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Text Chapter 977 Both a help and a harm

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    "Those were perhaps the twelve weeks closest to our defeat, and also the most painful year!"

    "I was in Gibraltar at the time. When I learned that the USS Enterprise was sunk and saw the USS Nelson slowly sinking after entering the harbor, I thought we were doomed. But the news later told me that  It¡¯s not the worst!¡±¡ª¡ª

    Elmes, British Reuters war correspondent.

    In March 1941, there was almost no good news for the Allies, except for Truk and the Marshall Islands, which were irrelevant to the overall situation.  On the fourth day of the landing in North Africa, the aircraft carrier Enterprise and the battleship Nelson were sunk one after another, once again severely damaging the British and American navies that were almost paralyzed.  So much so that in the weeks that followed, Bismarck and the two Scharnhorst-class battlecruisers virtually dominated the Atlantic.  If it weren't for the natural barrier of the Strait of Gibraltar, Redl might have been able to gain control of the Mediterranean ahead of time.  In this round of raids, the Allies paid a heavy price. A total of seventeen merchant ships, three troop transports and destroyers were sunk.  Coupled with D?nitz's wolf pack, Britain and the United States lost one aircraft carrier, one battleship, five destroyers, thirty-one merchant ships and three thousand soldiers in just a few weeks

    Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of British and American workers, the USS North Carolina was delivered ahead of schedule on March 6.  At the same time, the second ship of the British Royal Navy's George V-class battleship, HMS Prince of Wales, has officially entered service, and the third ship, HMS Duke of York, will also enter service in early April.  The battleships King George V and Warrior, which were damaged in Operation Trebuchet, were also repaired on March 7.  Finally, the British Navy also salvaged the sunken HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Warspite in Alexandria (the aircraft carrier Glorious could not be repaired) and towed them to the Port of Durban, South Africa for overhaul.  At this point, the British Navy has gathered a main lineup of seven battleships and four aircraft carriers.  In addition to the U.S. Navy's transfer of the battleship Colorado, five cruisers, and 12 destroyers to Gibraltar, Britain and the United States once again assembled a total of 12 battleships, five aircraft carriers, and 22 cruisers in the Atlantic and Mediterranean to continue to maintain control.  Italian and German navies launched a comprehensive encirclement and suppression campaign.

    The sinking of the USS Enterprise deeply hurt the U.S. Navy and Army Air Forces.  The Chinese navy has begun to attack the Marshall Islands and Gilbert Islands, but it is completely unable to intervene.  Roosevelt had no choice but to give in and ordered full support to China in accordance with the support agreement reached by Hopkins and Yang Qiu.  The first batch provided China with a loan of US$500 million and supplies worth US$500 million.  This also means that throughout 1941, the U.S. Navy, except for Australia, would basically not appear in the Southwest Pacific.

    With this major change, the U.S. General Staff headed by Marshall finally breathed a sigh of relief.  Without the drag of the Pacific, they could finally provide their maximum power to Europe!  The day after Roosevelt made his decision, Marshall signed the second batch of troop surge plans.  These include 13 army divisions, 600 tanks, 4,000 anti-aircraft guns, 18 warships, and 2,000 B-17 bombers (the pre-war total was 2,576, due to China's H-7 stimulation being higher than in history).  1,200 B-25 bombers (the total number before the war was 1,767) and 1,872 P-40, P-38, and F4F fighters (the total number of these three types of aircraft before the war was 3,379) were transferred to Europe and North Africa.  Finally, the U.S. Army Aviation and Navy were unwilling to wait for new aircraft from domestic aircraft companies, and immediately formally proposed to the Chinese government to purchase the patent for "dual-electric" fighter jets in accordance with the terms of the alliance.

    Marshall¡¯s troop increase was very determined, but Rommel¡¯s advance was equally sharp and fast!  After being blocked by Britain and the United States at Kissna in the east of Algeria, he deliberately moved the large forces to Batna in the south, luring two US divisions to intercept, and then personally led an armored division to suddenly attack Mira northward.  Because the Allies did not expect that the German army would dare to go to the coast blocked by naval guns, they did not wait until the leading troops appeared outside Setif.  Only then did he intercept in panic.

    The Battle of Setif was the first large-scale battle after the Allied forces landed in North Africa. Both sides invested a total of seven divisions.  But the result is something the US military will never forget!  Around the Creel Gorge north of Setif, Colonel Menton's 288th Armored Regiment taught the US 1st Armored Division a good lesson.  In just one day.  The 41 Panzer IV tanks under his command destroyed a total of 104 US M3 tanks, armored vehicles and trucks, and finally defeated the 26th British Tank Brigade and the 3rd Tank Regiment of the Free French Army that came to aid.  In the next two days, the Allied forces suffered more than 8,000 losses.  Setif was also lost, allowing Rommel to approach less than 230 kilometers from the Algiers landing site.

