After the German occupation of Tobruk, Rommel held a grand ceremony to enter the city. The German cars were moving along the road, seemingly with no end in sight. On the edge of the road, the German tanks were also advancing in smoke and dust, looking full of evil and majestic.

This time, the North African Corps captured about 31,000 Allied prisoners, including 9,000 Australian soldiers who had suddenly become Allied forces. These soldiers are from Australia, so naturally they can no longer be treated as prisoners, but the Afrika Korps still does not dare to integrate almost 10,000 Australian troops into its battle sequence.

So this Australian unit was ordered to move to the rear, and the Italian second-rate troops who were left behind by Rommel could not be more obvious: we don't need you to fight, just build bridges and pave roads in the back and don't make trouble, thank you very much.

A smug Rommel finally let out a breath of turbidity, and his first large-scale battle after returning to Africa from his base camp ended in victory. In gratitude to the French for their support of the battle, the Italians even mobilized some second-rate troops to help Vichy France reoccupy some areas in the West African colonies.

At present, Italy and France have improved their relations with Germany and France countless times. The spending power of the German GIs in Paris is simply staggering, many people not only buy perfume and stockings, but also let go of food and various tourist attractions, and the most prosperous business is still those special attractions in Paris, France, "Moulin Rouge".

A large number of French people found that the Germans were making money so well that they could sell them as long as they took out the product. Hats, clothes, shoes, strollers, wheelchairs, as long as you can think of these products that the Germans buy.

So these shopaholics from Germany bought things with the francs or marks that had just been distributed, and the French sold things in a friendly manner, and then paid taxes to the Vichy French government, and then the Vichy French government paid reparations to Germany, and the Germans issued these indemnities, so that the Germans could continue shopping there.

This seemingly simple flow of goods and money was no different from the direct robbery of things, but because the Germans ceded a part of their profits to the Vichy French government and the French natives, and reduced the efficiency of local resistance, everyone got the benefits, and many of them made small fortunes, and in such an environment, it was not easy to incite the people to rise up against the Germans.

The return of some of the colonies in West Africa to French rule gave the French people a reason to cheer up, and the rapid German advance in France caused little trauma to the locals, which became the capital of the pro-Germans. So an argument was quietly born in the French upper echelons: the Germans needed the support of France, that we would eventually become allies, and that the German aggression would eventually end!

In fact, exploitation and plunder have not decreased, but have been diluted and moved to some unknown non-sensitive areas. The large amount of war reparations owed by the Vichy government of France to Germany and the expenses for the garrison had to be repaid by iron and steel and coal deposits. These things are not closely related to the lives of ordinary people, so the revolt caused by them is not as strong as that of direct exploitation.

Rommel stood in his car, inspecting the torrent of steel of his army as it marched in the direction of Egypt. He was so close to his rank as marshal, and between him and Cairo there were only a handful of troops in the hands of Patton in the United States and Montgomery in England. The Battle of El Alamein was about to begin, and this time, Rommel's forces were formidable.

"Mr. General, your troops have won a great victory in Tobruk, captured more than 20,000 prisoners, and rescued more than 9,000 Australian allies, can you now predict how long it will take for the German-Italian Afrika Korps to capture Egypt?" He held the pen in his hand and pressed the book that was reacted by the wind, and looked up at Rommel standing in the car.

Rommel's cars are full of mottled marks, and every day he spreads in the desert, and even the best quality cars are eroded by the wind and sand. Compared to the generals' cars in Berlin, the Mercedes-Benz general's convertible that was also issued to Rommel is now as devastated as historical relics.

The car's fenders were covered with mud and sand because of the rain, and then because of the dryness and wind, the paint on the car fell off in large pieces, and the chassis of the car was rusty, which was very different from the brand-new military cars that could be seen on the streets of Berlin.

Rommel had been looking at the tank units that were rumbling past in the distance, and his eyes were full of smiles. Hearing a reporter come up and ask him, he lowered his head and looked at the person who was questioning. It was an Italian journalist whose question Rommel had heard for the first time, and it was a novelty.

