all the way to the past, there were traces of scorched by rocket artillery bombardment.
Since the British defense along the way was far inferior to the London area, there was no force that could easily block the strong German front, and the Allied high command at this time had already analyzed the final goal of the German army through the direction of the German attack.
Once the Germans successfully broke through to Waterbay, then, from Bristol Bay in the south to Water's Bay in the north, it was directly cut off by the Germans, which was half of England, including London.
This is not the most important thing, the most important thing is that the three million Allied troops who have been stationed here have no way to retreat, and the only place they can retreat is the sea.
However, millions of troops, retreating from the vast sea, but so easy, will the Germans agree? The affair continued to evolve, even a tragedy more tragic than the Dunkerk retreat. The same tragedy, naturally, the British did not want to be staged a second time.
At this moment, the Allies also knew another intention of the German army in London, that is, to attract more coalition forces to come to London, and then destroy them together.
"They must be stopped, they must be stopped." Not only the Allied command panicked, but even the top heads of the country, Churchill and Roosevelt, panicked, and this was definitely a disaster.
Churchill immediately ordered the troops that could be drawn from Scotland, the northern part of England, and Wales to step up the withdrawal of troops, and immediately launched an offensive while the German army had not yet stabilized the line from Bristol Bay to Water's Bay, so as to help the besieged millions of troops get out of the trap as soon as possible.
In the face of the current crisis, it seems that the defense of London has become less important, because once these millions of troops are trapped and killed, let alone London, the entire British Empire is in danger. As for the consequences of the fall of London, it was no longer necessary to think about it at this time.
This action of the German army changed the pattern of the war at once, and turned the defense of London by the Allies into a rescue war at once. This change directly affected the morale of the Allied forces in the London area, and the refugees were even more panicked and did not know where to go.
And taking advantage of this opportunity, the German army attacking London intensified its offensive again, and the Allies retreated faster.
By early February, more than two-thirds of London had fallen.
The Allied forces, reinforced from other directions, had already attacked from several directions in the face of the German defense line from Bristol Bay to Water's Bay.
Although the Allied armies had a relatively large superiority in strength, except for the obvious superiority in troops, they did not seem to be as good as the German army in other aspects, especially in the air, where the German superiority was too obvious.
German planes swept over England all day long, helicopter gunships took off and landed frequently, and it was almost difficult for the Allied forces to conceal their actions, and once the target was exposed, a large number of German planes would descend, making them feel the sadness of losing air supremacy.