A cannonball landed straight on the yellow sand, and before the sand raised by the shell could fall, several soldiers carried their rifles and ran from one side of the trench to the other side. They had been here for a whole month, and for them, these crater-ridden positions were their home.

Taking his eyes off the gunner's mirror, Rommel took off the large-brimmed hat from his head, shook off the dust twice, buckled it back to his head, and turned and shook his head at his lieutenant. Apparently he didn't like this kind of time-consuming and labor-intensive attack, but there was nothing too good about it for the time being.

Alexandria, under the siege of Germany, has been holding on for more than a month, this seaside port city already has a lot of material reserves, although the more than 100,000 British soldiers in it are not the main force, but under Montgomery's urging, stubbornly stick to their combat posts.

"We are still not good at dealing with such a well-fortified city, with high casualties among soldiers and more ammunition consumption than in mobile warfare. Rommel looked at the map of the entire war zone and said with some emotion.

The German army has never been very suitable for this kind of battle that relies on human lives, it prefers a war of encirclement and annihilation with a wide opening and closing, and it is more suitable for the kind of battle that quickly advances to cut through the enemy's position and then captures tens of thousands of prisoners. As for the repeated battles with the enemy over the ruins in an environment full of buildings unsuitable for tank combat, the German army had been through many times, but it was still not able to adapt effectively to this kind of fighting.

"The British were very accurate in their marksmanship, and they relied on the outlying positions and ruins to resist steadily, and although they suffered heavy losses, they still did not flinch. We lost 3 lieutenants this morning, and I had to promote some non-commissioned officers to replenish the lost officers. A division commander in charge of the attack reported helplessly. His troops suffered considerable losses in the attack, but Rommel still had no intention of replacing them.

Rommel, or Rommel's immediate superiors, the generals of the Army Staff Headquarters and the Imperial High Command, wanted a complete and immediately operational Alexandria, so Rommel had no way to use heavy artillery and bombers to bomb the last British position repeatedly, and Rommel could only use his precious infantry to consume the British troops in the port little by little.

From the mouths of the prisoners of war, it was learned that Montgomery, the commander of the 9th Army, an old rival of the Afrika Korps and arguably the supreme commander of Britain in North Africa, was now in Alexandria. For Rommel, it was not just a win-lose showdown, but also the end of fate.

Not far away, an Italian tank was destroyed by British anti-tank guns and was burning, and not far from this tank, several Italian army cannons were firing fiercely, these guns were attacking a hidden pillbox and bunker group, with the core support there, the British army built a ring of fortifications nearby, making the attacking Italian army pay a heavy price.

A deafening salvo made Rommel frown involuntarily, his headquarters was too close to the artillery position, and the noise really made him feel a little uncomfortable. But this is war, and everything will not be arranged according to the needs of comfort.

Walking back to his office, he slapped the dust on his body twice with his gloves, and the whole small tent was immediately filled with dust, and when everything was back to normal, Rommel took off his military coat and threw it on a chair beside him.

General Frederick had just returned from the direction of Cairo, the Italian and German vanguard troops had arrived on the outskirts of Cairo, and as expected, the 30,000 British and Americans in Cairo, as well as 50,000 local Egyptian troops, had refused to surrender and had already built strong fortifications, and another quagmire of war was waiting for the Germans, which made people unhappy.

Although the dusty Frederick was meticulously dressed, he looked a little dirty, after all, he had been running around in the desert with his troops for a whole month, and to maintain such a decent appearance was already a German soldier's persistent pursuit of military appearance. He spoke softly with a hoarseness: "My general, there are minefields and pillboxes on the periphery of Cairo, and my troops have tentatively attacked once, and the other side has resisted very resolutely. ”

This was also expected by the Supreme Command, after all, the Germans entered Egypt to break the original rules of the region and shake the foundation of many vested interests, so it was inevitable to encounter strong resistance, and they could only rely on force to unilaterally suppress it, and there was no other better way.

