Romanian Eagle

The road from Thessaly to Athens has always been through the coastal road. Because of the mountainous terrain, its interior is not suitable for large-scale troops to march through. Therefore, since ancient times, Greece has fought against other forces, basically naval battles or in coastal areas, and few people have tried to climb mountains and mountains.

Although the role of checkpoints has been greatly reduced with the development of the times, the coastal roads are still available for the army to pass. And today on the coastal road, a majestic army is rushing all the way.

That's right, this troop is the armored corps commanded by Hoffman. They have passed through the Thessaly Basin and are heading for the target Athens.

For the just-concluded Battle of Thessaly, this was a good talk for them. They drove chariots and kept chasing the retreating Greek army, splitting and besieging them, forcing them to surrender.

At first, they were very happy about it, but there were too many Greek officers and soldiers who retreated. These retreating officers and soldiers were surrounded and divided by them, and they were almost numb later.

After encircling and surrendering these defeated soldiers, they left only a small number of soldiers to guard the surrendering Greek soldiers, and the other troops continued to move inland.

After taking the lead in Larissa (the capital of Thessaly region), they seized Volos without stopping, and then rushed all the way to Athens under the command of Hoffman.

Along the way, the Greek army had no opponent, and was either annihilated or routed.

And now their commander, Lieutenant General Hoffman, is watching the latest information on the entire battle situation in the command car.

"I didn't expect that the navy fought so hard on Chios Island."

Hoffman was looking at the battle report of the navy. In this battle report, the navy listed the details of the battle on Chios Island in detail, including the unfortunate fairy cannon.

In this battle, the First Marine Division suffered more than 1,000 casualties, of which nearly 800 were killed, which caused a considerable loss to the First Marine Division. And their opponent, the Greek army, was not feeling well either. The casualties of more than 3,000 people also broke their backbone.

Hoffman carefully studied the battle report. Although the landing battle had little to do with him, who could say for sure, maybe he might use it for anything. And this battle report is also helpful to him, whether it is arranging troops and commanding responses, it can give him a lot of ideas and references.

Tactically, for the battle on Chios, he thought it would be worth it. Because the storming of the enemy's positions caused too many casualties, some of the losses outweighed the gains.

But strategically, he believed that the battle was the right one, because it showed the Greeks that their resistance was useless, even with their fatalistic beliefs and excellent terrain, they were still no match for the Romanian army.

While he was studying the report carefully, a communications staff officer came over. He took a telegram from his briefcase and handed it to Hoffman's desk.

"Report to Your Excellency, this is a telegram from the Italian side from Jizhi."

"Okay, I know."

Hoffman gave up the idea of ​​continuing to study the report of the battle on Chios Island, put it on the table, and picked up the new telegram from Italy. Because he was curious why Admiral Mandive sent him the Italian telegram.

"What, the Italian army is asking for help!"

Don't blame Hoffmann for such a gaffe, but in the case of the new and good Greek campaign, Italy's attack on Albania was unfavorable.

He actually sent the help report to Romania.

The telegram format was the telegram sent by Lieutenant General Pesca, the Italian commander in Albania, to General Mandif.

In this telegram, Lieutenant General Pesca first congratulated the general, congratulating him on the siege of the main force of the Greek army. Then he began to talk about his difficulties, the lack of ammunition, the unfavorable terrain, and the stubborn resistance of the enemy. Finally, I hope that General Mandive can send a force to attack the Greek defenders from behind to relieve the pressure on the Italian army.

When Hoffman saw the telegram, he didn't know what to say. It's just that the general didn't say his decision, so it's not easy for him to guess randomly. However, according to his expectations, the general should send a force to help the Italian army. Because Italy is an ally, it would be unreasonable not to help.

Hoffman's guesses are actually a little optimistic. The real situation is that the Italian army failed to attack and retreated, and was unable to fight again.

That's right, that's the case.

There are two reasons for the poor performance of the Italian army; one is insufficient ammunition preparation. That's right, the ammunition is insufficient. Italy's chaotic logistics has never replenished the ammunition of the Italian army in Afghanistan. After Mussolini was ready to go to war, these people found that the ammunition of the Italian army in Afghanistan had not been replenished.

So he immediately took out a lot of ammunition and urgently replenished it to the Italian army in Albania, but the port in Albania was insufficient in handling capacity, and a large number of ships were piled up here. The Italian army has launched an attack, and a lot of ammunition is still unloaded in the port.

As early as May, Eder and Mussolini had negotiated the plan to divide Greece up. By November, the ammunition was still insufficient, which shows the degree of chaos in the Italian army's logistics.

On the other hand, the conscripted Albanian troops were unreliable. Even shortly after the attack, the Albanian troops conscripted by the Italian army scattered and many fled back to rebel against Italian rule.

In the face of the Italian army's attack, the Greek defenders relied on the terrain to resist the attack. The Italian army had several waves of unsmooth battles, which made their morale low. At this time, they happened to encounter the counterattack of the defenders, and they were all driven back, so they were very embarrassed.

Faced with a Romanian victory over Greece, it was clear that the Italians were going to ask for help.

It's just that the situation now makes Hoffman a little dumbfounded. No one could have imagined that the Italian army was playing so badly. Before the Spanish Civil War and the Ethiopian War, it seemed that the Italian army was doing well, but it was the turn to fight Greece. This made Hoffman think that Italy was planning to work hard.

Putting down the telegram in his hand, Hoffman couldn't help but worry about Italy. Of course he is not sympathetic to the Italians, because Libya in the hands of Italy is too important to the three countries.

Let's hope this battle is an individual performance of the Italian army. If the Italian army behaves like this, then this will drag Romania's own strategy in the eyes.

With a skeptical attitude towards the Italian army's combat effectiveness in his eyes, Hoffman couldn't help thinking more. Now that Hoffman has been hinted by Admiral Mandiff, he is increasingly looking at the problem from a global perspective, and his vision is naturally much broader.

At this moment, a staff officer came to report. "Report to Your Excellency Commander, the 1st Vanguard Armored Division found the Greek garrison at Thermal Pass."