This meeting can't be held! Even if you don't talk about Turkey and Egypt, just looking at the geographical location of Crete, you can see that if the Germans controlled the island, it would be equivalent to a safe navigation zone between Malta and Crete. You must know that the reason why Britain and the United States are not afraid of the war of attrition in North Africa is because they still control the sea power in the Mediterranean. After Taranto, the Italian fleet basically lost its ability to sail, and Alexandria and Gibraltar could effectively flank the Maltese route.

The war was fought on logistics, and the air transport forces of Germany and Italy were limited. In fact, so far, only Yang Qiu developed four heavy transport planes under the guise of developing the aviation industry before the war, so he was able to come up with hundreds or thousands of long-range transport planes at once in the Persian Gulf campaign. Even the United States is not dominated by twin-engine C47. According to the German and Italian naval forces in the Mediterranean, the North African Army could only maintain about 5 armored divisions and 500,000 army forces, but if there was a safe sea route, the Italian fleet in the Adriatic could easily support the logistics of 10 to 15 armored divisions.

My God!

Rommel's 3 armored divisions will suppress the British and Americans in Algiers and Tobruk, if 15 of them retreat directly. "Be sure to hold Crete! Every hour of the fight is absolutely necessary for this war! Churchill hurried back to his station, appointed Freiberg, the commander of the New Zealand Division, who had participated in the European War and had been awarded the Victoria Cross, as commander of the garrison, and asked Cunningham to assemble all the warships in the Eastern Mediterranean to reinforce Crete. Roosevelt also lost his indifference, because his situation was even worse. He believed that if he really lost the Eastern Mediterranean, Churchill would definitely sell the United States.

You must know that both China and the United States have huge strategic room for maneuver, but Britain alone will die! Or live! Therefore, in order to win, Churchill, the old fox, will definitely agree to all of Yang Qiu's conditions, and even give the entire Pacific Ocean to China. If this happens, the United States will inevitably fall into isolation. For a long time, he has been able to give Yang Qiu eye medicine repeatedly, because of the support of Britain, if Churchill no longer supports him, the United States, which has been involved in the war, will not even be able to withdraw.

The sudden Battle of Crete became Roosevelt's Achilles heel. At his direction, Eisenhower, North Africa Theater Commander Joseph McEnany, and Kimmel sprang into action. First, the battleships New York and Texas stationed in Alexandria were joined by Cunningham's fleet, and the army air forces stationed in Cyprus and Egypt were allowed to regain air supremacy. Under the determination of him and Churchill, at 10 o'clock in the morning of the same day, Cunningham led dozens of warships, including the battleship Malaya, the battleship Avenger, six cruisers, and two American battleships, to slaughter the island of Crete. At the same time, a fleet of 770 P40s, F4Fs, Hurricanes, H-6s (the model sold by China to Britain in the early days) and B17s also rushed to Cyprus from Egypt and other places to provide protection for the Cretan Army and the Anglo-American Mediterranean fleet.

In the early morning of 5 September, Student again dispatched 147 BF109Cs and 128 JU87s to protect 150 JU52s and gliders to bring the remaining units of the 7th Airborne Division to the island. Just as the group returned, it encountered a group of British and American fighters. More than 300 warplanes from both sides broke out in a fierce air battle over the island. Due to the lack of excellent air supremacy fighters such as the "Spitfire" and "Thunderbolt" by the Allies in North Africa, and the lack of experience of American pilots (the US Army Aviation stationed in North Africa at that time was basically a rookie), in the end, the German army lost 27 BF109C, shot down 66 British and American fighters and 6 B17s, and continued to firmly control air supremacy. Under their protection, the JU52 took off and landed a total of 1,400 sorties that day, and the 7th Airborne Division all landed on the island.

In the face of the precarious ground war, Britain and the United States did not dare to give up any hope, so they sent fighter jets again the next day to fight for air supremacy, and finally made a total of 517 sorties throughout the day. Not to be outdone, the German army alone dispatched more than 180 BF109Cs, and even the 11th Air Army, which was in reserve, 52 FW190s also participated in the air battle. The battle was so fierce that by 4 p.m., the British and Americans had lost 133 fighters, 31 reconnaissance planes, and 45 bombers, while the Germans had paid the price of 63 shot down. The heavy air losses made the Germans a little flustered, and when there were no more planes to adjust in the Balkans, Admiral Loll of the Fourth Air Force immediately contacted the Italian Air Force in Albania and asked them to send fighters to support.

