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However, the British and French navies never dared to engage in a head-on battle with the main force of the German Navy, mainly because Germany's strong industrial capacity has successively completed six Hindenburg-class ultimate battleships equipped with 20-inch guns, and there are still six in the dockyard, while the British Royal Navy has only completed four Britannia-class ultimate battleships, and the progress of the other four British-class battleships is not as fast as the Germans, so the overall strength is not as good as the German Navy

The French Navy's ultimate battleships are not at the same level as those of Germany and Britain, although the British Navy believes that their aircraft carrier superiority can offset the weakness of the Ultimate Battleship as the German Navy, but as the British Royal Navy dispatched several aircraft carrier battle groups to try to destroy the German ultimate battleships, but they were all hit by the German Navy's anti-aircraft fire and naval aviation, coupled with the immaturity of the British Navy's aircraft carrier tactics, the final attack effect was minimal, so the British and French navies believed that their capital ships were completely inferior to the German Navy, so they have been avoiding the decisive battle of the capital ships

The British and French navies had been tolerating the arrogance of the German navy, but suddenly one day the British and French navies could not bear it anymore, because their proud two battleships, the Queen Elizabeth and the Hood, were sunk after being besieged by the four Bismarck-class battleships of the German Navy, and the feelings of the British people were stung, and the Churchill government could not suppress the roar of the British people, so it gave the British Royal Navy a death order to sink four Bismarck-class battleships to avenge the Queen Elizabeth and the Hood

On May 18, 1939, after completing the shelling operation on the coasts of the Netherlands and Belgium, the four Bismarck battleships received an order from the German General Staff Headquarters to prepare for the North Atlantic to carry out a diplomatic break-up operation, because the British Navy's escort caused the German to break the engagement, and the Bismarck-class battleships, which needed 18-inch guns, to save the situation

Before leaving for the North Atlantic, the four Bismarck-class super-battleships held an exercise codenamed Typhoon, in addition to the four Bismarck-class battleships, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and two Scharnhorst-class battlecruisers built during the First World War, which were re-commissioned and had to return to the dock for repairs after frequent mechanical failures, missing the next battle

The reinforcements were under the personal command of Admiral Guntherlutjens, and the objectives of the German army included as much as possible to disrupt the Entente** In order to postpone the British army from sending convoys, so that the forces of the two sides in the Mediterranean and North Africa were temporarily balanced, the power of the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean was transferred, and the risk of Rommel and his troops being invaded by Greece in Libya was reduced, and all this required reinforcements to the fleet, which would severely damage the British fleet in the Atlantic, and cut off British supplies to the Mediterranean, only in this way could the smooth direction of the Mediterranean be guaranteed

The reason why the German Navy made this plan was because of the repeated defeats of the Italian army in the North African theater on the one hand, and on the other hand, Germany also wanted to open up the African channel, use German West Africa to import oil from South America, and then transport it to North Africa, and then from the Mediterranean Sea to Germany to solve the dilemma of Germany's lack of oil and being pinched by the Chinese Empire, after all, Hitler and the whole Germany only had to curry favor with the Chinese Empire on the surface to obtain oil, and the hatred of the Chinese Empire in their hearts was unabated

On June 10, 1939, nearly a year after the outbreak of World War II, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini was tricked by Hitler into preparing to invade the long-coveted British and French colonies in North Africa

The Anglo-French forces based in Sudan and Algeria were ordered by the British and French high command to undertake the defense of North Africa, but they were asked not to take the initiative to provoke as much as possible, because Britain and France did not want to open up the North African battlefield, and the larger the scale of the battlefield, the more difficult it was to control the situation

However, on June 11, the Anglo-French forces forgot the orders of the high command, and they began a series of attacks on Italian positions in Libya

With the weakness of the Italian army on the French battlefield, Mussolini, who was scolded by Hitler, decided to open up the North African theater after seizing sea supremacy in the Mediterranean, and he hoped to use the victory in the North African theater to make up for the defeat in the French battlefield and the Greek battlefield

On June 25, in Tripolitania, the Italian army, which had been used to confront the French army in Tunisia, was transferred to Cyrenaica to reinforce the Italian 10th Army, coupled with the continuous attacks of the British army led by General Archibald Waveville, the Italian army, Mussolini ordered the Italian army on the Tunisian border to defend only the main force, and prepare for war with the British army (ps\ If you can't beat France, you will take the British, this is Mussolini's small calculation)

Mussolini ordered the 10th Army Corps to begin the invasion of Egypt on August 8, but two days later, the Italian invasion had not officially begun, and Mussolini could not wait to order Marshal Graziani to start the attack, as a result, the Italian army's attack was indeed very fierce, but after September 8, the North African front was too long, and the Italian army was seriously affected by the lack of transportation, the low level of officer training and the lack of support weapons

