Chapter 434: Partition

The weather in Britain cannot be sunny forever, and naturally, it cannot be cloudy forever. After several consecutive days of howling winds and gloomy skies, the sun once again appeared, and the weather over the British Isles finally turned from cloudy to clear.

The terrifyingly massive formations of German “Butcher” strategic bombers arrived as expected, appearing over Britain and dropping hundreds and thousands of tons of bombs on various regions. Countless Stuka and Stuka Type 2 bombers repeatedly struck the British defensive positions, easily turning them into a sea of fire.

The gloomy, windy weather, which German soldiers had dubbed “Churchill weather,” had disappeared. The German aircraft carrier fleet once again paraded its might, and the landing sites were once again clear. The German fleet, working at full capacity, delivered tens of thousands of reinforcements to the various units of Army Group A.

The “Friedrich” rocket launchers, their ammunition replenished, roared once again. The British soldiers finally understood the meaning of an old Chinese proverb: the feng shui turns. Their cannons were destroyed by Stukas, their positions were torn apart by German panzergrenadiers, and their lives were ground into the mud by the tracks of German tanks.

Montgomery’s forces suffered setbacks all along the front. German troops had re-encircled Bungay, and large numbers of German units had appeared in the Lowestoft area. It was clear that at this point, Germany’s Army Group A was not planning to use any clever tricks or schemes. They were simply going to use their overwhelming air and sea superiority to seize the vital port city from the British defenders.

In fact, Lowestoft was not a large port city, but compared to the small port towns in German hands like Bacton and Wells, Lowestoft could be considered a very large port indeed.

More importantly, Lowestoft was closer to the Netherlands and Belgium. The German transport lines would be significantly shortened, allowing the German army in Britain to be resupplied much more quickly, making life even more difficult for the British defenders.

The British commanders could hardly imagine a more difficult situation. Germany already controlled four military airfields in the landing area. Over 400 German aircraft of various types had been deployed to Britain, making German air support more timely and accurate, and the bombing of Britain more frequent.

230,000 German troops had already landed on British soil, while the total number of homegrown forces Britain could now muster was about 300,000. It had to be remembered that most of Britain’s elite combat troops had ended up in prisoner-of-war camps at Dunkirk. The troops that had escaped back to the mainland, combined with the original reserves, numbered only about 100,000 combat-effective men. After so many days of hard fighting, this force of 100,000 now had only about 50,000 men left.

The remaining 250,000 so-called British soldiers were mostly “new recruits” who had never seen a day of battle, had fired maybe five shots at a target in the rear, and were then sent to the front line as if it were a drill. To put it bluntly, these soldiers were just farmers and students with guns. Montgomery didn’t even dare to imagine the result if these hastily formed units were to encounter German panzer forces in the open field.

In fact, the situation Montgomery most dreaded had already occurred at the front. The newly formed British 24th Division had a division commander who was practically a last-minute appointment, and the entire unit was almost entirely composed of new recruits. This division encountered the German 5th Light Panzer Division in front of Thetford. The battle lasted only 45 minutes. The British lost 2,100 men killed, with another 3,800 captured. The entire defensive line collapsed as a result, and Thetford became an exposed frontline city.

It was difficult to assess the combat effectiveness of these newly supplemented units. Sometimes, they would be quite tenacious, and while their combat ability couldn’t match the main forces, it could be described as passable. At other times, these units would collapse at the first touch, with combat effectiveness no better than a National Day parade contingent, leaving the frontline commanders utterly helpless.

All Montgomery could do was, within his authority, to break up some of the new recruit units and use them to fill the ranks of existing combat formations, trying his best to maintain a consistent combat standard for every unit under his command.

The chaos and ignorance of Britain’s reinforcement system was not entirely their fault. The bureaucrats in the rear had been pushed into a corner by the constant urging and pressure from the King and the Prime Minister. His Majesty the King and the Right Honorable Prime Minister were not interested in hearing how many reinforcements had been integrated into existing units; they only cared about the size of the British army.

In truth, this was a form of self-deception born of madness. Just as Hitler, before his suicide, was unwilling to admit that his armies had been completely wiped out, Churchill was now unwilling to admit the near-collapse of the British front line. The question he asked most frequently every day was how many new divisions had been formed and where they had been deployed after being sent to the front.

In the Prime Minister’s war room, the map of Britain now showed 71 combat divisions. In theory, Britain’s total military strength should be at least over 900,000 men. But in reality, the British army could only maintain a fluctuating strength of around 300,000.