    The Battle of Setif once again showed the shortcomings of the US military's poor tactics and poor experience.  In order to contain Rommel.  To ensure the safety of the landing site, Britain and the United States sent more troops to North Africa and ordered Wavell's Egyptian Army to attack Benghazi.

    At this time, Yang Qiu's role in allowing Bai Chongxi to attack East Africa in advance was finally reflected.  After Zhu Jiande wiped out nearly half of the 600,000 Italian East African Army and rushed all the rest to Somalia and southern Ethiopia, Wavell's Egyptian Army finally had no worries.  So eleven infantry divisions and three armored brigades were immediately dispatched, stormed the Syrian town of Benghazi.  Cunningham also lost no time in mobilizing three heavy cruisers and two U.S. New York-class battleships to bombard the harbor.  Since this place was very close to the oil fields sold by Jin Bihui, Hitler, who was worried that his "future resources" would be snatched away by Britain and the United States, became "dizzy" again. Regardless of Rommel's protests, he strictly ordered him to ensure the safety of Benghazi first, and deliberately sent Kleist to  The general was transferred to North Africa and served as commander of the army group.

    This made Rommel so angry that he immediately called the staff and asked to be transferred back to Europe.  After Hitler heard the news, he just had to appease his beloved general and vowed that he would immediately discuss with Mussolini, and then allocate three German armored divisions, five German infantry divisions, and ten Italian infantry divisions to support him, completely destroying the Anglo-American "  Drive to the sea", which finally calmed Rommel down a little.  However, he also knew that Benghazi was very important. Once Benghazi was lost, he would be attacked from both sides, so he had to turn around and deal with Wavell's Egyptian Army first.

    Knowing that Rommel had turned around, Eisenhower, who was in charge of the landing in North Africa, was relieved.  But the US military has not yet completely established itself in North Africa, and bad news comes from Europe!  On March 8, 700,000 German troops suddenly attacked Yugoslavia, officially entering the Balkans.  Peter II and Prime Minister Simovich immediately asked for help from the Allies. At the same time, the Yugoslav GC International, headed by Tito, which had always been opposed to them, also turned to fully resist the invasion and hoped that the Soviet government would provide support.  But consider your own situation.  Stalin refused to provide aid for fear of angering Germany and being attacked from two fronts.  This move angered the radicals headed by Tito, who immediately rejected the Moscow Party Central Committee's order to "give up resistance and preserve effective forces." They announced that they would join the Yugoslav Resistance Army headed by Peter II, and vowed to lead the Yugoslav people to fight to the end.  time!

    This incident also became the trigger for the complete disintegration of gc international.  In the face of national interests, this organization, which was once regarded as the savior of the world's proletariat and regarded as a "political cash machine" by the Soviet Union, finally came to an end.

    Tito¡¯s active participation united Yugoslavia.  This is also great news for the alliance.  With a population of 15 million, Britain and the United States, which were worried about finding "cannon fodder", were ecstatic and immediately supported it in a high-profile manner.  And on the second day of the German offensive, the US military dispatched 200 transport planes to transport a large amount of weapons and equipment from Greek airspace to Belgrade.  Out of post-war considerations, Yang Qiu also instructed Bai Chongxi to send transport planes to provide necessary assistance such as weapons and medicine to Tito, and dispatched "military observers" to Tito for the first time to help him form his own resistance army.

    But at this time.  But bad news came from distant Central Asia.  On March 4, the Soviet army assembled four tank divisions and 20 infantry divisions, with a total of 300,000 troops setting off from Aktobesk (now Aktobe, Kazakhstan). Under the command of Rokossovsky  Down.  Launch a counterattack on the Irguz River where the Chinese National Defense Forces are stationed.  Although the Air Force provided immediate support, the bombing effect was poor due to wind and snow, and the front-line commanders made misjudgments. As a result, the two infantry divisions stationed in the Big Boquete Bai Mountain were surrounded.  After more than 20,000 soldiers held the position for five days and five nights at temperatures of more than 20 degrees below zero.  In the end, due to lack of supplies, they had to break through to the Ilguz River to the east.  In the end, more than 6,000 soldiers who were responsible for the blocking mission died in the battle.  Among them were a major general division commander and 19 senior military officers who died in the line of duty.  More than 5,000 people were captured. Nearly half of the more than 7,000 people who finally broke through the siege and returned to the Irguz River were frostbitten.

