Chapter 58:
Chapter 58
Churchill was never a good prime minister.
He was stubborn and uncompromising.
His temperament made him many political enemies, and even more personal ones.
His obstinacy led him to many failures – especially in Gallipoli and France – and Britain had to suffer defeat because of him.
But he refused to accept a cowardly peace and insisted on fighting to the end, and he carried out his conviction.
“I will never run away! If I die, the Nazis will have to drag my corpse from the office chair at 10 Downing Street! The only future for Britain is victory, victory at any cost, victory no matter how long and hard the road. Victory alone. I am willing to give up my life for that victory, like the sons of the great British Empire who went before me!”
The cabinet decided to evacuate to Glasgow to stop the advancing German army, which was approaching London. But Churchill insisted on defending London to the last.
“Without you, Prime Minister, our cabinet cannot survive!”
Churchill looked at his ministers with his characteristic bulging eyes and chuckled.
The old lion refused to bow down even though he had lost his teeth.
“There is no need to say such flattering words to me, an old stubborn man. It is because of my stubbornness that this historic city is on the verge of falling, and the people are divided. It is all my fault. My fault.”
No one could argue with his resolute attitude.
“And a loser like me can only sink with his defeat. If I cowardly run away from here and try to cling to the pitiful title of prime minister, who will recognize us? Even the people will abandon us.”
“Prime Minister!”
“The captain goes down with the ship! I’m sorry, Attlee, Eden. I’m passing on too heavy a burden to you. Don’t resent me, I have no shame.”
Damn it! If you know that, please evacuate.
Attlee wanted to shout that, but the old man’s stubbornness had become something that could never be broken.
Or maybe he should hand over the temporary prime minister position to Eden of the Conservative Party…
‘Why me? Why!’
Churchill, who signed the order to destroy the factories and shipyards that were the basis of the industry in order not to hand over Britain’s industrial base to the Nazis, laughed hoarsely.
“Well, I’ll sign the hardest order last. Now, hurry, hurry up. They say those bastards are using big bombs?”
London was now being bombed.
The Nazis seemed to covet Britain’s industrial base.
The shipyards where battleships and aircraft carriers were still being built, factories that produced planes and various military supplies.
He had to destroy all of this.
He knew that after losing this, there was no longer a future as the world’s greatest naval power for the British Empire, but he couldn’t just hand them over to the Nazis.
Many civilians were evacuating. Northward, northward.
The German army had landed on the southern coast and was advancing along the shortest route to London, while troops defending London were moving south from the north, and civilians were heading in the opposite direction.
“It will take at least a week for the US troops to land in Britain to support us. Prime Minister, can you defend London until then?”
“As long as I have to defend it. I’ll defend it somehow.”
The US had officially deployed troops after declaring war on Germany.
Although the ground forces had not been fully mobilized yet, two divisions that were immediately mobilized had reached full strength, and 20 more divisions were being formed.
Most of the US Army forces were on the western and southern Mexican borders, and there were only regiment-sized homeland defense forces or Marine Corps forces stationed on the east coast, so they needed time.
But Churchill believed in America’s immense potential.
And he believed in the Soviet Union.
Even though they were allies who spied on each other despite being allies, they had inflicted more than a million casualties on Germany so far.
France, which boasted itself as Europe’s strongest land power, couldn’t last more than six weeks even with Britain’s full support, but the Soviet Union fought evenly with Germany for almost six months, sometimes with an advantage.
Now that the Americans are here, we can win! Defend London!
“Waaaaah! Long live the British Empire! Defend our homeland!”
The mobilized troops consisted mostly of Home Guards made up of middle-aged men who had last touched a gun in the previous war, except for some elite regiments or local police.
There was no armored force to counteract the four full-strength armored divisions that landed and pushed in by Germany.
They had to hastily finish and bring out Valentine tanks that were being made in factories.
The two battalion-sized armored units composed of Valentine and Matilda tanks were commanded by the most experienced general among those who remained – those who had not been captured in Dunkirk and Africa – Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the Free France in exile.
“Men! Will you bring dishonor to France in front of the British!”
“No!”
“We have nowhere else to run! Our homeland has been trampled under the boots of Nazi Germany, and the glory of great France has been thrown into the gutter. The country under the Vichy regime is not France! It is not France if it is not great!”
Free France had fought alongside Britain, but they had suffered defeat after defeat from Germany.
France’s ‘great army’ surrendered to Germany in just six weeks, and a puppet government led by Marshal Petain was established in Vichy.
At the port of Mers-el-Kebir, Germany succeeded in taking most of the French fleet, and former Minister Georges Mandel, who had tried to escape and establish an exile government in Africa, was dragged away to a concentration camp somewhere in Germany by the traitorous French governor of Morocco.
The main force of the army was all under the control of Vichy France, and only a few joined the Free French government led by de Gaulle in Britain or Africa.
They started without a single tank or artillery, and joined the British army in endless battles, but lost most of them, and even lost their colonies to Vichy France.
The only colony that supported Free France, Chad governor Felix Eboue, was assassinated by Vichy supporters, and the Equatorial African colonies he had tried to persuade, such as Congo and Cameroon, all swore absolute loyalty to Vichy France.
