The decisive battle against the Third Reich

The scene in Algiers Port was staged again in Toulon Port.

However, the scene in Toulon Port was much bigger than that in Algiers Port...

On the sea, dozens of warships and submarines broke out in a fierce battle for warships almost at the same time. It was no surprise that the German army had the upper hand in this battle.

This does not mean that the German army had an advantage in manpower. In fact, the German army was still at a disadvantage in manpower... The French army would leave dozens of people on the warships at will, and the number of people assigned to the warships by the German army, including the crew, was only about ten (the number of people varied, and some larger warships were assigned more).

But on the one hand, the German army had the assistance of Algerian soldiers, and on the other hand, the French army was scattered on the warships. In addition, they were prepared to fight the unprepared, so the German army occupied warships one by one with great momentum, and even solved many problems of insufficient crews...The German soldiers captured many French crews, so they drove the warships with guns pointed at them.

The battle on the shore was just like what happened in Algiers. Algerian soldiers used the cover of buildings to set up a defense line on the periphery to resist the French reinforcements... The French reinforcements were much slower than expected, which surprised Zemamouche. Even half an hour later, the French army failed to organize a decent attack.

But this is actually normal.

First of all, most of the French officers were at the party. They were killed and wounded in the first place. Even the deputy commander General Claude was captured, so the French army could not coordinate effectively.

Secondly, the French army was actually useless at this time.

After World War I, French military strategists generally believed that future battles would be like World War I, where both sides dug trenches and fought each other. Therefore, the whole of France was filled with a tactical idea of ​​"absolute defense", so they built a Maginot Line, and they also believed that defense would be more advantageous than offense. Therefore, most of the training of the French Army was to build trenches and then shoot and fire artillery in the trenches. As for attacking... Sorry, they thought that in the era of machine guns and cannons, another meaning of attacking was to die, so they didn't know how to attack.

Another reason is that the French Army at that time was an army under the rule of the Vichy government. Many of them believed that France had actually surrendered and had become a puppet of Germany... This was indeed the case.

So they didn't have the honor, morale, confidence, etc. that an army should have, and they had basically no combat experience... The entire French Campaign lasted only more than a month and ended before they could warm up, so the combat effectiveness of the French Army was far from that of these "desperate men" of the Zoave Corps.

This made the battle on the shore go very smoothly, so that the Algerian soldiers could withdraw to the warships in an orderly manner and help the Germans control and operate the warships... Of course, due to the quality problems of the Zoaf Corps, they could only do two things: one was to use guns to do things under the French prisoners, and the other was to set up rifles on the warships to provide cover for their comrades on the shore. Soon, the warships left the port one by one under the control of the Germans and French prisoners, and the last batch of Algiers soldiers withdrew to the ships under the cover of the warships' firepower and then left the port. This time it was the turn of the French officers to watch the warships disappear into the darkness helplessly on the shore. Ironically, some of the surviving French officers had laughed at the Germans when they fled Algiers. Colonel Denis, who led his troops to the port of Toulon, didn't even know what had happened. He looked at the chaos, corpses, and empty sea in the port and asked the survivors: "God, what happened here? Where are our warships?"

"Algiers, Colonel!" A bloody French major replied.

"Are they going to attack Algiers?" the colonel asked.

"No!" The major replied: "The Germans stole them, just like we did in Algiers, but..."

The major glanced at the unwanted fishing boats and transport ships parked in the port, and then said: "They exchanged our warships for these broken ships, all of them!"

The Algiers command immediately cheered after receiving the news.

"Well done, Lieutenant!" Colonel Slain said to Qin Chuan: "You have refreshed your legend again!"

The surrounding staff also congratulated Qin Chuan:

"Congratulations, Lieutenant!"

"Great strategy, Lieutenant, really admirable!"

...

Then Colonel Slain reported the situation to Rommel.

"We succeeded, General!" Colonel Slain said.

"What? Success?" Rommel still couldn't believe it: "How many did we capture?"

"All of them!" Colonel Slain's voice trembled with excitement: "Except for the two submarines that dived into the sea in time, all the others...were captured!"

"Very good, Colonel!" Rommel replied: "You did a good job, very good, especially the lieutenant!"

Rommel had never praised a person or a unit like this before, not even when he took over Alexandria.

When Rommel hung up the phone, he said to the staff officers who were watching him: "Gentlemen, we have a fleet!"

There was a cheer in the headquarters immediately, and then the news quickly spread outside the headquarters, and then spread like a plague, even to the British side.

Montgomery still didn't believe it after hearing the news. He confidently said to Eisenhower: "This is not true. There are 80 warships, and there are a large number of French troops in Toulon. How could the Germans destroy them?" Steal them all?”

"But Monty!" Eisenhower said, "too many incredible things have happened here, haven't they?"

"But we can't confirm it!" Montgomery said: "You know this, Britain and France are enemies, and we have no communication channels!"

"I can!" Eisenhower immediately contacted the embassy in France and asked the US ambassador to inquire.

As mentioned before, the United States supports the Vichy government, so it maintains diplomatic relations with the Vichy government.

Soon, the U.S. ambassador sent a telegram to Eisenhower.

Eisenhower was stunned while holding the telegram.

"What's wrong?" Montgomery asked.

"You're wrong, Monty!" Eisenhower said. "They did it!"

"But..." Montgomery looked in disbelief: "How did they do it?"

"They lied to the French!" Eisenhower turned around and handed the telegram to Montgomery: "The French are suffering another humiliation, this time no less humiliating than the 'Maginot Line'!"