    Faced with the biggest defeat since the war began, Rokossovsky¡¯s fierce counterattack also caused the Beijing General Staff to temporarily freeze the landing on Ryukyu.  Army Commander Long Yun and Deputy Chief of General Staff Liu Mingzhao also immediately went to the front line to take charge¡ª¡ª

    "The German army attacked Yugoslavia, and Tito fell into the arms of the capitalists!"

    "This traitor!"

    "No, he should not be accused like this. He is a comrade of our International Brigade. I believe he made this difficult decision to protect the country."

    ¡°I heard that the General Secretary refused to support Yugoslavia, but instead China provided weapons and medicines to Tito and Yugoslav comrades.¡±

    "You should believe in D and not be deceived by capitalist propaganda. General Secretary Stalin needs to deal with the threat from the East first, so I believe that as long as we can persist until the counterattack, the Red Army will definitely come back."

    "Okay, okay, stop arguing. Everyone, the purpose of our meeting today is what should we do next!"

    In Lleida, a small city in the western part of Catalonia, Spain, fifty or sixty representatives from the left-wing groups gathered in a gloomy basement.  Among them are the Spanish gcd, workers' union, Basque, Galician and Catalan separatist guerrillas, as well as anarchists who were stranded in Spain by the International Brigade.  The increasingly large-scale war in Europe and Asia has made these guys who were hunted down like rats by Franco become active again.  Since the German occupation of France, various sabotages, assassinations, and attacks haveThe guerrillas and guerrillas resurfaced in Spain.  However, because Britain and the United States resolutely supported Franco out of their own interests, and Franco itself was supported by Germany, even Moscow refused to support it anymore, so they were like a group of clowns caught in the middle of a pride of lions, being beaten by all parties.  The party ruthlessly abandoned them, or used them as political bargaining chips to "give away" back and forth.

    This situation is intolerable to them, and it also causes these people¡¯s hearts to become increasingly distorted!  Seeing that there was no hope of recovery, news suddenly came that Britain and the United States had landed in North Africa and two battleships had been sunk.  Ignorant people also know that the status of Gibraltar has risen to infinite heights for Britain and the United States at this moment, so their minds are active again.  Trying to find a way to get Britain and America to recognize them.

    "Of course this is impossible!" Liu Xianghui sat quietly next to him, with a thoughtful expression on his face, looking at the group of people and sneering in his heart.

    He was originally a naval intelligence agent assigned by the Military Intelligence Agency in France. During the Spanish Civil War, he was ordered to infiltrate the International Brigade in the name of a worker in France.

    As the mainstay in blocking the Soviet Union's penetration into Asia, the gc trend of thought broke out in Europe.  In fact, it has a great impact domestically.  Also because of the geographical proximity and direct confrontation, quite a lot of people have joined the organization, many of them are intellectuals.  Even during the first Sino-Soviet war in Afghanistan, many people in China received instructions from the Soviet Union to serve as vanguards against the persecution and capital China.  This situation lasted until the Soviet army officially invaded Iran, threatening the country's oil security, and then invaded the northwest. Only then did a huge wave of reflection break out, and everyone drew a clear line with the Soviet Union.

    In fact, the reason why the president asked the Soviet Union to take action first may not be because he did not want these people to see the true face of the Soviet Union.

    So there were many Chinese in Europe and overseas students who came with him at that time who accepted GC ideas.  Due to his bravery in combat, alertness, and proficiency in mechanical maintenance.  He soon became the backbone of the International Brigade.  After the war, he and the Chinese who participated in the civil war were imprisoned in a concentration camp by Franco.  Fortunately, the country had a good relationship with Franco at the time and had sold a large number of weapons, so all the Chinese were escorted back to the country in the name of exchanging wanted criminals.  Some of these people repented, and some are still incarcerated. He deliberately pretended to escape from prison after spending several years in prison.  He returned to Spain to find his old comrades.

    Because of this legendary experience, he became famous among the Spanish resistance organizations.  In addition, after he came to Spain, he had been smuggling and processing bristles from the country (China was the largest exporter of bristles and one of the strategic resources at the time).  I made a lot of money in just a few years.  The money was used by him to support left-wing guerrillas or to build relationships.  In the end, relying on his charity and hardcore support, he gradually became an important core member of the Catalan guerrillas.

    This time his mission is to assassinate Franco!

