Chapter 116
Chapter 116
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 116
Chapter Title: World War II - The Steel Wave (3)
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July 1, 1940
Central Italy, the Italian Capital – Rome
Italy had fully anticipated Germany's offensive and had prepared for it accordingly.
They diligently reinforced their defensive lines and ramped up production of new fighter aircraft, doing everything in their power, by Italian standards, to prepare their defenses.
The problem, however, was the miserable reality that doing one's best does not always yield the best results.
“What will you do now?”
Mussolini, who had grown timid and kept a low profile after a series of military failures and Himmler's great fiasco, raised his deep baritone voice for the first time in a while to confront Chief of the General Staff Badoglio.
Chief of the General Staff Badoglio was dumbfounded but had nothing to say.
“Why are you silent, Chief of the General Staff? It was you who said that an all-out defense was Italy’s best option, and it was you who refused to lend the air force to attack British bases in the Mediterranean, claiming signs of a German invasion were present.”
In truth, Mussolini, who loved offensives and gambles, had been eager to participate in La Rocque's plan.
At La Rocque’s proposal to strike Alexandria and Malta with air and naval power, he had praised it as 'an operation shining with fascist genius' and had shouted, “All in!”
The problem was that the head of the air force, Marshal Italo Balbo, had been persuaded by Army Chief of Staff Badoglio and refused, stating that with a German offensive imminent, the air force must focus on defending the homeland.
It was not logical to wage another all-or-nothing gamble when the nation itself was on the verge of being overrun. From the perspective of the Italian Army and Air Force, it was a perfectly rational and strategic choice.
The problem was that the Italian Navy, led by Admiral Campioni, took this decision very badly.
Unlike the Italy of the original history, which only joined the war during the invasion of France, this Italy had intervened during the German Civil War and, as a consequence, was hit with an embargo much earlier.
Although they were able to procure fuel through France for a short time after the La Rocque government came to power, that too was soon cut off due to American and British intervention, thanks to the efforts of the Abwehr.
The shortage of resources like fuel, which had plagued Italy in the original history, was now tormenting them even sooner. The Italian Navy, the group with the largest oil reserves in Italy, had to give up the oil they had painstakingly conserved, not only to the army and air force but also to the factories.
So when the army and air force, who had come begging for oil, effectively backstabbed the navy, a furious Admiral Campioni declared that the navy would not move without air support and remained anchored in port.
That might have been written off as unavoidable, but then France pulled off a massive victory in Britain.
They had succeeded in landing on the British Isles, something no one had imagined possible. As a result, a new narrative was forged: Mussolini, the visionary who had actively supported La Rocque's proposal, versus the incompetent military command that had failed to recognize his insight.
“Speak, Chief of the General Staff! Because of your arbitrary decision, the navy couldn't move, and France refused to send ground troops! So what is the state of those defensive lines you poured so much effort into?”
Neither Army Chief of Staff Marshal Badoglio nor Air Force Chief of Staff Marshal Balbo could say a word, though they had mouths to speak. It wasn't that they had done anything terribly wrong.
Despite the limited resources and the massive losses incurred from Mussolini's offensives, they had, together with France, managed the great feat of repelling a German assault once before.
Even after France withdrew, they did their utmost to strengthen their defensive lines and air force by scraping together what little resources they had.
But the offensive meticulously prepared by the German Fourth Reich—a brutal, 24-hour assault by a staggering 5,000 aircraft and overwhelming artillery—mockingly destroyed all their efforts.
“The air force is annihilated, and you can't even get a proper damage report from the front lines. Does that make any sense? What has your precious defensive strategy left us with? Because of you, the British Mediterranean Fleet remains intact, and France has refused to help!”
Unfortunately, judging by the results alone, it appeared as though Mussolini had been right. The Duce, who had been lying low, was now full of vigor, relentlessly pressuring the two men.
Of course, it was mere hindsight, and just as a broken clock is right twice a day, it was a fluke that his gamble had aligned with the outcome.
Finally, Chief of the General Staff Badoglio closed his eyes tightly and spoke as if letting out a sigh.
“My apologies, Duce. I have failed in my duty due to my own inadequacies. I, a humble servant, will resign.”
