Chapter 697: Different Choices

By the time Montgomery climbed out of the trench, there was a fire started by an incendiary bomb burning about a hundred meters away. The flames licked at the nearby buildings, and charred bodies and other craters could be seen in the vicinity.

He was pulled by his men back into an underground command post that had been dug a few months ago to strengthen the defenses of Alexandria. Before anyone could bring back a report on the damage from the bombing, he heard the piercing wail of the air-raid siren being sounded once again. The shrill sound echoed through the sky, bringing a sense of desperate sorrow to people’s hearts.

One hundred “Butcher” bombers from Crete had once again paid a visit to Alexandria. Although they still did not damage the port facilities, they dropped more bombs on other parts of the city. In terms of bomb load, the Butcher was clearly much more capable than the Do-217. So, although the second bombing raid only used conventional aerial bombs and not napalm, the destruction it caused was not much less.

Collapsed buildings and rubble piled up in the streets and alleys. The once-spacious streets were now blocked by bricks and tiles. People were everywhere, searching through the ruins for the bodies of their relatives and friends, crying out as they dug through the rubble, and wandering around the still-burning buildings.

The sound of explosions continued to be heard. These were secondary explosions from munitions and combustibles hit by the bombs. From time to time, a cloud of black smoke would rise in the distance. The entire periphery of the port had been bombed into ruins, with only a few buildings left undestroyed.

When Montgomery emerged from his basement command post again, the Alexandria he saw was no longer the beautiful port he knew. Everywhere was thick smoke, rubble, and ruins. The once-prosperous port city was now no different from hell.

He leaned on a sandbag riddled with shrapnel, frowning at the slightly reddish sky. The German artillery was still pounding the positions on the outskirts, one shell after another. Although the explosions were not as loud as those in the city, they were as heavy as if they were pounding on people’s hearts. These distant explosions were a constant reminder that the war was far from over, that everything was just beginning.

While the city was being relentlessly pounded by the German bombers for half a day, the British defenders outside the city were also anxiously worrying about the situation of their comrades inside. The high-density bombing had destroyed many telephone lines, making it impossible for many frontline units to contact their rear command posts and logistics departments.

“Sir! The radio is in chaos, full of calls for help and shouting. We can’t contact General Montgomery,” a radio operator said, looking up at the anxious British division commander beside him. On the other side, the staff officer and the telephone operator by the two phones also shook their heads helplessly.

The entire communication system was in chaos. The telephone lines were probably blown up or burned through. In short, this division headquarters could no longer contact its superior units, such as corps and army group headquarters. They had just repulsed an Italian attack, and their ammunition consumption had reached a very worrying level.

The men sent to contact the rear supply department had left long ago and had not been heard from since. It seemed that even if that huge supply depot had not been destroyed by the bombers, there was now no manpower or energy to distribute the supplies requested by so many frontline units.

“We can’t wait like this any longer. Send men to drive the remaining two trucks back! No matter what, we have to find some ammunition first. Medicine and troop reinforcements can wait!” the chief of staff said helplessly to the division commander after picking up the phone for the tenth time and finding no response. “It looks like the losses in the port are even greater than imagined. The situation is on the verge of collapse.”

“The first group of men we sent out should have reached there by now. They should be able to bring back definite news soon,” the division commander said, glancing at the burning city in the distance, then back at the Italian military flag flying in the distance. He sighed and shook his head, then carefully examined the defense map spread out on the table.

With the war having reached this point, everyone knew that they, these soldiers, were just struggling on their deathbeds. And they were struggling without hope, for their British comrades in other directions. They were just trying to hold up the German army for as long as possible, to trip up Rommel’s eastward advance, to win a pitiful shred of dignity for the future of the sun-never-sets empire. At least now, almost all the British soldiers here understood that the future Britain could no longer be a world power. It could only be a regional one, and it would be suppressed by both its allies and its enemies.

But the war still had to go on. Their battle was not yet over. But at this moment, everyone had despaired for their own future. No one felt they could escape this catastrophe. No one felt they could live to see the end of the war.