The Italian army was ordered to start the invasion of Sudan, and the battle plan was to advance along the coastal road while the limited armored army was operating on the flank of the desert, but Egypt was a protectorate of the Chinese Empire, and the Chinese Empire refused to allow the Italian army to use the Suez Canal from Egypt to open it to Italy, forcing the Italian army to enter the mountains of Sudan from the Libyan desert, and thus the supply difficulties became the fatal wound of the Italian army

In response to the Italian attack, Commander Wavell ordered his defensive forces to harass the advancing Italian army, then retreated to Merovy to join up with the main British forces stationed there, while the 7th Panzer Division was placed on the flank of the desert between Libya and Sudan, allowing it to attack the Italian flank

By 16 September, the Italian army had advanced to about 80 miles (130 km) west of Merové and was eventually forced to stay there because of supply problems, and despite Mussolini's urging of the Italians to move on, Graziani ordered his army to dig trenches around Barani and strengthen the established forward camps, and the rest of the army was placed behind the main force

Due to the lack of water in the desert, the Italian barracks had to be dispersed near the oasis, and against the scattered Italian camps, the British planned a limited five-day offensive, Operation Compass, attacking these defensive camps one after the other

During this period, the Commonwealth army of about 36,000 men successively attacked the forward units of the 10 most powerful divisions of the Italian army, but because the Italian army was too scattered, the Italian army was broken by the British forces and forced to retreat on all fronts

With the success of the Compass operation at the beginning, the British ** team thought that the Italian army was vulnerable, so they frantically pursued the retreating Italian army

The two sides fought and stopped until January of the following year, when the fortified towns of Sogula and Ampek were occupied by the British, and the fleeing Italian army was intercepted by the British 7th Panzer Division that had crossed the Western Desert in the Hum Caliphate, and the remnants of the Italian army were forced to surrender in the Battle of the Hum Caliphate, and within ten weeks the British army advanced to Aguela and destroyed the Italian Tenth Army, and the British army captured nearly 130,000 Italian officers and soldiers in the battle with less than 40,000 troops, which became a heavy sum on the archives of the vulnerable Italian army in World War II

The younger brother can't be the eldest brother, so he naturally has to go out

Italy then responded by sending motorized and armored troops to Africa to reinforce the Italians, while Hitler ordered German troops in German West Africa to move north to reinforce the Italians

The German Afrika Korps, commanded by Erwin Rommel, arrived in Tripoli through Operation Sunflower to reinforce their Italian allies, and he received an order from Hitler to go directly past the German General Staff Headquarters to stop the Anglo-French attempts to drive the Italians out of the area

Because the British army defeated the Italian army, the British high command believed that the French army on the Italian-French border had not defeated the Italian army for a long time, and that the reason for the French army's combat effectiveness was not good, Churchill in order to promote the strong British army, and the Greek army retreating to North Africa reinforced the French battlefield, hoping to cooperate with the French army to defeat the Italian army as soon as possible, and alleviate the unfavorable situation of being surrounded by Germany, Italy, and Spain

As a result, the British army became arrogant, and a large number of elites were transferred to the French front, and most of the troops left behind in North Africa were inexperienced, reorganized, and under-strengthened

On the other hand, although Rommel was only ordered to hold the front and wait for the Germans to assemble from Greece and Austria and reach North Africa before moving en masse, an armored reconnaissance at Aghela in March 1940 quickly turned into a full-scale offensive

By April, the British Army was forced to retreat, and because of the improper retreat, the British command staff was captured by the airborne Germans, which became the greatest humiliation of the British army since the beginning of the war

The Indian 9th Infantry Division retreated to the port fortress of Brooke, while the rest of the Commonwealth army retreated another 100 miles (160 km) east to the Libyan and Egyptian border, while Brooke was surrounded by the main German and Italian forces, a small battle continued to advance eastward, and Rommel took advantage of the situation to capture the fortress of Kaptso and Badia, and then prepared to enter Egypt to continue the attack on the British army, only to be urgently stopped by Hitler, while part of the British army in Egypt was disarmed by the Egyptian army and the 3rd Division of the Chinese Empire in the Suez Canal Zone, which arrived later

As a result, Rommel stopped the offensive and sent troops to defend the border positions and strengthen the forces of the battle group

Brooke's defenders, though isolated on land, continued to receive supplies from the nearby Chinese Empire's Cretan base, and the British Navy secretly sent reinforcements to the port under the banner of the Chinese Empire, which the Chinese Empire turned a blind eye to and acquiesced

Rommel's failure to capture the port was a major mistake, as Rommel's forward position in Selum was at the end of the long supply line to Tripoli and was threatened by the Brooke defenders, who had to invest heavily to stop the British threat, making it impractical for the Germans to advance further into Sudan

