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At the same time as the joint success of opening up a second theater of war in Europe, the Allied Command judged the situation and believed that the Nazi German army, the backbone of the alliance, was fully shrinking its defenses, and the Allied forces liberated most of France and forced the German army to withdraw from the battlefields of Spain, Italy and the Soviet Union. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info╔╗

The commander-in-chief of the coalition forces, Admiral Cai Yi, believes that the other two landing areas originally used to cover the real landing operations of the coalition forces in Normandy should also be changed to the main landing areas, that is, the feint landing force off the coast of Gibraltar, Spain, and the feint landing force in Sicily, Italy, and southern Italy. There was simply no way to stop the landing of coalition forces.

The coalition forces returned to France and had gained a foothold in France. The Germans retreated in full force, with the defense of the mainland as their first priority. In order to be able to attack the German mainland smoothly in the following military operations, the coalition forces opened up the third battlefield in Europe, landing from southern Italy, plus the Turkish army and the Armenian army in the northeast, will attack the German mainland from the north, forcing the German army to mobilize heavy defense, and reducing the military pressure of the coalition forces on the Western Front.

Cai's battle plan was quickly approved by the General Staff of the Chinese Empire and adopted at a military conference of the United Nations Command.

The coalition had planned to begin a landing operation in Sicily on July 11, but on July 8, the Spanish capital underwent a dramatic upheaval, and the Spanish Revolutionary Party staged a military coup d'état, killing Franco and his Nazi SS recruits and seizing power in Spain.

The reason why the Revolutionary Party was able to easily defeat Franco and seize power in Spain was due to the great victory of the Union on the battlefield in France and the fierce offensive of the Union landing in Gibraltar. Franco and his army, without the great help of the Germans, were powerless in the face of a combined onslaught.

The Germans had effectively abandoned Spain, which was surrounded on all sides and fought alone. The Spanish invaders realized that the joint invasion of Madrid was unstoppable, and panic caused the Spanish military and political officials to waver in their loyalty to Franco. ╔╗ And if you want to avoid retaliation after the joint occupation, the only way out for Spain is to severely punish Franco and other Nazis, so the coup d'état of the Revolutionary Party has been tacitly approved and supported by the rich and powerful businessmen of all strata in Spain. Franco's defection became Spain's only bargaining chip at the last minute to make overtures to the Union.

Sheffield, the leader of the Spanish Revolutionary Party, officially announced to the world on the International Public Radio channel that Spain had dissolved its alliance with the Central Powers and had withdrawn from World War II. At the same time, Sheffield, with the help of a wireless telegram from the neutral Swiss embassy in Spain, sent telegrams to the Imperial Chancellery of the Chinese Empire and the Joint General Headquarters, respectively, announcing that Spain was not an enemy of the United Nations and asked to join the United Nations camp.

Spain's abrupt defection led to the failure of Hitler's Nazi operations in Spain. Hitler's attempt to control Franco and delay the Allied attack on the German mainland as long as possible was also bankrupt.

For the Coalition forces, the Spanish battlefield was not the main battlefield. The capture of Spain by the coalition forces would not have lost much troops, but it would have lost a lot of valuable time.

After a study by United Nations Headquarters, it was considered acceptable to the request of the Spanish zhèngfu. As for other issues, the UN member states agreed that they could hold the issue on hold until Germany and the United States had been defeated and the fascist bloc of the Allies had been completely eliminated.

In this way, the coalition quickly stopped the attack on Spain. But the Chinese Empire retained its military occupation of Spanish Gibraltar and demanded recognition from Spain. In the face of the strong demands of the Chinese Empire, the Spanish Revolutionary Council had no choice but to agree to recognize the validity of the "Sino-Spanish Lend-Lease Treaty of Gibraltar" signed in 1913, and the Chinese Empire's control of the 99-year Lend-Lease of Gibraltar remained unchanged.

The Spanish battlefield was over in the blink of an eye, and the coalition concentrated its forces on the Italian island of Sicily and southern Italy to carry out landing operations, and was able to launch ahead of schedule.