German journalists were basically under the control of the Reich Propaganda Department, and their questions were uniformly distributed by their superiors to avoid asking military secrets or embarrassing questions. These well-trained German journalists, who liked to take pictures but rarely spoke and asked questions, conveyed images of the brave and fearless German army to the country, and built momentum for the Reich's sacred war of foreign expansion.

The Italian reporter looked up at Rommel, hoping that Rommel would answer the question, and if Rommel was happy to say the specific time, then the news would definitely cause a sensation throughout the Kingdom of Italy.

"I can't tell you when our army will enter Egypt, nor when we will take Egypt. There is only one belief I can tell you, a belief that is engraved in the bones of all of us here. Rommel thought for a moment and said, "Let's fight for victory with a qiē! That's the only thing I can tell you." We stop to win, we die to win, we move forward to win, and we kill our opponents to win. ”

After he finished speaking, he continued to raise his head and watched the torrent of armor that kept moving in the distance, and every soldier was waving to him, including General Garibaldi's Blackshirts on the Italian M13 tank. Compared with the German tanks, the performance of these M13 tanks is very backward, and the combat quality of the armored corps is not high, but the Italian infantry cannot do without these equipment, after all, the German tanks cannot be dispersed to give these Italians courage.

General Schellner was entering Italy with his 12th Panzer Corps, and soon after that he would enter the North African theater. The Panzer Corps consisted of the 30th Panzer Division and the SS 12th Panzer Division, and although most of the soldiers were new recruits, they were equipped with brand-new Leopard and Tiger tanks, and their combat effectiveness should not be underestimated.

And with the arrival of these two divisions, there were more than 100,000 infantry. The infantry was also mainly recruited, but they were very well trained. These forces will strengthen the fighting power of the Afrika Korps and drive Patton and Montgomery east of the Suez Canal once and for all.

For the operation of this large army, Accardo personally ordered the gathering of 110 transport ships of various kinds, and joined the already overstretched Italian Mediterranean transport fleet to provide transportation and supply for the German and Italian forces throughout North Africa. Malta has now played a role as a strategic hub, with little loss of German and Italian ships between Europe and Africa – meaning that about 30 per cent of the losses that were originally lost can now reach Africa in earnest. Originally, these supplies were used to feed the fish, but now they can be used for warfare.

Intelligence provided by reconnaissance planes indicated that in the western part of Egypt, Allied soldiers were strengthening their own defenses, and they wanted to turn Egypt into a huge fortress to defend against Rommel's invasion. The entire northwestern part of Egypt is crisscrossed by trenches that resemble a huge construction site.

Patton and Montgomery disagreed over how to defend Egypt, with Patton advocating a strategic decisive battle in Egypt to deplete Rommel's armoured forces, and then retreat to the Suez Canal to deploy a defensive line and hold on to this short line - a plan that ceded almost all of Africa and was vetoed by Montgomery.

Montgomery preferred to use a strong defensive line to wipe out the German army's armor superiority and air superiority. Uses a style of play similar to self-destruction to delay the progress of the war. His plan was to wipe out the entire 8th Army of Patton and his own 9th Army in order to delay the capture of Egypt.

However, the two men eventually agreed on the issue of consuming Rommel's armor forces, and eventually Patton abandoned the idea of his own armor battle and proposed a compromise plan instead.

The plan was to rely on Montgomery's 9th Army to take the lead, to deplete the German armoured forces in position, and if the fighters appeared, Patton's armoured forces would immediately go into battle, bite and run. Use this soft and rigid local counterattack strategy to minimize the superiority of the German army's armored forces.

At this moment, Rommel had about 1,300 tanks in his hands, including more than 250 Italian M13 tanks. And Patton had about 1,200 tanks in his hands, including Montgomery's family. These tanks were also inferior in quality to the equipment in the hands of the Germans, so the gap in armor was actually very large.

Moreover, Rommel's Afrika Korps also had the full support of the Italian Mediterranean Fleet, although it could not concentrate the huge naval forces that attacked Tobruk, but at least Rommel could get cruisers and destroyers at a faster speed, and the guns on these ships could ensure Rommel's artillery superiority in the coastal area.

It seems that, from this moment on, there was nothing left to stop Rommel's army from entering Egypt.