The reason was that the reinforcement reports provided to Prime Minister Churchill stated that Britain had newly formed 31 combat divisions. However, these newly formed “combat divisions” started out as “understrength divisions” of about 7,000 men, then became 4,500, then were compressed to 3,000. It even reached a point where the 69th Independent Division had only 1,500 men, about the size of a regiment, and the 70th Independent Division was sent to the front without even scraping together 1,400 men.

One can only imagine what the combat effectiveness of the British frontline troops had been reduced to, and how critically important the 30,000 or so British elites still under Montgomery’s command had become.

However, with the arrival of February 23rd, all of this changed. After a bitter street-by-street battle, the German army finally captured its first major port city, Lowestoft. The 20,000 British defenders in Great Yarmouth ultimately surrendered without a fight. The Bungay garrison announced a few hours later that they were ceasing resistance. Just three days after Prime Minister Churchill had delivered his famous “From Bungay to Great Yarmouth” speech, the inspiring “Great Victory at Bungay” and the “Liberation of Great Yarmouth” had become a loud slap in the face to the British political establishment.

The enraged British King dismissed Montgomery from his post as commander-in-chief and ordered Lord Gort to take command of the British frontline forces once again, with immediate orders to counter-attack the Germans and retake all of Britain’s territory.

As a result, the British counter-attack lasted only two hours before it was forced onto the defensive. The British army, its elite forces exhausted, collapsed all along the line in the face of the subsequent German offensive. On February 24th alone, they lost the central defensive town of Thetford and the transport hub of Ely. On February 25th, Newmarket fell to the Germans, and the German front line was now approaching the important city of Cambridge, north of London.

On February 26th, forces of the German Army Group A captured Aldeburgh. A subsequent British counter-attack at Bury St Edmunds was thwarted by the German 2nd Panzer Division. On February 27th, the German swastika flag was raised over the towns of Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket. The British garrison in Ipswich then surrendered, but street fighting continued until March 1st. For the first time, German troops were attacked by British civilians. Ipswich was subsequently subjected to a retaliatory massacre by the German army, with civilian casualties as high as 7,000.

Felixstowe was then occupied by the Germans. The port city of Harwich was blockaded by German coastal artillery from the nearby, German-controlled Felixstowe. Sudbury then surrendered to the German armored forces. The British defenders barely managed to stabilize their line near the river south of Sudbury, establishing a relatively solid defensive system along the riverbank.

The Germans established a firm defensive line along the River Ouse in the west and were also in a standoff with the British across a river in the south. Between these two river lines lay the famous British city of Cambridge. Everyone knew that as long as the Germans took Cambridge, they could advance along the railway and roads straight to Harlow, the northern gateway to London. At that point, London would be completely in the grasp of the German Army Group A.

After a continuous string of losses and defeats at the front, the King and Churchill were even more dissatisfied with Gort than they had been with Montgomery. But by this time, Montgomery was already on a ship to Canada, and it was too late to recall him.

Thus, an obscure old British general named Willis was appointed in this time of crisis, taking over command of the British forces. The moment he took office, this old general made his strategy clear: hold the line, hold the line, and hold the line until the end of the world. He abandoned all counter-attack plans and ordered the British forces to begin setting up defenses where they stood and to establish a solid defensive system.

But at this critical juncture, a negotiator sought out the beleaguered Prime Minister Churchill and presented him with a so-called “sovereignty claim” that made Churchill want to flip the table. He hoped that Britain would give up its control of Northern Ireland and understand Ireland’s demand for independence.

This was undoubtedly kicking a man while he was down. Although Ireland’s strength was insignificant during Britain’s peak, and the island of Ireland was considered its own backyard, now that the British tiger was stranded on a beach, this knife in the back was a potentially fatal blow. And it was only now that the British government truly realized that their own side was far from a solid bloc. The German government’s true killing move was only now being revealed.

Akado knew that a complete occupation of Britain would be costly and not worth the price. However, partitioning Britain with some friendly forces was a much more comfortable proposition. Another ally Germany had found was Ireland, which had always been restlessly waiting behind Britain’s back. Akado had promised Ireland that if they ceded the Scottish Highlands as a buffer zone to create a new “Britain,” this new regime, similar to the Vichy French government, would join the German-led Steel Axis alliance and become another of Germany’s puppet states.

The novel has already been fully translated up to the final chapter. You can access it on my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair