Chapter 92
Chapter 92
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: crow
Chapter Title: The Fall of the Duce (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
While the German forces at Stalingrad were collapsing with their death throes, the Korean Army's first wave arrived in Africa.
Their forces consisted of one regiment of T-34 tanks produced under Soviet license, two fully motorized infantry regiments, and one fully motorized artillery regiment.
The scale wasn't large, but it was more than enough to overwhelm the Italian forces with sheer shock value.
The British side, upon seeing the Korean vanguard arrive, suggested that they launch a limited offensive against the Italian expeditionary force that was occupying Sidi Barrani.
"Of course not."
Baek Dong-seok had no intention of yielding credit to the British.
On February 9, 1943, Baek Dong-seok made a counterproposal to the British: let the Korean Army test the Italian defenses first and then launch the offensive.
"The Koreans are itching to rack up some achievements. What can one division accomplish anyway? Let them do as they please."
Formally his superior, Middle East Command commander General Auchinleck cheerfully accepted the request.
The Korean Army had been waiting for just this opportunity.
"Start the tanks!"
The Korean Army wasted no time in deploying their assault units.
"Your Excellency! The Allies are attacking!"
By the time Italian commander General Giovanni Messe received the report, one of the outer camps had already been trampled.
"This is a T-34."
Unfortunately for the Italian soldiers, they had no means to counter the T-34s.
Once the Korean tanks pushed into an assembly area, the outdated Italian tanks were reduced to scrap in an instant.
After shattering their morale like that, the Korean motorized units swiftly followed up, sweeping through the devastated Italian defensive lines.
The Koreans weren't superior in numbers, but in terms of equipment scale and quality, the Italians were no match at all.
The Italian soldiers stared in stunned silence at the Korean forces that swept through their positions and rapidly moved on to the next target.
Leading with overwhelming mobility, the Korean Army crushed four Italian camps in a single day.
Giovanni Messe was a competent commander, but there was nothing he could do when they were overwhelmed without a chance to respond.
"Retreat is impossible."
Considering the enemy's superior mobility, it was obvious they'd be pursued and crushed midway.
"Order all units to hold their current positions."
That was the only command Messe could issue.
The Italians faithfully followed their commander's orders, but fighting without the equipment to resist was impossible.
Each Italian unit was defeated piecemeal in their own camps.
By the second day, all seven camps surrounding the main base had fallen to the Koreans.
"It's over."
Messe had foreseen this possibility from the start.
That's why he'd dragged out the expedition, refusing to leave Libya.
But it had happened anyway.
Messe had only one option left.
"I'll order the troops to surrender."
"Pardon?"
"What's the point of spilling more blood in a pointless fight?"
Once the surrender order from Italian expeditionary commander Messe went out, scattered Italian groups began seeking out the Koreans to surrender.
There were so many that one Korean platoon ended up overseeing an entire Italian regiment.
The British caught on to the situation a bit late.
"What? The Koreans wiped out 80,000 at Sidi Barrani?"
The British generals were stunned.
They knew the Koreans had solid motorized forces.
They'd expected decent results, but total annihilation of the enemy?
They had no idea how to make sense of it.
Were the Koreans superhuman fighters, or were the Italians absurdly weak? It was hard to tell.
In any case, the British grew anxious too.
"Us too, let's move out."
Major General O'Connor's British 8th Army hurriedly dispatched its assault units.
But the Korean Army was already racing toward the Libyan border ahead of them.
"The credit is all ours."
The Korean Mediterranean Fleet, aware of Baek Dong-seok's advance plan in advance, supported the marching ground forces.
"Commence bombardment!"
Powerful Korean battleships appeared before Bardia, Libya's largest stronghold in the east, and opened fire.
The Italian commander defending Bardia stronghold, Annibale Bergonzoli, was someone Mussolini particularly trusted.
Before the battle began, Mussolini sent him a telegram of encouragement.
"I am confident that the Electric Whiskers and his men will defend Libya."
It was also a hopeful wish.
Bergonzoli responded to the Duce with a bold reply.
"I, Bergonzoli, am at Bardia. The enemy will not pass this point."
And in just one day, the Korean battleships' shelling collapsed the defenses around Bardia.
"Ever heard of 18-inch main guns?"
Before the overwhelming punch of Korea's prized super-battleship Koryo, the Bardia fortress fell without putting up a fight.
Against shells from Korean battleships that pierced meters-thick concrete like tofu, the Italians could do nothing.
"Y-Your Excellency. What do we do now?"
"Your Excellency?"
"His Excellency is gone. Where did he go?"
Unlike his bold bravado, "Electric Whiskers" Bergonzoli disguised himself as a straggler, blended in with his fleeing men, and quickly escaped.
"Don't let a single one escape. Capture that Electric Whiskers guy, and it's a field promotion!"
