After breaking through Gabushali's defense line, the 21st Armored Division advanced forward like a sharp knife.

This was once again beyond Lieutenant General Cunningham's expectations. He originally thought that the 21st Armored Division would garrison Gabusali after winning or reinforce the attacked Tobrook, after all, it was the German supply concentration site.

In this way, the British troops rushing to the Gabushali defense line from all directions can form an encirclement against the 21st Armored Division of the German Division.

Who would have thought that the 21st Armored Division would continue to advance...

In fact, Lieutenant General Cunningham should have thought of this long ago.

This is because Tobrook is not vulnerable... Although the combat effectiveness of the Italian army is not strong, it has troops that have fought wars after all. Tobrook is sufficient supplies, and the Italian army has many soldiers and generals (Rommeel reorganized the Italian army into 1 armored division and 5 infantry divisions. They received sufficient rest and morale in Tobrook to a certain extent.

More importantly, the Italian army had the confidence to fight under the encouragement of the successive victory of the German army...

This is often the case with the army. If you think you are not as good as the enemy and will eventually fail, then everyone will think about how to escape, so no matter how many troops are, it will be a mess.

The Italian army not long ago had this mentality, so it was so devastated on the front line.

But now it’s different. The Italian soldiers all believe that the British army is vulnerable under the attack of the German army, that is, in the end, the Italian army will win. So... why should the powerful Italian army run away? This is when the world is famous and the previous shame is washed away. So they all bravely take the lead in fighting against the enemy, and as a result they have shown unexpected combat effectiveness...

Although the tanks of the 8th British Armored Regiment broke through Tobrook's defense line and rushed into the Italian position again and again, they were beaten back by the Italian army again and again.

Of course, this has a lot to do with the strength of the Tobrook line. The tanks of the 8th Armored Regiment cannot be fully deployed in front of the mine array and the bunker group. The Italian army only needs to use artillery and anti-tank guns to blast the British army's entry point and can easily repel it.

This caused heavy losses to the 8th British Armored Regiment, and more than half of the tanks were destroyed in the two-hour attack.

Rommel, who knows about this battle situation, certainly would not worry about Tobrook's safety.

More importantly, Rommel's combat style has always been disdainful of the threats behind him, because he believes that when his logistics supply line is threatened, the enemy's logistics supply will also be attacked at the same time, and both sides will be in trouble, so it depends on who can hold on until the end.

In this regard, Rommel has always been full of confidence in his troops.

Rommel's attack instantly made General Cunningham mess, because all his arrangements would undoubtedly fail... All the fast-mobile "Stuart" tanks penetrated deep into the German defense line and could not rush back to fight the 21st Panzer Division for a while. What were left on the British defense area were the extremely slow "Matilda" tanks and "Valentine" tanks, which could not encircle the German troops breaking into the defense line.

"It's over!" Lieutenant General Cunningham sat back on his chair and said, "We will be defeated as before because the supply line was attacked!"

The staff officer didn't know what to say, and he found that Lieutenant General Cunningham had completely lost confidence in the battle, and the war had just begun for a few hours.

Then Lieutenant General Cunningham sent a telegram to General Ochinlek: "General, I think we should stop the attack and retreat immediately, otherwise we will suffer irreparable losses!"

General Ochinlek was shocked when he received this telegram. He knew that the most important thing for a frontline commander was to have the determination to "mountain of Mount Tai collapsed before his face was not changed", so that he could give his subordinates and even soldiers the belief that he would win. If even the commander of the Eighth Army lost confidence, what would the Eighth Army look like?

So General Ochinlek immediately took a plane to the British Front Command at Fort Marleigh, Damon.

When General Ochinlek got off the plane and entered the command force, he found that the situation was worse than he thought. The command center was panicked, and the officers were clamoring. Some thought that fighting should continue, while others believed that it would be no good for the British army, like General Cunningham.

Objectively speaking, the British army was beaten to the point of psychological shadow by the German army, and was defeated by the German army again and again, and many people, including General Cunningham, lost confidence in the British army's combat effectiveness, thinking that this time they would repeat the same mistakes as before.

"Gentlemen!" General Ochinlek said seriously and cautiously: "Although we failed at the beginning and the situation did not develop as we imagined, I hope you will clearly realize that what led to our war failure was not because of how powerful the German army was and how indestructible it was, but because you turned a blind eye to the balance of power between the enemy and me and just wanted to retreat! It is not difficult to see that you were completely defeated in your own hands!"

General Ochinlek was right. All the losses of the British army so far are only the 9th Armored Regiment, the 8th Armored Regiment, and some tanks located in the defense line of Gabushali, with a total of only more than one hundred tanks.

Even so, the British army had much more tanks than the German army... The 30th Army still had more than 300 tanks, and these tanks even exceeded the German tanks.

Of course, after replacing a 50MM caliber tank, the performance and training of the German tanks were stronger than the British "Stuart" that was urgently replaced by the British army, but the British not only had an advantage in the number of tanks, but more importantly, it also had air and troop advantages.

General Ochinlek was somewhat unimaginable that his subordinates would lose the confidence to fight before they had such a great advantage and planned to retreat.

"If you think we have no hope of victory before such a huge advantage!" General Ochinlek said: "What do you think is that there is hope of victory? Double the equipment and troops or even more?"

Although he didn't say much, he couldn't raise his head, and General Cunningham was speechless.

"Major General Neil Ritchie!" Then General Ochinlek ordered: "I have just obtained permission from London to appoint you to take over the post of Commander of General Cunningham's Eighth Army!"
Chapter completed!