"Hersman, Hersman, Hersman......"

Outside the gates of Constantine in Rome, countless Italians shouted Ludwig. Feng. Field Marshal Heinsberg-Hersmann also gave a salute to the convertible car in which he was travelling with his wife, Chloe, and the Italian Foreign Minister, Count Ziano.

"Ah, we are now passing through the Gate of Constantine, from which many of the most famous generals of the Roman Empire entered the city when they returned triumphantly. I think the citizens of Rome at that time must have welcomed their heroes in the same way. ”

Count Ziano spoke fluent German to compliment Hersmann, and he also organized a grand welcome ceremony for Hersmann's visit. However, Hersman didn't seem to be very happy, and his brows furrowed slightly after getting off the plane. He didn't pay any attention to Ziano and didn't look at the Italian crowd on either side of the road.

Chloe, who had just given birth to Hersmann's sixth child (a boy named Carl), was busy playing the round. "I think the citizens of Rome will soon be outside the gates of Constantine, welcoming the Italian warriors who have returned triumphantly from the battlefields of North Africa." ”

"Something like this isn't going to happen anytime soon!"

Hersmann suddenly interrupted his wife, and he said angrily: "If Italy is not willing to listen to General Halder's advice and is not willing to allow the German army to join the Mediterranean theater, then Italy will soon encounter difficulties in North Africa and the Mediterranean!" ”

As in history, Italian leaders were reluctant to intervene in the Mediterranean and North African theaters. Although he reluctantly agreed to the German army to set up a headquarters on the Southern Front in Rome when he entered the war. But after France's surrender, Mussolini changed his mind, believing that Italy could win the North African and Mediterranean theaters without the involvement of the Germans.

Field Marshal Hersmann had now hurried from Berlin to negotiate a joint operation with Mussolini. Count Ziano, who greeted him at the train station, told Hersmann that Italy had the right to win and did not need German help at all.

"Well, but it's impossible," said Count Ziano with a smile, "Marshal Graziani (the commander-in-chief of the Italian army in North Africa at the outbreak of the war was Marshal Balbo, but the air marshal was killed by his own anti-aircraft artillery on June 28) has an army of 250,000 men, while the British have a maximum of 40,000 men in North Africa......"

"It's 36,000! There were the 7th Armored Division of the British Army and the 4th Indian Division of the Commonwealth and a number of direct units. "Hursman said to Count Ziano in a warning tone, "Soon another Australian division will be sent to Egypt, and Marshal Graziani will have to deal with 50,000 British troops, which are very strong in combat." ”

"Marshal, you include the Indian troops," Count Ziano still smiled, clearly in a happy mood (probably related to Balbo's death). "Those Indians don't have much fighting."

The British 7th Armoured Division was certainly a capable force, and it was the elite of the British who had been transferred to Egypt from mainland China before the outbreak of World War II, including the 1st Royal Tank Regiment and the 6th Royal Tank Regiment. The troops transferred from Australia, where the convicts had been exiled, were generally more capable of fighting, and the Anzac was notoriously strong in combat effectiveness, having already made a name for itself in the First World War.

The 4th Indian Division of the Commonwealth is taken for granted as a weak brigade, but in fact there are many Gurkha mercenaries in this Indian division, they are professional mercenaries, they have all undergone the most rigorous training, and they are restrained by cruel discipline, they are the fist troops of the British army, and they have made the German army suffer in the last world war, how can the scattered Italians beat them?

But what really annoyed Hersmann and hurried from Berlin was not the Italian war operations in North Africa - he didn't care that Mussolini was beaten all over the ground by the British in North Africa, even if Mussolini had to go to Greece to find himself as boring as in history.

If the Italians did not suffer a little, how could they listen to Germany and obediently join the European Community? Mussolini was still fantasizing about the Roman Empire!

What really annoyed Hersman was that Mussolini ignored the admonition of General Halder (in fact, Hersmann's opinion) and ignored the island of Malta, an important stronghold blocked at the gate of the ****** Strait -- it was cute to sell in North Africa, East Africa and Greece, and it was not important to lose hundreds of thousands of stunned soldiers who could eat but not fight, and Hirschmann was not in a hurry to fight Moscow anyway. But selling cuteness in Malta is going to be a bad thing.

However, if Malta is operated by the British as a sea fortress and an unsinkable aircraft carrier as it has historically been, then the Mediterranean theater will fall into a complete passivity, and it will be very difficult to get it back in the future.

Therefore, Hersmann learned that Mussolini had rejected Halder's proposal and was unwilling to send the "precious" Italian Army to capture Malta, nor did he want the German airborne troops to be dispatched. He and his wife Chloe immediately ended their leave early and rushed directly to Rome from Berchtesgaden at the foot of the Obersalzburg mountains.