The battle in the air was not over, and Britain and the United States also suffered heavy losses on the sea. Although Cunningham and Mountbatten sent large quantities of supplies and ammunition to the troops on the island, the disadvantage of lack of air supremacy was completely exposed in the face of two German air forces with a total of 1,500 aircraft. While blocking the landing of German motorboats, the American battleships USS New York and USS Texas were successively damaged by JU87 Stuka and had to return home early for overhaul. The following day, the Luftwaffe sank two British cruisers and two British and American destroyers in one go, and also bombed the harbor facilities on Crete in an attempt to cut off land and sea links.

Faced with an unfavorable sea and air situation, Major General Freiberg was extremely anxious. Therefore, the tactics were immediately corrected, and the method of defending during the day and concentrating superior forces at night to attack only one area was adopted, preparing to recapture the airfield by virtue of the superiority in numbers and the difficult opportunity of the Luftwaffe to make a sortie at night. Under his command, the Allies finally recaptured the Iraklin airfield at 3 a.m. on September 6, but a whole three regiments were surrounded and annihilated by the Germans.

When Student heard the news, he realized that something was wrong, so he immediately sent the Southeast Fleet out to escort 8,000 mountain soldiers and heavy equipment to the island. The German South-East Fleet was a patchwork fleet of 70 ships and about 200 motorboats, with the main combat strength being 1 heavy cruiser supplied by Italy, 4 destroyers and 2 captured Greek destroyers. As for motorboats, they cannot carry heavy equipment, and the real core of transportation is to imitate China's 33 personnel and vehicle landing craft. But the Germans were also very confused, first the landing craft needed to be transported to Greece by rail, but because the railway line was blown up during the transport, only 23 were reached. Moreover, the German logistics department put the diesel fuel on the last train, so that the landing craft had not even been refueled when it set off.

Until eight o'clock in the evening, Student did not wait for diesel fuel and had to leave in front of the fleet and motorboats, which meant that 7,000 mountain soldiers would land during the day. At nine o'clock in the morning of September 7, the South-Eastern Fleet arrived off the coast of Crete and was ambushed by Mountbatten when it was about to go ashore. A total of 48 ships and motorboats were sunk, and 2,300 mountain soldiers were killed. But Mountbatten wasn't much better, and Ju87 Stuka told him a truth, never expose the fleet without air supremacy. At one o'clock in the afternoon, 112 Ju87s sent by Stuart spotted Mountbatten, and despite the best efforts of the British Air Force and Army Airlines, the battleship Malaya was still seriously damaged by four bombs, and eight ships, including one heavy cruiser, were again lost. In just three days, the Anglo-American Mediterranean Fleet lost 3 battleships, 4 cruisers, 5 destroyers, 2 gunboats and 3 submarines, 9 of which were sunk! Cunningham couldn't hold on, you must know that there are only 4 battleships and 7 cruisers in the Eastern Mediterranean, and now there are only 1 battleship and 3 cruisers left, and if he continues to fight, he will be wiped out sooner or later, so he had to send a telegram to Churchill to request support from the Indian Ocean Fleet and the Air Force of the Chinese Navy.

Yang Qiu did not refuse, the problem is that the Third Fleet (known as the Indian Ocean Fleet) is preparing for the critical moment of attacking Malacca and Burma, and most of the ships are on standby in Chagos, and it will take six days to rush over. The Air Force stationed in the Persian Gulf has already transferred a lot of them to India, and in the end they can only muster 32 Thunderbolts and 6 destroyers to rush to Cyprus. But by this time it was already late, and 23 landing craft with 17 No. 4 tanks, which had set off five hours late, had already rushed to the shallows of Crete.

