Chapter 964: Suez Ablaze

It was a scorching morning, the sun beating down relentlessly, making everyone dizzy. The ground temperature evaporated what little moisture was left, causing the air to shimmer and the landscape to twist and distort.

Egypt was a land of vast deserts. Though nourished and irrigated by the Nile, most of the land remained barren and desolate—a natural, despairing desert.

But besides the Sphinx, the Pyramids, and the Nile, Egypt had another well-known feature: the Suez Canal. This waterway connected the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, and its existence alone was enough to make this land a place of strategic contention.

For several months, not a single ship had passed through the Suez Canal. The artillery positions of the Third Reich were on the west bank, while the east bank was garrisoned by American and British gunners. Neither side would let the other’s ships pass, resulting in the current stalemate—no one was going through.

But the Third Reich had no intention of sharing this global transportation hub with the Americans. Rommel’s Afrika Korps, after a long period of quiet, had finally amassed enough fuel for an offensive and was actively preparing for the battle to seize the Suez Canal. For this plan, Germany had stockpiled a massive amount of ammunition. Alexandria and all of Egypt provided a large quantity of supplies for the German army.

Britain had established arsenals in many Egyptian cities, including Cairo. Although they couldn’t produce large-scale weapons, they could repair tanks and planes. Some smaller workshops could also produce ammunition. As luck would have it, the rout of the British and Americans in Egypt had left them no time to destroy these factories, and so most of these assets had been inherited by the German army.

The port of Alexandria had moved the German and Italian supply lines from the distant rear to a position close to the front. The supplies Germany received had multiplied, while consumption had been reduced due to the shortened transport routes. Coupled with the slow start of oil production from the Libyan fields, Rommel’s supplies had never been so abundant.

So on this scorching morning, the German army, no longer content with its silence, finally raised the curtain on the battle for the Suez Canal. Four German artillery regiments opened fire with a ferocious barrage, shattering the quiet atmosphere. Shell after shell slammed into the embankments, throwing up vast clouds of sand.

In a concealed observation post on the front line, an American officer was startled by the sudden bombardment. He scrambled to the observation slit, raised his binoculars to watch the other side, but saw no sign that the Germans were organizing a river crossing. He lowered his binoculars, sneered, and cursed, “Bastards. Can’t these damn Krauts just be quiet for a while?”

He hadn’t even finished his grumbling when he saw, on the German side of the embankment, thousands of Italian soldiers, carrying assault boats and rubber rafts, begin to charge towards the Anglo-American positions. Behind the Italians, German soldiers started setting up machine gun nests on the riverbank. Mortars and other weapons began to roar, attempting to cover the advancing Italian soldiers.

“Enemy attack! Signal, quick!” the American officer yelled. As if in response to his shout, an American machine gun nest not far from his concealed lookout post suddenly opened fire. Tracer rounds swept across the not-so-wide Suez Canal, cutting down several Italian soldiers.

But by the time the enemy’s assault boats had been pushed into the canal and a large number of soldiers had jumped aboard, the fire from the American side had just begun to intensify. This American officer personally witnessed a rubber raft, packed with Italian soldiers, capsize in the river under American fire. A group of fully armed Italian soldiers sank to the bottom before they could even struggle.

“Your infantry attack is three minutes early, my dear Marshal Garibaldi,” Rommel said from behind his battery commander’s scope, a trademark smile on his lips. He straightened up. “So my air force hasn’t arrived yet, and your men can only face death alone out there.”

Beside him, Garibaldi stood with his hands behind his back, silent. To personally witness one’s own troops being slaughtered was a very uncomfortable thing. The Germans’ frequent contact with him recently had unsettled his heart. In this difficult situation, his ambition was also slowly growing, which made it impossible for him to concentrate on military command.

Of course, the combat level of the Italian troops was not as high as the Germans’. This was an objective fact. They always made one mess or another in battle. This unfavorable situation was just a small scene for them.

As they spoke, the agreed-upon German bomber force happened to fly over Rommel and Garibaldi’s heads. These Stukas and DO-217 bombers, loaded with bombs, were devastating just from their numbers and momentum alone. Since when had the German Iron Cross begun to rule the skies of the entire world, making everyone tremble beneath its wings? Rommel watched the German planes fly over the positions in front and, satisfied, slapped the dust from his trousers with his leather gloves.

