The Germans suddenly appeared in the Balkans, and as soon as they appeared, they hit a long-lost climax. The 400 fighters of the Air Force have achieved an anti-sky advantage in the sky, and now that the P-40 and Zero fighters are in service in large numbers, the FW-190D fighters, the main force of the German army, can no longer completely crush the opponent in terms of performance. However, in several countries on the Balkan Peninsula, the air force construction really cannot keep up with the trend of the world.

With the exception of the Greek Air Force, which is armed with 11 P-40 modifications, the fighters of the rest of the Balkan countries are in most cases on the same level as the Polish Air Force. In the face of the fierce Luftwaffe, it is conceivable how much it can do.

17 hours, this is how long it took for the Luftwaffe fighter group under the command of Catherine to completely destroy the air forces of several Balkan countries. The 300 enemy planes achieved almost no success, except for adding to the German pilots' record. In fact, the Balkan Air Force shot down German fighters did not have as high a crash rate as the German army.

In the afternoon of the same day, the German Stuka 2 attack aircraft began to crush the ground under the cover of fighter fighters, and the lagging Stuka also joined the slaughter lineup. Strategic air forces appeared in groups on Crete, bombing British military facilities on the islands. Within 24 hours, the entire Balkans were covered under the wings of the German eagle.

Under the command of General Hawke, the 8th Mechanized Infantry Corps advanced as fast as it did in France. In many places, they even received a warm welcome. The local Serbs saw the German army as liberators, and they were willing to join the leadership of the Iron Axis and share in the fruits of the war.

Even Hawke himself could not believe that the war was going so smoothly, and the Yugoslav troops in front of him were about to collapse because of the heavy casualties, and according to battlefield experience, the speed of advancing 25 kilometers a day was definitely not slow. In fact, the Yugoslav troops in front of the German army have been almost consumed by the Italian troops, so the German army picked up a bargain, but in the eyes of Mussolini, who does not know the truth, it is the Italian troops that have not been defeated for 2 days, and they were defeated by the Germans in 4 hours.

The local ******** was extremely complicated, so everywhere they went, flowers were even thrown at the German soldiers entering the city, and many people couldn't wait to hang the swastika flag of the Third Reich. Unfortunately, however, it will soon be handed over to Italy, and Germany has shown little interest in these non-strategic areas.

The good times were short-lived, and after passing through some pro-German and pro-Italian areas of the border area, resistance began to grow stronger, and the Germans had to bypass the city and use the best field encirclement tactics to annihilate the Greek and Yugoslav troops who had arrived for reinforcements. The cities behind him were surrounded by Italian and German infantry and began an endless artillery bombardment.

The Balkans were undoubtedly of unsurpassed importance to the North African strategy of the German and Italian forces. Once the Balkans are occupied, the deployment of a navy and air force on the island of Crete would not only allow it to be a back-to-back border ally with Turkey, but it would also be possible to move the transportation route from Italy to North Africa forward on the route from Crete to Egypt in the Balkans, which would almost double the distance and make the route safer.

Once the Balkans became a new supply base for the German army, the Romanian oil fields would have complete peace of mind, Germany's strategic depth would be expanded, and its military operations in North Africa would be more supported. Rommel's Afrika Korps will be multiplied with supplies, and it will be questionable whether the Allies will be able to hold the Suez Canal, let alone hold a large area as much as Egypt.

If Alexandria in Egypt were lost, the supply of the British and American troops in the territory would collapse even more, and the oil in the Middle East would become the pocket of the Axis powers, and at that time Accardo would have more resources in his hands than the United States, and the United States, with its huge production capacity, would be in production trouble due to lack of raw materials.

Of course, this qiē is just a deduction, and things are not exactly a one-man show according to the German script. Neither the United States nor Britain will watch the Germans gain their superiority in the Middle East, and they are unwilling to cede Middle Eastern oil interests, not even to Germany.

The British were also in their final death throes, and they did not want to see their Middle East finally fall into German occupation. So about 20 divisions of the British Indian Division were heading for the Middle East, hoping to reach Egypt to stabilize the situation before the Balkan chaos was over. These Indian divisions were not highly capable of combat, but they were well manned, and the British armed the army of nearly 350,000 men with many outdated weapons from local stocks. Some of the old howitzers were even produced since 1898, behemoths produced 40 years ago.