The German Navy originally did not have a special landing craft, and it was not until China forced the landing craft to cross Lake Balkhash that Hitler was interested, so he approached Hakan and built three tank landing ships equivalent to the Tianshan-class and more than 100 medium landing craft in preparation for the Sea Lion program. Goering nearly lost the Luftwaffe in the English Channel, Spain was in trouble, and Hitler had to postpone the Sea Lion project indefinitely, so the warships were moored in the port of Kiel and rusted until this time they were going to land on Crete. There were only 17 No. 4 tanks, which could not even bubble up when they were placed elsewhere, but the Allies in Crete had lost all their heavy equipment in Greece before, and the fleet that detoured to South Africa had not arrived, so there were only 4 Crusader I cruisers on the island. Faced with the German tanks, which were both quantitative and qualitative, the 4 Crusaders were quickly wiped out. By evening, the German Southeastern Fleet had made a comeback, this time towing three large barges stuffed with tanks and 88 guns, and sending 28 tanks and 12 88 guns to the island in one go, as well as 3,500 mountain infantry.

The balance of victory quickly tipped in favor of the Germans, and Freiberg, seeing that the defeat was assured, had no choice but to propose a retreat to preserve his strength. But Churchill still refused to admit defeat and refused the request to retreat! This stubbornness took a toll on the troops, and by the fifth day of the war the total number of German troops on the island had increased to 35,000, with 2,500 Italian paratroopers following suit.

Freiberg knew that Crete could not be defended, and in the face of Churchill's toughness, he had to turn to Wavell, commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean theater. Wavell dared but was too much, he knew that Fleiberg was exhausted, otherwise he would not have asked for help directly, so regardless of Churchill's indiscriminate command, he immediately asked Cunningham to mobilize all forces to help the island troops retreat. It was not until the morning of September 10, after learning that the Germans had occupied the important Suda Bay in the south, that Churchill accepted the reality of defeat and ordered a retreat.

But it was too late, and with the exception of the 11,000 soldiers who had been withdrawn ahead of schedule by Freiberg, the rest of the soldiers surrendered because they had been cut off from retreat.

In just five days and five nights of fighting, both sides paid a heavy price. In total, the British and American forces lost 17 ships, 371 aircraft, more than 6,000 killed and 30,000 soldiers captured. Germany also lost 232 aircraft, 39 ships, and more than 5,600 casualties. Although the cost was not small, Hitler was ecstatic and immediately ordered all the landing craft in the port of Kiel to be sent to Greece, so that the Balkan garrison was ready to land in Cyprus and Turkey, and that Goering immediately strengthen the air force in Crete. In the end, he accepted the advice of Hakan and Raeder to build 60 submarines and 20 destroyers to deploy to the Mediterranean, using domestic production and the final assembly of the Italian Adria shipyard.

"When you meet with British Foreign Secretary Halifax tonight, you may wish to disclose a little bit about our plans to establish an Asia-Europe separation zone." With the battle report sent from the front, Yang Qiu knew that the time was ripe, so he immediately came to Murong Han to discuss. "President, do you want Churchill to come forward?" Murong Han has been in the political arena for decades, so he can naturally guess Yang Qiu's thoughts. Now that China and the United States are deadlocked and unable to make concessions to each other, negotiations cannot be sustained, and the only way to open the gap is for Churchill to come forward.

Yang Qiu nodded, his eyes shining: "Tell him that China will not border Europe in the future." I can guarantee that all of my team will withdraw from India after the war, and I can also guarantee that we will not push for territorial referendums in Singapore and Borneo. But you have to tell him that we should certainly get some compensation for sacrificing such a big benefit. So I need him to support me, to recognize the Pacific islands under our control, to annex the Anambas Islands to our city of Natuna, and to sell Christmas Island and the Coco Islands to us. We will support the independent state-building of Indonesia and the various ethnic groups in the Southwest Pacific, and we will follow the Djibouti model to separate the Riau Province and the Linga Islands in Sumatra, and the Dakhlak Island and the Gulf of Arafali off the coast of Eritrea to build military ports, and finally, we will support our trusteeship of the Andaman Islands to ensure our long-term interests in the Strait of Malacca, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and other places. ”