Watching Badoglio, Marshal Italo Balbo also sighed and added.
“…I will resign as well.”
It was an unprecedented situation for the Army and Air Force Chiefs of Staff to resign simultaneously during a war, but Duce Mussolini was delighted at the departure of the two chiefs who had grown bold enough to ignore his orders.
“You have worked hard. Rest well. From now on, this Duce will overcome Italy’s crisis!”
Mussolini’s confidence was not entirely baseless. While the Italian Air Force had been virtually wiped out at the start of the battle and the defensive lines were taking a one-sided beating, the front line itself had not, on the surface, been pushed back.
Had Mussolini seen with his own eyes the state of the front, where communication lines were obliterated and the very terrain had been churned up, with his troops being pounded for the third day straight without even being able to report their status to high command, he would never have possessed such confidence. But the fact that the front line was holding, even if the extent of the damage was unknown, actually fueled his wishful thinking.
It was hard to imagine an offensive that poured ammunition and bombs until the enemy was nearly annihilated by 'conventional standards', and looking only at the map, it seemed that despite the chaos, the front line itself was being held.
It was a bravado he would not have possessed had he known that the front was only holding because the German army had not yet launched its ground assault, and that his forces were pinned down, unable to retreat even if they wanted to, due to the steel wave covering the sky and the endless rain of steel.
“The air force, which only consumed our budget and offered little help, is already near annihilation. Let's give all their oil to the navy. Go appease Admiral Campioni and tell him to strike the British Mediterranean Fleet!”
They had held off the Germans once before with France at their side. Mussolini was confident they could hold on if only the French army would come.
“Foreign Minister, go to France and deliver this message! The great Italian Navy will secure our sea—Mare Nostrum—so tell them to send reinforcements to stop these German invaders!”
Unlike Mussolini, who was thoroughly excited and displaying his authority as Duce for the first time in a while, his son-in-law and Foreign Minister, Count Ciano, did not look pleased.
“My apologies, Duce, but France has already flatly refused to send ground troops to aid us. To go back now…”
“Nonsense, that is what a Foreign Minister is for! Once they see our navy in action in the Mediterranean, they will think differently! Surely, our navy is no worse than the French!”
The British Mediterranean Fleet had the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and the battleships Barham, Warspite, and Malaya, but the Italian Navy possessed six battleships, including the recently commissioned Littorio and Vittorio Veneto.
The Mediterranean Fleet's three Queen Elizabeth-class battleships were quite old, and Britain was in no position to reinforce them from the home isles. Mussolini was certain of victory.
Count Ciano had no desire to face the French Premier La Rocque, who hadn't even bothered to hide his anger, but he had no choice but to sigh and agree.
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July 2, 1940
Southern British Isles, Portsmouth – French Military Headquarters
The French landing force, led by Charles de Gaulle, had to endure considerable sacrifices to break through the British coastal defenses while landing on the beaches east of the Portsmouth naval base. However, thanks to the British being ill-prepared from the surprise attack, they managed to break through and capture Portsmouth Harbor.
After the landing, instead of launching a hasty offensive toward London, de Gaulle adopted a strategy of thoroughly securing southern England to establish troop transport and supply lines.
This was partly due to the difficulty of unloading heavy equipment like tanks before the beachhead was properly established, and also to avoid encountering the strongest resistance before his forces had recovered from the landing.
Indeed, Lieutenant General Alan Brooke, commander of the Southern Command, who was short on troops, had opted for a strategy of concentrating his forces near London to form a defensive line, proving de Gaulle's judgment correct.
Thanks to de Gaulle's decision, the French army succeeded in capturing the southern British Isles without significant losses, securing naval and air bases in southern Britain, which provided a stable foothold for the fight for air and sea superiority in the conquest of Britain.
The problem came next.
“Was the Premier's promised landing of a million-strong army impossible from the start?”
De Gaulle pressed his temples with a weary expression. His close friend, Alphonse Juin, who was also considered one of the more competent generals in the French army, replied.
“Yes, Charles. We lost many transport ships during the landing operation, but it was an unreasonable plan from the beginning.”
The plan to land a million-strong army and swiftly force the surrender of Britain, with its weak land forces, seemed plausible at first glance. However, France's poor logistical capabilities were insufficient to support a million-man expedition across the sea, a feat that would have been difficult even on land.