    This matter seems to him.  It not only harms Britain and the United States, but also helps Britain and the United States.

    Help, because if Spain continues to be neutral.  Then the pressure on North Africa and Egypt will be too great.  The current German army is like a pressure cooker. If it cannot dilute the German army as soon as possible and open up a new battlefield, it will definitely quickly increase its troops in North Africa and seek the possibility of defeating the inexperienced US military in one fell swoop.  Therefore, only by taking advantage of the Balkan Peninsula to the east and Spain to the west, and relying on the width and depth of the battlefield, can we dilute millions of German troops.  Even if the two places lose on the surface, Britain and the United States will definitely do their best to support the local guerrillas because they need "cannon fodder" to hold back the effective strength of the German army.  Moreover, Vichy France was neutral. If the German army wanted to attack Spain, it would inevitably have to fully occupy France.  In this way, it would be equivalent to giving part of France's power to the Allies.

    The harm is because supporting the Balkans will consume a lot of financial resources from Britain and the United States, and Spain can only fight on their own because of Gibraltar.  In this way, the battlefield seemed to be wider and the strength of the German army was diluted, but in fact more materials and troops were invested.  If Britain and the United States are not stupid, if Spain cannot keep it, it will be equivalent to losing the Mediterranean, and this war will be over.  So as long as Spain is provoked, Roosevelt will no longer dare to be slow and must go all out. Even if he brings in new soldiers to die, he must fill this meat grinder!

    "Britain and the United States will not support us. What those capitalists need is Franco."

    "Yes, in order to win over Franco, Britain gave him a lot of arms and supplies, and also provided bank loans."

    "We can go to Comrade Picasso, he has a high reputation in Britain and the United States. Yes! And Romilly, he is the nephew of Prime Minister Churchill. Maybe we can contact Prime Minister Churchill through him." (Romilly-Churchill, Churchill)  His nephew, who fought in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, was deported to England after the war).

    While he was secretly thinking about the pros and cons of the mission, the left-wing members around him had already started discussing.  But these unrealistic things made him shake his head secretly, and in the end he had no choice but to pull the man next to him.

      If he is the money bag of the Catalan guerrillas, then the man next to him named Andrew Varghese, with a bearded face and bloodshot eyes, as if he is addicted to opium, is the number one of the guerrillas.  thug.  In the past year alone, he has carried out more than dozens of various assassinations and attacks. At least five officers and a dozen soldiers of the National Army were killed by him, and hundreds of innocent people were affected.  die.  Because of his "outstanding" work, he is now the most important officer in the Left Alliance.

    But no one knows that he has been secretly controlled by Liu Xianghui.  In the past ten years, with domestic help, Liu Xianghui has continuously used special drugs, hypnosis, suggestion and other means to make him his "downline", and also used a large amount of money to help him climb to this position.  Of course, Wagesi himself did not know these things. He only subconsciously regarded Liu Xianghui as his most important confidant and staff, and a "brother" who shared life and death.

    After receiving the hint, Varghese, who always carried a submachine gun on his back, stood up.  Because of his tall figure, he immediately attracted all the attention.  "You are too careful! Why don't Britain and the United States need us? Just because we have been fighting! In my opinion, this problem can be easily solved. Those damn Falangists are calling to join the Nazi camp every day and are still forming  The troops are going to help the Germans just because Franco has not yet agreed. Then as long as we assassinate Franco, they will immediately join the Nazi camp. At that time, the British can only rely on us!"

    "Assassination of Franco? Oh my god, there are many, many soldiers around him. And if we kill him, it will only give Hitler an excuse to invade. We can't stop so many German troops." As soon as Varghese's words came out, there were people immediately.  Of course, some people think this method is good, but it is not easy to assassinate Franco. The protective force around him is very strong.

    Liu Xianghui continues to be a "spectator". His skin color makes it inappropriate for him to get involved, so this matter can only be handled by Wagsi.

    "Then kill his lackey Suniel!" Wagsi made another shocking statement.

    Sunier is Spain¡¯s Minister of the Interior and Franco¡¯s most important general.  Moreover, he has been in contact with Germany recently. If he can be killed, it will anger the Falangists, which may lead them to openly join the Nazis.  What's more, as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Interior, Sunier has used the military and police to suppress the left-wing alliance in recent years. At least hundreds of thousands of "comrades" and supporters died at his hands!

    Killing such a person will not burden anyone at all.

    "But is Sunier really the only one who assassinated?" Liu Xianghui looked at them and slowly cracked the corners of his lips

    (To be continued)
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