Between the war and the war, it seemed that there was nothing to hesitate about.
Although after the failure of Operation Tomahawk, Montgomery, who was good at learning, quickly copied Rommel's deceptive methods and sent people to carry out a large-scale deceptive arrangement called "Operation Bertram" on the Egyptian border.
Montgomery sent some Egyptian militiamen and workers with weak combat capabilities to dump some discarded items, such as dismantled suitcases and scrapped cars, north of the border.
Then, Montgomery sent his trusted officers to disguise the abandoned items to make them look like ammunition depots, oil tanks, and grain silos.
Montgomery's intention was very specific. He wanted to make it easy for Rommel's reconnaissance planes to discover them.
At the same time, Montgomery also sent three engineer platoons from the Australian army to build a fake oil pipeline leading to the north, and deliberately sent a large number of local Egyptian workers to participate in the construction.
These confused local workers would easily reveal intelligence information and induce Rommel to make the wrong judgment that the main force of the British Commonwealth forces would be deployed in the north.
In order to further confuse the German, Italian, and French forces in Africa, Montgomery also deployed his own guard company to cover the jeeps with plywood on the northern border to make them look like tanks, and some crude models in the north were also covered with plywood.
, looks like a large transport team.
It can be said that Montgomery has used the deceptive methods he learned from Rommel to the extreme.
The real main forces in his hands, three Australian battalions and three well-trained Egyptian divisions, were all deployed in the middle of the border.
In order to make this deception seamless, Montgomery also implemented a strict confidentiality system within the 8th Army. In addition to the battalion commanders of three Australian infantry battalions, Montgomery strictly enforced this to the officers of the Egyptian army below the middle brigade and only conveyed to them what was going to be done.
What are the confidentiality measures for local orders.
On the entire northern border, there is only one stronghold in Kotwo where troops are stationed.
The top commander of this stronghold was the dignified British General Wavell, "the man who once successfully blocked Rommel's fire reconnaissance."
Montgomery initially suppressed Wavell and sent him to the northern defense line, not entirely to punish him. In fact, Wavell's current public position is Montgomery's deputy, the supreme commander of the frontline command on the Egyptian border, and the commander-in-chief.
A mobile force and northern border garrison.
Of course, in fact, Wavell actually commanded only two companies of Egyptian infantry. As for the so-called mobile units, they were just model tanks.
Montgomery went to such great lengths to deceive and deliberately exaggerate the strength of the Commonwealth troops on Egypt's northern border. In fact, it was just a cover-up to cover up the lack of real strength.
According to Montgomery's vision, when Rommel believed that there were too many enemy troops in the north, he should choose to move the main attack direction toward the central border line, and then launch his best "right elbow attack tactic."
In this way, Montgomery's main force was deployed in the center. In this way, Montgomery had the confidence to resist a little.
On the other hand, a total of three hundred M4 Shermans sent from the United States were quickly added to Montgomery's hands. This tank was no more flawed than the M3A3, which was eliminated by the US military itself.
Compared with the M3A3 light tanks originally sent to the British mainland, Roosevelt, under Marshall's analysis, further realized that the Commonwealth troops resisting in Africa were "strategic cannon fodder" of great significance to the United States. Therefore, for Montgomery,
The United States finally generously provided a good thing, the M4 Sherman tank.
The M4 Sherman medium tank was touted by later generations as "the hero among tanks." Although its firepower is slightly lacking, its sturdiness, reliability and durability are very good, and it can be regarded as the backbone of the tanks used by the US military.
Even the M4 Sherman tank can barely be used as a heavy tank, although it is not fully qualified for this role.
With these 300 precious tanks, Montgomery quickly left Wavell's remnants of only more than 20 tanks to supplement and expand the large-scale 7th Armored Division for reinforcement.
This is also the only British army in Montgomery's hands. They were all reorganized from the broken troops left after Wavell's failure and replenished with American equipment. It has not yet formed combat effectiveness and was left as a reserve force by Montgomery in El Alamein.
Behind the defensive line.
According to Montgomery's original idea, he wanted to attract Rommel near the El Alamein line of defense, which "will always put them in a difficult situation of supply." He only had to wait until the Commonwealth troops under his command were fully prepared in all aspects and received
Once he has enough US military equipment, he can always rely on this line of defense and rely on Rommel to make up for the unsustainable difficulties and continue to consume them for a long time.
That's right, even in this situation, Montgomery never thought of launching a counterattack, but used trench fighting to drag it down, seeking stability rather than victory.
It is a pity that because a large number of "Sibel" flat-bottomed ferries will be used as Allied logistics supply ships, the British Mediterranean Fleet surrendered to the German Navy. The shortcoming that Montgomery originally thought was the difficulty in supplying Allied supplies has become no longer difficult.
At Reinhardt's reminder, German engineer Siebel invented this kind of flat-bottomed ferry in advance, which had an extremely shallow draft and torpedoes could slip under it.
Since the Mediterranean Sea is no longer dangerous and there is no harassment from the British Mediterranean Fleet, the rapid-fire anti-aircraft guns expected to be equipped on the Sibel flat-bottomed ferry have also been canceled and replaced with more transportation volume.
Of course, this kind of ship also has a major flaw. Because the draft is too shallow, it is difficult to sail on rough seas. But in the Mediterranean, the sea is calm most of the time, so this flaw almost does not exist.
.
From Montgomery's perspective, this was embarrassing.
What was even more embarrassing was that Duke Gott sent an urgent telegram to Montgomery at this time, asking him to hold a grand surrender ceremony in the name of the Northern Ireland government forces to the Allied African Allied Forces Commander-in-Chief Rommel.
surrender!
He had laid out the battlefield, prepared the army, replenished weapons and equipment, set up strategies and tactics, and made sufficient psychological preparations for a long-term stalemate. But he was suddenly told that all these efforts were in vain. Who else would it be?
They will all be very unhappy.
In fact, Montgomery was indeed very reluctant to accept this order.
"Don't reply to Duke Gott's telegram for the time being. Just treat it as if I haven't received it yet." Montgomery, who was hesitant for a moment, tried to avoid the matter temporarily with the attitude of putting it off as long as he could: "Wait a little longer, at least within today, let me
