The voice of the commander of car No. 2 came from the headphones: "Yes, car No. 2 understands!" and the German armored detachment continued to advance, so fast that it could not even send a convex reconnaissance unit to check the enemy's situation.

The last armored car passing by the Leopard tank, which had been hit by two shells, stopped, and there were not many soldiers on it, but there was a pile of strange parts, and the commander of the tank, who had been the first tank, and other members of the team had already opened the hatch of the tank's engine, removed the air filter inside, and carried it to the armored car that was transporting the parts. Then the things that were handed over to the armored car behind it, as well as two full barrels of precious gasoline.

"When driving long distances in the desert, there are two things that are most likely to worsen the tank, one is that the tracks are worn out, and the other is that the engine filter is not easy to clean. Keep it for spare!" The original commander, the commander of the No. 1 tank, waved his hand to the soldiers on the armored vehicle open-mindedly, and pointed to his tank with a smile: "Don't worry, there should be no large-scale American rout nearby, and the battalion headquarters is not far behind." ”

"Then we'll go first, don't worry, we'll kill a few more American tanks for you!" The soldier in the armored car smiled and saluted a traditional military salute, and then drove the armored car to chase his large army.

Sure enough, it didn't take long for the battalion headquarters cars and armored vehicles to follow, standing on the captured jeep painted with iron crosses, the German battalion commander looked at his subordinate tank cars parked on the side of the road, and then helplessly called the officer in charge of the maintenance team: "Is there a special air filter for the desert? After changing it, let this tank rush with the battalion headquarters, and the fuel truck will refuel them on the side of the road, don't delay other vehicles to hurry!"

In the evening of the same day, the German armored forces once again exchanged fire with Patton's troops, and the two sides invested thousands of combat troops, and finally the German army won the victory, and Patton could only leave behind an American division that had already suffered heavy losses, as the rear of the army, and once again lost to the German strikers who were biting and not letting go.

And this place of battle is already the area near Cairo, and since the British actually took control of Egypt, there really have been no other troops set foot here. But now it is at the forefront of the battle, and the battlefield is littered with the corpses of at least 500 soldiers from both sides.

Patton eventually misjudged the shape of the battle for Damanhur, thinking that he could capture Damanhur and annihilate the German paratroopers, but only consumed 2,900 German paratroopers there, and he did not expect the German armored forces to pursue his troops so frantically when Alexandria was not yet occupied.

As a result, he could no longer escape back to Suez unscathed, and in order to keep the still elite troops in his hands, he had to lose some of his soldiers again and retreat with the 8th Panzer Division and some mechanized infantry.

As for most of his infantry, they had either been ruthlessly left on Alexander's flank and had long since become prisoners of the Germans, or they had been left behind and struggling to make their way to Cairo, a group of mostly British colonial troops, who had been ordered to defend Cairo to the death to buy time for a counterattack. But in any case, Patton's troops who can return to the Suez Canal will not exceed 30,000, and on the opposite side, the number of proud North African regiments exceeds 500,000, and the front-line strength is as high as 310,000.

Of course, although Patton is sad now, he still has the capital to make a comeback after retreating, and even more depressed than him is Montgomery, who is trapped in Alexandria, and now he is standing on the bleak pier of Alexandria with his hands behind his back, quietly watching the waves wash back and forth over the heavy cement pier of the port.

For this middle-aged general, who is only 51 years old this year, Montgomery is a little old, his hair is gray, and his face is not very good-looking. In the heart of this general, who has been commanding troops in North Africa and fighting with Rommel for half a year, the saddest thing is not that the British Empire, which has dedicated his life, has lost the vital North Africa, but the despair that the British Empire has lost all its family resources.

It's the end of October, Montgomery's 51st birthday in a few days, when he was 27 years old, Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles, the British Empire is still proud of the world, and now 24 years later, the German army swept through Europe and was invincible, and the British Empire has become an emperor in exile.

The British exhausted the last trace of blood in North Africa, and the materials hoarded in North Africa were in fact Britain's last large-scale overseas homeland, and the 200,000 British troops in Montgomery's hands were also the last large-scale elite of Britain now with its own troops. Now the last bit of confidence of the British is that General Mountbatten has the main force of 30,000 British troops in India.