The Anglo-French forces regained the initiative in the North African theater through the continued occupation of Brooke, although neither side took action, but it did not last long, and soon the Anglo-French forces launched a small attack called Operation Concise, trying to attack the German ** team to make it retreat across the border, and then launched a large-scale offensive - Operation Tomahawk intended to lift the siege of Brooke, but in the face of Rommel, known as the Desert Fox Branch, this operation of the Anglo-French army finally failed

During the stalemate, the Anglo-French forces reorganized the Northern Army, Claude Auchinleck became the commander-in-chief of the North Africa Command after Archibald Weaver, and the Western Desert Army was reinforced by the 33rd Army to form the new 8th Army, which consisted of the British army from the British mainland, the Canadian army, The formation of the British Indian Army, together with a brigade under the command of Marie-Pierre Koenig to France, and a new corps were launched in November 1940, code-named Operation Crusader, and by January 1941 the combined operation had achieved the results of retaking all the areas recently occupied by Germany and Italy, so that the front was once again pushed back to Aghera

After receiving supplies and reinforcements from Tripoli, the League** launched another attack, defeating the Entente ** at Gachala in June, and capturing the Brooke League**, driving the 8th Army across the Egyptian border, trying to provoke Sino-British contradictions, and putting small shoes on the Anglo-French army, but the Anglo-French army was forced to accept the fact that they were disarmed by the Chinese Emperor** and the Egyptian army again

However, the Chinese Empire felt that the North African theater posed a threat to the Empire's control of Egypt, and the Suez Canal was an important hub for the Chinese Empire to control the situation in the Mediterranean and the Middle East and Europe, and there was evidence that the Germans had a voyeuristic eye for the Suez Canal, so the Chinese Empire had to guard against it, so it sent the British and French troops to Sudan less than a week after disarming them, and resold the captured British and French weapons and equipment to them at the price of scrap metal

In this way, the Anglo-French forces seemed to get a signal, that is, once the German army could not be defeated, they would take the initiative to flee to Egypt, accept the disarming of the Chinese Empire, and then start again

Churchill once planned to come a few more such events, so that the Germans thought that the Chinese Empire had sided with the Entente camp, or provoked a military conflict between China and Germany, but Churchill's plan was opposed by the British and French high commands, because that was certainly a good strategy, but often so tossed, the British and French forces would lose the initiative in the North African theater, and there was no guarantee that a military conflict would break out between China and Germany, so the losses were greater than the gains were not worth adopting, so Churchill had to give up this plan, but he did not give up his plans, and he swore to drag the Chinese Empire into the water, and even once planned to let British submarines disguise German submarines to attack the merchant ships of the Chinese Empirewarships

However, this dangerous action was soon stopped by the British and French high commands, because the Chinese Empire was very clever, and once they found out that the British pretended to be Germans, not only could not help the British themselves, but would help the Germans

When Churchill's bold plans were halted, the naval battle in the Danish Channel made Churchill forget everything for a while

The British Admiralty had long suspected that the Germans would mobilize naval forces to reinforce the Atlantic theater, and the news that the battleship Bismarck had departed was also declassified by the British Mi5 intelligence agency (the British spent 3 million dragon coins from the Chinese Empire to obtain the technology to crack the Enigma code) and confirmed that the Swedish cruiser Gotland had discovered the whereabouts of four Bismarck-class battleships

After April 3, 1941, when the German Navy reinforcement fleet was anchoring in the Norwegian Grimstadjord near Bergen, four huge Bismarck-class battleships were spotted and photographed by British Air Force Spitfire reconnaissance planes

The German reinforcement fleet took the north course and then the northwest course, successfully and safely crossed the Norwegian Sea in the direction of Greenland, and sailed towards the Danish Strait, the entrance to the Atlantic Ocean, between Iceland and Greenland

Due to the close proximity of the fleet's route to the Arctic Circle, British aerial reconnaissance did not detect the Germans, and since the main target of the Germans was the convoy Lütjans, hoping to quietly break into the Atlantic with the help of dense fog to join the German navy fighting in the Atlantic

On the evening of 23 May, the Germans were spotted by the British heavy cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk, equipped with advanced radars imported from the Chinese Empire, while the two ships were patrolling the Danish Strait, looking for signs of German passage

After a brief exchange of fire, the two British heavy cruisers, knowing that they were not their opponents of the German Bismarck-class battleships, were forced to release smoke and retreat out of German range, following the German reinforcements with advanced radar devices

At the same time, the only Bismarck equipped with a radar system, because of the huge vibration generated by its main gun fire, caused the condensation on the mast to fall off and smash its radar, forcing Lütjens to order the Prinz Eugen to sail to the front of the fleet to provide the fleet with a forward search mission (to be continued, if you like this work, you are welcome to come to the starting point to vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support is my biggest motivation)