Thanks to de Gaulle securing not only Portsmouth but also Plymouth and Portland, they were just about managing, but France, having lost a significant number of transport ships, was struggling to supply even 500,000 troops.
La Rocque still wanted to land an additional 500,000, but de Gaulle refused, telling him to prepare for the war with Germany instead.
“The navy was hit by Force H again yesterday, I hear.”
The report from his subordinate, Philippe de Hauteclocque, known in the original history as Leclerc, made de Gaulle's already troubled brow furrow even deeper.
The French navy had desperately dispatched submarine fleets even after the initial surprise attack to lay mines and carry out all sorts of sabotage to keep the fleet at Scapa Flow bottled up, but their opponents were Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy.
They had resorted to the brutish method of sending transport ships ahead to simply collide with the mines to clear a path, and ultimately succeeded in getting their still-intact fleet out of Scapa Flow.
Once out of the narrow harbor, the Royal Navy's destroyer fleet hunted down and drove off the French submarines that were busy laying mines. In the end, the seas once again belonged to the Royal Navy.
For now, with the Royal Navy's fleet still small and the French navy intact, there was no problem maintaining control of the narrow English Channel.
However, Britain was using Force H, led by Admiral James Somerville, to conduct hit-and-run attacks on the French fleet guarding the Channel, continuously inflicting damage.
Force H, consisting of the aircraft carriers Ark Royal and Illustrious, and the battlecruisers Hood, Repulse, and Renown, endlessly employed hit-and-run tactics with its characteristic mobility, grating on the French navy's nerves, but there was no effective countermeasure.
France's only aircraft carrier, the Béarn, was as slow as a merchant ship and completely useless. While the Dunkerque-class and Richelieu-class battleships were 30-knot fast battleships and could respond, the Royal Navy knew this and painstakingly avoided those three ships, harassing the others instead.
If they dragged this out, the Royal Navy would surely repair its other damaged capital ships and deploy them. Meanwhile, news that Germany had launched an all-out offensive against Italy, with the Luftwaffe swarming the skies and pounding the country, fueled France's anxiety.
“The Premier seems to have no idea of the situation here.”
Capturing southern England, which was largely unprepared due to the surprise attack, had not been very difficult.
But de Gaulle and the French army had to endure the truly horrifying animosity of the British people, and they had to make every effort to maintain a gentlemanly conduct and strictly manage public order to somehow lessen the locals' hostility.
They had just managed to quell the seething resistance in the southern region and were only now catching their breath, but it had only been a week. The fact that things were a little quieter now hardly meant the region had been stabilized.
However, La Rocque was pressuring de Gaulle to capture London as soon as possible, and even from de Gaulle's perspective, simply sitting tight in southern England would only worsen the situation.
“It can no longer be avoided. We must eventually launch an offensive.”
The conditions were unfavorable in many ways, but in the end, they had no choice but to attack. De Gaulle studied the map with a prudent expression and spoke. The other generals looked down at it with tense faces.
“The Premier's request is London, but if we throw ourselves against those defenses, we'll be driven back to France in no time.”
Unlike in the original history, when they had abandoned all their equipment at Dunkirk and worried about the Nazi's Operation Sea Lion, the British army's equipment was now equal to or even better than the French.
Thanks to Halifax, who had disbanded all the mobilized troops after the Munich Agreement, the British army was still short on numbers, but they would gradually increase. De Gaulle's French army, despite being 500,000 strong, could not commit all of them to the offensive due to rear security and logistical issues.
La Rocque was pushing for an attack on London, but de Gaulle was a man with enough arrogance to trust his own judgment and flatly reject a politician's unrealistic demands.
De Gaulle's finger pointed to Gloucestershire, to the west of London.
“They are prepared to fight to the death to defend London, so we will bypass it, break through here, and isolate London from the rest of Britain.”
“Indeed, that seems to have a better chance of success.”
“The enemy commander is a man named Bernard Law Montgomery. Have you heard of him?”
Everyone shook their heads, and de Gaulle nodded.
“Very well, then it is decided.”
De Gaulle's first opponent was to be Montgomery.