And neither Hitler nor the German top brass knew that there was oil in these two countries! That's why Hitler wanted to attack the Soviet Union, which had a very wide strategic depth.

Now that Rommel knew that Africa had so many oil reserves, Rommel had enough leverage to allow Hitler to postpone his attack on the Soviet Union.

Hitler had postponed the attack on the Soviet Union to a year because he asked the Soviet Union to help transport rare metal ores to Germany, and Rommel was confident that he would use these fields to persuade Hitler to postpone the attack on the Soviet Union until 42 years.

By 1942, when the Luftwaffe had fully recovered from Great Britain and German Leopard and Tiger tanks were in mass production, Rommel would give Stalin's dictator a taste of what it meant to be devastating.

The oil problem was solved, and Speer was responsible for the construction of the refinery, and although Rommel had not found a drop of oil now, he still asked Speer to build an oil refinery in France.

If the French government does not have enough funds, then it will lead the French capitalists to participate, and it will certainly not be convincing to persuade those French capitalists Rommel to come forward, and the French capitalists who put interests first will not dare to make such a large venture investment.

In fact, there is no need for Rommel to worry, Rommel only needs to say a word to his father-in-law, and Emerson will naturally convince those capitalists in France that even if those capitalists do not invest in the construction of oil refineries, the Rothschilds can still fund their own funds!

Besides, Rommel's money is now a lot, and these assets are all taken care of by Rommel's wife Elsa, he only needs to tell Elsa, and Elsa can build several medium-sized oil refineries for Rommel.

The problem of the refinery was solved, and then there was the problem of transportation, which was about 100 nautical miles from ****** in Africa to Sicily, Italy, which is not far away.

But there is one island, like a sharp knife across the route from Sicily to ******, this island is the island of Malta, and Rommel finally failed in Africa, largely because the British army on the island of Malta cut off Rommel's supply line.

When it comes to the war in North Africa, we have to talk about Italy, the "living treasure" country of World War II.

The war in North Africa was first provoked by Italy, but when the British army in East Africa was raided, it was heavily damaged by the attack, losing 130,000 people at once, and worse, the Italian army's supply line was "cut off" by the British army.

At that time, the British could directly trouble the Italian logistics troops, only the British army stationed on the island of Malta, don't underestimate this British army!

Located in the middle of the Mediterranean, Malta consists of five islands, of which the main island covers an area of 245 square kilometers, accounting for 78% of the total area, with a coastline of 180 kilometers and many excellent harbours. Valletta, the capital, had a wartime population of 280,000. Due to its important strategic position, it has always been a battleground for soldiers.

In his autobiography, Churchill mentioned:

"Since Nelson's time, the island of Malta has been like a loyal British sentinel, defending that narrow, vital maritime corridor in the middle of the Mediterranean. In this latest war, it has become more strategically important than in the past. ”

It was at his suggestion that by the outbreak of World War II, there were already three military airfields on the island, and three more were added later, resulting in three squadrons of Royal Fighters and three squadrons of bombers, with a garrison of 14,000 men.

In fact, as early as June 1940, before Italy marched into North Africa, it was fighting with the British for the island, but Mussolini, who was desperate for military force, had no troops to send at all, so he could only send a limited air force to bomb it.

In addition, the Italian army's combat effectiveness was not good, and it was unable to implement the plan to land on the island, but forced the British army to strengthen the island's defenses.

Lao Mo had to be cheeky to ask the Führer for help, but he was preparing for the invasion of the Soviet Union, but he still decided to come to the aid of the Italian army, and Hitler withdrew from the war for fear of Italian defeat.

Historically, the Führer approached Rommel and Catherine to discuss how to help the Italian army in North Africa, and Rommel thought that he would send an army directly to North Africa.

Catherine, on the other hand, believed that the island of Malta should be taken first, and although the Führer noted the strategic importance of the island, he sent Rommel to North Africa with an army, ignoring the island.

However, Hitler ordered Catherine to mobilize the Luftwaffe Tenth Army into Sicily with the following tasks:

"Attack British naval forces, attack British lines of communication between the western and eastern Mediterraneans, defend the Axis to North African sea transport routes, prevent British convoys from passing through the Mediterranean, and air strikes on the island of Malta."

The 10th Luftwaffe Army under Marshal Catherine was stationed in Italy, and together with the Italian naval and air forces, bombed the island of Malta, bombing all military facilities on the island.

After that, German Navy submarines secretly dived into the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar, and at the end of 1941, they successively sank two large warships of the British Royal Navy, the battleship "Barham" and the aircraft carrier "Ark Royal".

Despite the reinforcements of the British to the island of Malta, they all ended in failure. Throughout 1941, Malta did not receive a single reinforcement, and if the German-Italian forces had implemented the landing plan at this time, it would have been successful.

It is a pity that the Führer only valued Rommel's offensive victory in North Africa, and Marshal Lao Mo and Marshal Catherine dreamed of capturing Malta, the former unfortunately did not have the ability, and the latter only had air power and did not have the support of the high-level.

On June 13, 1942, the German-Italian forces broke through the Kazara defense line, and in the battle of Tobruk, the allied forces captured supplies that could be used for three months and annihilated 33,000 British troops.

The British troops who retreated to the town of El Alamein have reached a critical point of life and death! But Rommel, overwhelmed by the victory, began to rashly pursue the British.

However, Marshal Catherine's 10th Army was transferred to the Soviet-German battlefield at this time, and the recovery of British combat effectiveness on the island of Malta was amazing, and only two months later began to counterattack, sinking dozens of German-Italian transport ships and severely damaging the Afrika Korps supplies.

On October 23, 1942, the Battle of El Alamein broke out, and only 600 tons of the 10,000 tons of fuel oil requested by Rommel were in place, and all the others were sunk in the Mediterranean!

The German army, which was short of fuel and ammunition, could not hold the British army with enough troops and ammunition at all, and was defeated in only three months, and Catherine had to send the air force to cover the convoy again and deliver a batch of urgently needed supplies to the Afrika Korps.

Rommel then regained a little strength and began to counterattack, inflicting heavy losses on the British army in the Battle of the Pass, but it was already the Afrika Korps that had returned to the past, knowing that its supply lines were almost completely cut off by the British Royal Air Force on the island of Malta!

On March 23, 1943 alone, 40,048 tons of ships were sunk by the Royal Air Force in the Mediterranean!

Two months later, all 250,000 German-Italian Afrika Korps soldiers surrendered!

After that, the Allies used Malta as a springboard and sent bombers to force the Italian troops on Bantere Island to surrender and cover the landing in Sicily, giving Italy a heavy blow!

[Two more resumes every day, the cause and effect of the station in Africa has been introduced, and it will be all dry goods in the future, brothers, recommended, collected, etc. 】

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