“Now it’s better. My troops have been covered. They will, under your long-range fire support, capture the entire Suez Canal,” Garibaldi said, his heart, which had been hanging in his throat, finally settling after seeing the timely arrival of the German Air Force. He watched as more and more dense black pillars of smoke began to rise from the American positions, and the grave expression on his face began to fade.

In a sky-blotting formation, the German bomber squadrons flew over the American-held positions. From their open bomb bays, one aerial bomb after another was dropped in succession. These bombs fell in freefall towards the ground and then blossomed into flowers of steel and flame.

One after another, these flowers bloomed on the American positions, and then a storm of shrapnel and shockwaves raged everywhere. Many of the artillery positions that had thrown off their camouflage to return fire were completely destroyed in this storm. These positions were instantly silenced, and the attacking Italian infantry immediately felt the pressure ease.

The German machine guns began to roar, and tracers crisscrossed over the river in a web of fire. The Italian troops in the assault boats kept their heads down as low as possible, praying to get to the other side quickly. A huge column of water erupted in the river, and several of the small boats around it were overturned. Everywhere one could see soldiers struggling in the water, and also some wooden fragments from who knows which boats.

This was a battle that had broken out very suddenly. It was not until the German planes had begun to bomb the American large-caliber artillery positions that Mountbatten, in his command post, had received the definite news. He did not know how many attacking troops Rommel had, only that this time the other side seemed not to be joking.

The intelligence that the Germans were about to launch a military operation in North Africa had actually been collected by the U.S. military all along, including Rommel’s control of the troops’ fresh water consumption a few months ago, and the large amount of fuel that had been stockpiled by the Germans in these few months. All these signs indicated that the Germans were preparing for a large-scale North African offensive.

But as for where the Germans would attack, the American intelligence agencies had no definite answer. Some believed that Rommel was not stockpiling supplies, but that German supplies were running short, and Rommel had to control his troops’ consumption. Others suggested that the United States should do everything possible to strengthen the Suez Canal defense line.

The countermeasure the United States had chosen was actually very simple: to desperately strengthen all its defense lines in North Africa, preparing to make the Germans pay a heavy price when they broke through these lines. Patton, a general skilled in offense, had been transferred to India. Mountbatten, a general skilled in defense, had become the commander of this position.

He had turned this place into a large fortress. Besides laying mines and other measures, he had also ordered that all the oil fields in the Middle East be pre-rigged with explosives, to leave nothing for the Germans. After deploying these defensive measures, Mountbatten had begun to do the thing he was most keen on—rushing crude oil to India.

For Mountbatten, what he could do now was to accumulate as many resources as possible for a post-war Britain. He did not know who would win this war in what way, nor did he know if the Iceland Britain he was loyal to would be the legitimate one.

But he didn’t have to think about these things at all. All he needed to do was to scrape together everything he could and then, when peace came, to send these supplies to the one and only Britain. That was all. As for whether this Britain was pro-German or pro-American, that was not important.

“Rommel couldn’t hold back in the end… I thought he would have held back for a little longer,” Mountbatten said with a bitter smile. He then said to the staff officer who had come to report the start of the campaign, “From a broader perspective, for Germany to open a North African front while the Eastern Front is tight is not a very rational decision.”

“General, perhaps… it’s because Germany is starting to run short on crude oil reserves, so they’ve hastily ordered Rommel to seize the Middle Eastern oil fields?” the staff officer said after a moment’s thought. “To open a two-front war at a time like this is actually an extremely unwise choice.”

Even if the oil fields in Libya were producing, they could only be Italy’s oil fields. For Rommel to use Italian crude oil at this time to seize the Middle Eastern oil fields was in fact not a decision made without consideration. On the contrary, it could very well have been a well-thought-out move by the High Command. As for whether this move was aimed at the United States or at Italy, that was a question only God could answer.

In May, just as Stalingrad had been captured by the Germans, Rommel had opened the prelude to the battle for the Middle East.

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