In the early morning of July 11, 1943, the Atlantic Fleet of the Imperial Chinese Navy and the Home Fleet of the British Royal Navy formed a task force with 43 battleships, 117 cruisers, 221 destroyers, 106 submarines, 115 aircraft carriers, 2,743 troop carriers, 6,015 landing ships and landing craft gathered in the sea near Sicily, stretching for hundreds of kilometers and stretching as far as the eye can see. ╔╗

Just after the early hours of the morning, the ships of the Allied task force carried out heavy artillery fire on the various Italian fortifications on Sicily. 1,400 bombers flew from bases in Cyprus, raining more than 10,000 tons of aerial bombs on the heads of the Italian defenders.

After four hours of carpet bombing and saturation naval artillery strikes, the whole of Sicily was in flames, and most of the Italian defenders' fortifications were destroyed, with heavy casualties.

At four o'clock in the morning, 745 large transport planes took off from the Cyprus air base and arrived over Sicily, and 5,550 warriors and 42 M36 main battle tanks of the 3rd Airborne Division of the Chinese Empire and the 1st Airborne Division of the British Royal Air Force began to be airborne in the C3 area.

By this time, most of the anti-aircraft artillery of the Italian defenders was destroyed. The C3 airborne area chosen by the Allied Airborne Forces was the area where the first wave was heavily bombed, and there were few Italian defenders left there. At this time, the artillery fire of the coalition forces had already been extended, so the coalition soldiers who landed here would not be accidentally injured.

The Allied airborne troops assembled in the next small area, and followed the direction of the Allied artillery fire, attacking the Italian army in all directions.

The Italian defenders, who lacked the awareness of a joint decisive battle, had just been deterred by the powerful artillery fire of the coalition forces, and their morale was low. When they encountered the Allied airborne troops with automatic firearms, they thought that the Allied forces had landed successfully, so most of them fled with a little resistance, which further caused confusion among the Italian defenders.

At 5 a.m., 160,000 United Nations troops under the command of General Chang Chi, commander of the Mediterranean coalition forces, landed in the southwest and southeast of Sicily under the cover of more than 2,000 warships and troop carriers, divided into more than 7,000 warships and troop carriers. ╔╗

The coastal position was on fire at this time, and thick smoke was billowing out. Mussolini's boasted permanent fortifications had long since been shattered, and the morale of the Italian defenders on the coast was extremely low, and in the face of a sea of combined landing forces, they gave up with only a small resistance.

Just after 10 o'clock in the morning, the troops of the British commander of the Allied forces, Montgomery, took the lead in landing at the landing site in Area A, which was the first time since the joint counteroffensive in Europe that the British army completed the landing operation earlier than the Chinese emperor in a high-intensity landing operation. The British Times reported on this at great length, and the major newspapers of the Chinese Empire also gave positive comments to the British army, which made the British very excited.

At about 11 o'clock, the landing forces of the coalition forces basically successfully landed on their respective target beachheads and maintained an offensive posture.

Due to the fierce offensive of the coalition forces and the sabotage and harassment actions of the airborne troops, the Sicilian defenders did not begin a counterattack until one o'clock in the afternoon under the command of Lieutenant General Guzzoni of the Italian army.

At the same time, the German 15th Panzer Division, which had assisted the Italian defense, was moved from the west of the island to the east coast to stop Montgomery's British 8th Army from moving north to Augusta. The German Göring Panzer Infantry Division and two Italian motorized infantry divisions launched a counterattack against the 5th Army of the Chinese Emperor under the command of General Chang Qi.

The Luftwaffe dispatched 644 aircraft to bomb the Allied beachheads. More than 1,400 carrier-based aircraft from the coalition fleet's aircraft carrier battle group quickly came to intercept them.

The two sides fought the fiercest air battle over the Mediterranean Sea since World War II over Sicily.

At this time, the Luftwaffe already had a deep understanding of the Allied fleet aviation, and the German planes no longer engaged in a head-to-head confrontation with the Allied planes, but directly broke into the airspace above the Allied landing ground and fought with the Allied planes in the vicinity of the Allied fleet. ╔╗

As a result, the anti-aircraft weapons on the ground of the coalition landing sites and the anti-aircraft artillery of the coalition fleets could only carry out artillery bombardments without distinguishing between friend and foe, and in many cases accidentally shot down their own planes. The Anglo-French allies would largely abandon firing to avoid damaging their own aircraft. Only the anti-aircraft fire of the Chinese Empire continued to fire for 1 ri, and as a result, the aircraft of the allies, the British or the French, were shot down.