"Inform Lieutenant General Durlo of the Air Force to send bombers to attack all targets except the port area! We don't have time to waste time here with a bunch of dead men!" After listening carefully to General Frederick's briefing on Cairo, Rommel thought for a moment before he spoke: "After all, our General Patton has retreated to the vicinity of the Suez Canal, and if he is allowed to strengthen the defensive line there, it will not be of much benefit to our attacks in the future." ”

In fact, the Allied forces in the Middle East were already strong and did not have much strength, but at this time, Turkey, which had always regarded itself as the second leader of the Axis countries in terms of mentality, sent troops to launch a small-scale exploratory attack on the Middle East controlled by the United States and Britain.

About 10 Turkish divisions attacked south, only to be disgraced by the local forces near the border, and when an American light armored division arrived, half of these Turks were taken prisoner, and they were given a timely "victory in the north" to the desperate American forces in the Middle East.

This not only allowed the United States and Britain to see clearly the weak nature of the Turkish threat to the north, but also strengthened their determination to continue to fight against the Germans. As a result, the encirclement of Alexandria and the fighting near Cairo inevitably entered the rhythm of a war of attrition, and the dilemma of the Germans in North Africa with insufficient reserves was also infinitely magnified.

"It's time for these locals to see our strength, since we can't do it without blood, then simply come ruthlessly, and also set up a prestige for our rule in the future!" Frederick nodded approvingly, he was in favor of carrying forward his firepower superiority, after all, the suppression of firepower to reduce his own losses is definitely more in line with the current situation in North Africa than the consumption of limited troops.

Alexandria is full of open-air field hospitals and refugee shelters. Because the Germans rarely shelled the facilities in the city, as the fighting continued and the losses continued to increase, more and more wounded soldiers and refugees had to pile things on the streets, turning the streets and alleys of Alexandria into a lively bazaar-like place.

Montgomery and his assistants visited the wounded in an open-air hospital, where a front-line division commander was wounded by shrapnel in the morning and sent for amputation. The open-air hospital was littered with blood and the wails of soldiers. Every now and then someone dies here, and every now and then someone becomes a disability that is missing a part of it.

"If, if we can, most of the soldiers need to rest, we should abandon some of our positions and retreat into the city, where the Germans are less adept at street fighting. The British major general, who had lost a hand, looked at Montgomery and said a little weakly. He cared more about the soldiers with whom he fought than he did. As an old British aristocrat, this very gentlemanly middle-aged man has a very traditional British demeanor.

Montgomery did not hide the current situation, he seems to be twenty years old these days: "To be honest, now we are just fighting for our beliefs, and in the end, you and I and others know that we are just dying." Compared to the Italians and Germans, we did not have enough troops and ammunition, and now we have the best result I can command. ”

The division commander, who was still very calm after losing a hand, looked a little gloomy, he was willing to die in any corner for his motherland, but he was really unwilling to accept the reality that his motherland had collapsed and perished. What the loss of North Africa meant to Britain, he could not have known better as commander here.

"I can't be relied on anymore, I've done everything I can. Seeing that the other party did not speak, Montgomery cried and laughed and continued to talk to himself: "What can be counted on now is General Mountbatten's troops in India, if he can keep those elites and return to the British mainland when needed, things may have some turnaround." ”

Everyone knows that this is just self-deception, Mountbatten's troops are already stretched, the Japanese expansion in Southeast Asia has shattered the British colonial system there, India and Burma are now the front line, as for how much British soldiers there can survive, they can only pray for the scale of the Japanese offensive, not count on General Mountbatten's command and dispatch ability.

Today's Britain is similar to an elderly master with profound skills, but he was caught off guard by the young boxer in Germany, and his strong skills have not yet been exerted, and there is only a strong breath left, as for fighting back, I am afraid it is difficult to do.

The British wounded division commander sighed and glanced at the road beside the bed, the yellow sand was all over the ground, mixed with red and dried blood, dry and desperate.