In East Africa, on the border between Eritrea and Sudan, the Italian troops advancing rashly are facing a dangerous situation.
Churchill directly intervened in British military operations in Sudan this time. He dispatched the Indian 5th Infantry Division transferred from India to Sudan in early September 1940. At the same time, the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade was transferred to the Red Sea coast to protect Sudan.
port.
In addition, the 9th Indian Infantry Brigade is located in the southwest of Kassala, and the 10th Indian Infantry Brigade was transferred to Godri to protect the general headquarters.
At the same time, the British Army in Africa was joining forces with the Royal Air Force to prepare for a counterattack against the Italian-occupied areas.
On November 6, the British army, which had been planned for a long time, launched a raid with the purpose of recapturing Galaba.
The attacking force consisted of General William Beale's 10th Indian Infantry Brigade.
In addition, his supporting forces included: twelve squadrons of reserve forces; a light tank regiment and an artillery regiment.
At the same time he also received support from the Royal Air Force.
The raid started at 5:30 a.m. and ended at 8 a.m. William Beer successfully recaptured Galaba.
Afterwards, the British army formulated a pursuit plan: to attack Maitema.
British Army Command, General William Beer said: "We should take advantage of the victory and pursue the enemy-occupied areas with all our strength so that the Italians will never dare to invade the Sudan again."
"But, General, there are 19 tanks in our tank regiment that need repair. I'm worried that without the cover of these 9 tanks, our infantry will have a hard time giving full play to their advantages, and will be exposed to Italian artillery fire and suffer heavy losses."
." An adjutant stated his point of view to General William Beale worriedly.
Indeed, because the British army had 19 tanks that were damaged to varying degrees in the previous offensive and needed to be repaired, the British would not have enough tanks available in the next round of attacks, and the plan had to be postponed.
General William Beer beat his chest and said: "Such a good opportunity, but we cannot attack immediately because of tank problems. If we wait until the Italian army has deployed barbed wire and anti-tank trench defense lines, we will be even less able to break into their positions."
I have to say that General William Beale's prediction was really accurate.
The commander of the Italian army, Lieutenant General Foreske, the acting governor of Eritrea, has no intention of giving up the areas occupied by the Italian army in Sudan.
He spoke passionately to the soldiers: "We have finally won a small amount of Sudanese land from the British. How can we hand over this land to the British at this time? We must defend this land to the death.
The land that is not easy to come by will win honor for the leader!"
The Italian soldiers were also very passionate after hearing his speech, and they were all full of fighting spirit.
Let us not talk about the combat quality of the Italian army soldiers for the moment. Even if they had this rare bravery, it would be difficult for the British army to capture them.
After all, it was the first time to win against the British Empire, and morale was high.
The Italian army was very frightened under this kind of morale. Moreover, the Italian army had made full preparations to defend the rear positions.
They made the front line of the position covered with barbed wire fences that only tanks could break through. And all this happened while the British troops were repairing the tanks.
So after the tank was repaired, General William Beale had to stop his troops.
General William Beale sighed: "If you had given me even one more tank regiment, I would have recovered the lost territory and entered the colonial area of Italy."
After that, General William Beale never found a chance to attack the Italian position.
In fact, he tried to rely on tanks to break through the Italian barbed wire fence, but failed because the barbed wire fences and anti-tank trenches laid by the Italian army were too dense. Often, the tanks would get stuck after breaking through several barbed wire defense lines.
The Italian anti-tank guns came in handy, and the British lost three tanks.
The British army made no progress on the frontal battlefield, which led the Italian army to plan a counterattack against the British army.
First of all, the Italian Air Force served as the first sharp knife in the counterattack.
General Martini, the commander of the Italian army in Gedeng, commanded all the Italian air force in his hands and launched a powerful counterattack against the British army.
In this battle, the Italian Air Force suddenly appeared in this area. They used their familiarity with the environment and their numerical advantage in air confrontation to shoot down 7 British "Gladiator" biplane fighters, and they also lost 6 CR-
42.
Although this does not seem to be a big advantage, you must know that the Italian army has a much greater numerical advantage than the British army in this area, and even if the Italian and British troops engage in battle with a one-to-one shooting down consumption ratio, in the end
The winner will be Italy, not Britain, not to mention that Italy will lose one less aircraft than Britain this time.
In the next forty-eight hours, the Italian Air Force violently bombed the British Essex Regiment and the 18th Royal Rifles Regiment.
When he saw that his troops were being bombarded by the Italian Air Force and his troops were helpless and did nothing, General William Beale lamented in pain: "We will never have a chance to counterattack again! All this is because I missed the fighter plane. I
I have to take responsibility for my actions."
In fact, this cannot be entirely blamed on General William Beale. He thought about pursuing the Italian army immediately after the first stage victory. It was just that the Italian army built fortifications too quickly, coupled with the British army's supplies and post-war
The repair work was not followed up in time and the British army missed the fighter opportunity.
In his report to Churchill, General William Beale strongly criticized his mistakes and faults and asked Churchill to punish him. Naturally, Churchill also knew other reasons for this. Instead of punishing General William Beale, he instead punished his predecessors.
He praised the results of the first stage of the battle and assigned additional weapons and equipment to his army, and entrusted him with the important task of counterattack in the next stage.
At this time, with the Italian counterattack, the British troops were forced to withdraw from the position they had just occupied.
Although the unwilling General William Beer sent 10 Indian Infantry Brigades to counterattack and reoccupied some hills in the western part of Galaba three days later, they were unable to move forward due to the tight defense and large number of Italian troops. Finally, they attacked Montemar.
The plan also had to be cancelled.
The repeated battles between Italy and Britain over the Sudanese border ended with Italy's victory.
But Churchill would not give up, and Mussolini would not give up either. Their various struggles over East and North Africa had actually just begun.
In the end, whether Churchill's defense succeeds or Mussolini's "Greater Roman Empire" plan succeeds will definitely determine the situation in the next 10 years!