Heavy fighting continued for a while, and German tanks advanced almost less than 2 kilometers from the beachhead of the 5th Army of the Chinese Empire.

This is because the German army specially developed the giant rat super heavy tank in order to counter the powerful M36 King Tiger main battle tank of the Chinese Empire. This tank is huge, with a main gun caliber of up to 140 mm, and armor protection is enough to block the close-range armor-piercing energy of the King Tiger tank.

For the first time, the Chinese Emperor encountered such a huge armored monster, and the King Tiger tank engaged the giant rat tank head-on, as a result, the Chinese Emperor lost more than 20 tanks, and the Germans lost only one.

After General Chang Qi learned of the situation, he was well aware of the crisis of the battle situation, and immediately went to the front line to direct the Chinese Emperor to fight back.

Fortunately, General Chang Qi quickly saw the biggest weakness of the German giant rat tank, which was that it was large and too slow. Therefore, Chang Qi immediately made a decision and ordered the tank forces of the Chinese Emperor to feign defeat and retreat to the beach, and at the same time ordered the two ultimate battleships and four super battleships of the coalition fleet to prepare for artillery fire.

Sure enough, the Germans were in a hurry to drive the Chinese emperor out of the sea, forgetting that they did not have the right to control the sea at all, and there was still a powerful navy of the Chinese Empire on the sea.

The German tank units were driven near the beach and were immediately hit by the powerful battleship fire of the Allied fleet. The German army's invincible giant rat tank quickly turned into a braised rat in front of the 20-inch cannon. ╔╗

By the end of the evening, the Germans had lost a large number of giant rat tanks. Due to the high cost of the giant rat tanks, the Germans deployed a total of 40 tanks in Sicily, of which 31 were destroyed on the beach by Allied warship fire, 3 were destroyed by Allied anti-tank troops, and the remaining 6 were captured by the Allied forces when they broke down during the retreat.

The Germans did not have the Giant Rat, and the other No. 4 and No. 5 tanks quickly lost the upper hand in the battle with the Tiger King main battle tank of the Chinese Emperor.

At about seven o'clock in the evening, the Chinese Emperor took advantage of the situation to capture the city of Gela. At the same time, the British 8th Army conquered Syracuse.

After the failure of the first German and Italian counteroffensive, Kesselring knew that the tide was turning, so he had to engage the coalition forces in a melee to delay time, pin down the coalition forces, and then retreat to Calabria in Italy via the Strait of Messina.

Hitler personally approved Kesselring's plan to transfer the German 29th Panzer Division in Calabria and the 1st Airborne Division in Hungary to Italy.

While reinforcing forces, German and Italian troops intensified their movements to prevent the British 8th Army from threatening Messina. The Degolin Panzer Division was transferred to Catania in the east. The German 1st Airborne Division was also airborne in Catania at the same time. The German 15th Panzer Division stopped the northward advance of the 5th Army of the Chinese Emperor near Enna. The newly redeployed 29th Panzer Division is deployed southwest of Mount Edna. In this way, the German-Italian forces built a strong line of defense from Enna to Catania.

On July 12, Montgomery's British 13th Army fought hard to assault Catania. General Chang Qi ordered 345 coalition planes carrying 1,900 soldiers from the British 1st Airborne Brigade to parachute from Tunisia in Catania to cooperate with the ground forces in the joint attack. The Germans, with the Degolin Panzer Division and the 1st Airborne Division, put up stubborn resistance and firmly controlled the coastal road from Catania to Messina. Montgomery's frontal attack was thwarted and he was forced to transfer his 30th Army to bypass the west side of the Edna Volcana and attack Messina from a new one with the support of the Chinese Emperor's 5th Army.

Chang Chi, as an excellent commander of the Chinese Empire, was naturally unwilling to let Montgomery play the leading role, and his troops were divided into two routes, one was the 4th Army of the Chinese Empire to support the British army in central Sicily, and the 11th Marine Brigade of the Chinese Imperial Marine Corps directly took Palermo, the capital of Sicily.

