Chapter 123 Lieutenant General Cunningham

After breaking through the Gabshari Line, the 21st Armored Division pushed forward like a sharp knife.

This was once again beyond Lieutenant General Cunningham's expectations. He originally thought that the 21st Armored Division would be stationed in Gabshari after winning, or reinforce Tobruk, which was under attack. After all, it was the German supply center.

In this way, the British troops rushing to the Gabshari Line from all directions could encircle the German 21st Armored Division.

Who would have thought that the 21st Armored Division would continue to advance...

In fact, Lieutenant General Cunningham should have thought of this earlier.

This is partly because Tobruk is not vulnerable... Although the Italian army's combat effectiveness is not strong, it is a unit that has fought in battles, and Tobruk has sufficient supplies. In addition, the Italian army has a large number of soldiers and generals (Rommel reorganized the Italian army into 1 armored division and 5 infantry divisions. They got enough rest in Tobruk and their morale was restored to a certain extent.

More importantly, the Italian army gained the confidence to fight under the encouragement of the German army's successive victories...

The army is often like this. If you think you are not as good as the enemy and will eventually fail, then everyone will think about how to escape, so no matter how many troops there are, they will be scattered.

The Italian army not long ago had this mentality, so it collapsed on the front line.

But it is different now. The Italian soldiers all believe that the British army is under the German army. The Italian army was vulnerable to the attack, which meant that the German and Italian armies would eventually win. So... why did the powerful Italian army run away? This was the time to make a name for themselves and wash away their previous shame, so they bravely took the lead in fighting the enemy, and as a result, they showed unexpected combat effectiveness...

Although the tanks of the British 8th Armored Regiment broke through the Tobruk Line of Defense and rushed into the Italian positions again and again, they were beaten back by the Italian army again and again.

Of course, this also had a lot to do with the solidity of the Tobruk Line of Defense. The tanks of the 8th Armored Regiment could not be fully deployed in front of the minefields and bunkers, and the Italian army only needed to use artillery and anti-tank guns to bombard the British entry point to easily repel them.

This caused heavy losses to the British 8th Armored Regiment, and more than half of the tanks were destroyed in the two-hour attack.

Long Mei, who knew about this battle situation, Of course, Rommel would not worry about the safety of Tobruk.

More importantly, Rommel's combat style has always been to disdain the threat to his rear, because he believes that when his own logistics supply line is threatened, the enemy's logistics supply will also be attacked at the same time, and both sides will be in trouble. It depends on who can hold on to the end.

In this regard, Rommel has always been full of confidence in his troops.

Rommel's attack immediately made General Cunningham confused, because in this way all his arrangements would undoubtedly fail... The faster "Stuart" tanks all penetrated deep into the German defense line and could not rush back to fight with the 21st Armored Division for a while. The "Matilda" tanks and "Valentine" tanks were left on the British defense side. They were simply unable to encircle the Germans who broke into the defense line. Troops.

"It's over!" Lieutenant General Cunningham sat back in his chair and said, "We will be defeated like before because of the attack on the supply line!"

The staff officer didn't know what to say. He found that Lieutenant General Cunningham had completely lost confidence in this battle, and the war had just started a few hours ago.

Then, Lieutenant General Cunningham sent a telegram to General Auchinleck: "General, I think we should stop the attack and retreat immediately, otherwise we will suffer irreparable losses!"

General Auchinleck was shocked when he received this telegram. He knew that as a front-line commander, the most important thing was to have the determination to "remain calm even when the mountains collapsed in front of him", so that he could give his subordinates and even soldiers the belief that they would win. If even the commander of the Eighth Army lost confidence, what would the Eighth Army be like?

So General Auchinleck flew to the British front-line headquarters in Fort Maledamona without saying a word.

When General Auchinleck stepped off the plane and walked into the command post, he found that the situation was worse than he had imagined. The people in the command post were in a panic, and the officers were arguing with each other. Some believed that the battle should continue, while others, like General Cunningham, believed that continuing the battle would not benefit the British army.

Objectively speaking, the British army had a psychological trauma from being beaten by the German army. Time and again, they were beaten back by the German army when they had the upper hand. Therefore, many people, including General Cunningham, lost confidence in the British army's combat effectiveness and thought that this time they would repeat the same mistakes as before.

"Gentlemen!" General Auchinleck said solemnly and carefully: "Although we lost the battle at the beginning and the war did not develop as we imagined, I hope you can clearly understand that the reason why we lost the war was not because the German army was so powerful and indestructible, but because you turned a blind eye to the power comparison between the enemy and us and only thought about retreating! It is not difficult to see that you were completely defeated by your own hands!"

General Auchinleck was right. All the losses of the British army so far were only the 9th Armored Regiment and the 8th Armored Regiment and some tanks on the defense line of Gabusali, with a total number of more than 100 tanks.

Even so, the British army had many more tanks than the German army... The 30th Army still had more than 300 tanks, which even exceeded the total number of German tanks.

Of course, the German tanks were better than the "Stuart" that the British urgently replaced with 50MM caliber tank guns in terms of performance and training, but the British army not only had an advantage in the number of tanks, but more importantly, they also had air superiority and manpower advantages.

General Auchinleck could not imagine that his subordinates would lose confidence in fighting and plan to retreat before they had such a big advantage.

"If you think we have no hope of victory before such a huge advantage!" General Auchinleck said, "Then how do you think we can have hope of victory? Twice the equipment and manpower or even more?"

Although there were not many words, every British officer present could not raise their heads, and General Cunningham was speechless.

"Major General Neil Rich!" Then General Auchinleck ordered: "I have just obtained permission from London to appoint you to replace General Cunningham as the commander of the Eighth Army!"

The officers were stunned, and General Cunningham was pale. He realized that his military career had come to an end.