Chapter 436 North African Campaign (4)

Among the 50,000 Vichy French soldiers transferred to North Africa, only 20,000 participated in the attack on Egypt, and the other 30,000 began to wander around their own colonies one by one, deterring those who were restless and a little restless before.

The first stop was Tunisia, which is adjacent to Libya.

Tunisia was originally the territory of the Phoenicians, and then followed the Romans, and then was ruled by the Hafsid Dynasty, and was occupied by the Ottoman Turks in 1574 AD.

France swallowed Algeria as early as 1830 AD for some dubious reasons, and then set its sights on Tunisia. The Ottoman Empire was already half alive at this time. When it heard that France was going to attack Tunisia, it sent warships to the Tunisian waters to demonstrate to France.

France was furious and also sent warships to Tunisia, warning the Ottoman Empire to leave quickly if nothing happened, so as not to be embarrassed later. The Ottoman Empire's national strength declined seriously, and it had no strength to confront France. Faced with France's warning, the Ottoman Empire very wisely withdrew from the competition.

Tunisia was originally an economically backward region, and coupled with years of drought, the people had no food to eat and panic. Seeing that Tunisia was starving, France suddenly showed "kindness" and established a so-called Finance Committee in 1869 to help Tunisia solve its fiscal deficit and foreign debt. Can wolves be kind to sheep? France colluded with Britain and Italy, who had ulterior motives, to "diagnose" Tunisia's economy.

All sheep who believe in the wolf's kindness will not have a good end. Tunisia really thought that France was here to help, but it didn't take long to find that there were French thieves in all economic fields in Tunisia, and the banking industry was completely controlled by France. When Tunisia woke up from its sweet dream, it was too late.

France needed a "reasonable" excuse to swallow Tunisia. "Coincidentally", in early 1881, a boy in Tunisia fell in love with a girl from French Algeria, and was killed by the girl's family. The village where the boy was located attacked the village where the girl was located. France smelled something fishy and accused Tunisia of attacking French Algeria. Tunisia wanted to explain, but France didn't listen at all. In April 1881, it dispatched more than 30,000 troops to attack Tunisia.

Tunisia's swords, spears, axes, hooks and forks were no match for France's modern weapons. They were quickly defeated and had to sign the Treaty of Bardo with France. The treaty was simple. France had the right to station troops and manage administration in Tunisia.

Everything came naturally, and France completely controlled Tunisia. It was not until 1956 that Tunisia was freed from the clutches of France.

Yannick and Pétain discussed that all French colonies still belonged to Vichy France in name, and Germany was responsible for exploiting the resources in the colonies, with a 6:4 split.

After all, as long as Germany was willing, what would happen if it directly robbed these colonies? Now there was still 40% of the benefits to be taken, so Pétain naturally had nothing to say. What made him a little curious was how the Germans found these resources, and they found them accurately. Take France for example. From the founding of the country to the present, the French themselves did not find a lead mine near Korbel. As a result, when the Germans came, they immediately started mining.

Yannick smiled and said, "It was God's guidance." Pétain was half-believing and half-doubting.

Tunisia's oil and natural gas resources are very limited compared with other major oil-producing countries in Africa, with small reserves (70 million tons of oil and 61.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas); there are also 2 billion tons of phosphate and 25 million tons of iron ore.

In addition, Tunisia is the world's largest exporter of olive oil and the world's tenth largest tomato producer; it is still worth German investment.

Tunisia, such a small country, naturally dare not have any other ideas; the French expressed satisfaction and went to the second colony, Algeria.

Like Tunisia, Algeria originally belonged to the Ottoman Empire. As a result, France entered Algeria in the early 19th century and gradually eroded the entire Algeria.

During World War II in the original time and space, in order to fight against the Axis powers, France promised Algeria that it would allow it to be independent as long as it helped France win the war. After the end of World War II, France became a victorious country as it wished, but Charles de Gaulle, who was eager to repair the wounds of the war, not only did not fulfill his promise, but instead intensified the exploitation of Algeria. The Algerian people fought hard for 8 years before they were able to gain independence.

Algeria has abundant natural resources. The oil reserves are about 1.7 billion tons, accounting for 1% of the world's total reserves, ranking 15th in the world, mainly Sahara light oil, with high oil quality; the proven recoverable reserves of natural gas are 58 trillion cubic meters, accounting for 37% of the world's total reserves, ranking 10th in the world.

Other mineral deposits mainly include iron, lead, zinc, uranium, copper, gold, phosphate, etc. Among them, the iron ore reserves are 3 to 5 billion tons, mainly distributed in the eastern Uangza mine and Bouhadera mine. The estimated reserves of lead and zinc are 500 million tons, uranium 50,000 tons, phosphate 2 billion tons, and gold 73 tons. Algeria is rich in water resources, with about 17.2 billion cubic meters of exploitable water resources, 64 dams, and a water storage capacity of 71 billion cubic meters.

Then there are Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Niger...

When the French drove the more powerful jackal tanks and BF109s in a mighty manner, these colonies could not have any other intentions, and simply threw away all the tempting promises of Charles de Gaulle and knelt down at the feet of Vichy France again.

The German, Italian and French coalition forces that attacked Egypt advanced all the way to a place less than 200 kilometers away from Cairo. With the speed of the German army's attack, it would take less than two days to reach the city of Cairo. In order to ensure this long supply line, Germany, Italy and France gathered 3,000 trucks to deliver supplies to the front line day and night.

Admiral Wavell of the British side could only keep the army retreating. His retreat caused Churchill's dissatisfaction.

Originally, Churchill and Wavell had serious personality differences, which led to Churchill's great opinion of Wavell. For example, Churchill's personality is eloquent, but Wavell's personality is taciturn, so the two people always seem to have difficulty in communicating about some things. In particular, General Wavell was very dissatisfied with the government's arbitrary intervention in military affairs. He never thought that Churchill, who had a very short service experience, would have much actual military talent.

Churchill hoped to win a beautiful victory in North Africa to boost morale; but Wavell thought this request was simply a fantasy.

In the original time and space, Churchill appointed Admiral Auchinleck to replace Admiral Wavell as the commander-in-chief of the British army in Africa; but by this time, Auchinleck had already died, and even the British mainland was in danger, so how could he care about the distant North Africa.