When Duke Hamilton was picked up by a transport plane sent by Germany alone, the situation on the north bank of the Thames River could not get worse.
Lord Gott promoted some army officers, promoted them one or two ranks on average, and then placed them in the National Guard to command larger forces.
Regarding these promoted officers, Gott said that he was completely optimistic about them and hoped that they would continue to work hard in their new positions, continue to display the spirit of not being afraid of death, and be responsible and responsible cannon fodder.
Hamilton heard a rumor that a National Guard soldier asked his newly transferred Army commander: "Excuse me, are we going to stay here for a long time in this battle?"
"The Prime Minister ordered that we must persist until the last person." The officer said to the soldiers of the National Guard.
Finally, the soldier lamented: "Oh, let's just say it won't take long."
Although this is just a cold joke, it reflects the morale of the British troops stationed on the north bank of the Thames River.
In addition to the British army, the 2,000 Free French troops left on the Thames River were all old, weak, sick and disabled. De Gaulle took all the main troops to garrison on the Isle of Man. Those who remained in London were just that he could not bring them all.
The troops who left.
Any normal commander would choose to take away the better troops and leave the worst ones as fill-in troops that cannot be taken away.
This also led to the fact that the combat effectiveness of the 2,000 Free French Army on the north bank of the Thames was not much higher than that of the National Guard, and the defense section was extremely fragile.
There is no doubt that this is a paper-tied line of defense.
It seems that the British and French forces used the Thames River to establish a natural line of defense, relying on the dangerous terrain to blow up bridges and garrison them.
But in fact, both Gott and De Gaulle had already shipped away their elite troops. Before the battle to defend London began, the senior leaders of the United Kingdom and Free France were already ready to abandon the capital.
Of course, Churchill's slogan that he vowed to live and die with London is still in his ears. But the only people who really believe that London can hold on are the ignorant civilians.
To a certain extent, how long London can hold on depends on how long the Duke of Hamilton can delay under the guise of peace negotiations.
After all, London's Thames River Defense Line is simply full of loopholes. The most obvious mistakes alone account for three major mistakes!
The first is a strategic mistake. After the Anglo-German War broke out, Churchill realized that Britain's war against the Allies could only be a war of attrition. However, the strategic principle he proposed was a hard-to-defense operation. Before the Battle of London, the British
The team concentrated its forces in Greenwich, a suburb of London, and engaged in passive defense, standing in the wild as if waiting for death.
When the German army entered the city of London, the London garrison was ordered by Gott to be cautious and not to take the initiative to attack. Instead, they adopted the strategy of dividing their troops to guard. Each unit was responsible for a very wide frontal defense, lacking deep equipment and insufficient preparations.
When the German army attacked, they concentrated their troops and tanks and focused on one point with the help of artillery and aircraft. As a result, the British troops were passively beaten everywhere. During the fierce battle, some troops proposed active attack plans, but they were not approved.
For example, when the German army was fiercely besieging the National Guards on the flanks, a main British Army regiment guarding Shawhart Square suggested to the London City Defense Command that they take advantage of the German army's massive attack to concentrate all the mobile forces of the British Army.
, take the initiative to attack the garrison of the German, French and Norwegian Allied Forces, threatening the enemy's rear in order to gain the initiative.
However, this unexpectedly successful battle plan was not approved because Gott was bent on evacuating London and did not want to make any mistakes, making the main positions in south London even more critical.
This strategic and ideological mistake of not focusing on the defense of London because he wanted to escape to the island of Ireland was carried out throughout the entire defense of London.
The second is the gap in military strength. When Greenwich first fell, the total number of troops staying in London was about 190,000, but a large part of them were incomplete troops that had just withdrawn from the Greenwich battlefield. There were very few regular British Army soldiers, and the National Guards
Most of them have no training, and many have never even fired a gun.
According to statistics from the chief of staff in Gott's command: among the London garrison, only 30% of the combat soldiers were capable of directly fighting the enemy, and in the National Guard, militia soldiers accounted for nearly 70%.
Moreover, the British army lost most of their heavy weapons and equipment at Dunkirk, and then lost a small part of their heavy weapons and equipment along the English Channel coast. As a result, they can still collect artillery pieces, and even some of them are still there.
The firepower configuration of an integrated artillery regiment of the German army is not as strong.
When the war reached the south bank of the Thames River, the British Royal Air Force's fighter planes had been lost, and the few surviving fighters had moved to airports in Northern Ireland to avoid the war.
As for the British Royal Navy's Home Fleet, almost all the main ships were blown up, and the remaining cruisers have withdrawn to various ports on the island of Ireland, also avoiding war and protecting ships.
The Allied Expeditionary Army to Britain has a total of 21 divisions plus a strengthened Norwegian combat unit. Now, except for the 7 German divisions that have been arranged to be transferred back to the country in the first batch, the remaining 14 divisions are still in combat, with a total strength of more than 15
Ten thousand people are the main combat forces of various countries. Most of them are composed of well-trained veterans and have strong combat effectiveness.
In addition, the Allied forces also had obvious advantages in weapons and equipment. They had diving tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons and equipment during combat, as well as bombing support from aircraft.
In particular, the troops sent by Vichy France and Norway were basically their domestic elite divisions.
Finally there were deficiencies in the fortifications.
Although the defense fortifications in the outer positions of London have been in operation for more than a year, most of them do not meet actual combat requirements. Some of the reinforced concrete fortifications built in the Greenwich area are even buried with soil, and some bunkers still have doors that cannot be opened.
The gun holes of those temporary machine gun bunkers are very large, which can be easily discovered by the enemy and concentrated firepower to destroy them. Although the forts located in the surrounding suburbs are constructed of reinforced concrete, they are exposed and densely packed in a small area, making them completely impractical.
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What's even worse is that most of the troops Gott used on the defensive line were the worst such troops.
These British and French army soldiers with the lowest combat effectiveness were treated as abandoners, cannon fodder, and consumables from the beginning.
The most important thing is that due to the hasty deployment of defenses, the London City Defense Command did not issue a fortification distribution map to all the National Guard troops. In addition, the various fortifications and a large number of residential buildings were mixed together and difficult to find, so some troops were located within a radius of ten
On several square kilometers of ground, we were busy looking for fortifications.
The National Guard's organization was chaotic and difficult to count, so we had to fill in the numbers one by one in front of the defense line.
As a result, the Thames River Defense Line became a garbage defense line made of paper, and no one had any hope for it.
