"Major General!" Montgomery replied: "You must know that Germany has only six divisions in Italy, and it is very weak!"

Montgomery's words are the truth. Most of the main forces of the German army are concentrated in the Eastern Front and northern France. There are only six divisions in Italy. Four of them have fought wars on Sicily and retreated to Italy after suffering a certain amount of casualties.

"That's right!" Alexander echoed: "You must know that the Italian regime is now shaking, and these German troops have to take on two tasks in Italy. On the one hand, they have to control the Italian troops to prevent them from mutiny, and on the other hand, they have to be on guard against our attack, and they will inevitably lose sight of one thing..."

"I have no objection to this at all!" Zhang Chi replied: "But have you ever thought that it is precisely these German troops, which are not very strong and very weak, that they fought a beautiful interspersed encirclement and defensive battle in Sicily not long ago!"

Hearing this, Alexander and Montgomery looked unnatural.

Zhang Chi learned this from Eisenhower. Although he praised the German army, he actually implied that there were too many British troops? So what if he was not allowed to fight the 200,000 British troops to the point of defeat, and even the danger of being wiped out by the 40,000 German troops?!

"Gentlemen!" Zhang Chi continued, "And I have to remind you that the climate and terrain in southern Italy are very similar to Sicily. What I am talking about is not landing war. In fact, I believe we can win in landing war. After all, we have Sicily as a support. Cannons can fight from Sicily to Italy. We have an overall advantage in aircraft and warships, etc. The Germans will not be so stupid that they put their main force on the beach and let us bombard them. So, gentlemen, don't talk about the advantages of Sicily anymore, that will not solve any problem!"

"Major General, then what are you referring to?"

"I mean this..." Zhang Chi pointed to the map: "In the Alps, the Germans will use this mountain range to build a line of defense, and then you know, the scene of the German army using the Etna volcanic terrain on Sicily will repeat itself. Tell me, do you have a solution?"

Everyone was stunned when they heard this. Everyone was thinking about how to log in to Italy, but they didn't expect what to do if they encountered obstacles after logging in to Italy.

And this is indeed difficult to solve, because as we all know, modern equipment and mechanized troops are suitable for combating in flat areas, in mountainous areas with complex terrain... it is like attacking the Catania defense line. There is no way for aircraft, warships, and artillery to deal with it, because the enemy can always find a hiding place very conveniently.

For this kind of defense, the Allies could only send ground troops to push forward little by little, and the price of advancement was time and life.

"Now..." Zhang Chi continued: "Let's recall the idea of ​​attacking from Italy, that is, landing in Italy, and then pushing north across the entire Italy and fighting to Germany. But I'm sorry... If we do this, we are likely to be blocked in front of the Alps, and it can be predicted that the Germans will send reinforcements, and then it will be very likely to fight trench warfare like the First World War. I think everyone here must be familiar with trench warfare!"

The British officers looked at each other when they heard this, while the US officers looked happy, especially Eisenhower, who threw praise at Zhang Chi, and then Zhang Chi said: "The Major General is right, so it is not practical to land in Italy and attack Germany. This is too far away from Germany, especially Berlin. You should know that Berlin is in the northern part of Germany... God, if you fight like this, we will almost spread across Europe from south to north! Especially, you have always used the reason that there are few German troops stationed in Italy, but you will not think that after Italy is threatened, the Germans will sit idly by and ignore a reinforcement and don't send them! I bet that in the end, the Germans we encounter in Italy will not encounter fewer German troops than in northern France! Then, I would like to ask everyone, why do we have to waste our time holding such unrealistic fantasy?"

"General!" Montgomery retorted: "These are just your imagination!"

"This is indeed an imagination!" Eisenhower replied: "But this is a reasonable imagination, isn't it? Are you talking about reality? No, you talk about imagination, and it is an unrealistic imagination!"

"I don't think we have any unrealistic imaginations!" Alexander replied.

"No?" Eisenhower asked back: "Do you think the Italians will surrender, don't you?"

"Is this unrealistic?" Alexander said unconvincedly: "In fact, Italy already has the will to surrender, and this is exactly the reality!"

"This is indeed reality!" Eisenhower said: "But you take it for granted that after Italy surrenders, they can defeat the Germans in and out of the way... This is a dream. Everyone knows the performance of the Italian army, and you actually believe that they can fight the Germans bravely!"

Montgomery and Alexander were speechless, and the British officers could not refute it. After all, the Italians' performance on the battlefield was really unsatisfactory.

"General!" Montgomery continued to insist, "I wonder if you have ever thought about what the consequences would be if we did not land in Italy? The intelligence we received was... the Germans were trying to rescue Mussolini and managed to push him back to the position of Italian Prime Minister. If all this happened, do you know what the result would be? Yes, Italy will return to its original position and we added hundreds of thousands of enemies!"

Montgomery is a bit exaggerated.

Hitler did have an action and plan to rescue Mussolini, but because Italy and Germany had not yet openly broken up, Hitler did not dare to act strong and could only plan in secret... But rescuing a person is much more difficult than killing someone, because the trigger is in the hands of Italians, and even Mussolini is no longer valuable or even a threat to the Italians and even the fascist party.

The reason is very simple. Once Mussolini is really successfully rescued by Germany and regained power with the support of Germany, it will inevitably liquidate the fascist party and the army. This is of course not allowed by the fascist party, the army, and even all Italians.

Therefore, as long as there is a little movement, the guards who "protect" Mussolini will pull the trigger without hesitation, which makes Hitler dare not act rashly.

Otherwise, if a bad thing is to make a fuss, it will be the result of "stealing the chicken but losing the rice".
Chapter completed!