"Now, it's all over, we're defeated, we've been cleanly defeated by the Germans. Montgomery smiled wryly and said to himself, the outcome that awaited him was not very optimistic, either he was captured by the Germans and became a guest in the concentration camp, or he fled back to Iceland to be hanged by the officials and gentlemen to make an example, and in any case he could not lead a large army to fight to the death on the battlefield as he did today.

He looked at the sea in the distance, then turned to the smoke-filled positions that came into his own eyes—the Italians had heard that the Germans on the flanks had won a great victory, and that the battle had risen a notch, and now their offensive was rising higher and higher, and it seemed that they had really regained the shadow of the Roman legions that they were able to fight well.

However, in Montgomery's eyes, there was a little more sentimentality of being fooled by a weak opponent. For there was a corner in his heart that convicted him of the idea that if the Germans did not come, it would not be surprising that the Italians had lost all of North Africa. Even he himself thought it was incredible, and before he knew it, he added a strange assumption that "the Germans would not come."

It had been two days, and when he saw the German bombers and transports flying over Alexandria from the sea not far from that morning, he knew that the battle in North Africa was over, that they had exhausted their superiority, and that from that time on, the shape was in the hands of the Germans.

From the time the Germans routed the British Home Fleet and landed in Britain, from the time when the Spanish and German troops marched into Gibraltar, from the time the Germans captured Malta at all costs and attacked Crete, the transportation lines in North Africa could only survive around the Cape of Good Hope.

In order to maintain the fundamental interests of Britain and the United States in the Middle East, Britain, the United States, France and other countries have deployed a large number of troops near the Middle East, and even built arsenals to reduce the cost of military stationing - as a result, these things have now been consumed by the Germans, and maybe the Americans may have a little supplement, but the British army that has lost its homeland is indeed exhausted.

Behind him, there was a phalanx, abandoned Matilda tank. These tanks have fallen in their own country and can no longer be repaired in time, most of them are engine and transmission failures, and they are parked here waiting for spare parts to be shipped from Cairo and other places. Further afield, soldiers were already pushing poorly repaired tanks and armored vehicles off the dock and sinking to the bottom of the sea to create some problems for the Germans who were about to occupy the area.

"General! the flagship of the fleet has called, saying that they are going to take away the British troops who are willing to leave, and asking when you will be on board, and the fleet is going to India, where it will be assigned to the Indian Ocean Fleet to continue the operation. A staff officer came from a distance, his voice a little dry, and it seemed that these dozens of hours of torture would be unforgettable for every Englishman in Alexandria.

"I'm not going to get on the ship, after all, someone has to stay behind to take responsibility for this war, and I think I'm the best person. Montgomery smiled bitterly and said: "You tell those British officers who are going to India, don't listen to the stupid things that the Americans say about sticking to Suez, the homeland is lost, even if we stick to Suez, we can't change anything, and it is only right to defend India, an obedient place!"

"But general, what about our interests in the Middle East? Give up the oil fields and we'll really be finished......" The staff officer said this, and he didn't know what to say, now the British Empire is about to lose too much, which one is not important?

Although hostilities in the Balkans against the partition of Germany and Italy are now very frequent, and Turkey and Italy are mired in endless guerrilla warfare, when the dust settles here in North Africa, the Balkans will be completely surrounded by these countries, and without the support of outside forces, the resistance here will not last long.

North Africa changed hands, Egypt was lost, and the Suez Canal became the front line, in this case, the British Empire's government-in-exile's control over the Middle East and India will continue to decline, and when one day the Germans really get involved in the Middle East, presumably the nearby British power will immediately disappear, and then the British government-in-exile can only rely on a poor Canada, not to mention the counterattack on the British mainland, whether it will be sold to Germany by the United States is difficult to say.

"The things you are worried about are all after I die here, and I can't care about it. Montgomery squeezed out a smile, stretched out his hand and patted the staff officer on the shoulder: "The road is not smooth, and it is not a matter of a day or two for German submarines to lay mines near the Suez Canal...... When you arrive in India, remember to say hello to General Mountbatten on my behalf and thank me for his unsparing support for the North African theater!"