In order to defend the Middle East, the United States even discussed with China's envoys the issue of the Chinese expeditionary force going to the Middle East. The U.S. government is even willing to offer 0.5 percent of the local oil share in exchange for China's troop send. However, since China had never sent troops to such a distant region in modern history, and the United States could not guarantee logistical supplies, this exciting plan ultimately fell through.

Another thing that contributed to the failure of this plan was that the Chinese expedition to Burma was defeated in Burma due to lack of ammunition and equipment due to the collapse of the U.S. Navy and the Japanese invasion of Australia, which broke the supply lines between the United States and China halfway around the world.

The Japanese army was thriving in the Pacific theater, and even some US congressmen already felt that Japan had won the war, and that the United States could only choose the right time to withdraw from the war if it wanted to avoid greater losses. Because the US government and opposition are now united in hatred of the enemy, and the people's voices calling for a decisive war with Japan are rising, the US top brass who doubt that the war will be lost only dares to complain in private, and it is far from rising to the level of Congressional will.

In this case, the United States mobilized 40 divisions of the native guard, ready to meet the possible Japanese landing force. At Roosevelt's insistence, 4 divisions of elite American units were sent to the Middle East, including even 300 M4 Sherman tanks of the new production. Roosevelt wanted to strengthen Patton's forces and win the war in North Africa to stabilize the situation.

Roosevelt had serious disagreements with several senior military generals on this point, Nimitz, commander of the US Navy's Pacific Fleet, and Admiral Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, both hoped that the United States would take the lead in launching a counteroffensive in the Pacific, while Roosevelt personally felt that the United States should first solve the North African theater.

In the end, the American generals were sent to win, and they sent most of the American soldiers to the Pacific Ocean to defend the islands, delaying the Japanese attack. And Roosevelt could only help Patton win 4 divisions of American GIs within the scope of his ability. It's just that the number of tanks has been reduced to 200, and the number of aircraft is only 110. Compared with the strengthening of German forces in North Africa during the same period, these forces could only barely be sustained.

However, on the other hand, there was news that made the Americans a little depressed, and the implementation of the Australian withdrawal was incomplete. In fact, everybody knows that getting Australian troops to abandon their homeland and retreat back to the United States is a very difficult order, and those native troops will never abandon their homeland.

It is true that various problems have arisen in the process of carrying out the order to abandon Australia, the biggest of which is the reluctance of young soldiers to give up their families. The United States had no choice but to use all the ships it could find to rush Australia's families to South America and the United States, in order to mobilize the Australian troops to leave.

But in the end, four divisions of Australian troops remained on their home turf, refusing to board the ships and retreating, instead picking up the heavy weapons dropped by the American soldiers and heading in the opposite direction. There, they resolved to fight to the death against the invaders. Meanwhile, on their other side, the Japanese were struggling eastward in the desert, hoping to find the bountiful Australian cities and launch a new assault on them.

The whole month of July was almost good news for the Japanese. After the Japanese Navy completely annihilated the US Pacific Fleet, after more than 10 days of cruise, it covered the infantry and controlled the entire island system in Southeast Asia. The Japanese army found the oil resources that were lacking, and the strategic situation was good.

The base camp is drawing up an offensive plan to land on Oahu, and once Oahu is taken, Yamamoto believes that the United States will obediently return to the negotiating table and humiliate and sue for peace with Japan. In this way, Japan's biggest gamble will end in victory, and Japan will become the new generation of Asia-Pacific hegemon.

The Japanese flag has covered Northeast China, North China, the entire southern coast. and Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines in Southeast Asia, as well as northwestern Australia. In the view of Japan's top leaders, the war will end in the next three months, and once the United States withdraws from the war, Japan will have the opportunity to turn around and teach China a hard lesson that keeps making trouble.

However, the fantasies of these high-ranking officers and gentlemen did not change the personal experience of the Japanese officers and soldiers at the grassroots level -- in the desert of Australia, the troops of the seven divisions of Japan were overwhelmed by the sheer size of the territory, and they repeatedly asked for reinforcements from their base camp in Tokyo, not because they met stubborn resistance, but because they really did not have the troops to deploy on a long front.

As the commander of the Japanese front, General Ogawa repeatedly groaned in his heart with infinite grievances: For the Japanese Army, it is impossible for Australia not to fight, but for the soldiers of the Japanese Army, Australia, with its vast territory, can definitely be regarded as a big hole that cannot be filled.