Regarding the visit of Field Marshal Hersmann, Chief of the General Staff of the German Wehrmacht, Mussolini, who thought he was the new Caesar of the Roman Empire, did not dare to slack off, and not only asked his son-in-law Ziano to arrange a greeting, but also personally hosted a banquet in the Venetian Palace.

The Italian dictator, who looked very short in his heightened shoes, wore a short-sleeved summer military uniform today and took his historical lover Clara with him. Bertassie, outside the Palazzo Venice, embraced Hersmann warmly, kissed Chloe's finger, and then politely invited the Hersmanns into a palatial living room.

"Leader," said Hersmann, who did not detour with Mussolini either, "I have come from Berchtesgaden to tell you the fact that the war has not yet been won, and that we may still lose, and that defeat would be devastating for both the German and Italian countries!" Therefore, we must do everything possible to nip in the bud any cause of failure. In my opinion, Malta is one such thing thing that could lead to the failure of our business. In May, when Italy entered the war, there were only 1 battalion of defenders and a small number of aircraft, which was very easy to capture. And once the island of Malta is seized, the ****** Strait will be completely blocked, the connection between Alexandria and Gibraltar will be interrupted, the British Mediterranean fleet will be reduced to the sea east of Malta, and the logistical transport lines of the Italian North African cluster will be foolproof. ”

Mussolini first exhaled softly at these words - he had thought that Hersmann had come to the rescue because of the conquest that Italy was about to launch in Greece. At the previous Geneva Conference, Hitler had refused to assign Bosnia and Croatia to Italy, and had reversed himself by not handing Algeria to Italy. This was unpleasant to Mussolini, and Germany did not seem to see Italy as an ally of the same rank.

Moreover, Hersmann's proposal to establish a joint meeting of the Germans, Japanese and Italian chiefs of staff also made Mussolini feel that Germany had already thought itself the hegemon of Europe. Therefore, he also wanted to play a few victories that could be compared to the Battle of France and Poland to increase the value of Italy.

So he started the idea of a militarily weak Greece, hoping to use a blitzkrieg to establish authority for Italy, and he did not want Germany to participate, and wanted the Italian army to do the work alone.

So the military operation to invade Greece was carried out in complete secrecy with Germany. However, Mussolini also knew that it would be difficult to hide the "Italian secrecy" from Germany, but at the beginning of the preparations for the invasion of Greece, the German Field Marshal Hersmann flew over in a hurry, which surprised him.

Now that he knew that Hersmann had come for Malta, Mussolini did not know what to say for a while, and pondered for a moment before he spoke: "The terrain of Malta is very dangerous, it is a steep and rocky island, and it is very difficult to land. But we've completely paralyzed the island with bombers, and it's no longer a threat. ”

"No, Malta is still a threat." Hersman shook his head and said, "The British will not give up there, there is the heart of the Mediterranean." As long as Malta was in the hands of the British, the passage of Italian North Africa for the transport of troops and supplies would not be open, and the Italian Navy would be at a great disadvantage in the face of the British Mediterranean fleet. The Wehrmacht General Staff therefore recommended the launch of the Maltese Campaign, the capture of Malta and the heavy damage to the British Mediterranean Fleet reinforcing Malta. If you can't draw troops, then we'll do it! Malta must be taken, the sooner the better! ”

"Marshal," Mussolini asked, looking at Hersmann, suddenly, "do you think that our war in North Africa will last a long time?" ”

"Yes, Leader." "If you insist that our Panzer Division go to North Africa to help in the war, then the war in North Africa will not be so easy to win," Hersman said. Therefore, Malta is a matter of the whole situation and must be seized as soon as possible. The security of the logistics line of hundreds of thousands of Italian troops will be related there, which cannot be ignored! ”

Mussolini was also a little undecided by Hersmann's words, in fact, the Italian Navy had long suggested the capture of Malta. But the Italian Army considered it unnecessary and difficult to capture, while the Italian Air Force believed that Malta could be paralyzed by bombing. So Mussolini, a layman, listened to the advice of the Air Force, but now great military strategists such as Marshal Hersmann came and strongly recommended the capture of Malta.

Seeing that Mussolini was still hesitant, Hersmann gritted his teeth and said: "The main combat mission of the Malta campaign was carried out by the Luftwaffe and naval aviation, and the Italian navy cooperated, and the two sides carried out joint operations. After the capture of Malta, it was placed under Italian control. In addition, Germany provided 200,000 tons of heavy oil and 10 sets of maritime radars to the Italian Navy at one time. (To be continued.) )