On July 19ri, the Chinese Emperor conquered Palermo without a fight, capturing 53,000 Italian troops. Chang Chi's little vanity was greatly satisfied, and General Cai Yi was also elated by the victory of the Chinese Emperor.

Montgomery, meanwhile, was bogged down in two important directions, with his 13th Army being held back at Catania and his 30th Army detouring westward.

The Emperor of China, with the help of aircraft, tanks, artillery, and artillery captured Messina on 23 Ri. The garrison Germans received Hitler's order to abandon Italy and left on the last train to Germany. After a period of confusion, the remaining Italian defenders, led by their commander Sang Sang, surrendered to the Chinese Emperor.

At this point, the Battle of Sicily land campaign ended.

When Mussolini learned of the allied attack on Sicily, he immediately sent the world's second-strongest naval fleet, which he had been advocating, to the Sicilian Sea to engage the United Nations fleet.

But the strength of this fleet is best known only to his commander, Admiral Charing. It's all paper tigers, and they can't beat the UN fleet at all.

Therefore, after leading the Italian fleet around the Sicilian Sea for half a circle, Charing sent a detachment of cruisers to Sāo to disturb the United Nations fleet and retreated in a hurry.

However, for the UN fleet, it is absolutely intolerable to sāo and want to run away after a disturbance. The movements of the Italian Navy were always under the control of the intelligence services of the Chinese Empire. The coalition fleet sent a detachment of battleships in pursuit, and 245 carrier-based fighters attacked Charing's cruiser detachment. Four cruisers and two destroyers of the Italian Navy were eventually sunk.

The coalition fleet that followed drove the main fleet of the Italian Navy all the way back to Genoa, but Charin did not dare to turn back and fight back. Years later, when Charling learned that four coalition battleships were chasing his main fleet (23 battleships), he regretted it so much that he wanted to buy a piece of tofu and crash it to death.

Thus ended the Battle of Sicily. During the Sicily landings, the coalition forces suffered 12,811 casualties and 2,869 missing. The German and Italian troops suffered 43,000 casualties, 142,000 prisoners, and 260 tanks, 670 artillery pieces, and 1,700 aircraft.

Although this campaign failed to eliminate a large number of German forces stationed in Italy, it achieved the political goal of forcing the German army to abandon the Italian battlefield and Italy to withdraw from the war.

On July 25, Mussolini was forced to step down, and his successor, Badoglio, came to power and made secret contacts with the Chinese Empire to test the possibility of surrender.

The Chinese Empire attached more importance to the Italian battlefield, hoping to use Italy as a springboard to attack Germany proper, and then end the war in Europe as soon as possible, because the Chinese Empire had a more important task, that is, to prepare for an attack on the United States. Because the Chinese Emperor Wang Chenhao has always been hostile to the United States, the military and people of the Chinese Empire are more concerned about when to launch a landing operation against the United States.

After secret consultations, China and Italy reached an agreement. The Chinese Empire accepted the surrender of Italy and did not force the Italian army to intervene in future combat operations against Germany. But in order to dispel fears of unity, the Italian army had to be disbanded immediately, leaving only the local inspectors to maintain law and order. Italy will assist in the joint logistics and transfer the strategic transport towns in Italy to joint management.

The Italian zhèngfu understood that the joint preparations were to use Italy as a springboard to attack Germany, and considering the current situation, the Italian zhèngfu agreed to the conditions of the Chinese Empire.

The other member states of the United Nations, seeing that the Chinese Empire agreed, also agreed to settle the dispute on hold and accept the surrender of Italy.

On July 29, 1943, Italy officially announced its withdrawal from the Allies, withdrew from World War II, and participated in United Nations conferences as an associate member of the United Nations.

For the surrender of Italy, Hitler had already expected it. But what he didn't expect was that Mussolini never had the courage to subvert the Italian royal family, and in the face of the Italian royal family's deposition and imprisonment, Mussolini did not resist, but persuaded his subordinates to lay down their arms and surrender, which made Hitler angry and scolded Mussolini as a waste.

Although Hitler planned a strategic defense, most of the German troops in Italy withdrew to the German mainland, but in order to prevent the United States from opening a third battlefield in southern Europe, Hitler left about 100,000 German troops in Italy, attacking the Allied forces everywhere, attacking the Allied rear supply lines, and delaying the Allied army's attack on the German mainland.