The Korean Army continued crushing the retreating Italians.
The British caught up to the Koreans at the fortress of Tobruk.
By then, the Koreans had annihilated 120,000 Italians, erasing an entire Italian field army from the order of battle.
"Th-this... The Koreans are about to monopolize the credit for conquering Libya."
The British felt a strong sense of crisis.
"Then we need to get aggressive too."
Instead of joining the seemingly late Tobruk battle, the British decided to race across central Libya's desert to Tripolitania.
O'Connor's calculation was that if successful, they could catch and devour the retreating Italians.
"We absolutely won't yield."
Baek Dong-seok left just one regiment to take Tobruk and fiercely pursued the Italians along the coastal road.
The two armies' mad race threw the Italians into panic.
"N-no way, the whole massive force is on the brink of annihilation in a week? Does that even make sense?"
It wasn't a small army.
A whopping 250,000 men.
Rome desperately clung to Hitler's ankle.
"If this continues, our Duce is finished. We're counting on Berlin's backside. Please, send reinforcements."
But Germany was getting hammered at Stalingrad and had no means to save Italy.
"We understand, but we're in a bind too."
Even tearful pleas fell on deaf ears.
The Italian ambassador returned empty-handed.
And a week later, on February 24, as the British and Korean armies linked up at Aghedivah in west-central Libya, the Italian forces in Libya were effectively done for.
An additional 80,000 Italians had been crushed in the process of the two armies' fierce advance.
The remaining Italians in Libya numbered fewer than 50,000.
Marshal Pietro Badoglio, who had been dispatched to Libya as a designated loser, learned of the situation and fell into despair.
It was impossible to defend both Tunisia (ceded from France) and the rest of Libya with so few troops.
Badoglio hurriedly ordered all documents in Tripoli's governor's mansion and government offices burned, then gathered the remnants and began retreating to Tunisia.
"They already ran?"
The Allies had pushed too hard over the past two weeks, reaching the limits of their logistics, and lacked the capacity to advance to Tripoli.
They'd planned to rest for a week and scout the situation, but hearing the Italians had fled reignited their rivalry.
"We have to take Tripoli!"
Loading scant fuel onto a few vehicles, both armies raced straight to western Libya.
It was a matter of pride.
On February 27, 1943, both armies entered Tripoli at nearly the same time.
There was some bickering over who got there first, but fresh off a great victory, both sides were equally satisfied.
Now, only Tunisia remained.
With things turning out this way, French North Africa, which had stayed quiet, grew restless.
"What is this? Doesn't this mean the Axis is done for?"
The top Axis power, Germany, was getting pummeled by the Soviets at Stalingrad, and Italy was on the verge of collapse after defeats everywhere.
Even to the French who had surrendered to Germany after just six weeks out of fear, the Axis looked like a sinking ship.
In response to the unrest in the colonies, the Vichy homeland authorities took this stance.
"We will respect the treaty with Germany and maintain a neutral position."
"Well, that's the order from the homeland, so we should follow it, I suppose."
But the French in Algeria and Morocco didn't need to agonize.
"Open the gates. Democracy has arrived."
Allied fleets advancing from Gibraltar, Alexandria, Tobruk, Malta, and elsewhere entered the major ports of Algeria and Morocco and trained their main guns.
"Join us or fight us. Choose one."
If there had been a fiasco like Operation Catapult in this world, the proud French might not have bent.
But here, Britain had never bombarded France.
"Fighting the Allies doesn't sit right with us, does it?"
Led by acting Governor-General Yves Charles Chatel, the colony's key officials and generals read the room and quickly switched sides.
"Long live Free France! Long live General de Gaulle!"
In this world, only the quick-witted survive.
This made the Axis even more desperate.
"With the Duce on the brink and now the French causing trouble. If we leave them be, they'll take southern France too."
Germany scraped together what few troops it had and invaded Vichy France.
"W-wait! We're neutral!"
Vichy's cries didn't reach Berlin.
Vichy France collapsed quietly like that.
On March 5, 1943, at the very moment the Germans at Stalingrad raised the white flag, the last Axis forces in Tunisia did the same.
Just as Stalingrad's defeat struck Hitler hard, this defeat dealt a mortal blow to the Duce.
Even the Fascist Grand Council, made up of Mussolini's longtime comrades, could no longer stand by.
They coldly turned their backs on the Duce and resolved to oust him from power.
Count Ciano, the Duce's son-in-law, and Dino Grandi, chairman of the Supreme Council, led the charge.
"We can no longer keep him as Prime Minister. Let's pull down Mussolini."
The resolution passed 19-7.
In that moment, the Duce received a political death sentence.
Fascist Italy's fate ended simultaneously.
The collapse of the Axis's number two, Italy, was now all but inevitable.