There was no longer a single colony that supported Free France.
The anti-French dissidents in the colonies who had tried to negotiate also completely ignored Free France as if they had no power, and some even sold Free French spies to the Nazis and Vichy.
All that remained were his subordinates who had followed him into exile from his old days as an armored division commander.
There was nowhere else to retreat or fall.
“By the cross of Lorraine! We will return to Paris! Come back alive, you have too much to do here to die. Long live France! Long live! Long live!”
“Long live! Long live Free France!”
The sound of tank engines became a roar and the French shouted long live.
The British who were with them seemed to not understand what they were saying, but they followed suit.
Long live France! Long live Free France!
Drive out the Nazis!
The Nazi army had advanced to the outskirts of London with fanatical loyalty-armed boy soldiers.
Their entire force was concentrated on London, and if London could hold their offensive for a few days, America could send reinforcements.
The German army did not attack the major ports such as Cardiff, Bristol, or Liverpool in Wales or the west coast due to their limited manpower and supply capacity, and only focused on London.
Even though London was being bombed into ruins, as long as they had a port where the Americans could come…!
***
“Are you ready?”
“Yes, sir. All squadrons are ready for bombing.”
When did they make so many bombers? Rommel was surprised by the unexpected forces.
Marshal Goering said he had turned most of his forces to the west because he could not throw his precious planes into the snowstorm in Soviet Russia after the air raid on the eastern front.
But this scale?
He must have taken a lot of money from the army and invested it in the navy and air force.
He thought so.
But what does it matter? It’s just a show. When will I ever get such a lot of support?
A huge fireworks show was about to begin.
The air force reconnaissance squadron offered special seats to the senior command of the army if they wanted to see it from above, but Rommel politely declined for fear of a possible counterattack by the British air force.
“We will show you how one of the oldest cities in the world turns into ashes and burns! Hahahahaha!! It may have taken thousands of years to build it, but it only takes tens of hours to tear it down.”
‘The butcher of the sky’ Richthofen appeared on the western front this time and commanded the bombing of London. Dozens of Groser Yung bombs and thousands of incendiary bombs. He seemed to enjoy this huge firework too much.
Although he couldn’t carry out indiscriminate bombing against civilians as he liked because most of them had evacuated, he seemed to be satisfied with destroying this historic city.
Most of the British air force was not defending London but protecting civilian evacuation columns from German ground attacks.
Richthofen sent Stukas from time to time to bomb civilian evacuation columns.
“Shooting at civilians? Are you sane?”
“They were surely soldiers disguised as civilians!”
He insisted stubbornly and was endorsed by the Führer himself.
‘Respect the judgment of the air force commander’. But Rommel could not respect Richthofen’s judgment.
London tried to defend the city from the bombing by gathering as many anti-aircraft guns as possible and setting up a dense barrage, but there was a clear limit to the anti-aircraft guns alone.
Richthofen claimed that if he formed a dense formation and bombed at an altitude of 2,000 meters, which was a blind spot between the machine guns and the large-caliber anti-aircraft guns, he could achieve both maximum blast and accuracy.
And his strategy had indeed shown considerable results on the eastern front.
“And this time, we have developed a new way of bombing. The conventional high-explosive bombing had a limit in inflicting damage on the city, while the incendiary bombing showed tremendous lethality even in the city. Also, like this…”
The bombing plan he showed was truly outrageous.
It was an operation that poured, literally poured, incendiary bombs that could be used for months in just three days over London.
They delivered incendiary bombs over London as if they were delivering them, came back, reloaded, flew again, and poured them again… They came and went, pouring tens of thousands of tons of incendiary bombs a day.
A large part of the limited supply line was filled with incendiary bombs for this.
It was a simple but cruel method.
When an Italian general asked if there was no problem with collateral damage to civilians, Richthofen laughed like a madman.
“Oh, General. My kind and gentle General. Did you ask about civilians? Civilians?”
“Th… that’s right…”
“There are no innocent civilians in this war! Our kind General. Those British citizens are criminals who support the warmonger Churchill and put him in the prime minister’s seat, and they are the ones who wage war with the British government.
They produce weapons that kill our German and Italian sons and shoot at us with guns. We are not only fighting against armed enemies, but also against their productivity!”
The generals closed their mouths.
War against productivity.
It was an expression that contained some insight. But they could not accept the ‘insight’ that this lunatic suggested.
Rommel himself thought so.
What was the Führer thinking? Didn’t he want to occupy and control Britain?
How could we rule Britain if we destroyed it so brutally? Would the puppet government we set up in Britain support us?
Wouldn’t they be dragged down by angry mobs in an instant…
Of course, he knew that killing civilians was not good for public opinion, so until recently, the German army had sprayed leaflets that tolerated the evacuation of the British.
Nevertheless, there were still those who remained: local defense forces called ‘Home Guards’ and their families, and stubborn natives who refused to leave London.
Churchill also refused to leave London and declared to fight to the death.
Some sighed at his words.
We may be able to occupy Britain… but can we rule it?
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