Outside his command post, Montgomery met some runners who had come from the west and the south. Many of them had been sent by grassroots units because they could not contact him. The city was in a complete mess, and few people could still remember that they once had a commander named Montgomery. However, the runners had managed to restore some communication and had contacted some of the frontline units. The fighting on the periphery was still going on. The bombing had caused the British to lose several of their outer bunker positions in one fell swoop, a heavy loss.

“Contract the defense line! After communication is restored, I will give a speech,” Montgomery said, looking at the soldiers who had come to find him. His mouth finally opened, his voice somewhat low, lacking the high spirits of the past few days, sounding a little dejected and sad.

Beside him, the chief of staff helplessly announced the losses from this bombing raid. The ammunition and weapons that had been piled up in the open waiting for distribution had been almost completely destroyed. Several Stukas had deliberately targeted these supply depots. About half of the wounded had died in the attack, and two-thirds of the medicine and beds had been lost. So overall, the shortage of medicine had become even more serious.

At least 5,000 wounded of various degrees and 900 soldiers had died in this unprecedented bombing raid. In addition, at least another 7,000 civilians had lost their lives in this catastrophe. What was even more tragic was that tonight, more than 50,000 people would be homeless, and the situation here would become even more chaotic.

“Ammunition! The front line needs more ammunition! Can anyone help collect some?” a British officer standing on a truck shouted to the listless wounded soldiers squatting on both sides of the road. No one answered him. These wounded soldiers sat there as if they had lost their souls, not saying a word.

Many Indians looked in terror at the British soldiers on the truck. The habit of many years had accustomed him to submitting to British rule. Common sense told him that the British were militarily powerful and not to be trifled with. But he had personally seen many British being torn apart by the bombs dropped by a plane with an Iron Cross on its wing. He had personally seen these British soldiers crying for their mothers as they dodged the devastation of the German planes.

Some British soldiers handed over some of their spare ammunition. Some of the more clever, lightly wounded knew that if they stayed in the city tonight, they would probably not find a place to sleep. So they got on the trucks as reinforcements to return to the front. At least there was a trench there that could offer some shelter from the wind, which would be much more stable than in the city. As for the danger, where wasn’t it dangerous here?

And so, a few rounds of ammunition were tossed onto the truck, as if in charity. But more people were indifferent. The scene looked chaotic and even a little out of control. In the end, it was a few soldiers from the logistics supply who brought two boxes of ammunition, plus the machine gun from an armored car, that managed to slightly stabilize the crumbling morale.

“There’s not much ammunition left. I don’t know if the Germans and Italians will launch a night attack, but I can only promise you that normal ammunition supply will be restored tomorrow morning. After all, it’s too chaotic here now. Some of the underground ammunition depots have been destroyed, and some have been buried. We need time to clear them,” the officer in charge of the logistics department explained, pointing to a place not far away that was still smoking and exploding. He was already so busy he was losing his bearings, but he still couldn’t satisfy the soldiers who came from various positions to request ammunition resupply.

Standing to the side, Montgomery watched all of this, his heart twisting as if being cut by a knife. He had fought here for so long for his ideals and his beliefs, and only today did he realize that it was all just a pitiful struggle. Churchill had turned Britain into a pile of ruins for his own beliefs. A century-old empire had collapsed in one fell swoop, and he was still stubbornly following this path, and the result was that he had turned another place into a scorched earth.

“Everyone go back! If communication is restored in the evening, I will give everyone an explanation!” Montgomery seemed to have made some kind of decision. He glanced at the position of the sun and then said to the soldiers around him, “No one should have to endure all this. It’s time to end this pointless war.”

My choice, after all, is different from Churchill’s! With this thought in his mind, Montgomery turned and walked back into his air-raid shelter. He then issued an order, summoning all the division commanders of the entire 9th Army Group to the command post for a meeting. And then came the shocking news that the British forces would surrender in the evening.

Subsequently, a British envoy rushed to the German positions to negotiate, and then returned to his own lines as quickly as possible, bringing back the news that Rommel had accepted a conditional surrender. Rommel had agreed that the British soldiers could return to their homes instead of being sent to a terrible concentration camp.

Published: 2025-09-19T07:03:23.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2026-02-27T18:43:08.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c697-choices-139242114

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