With Paris liberated, Chinese diplomats started planning for a post war world. The first step was the announcement of a new Allied peace conference in Paris to discuss the fate of Europe.
The final Allied conference for the end of the war was to be held in Paris. The reasons were both practical and symbolic. It was decided early on that the conference would not take place in Asia. Beijing was simply too far away from the front and the other Allied delegations to practical so the conference had to be held in Europe. Security concerns dictated that the conference had to take place in an area that was Chinese occupied with a friendly civilian population which Paris had. There were also compelling historic reasons. China had suffered a huge blow at the first Paris Peace Conference in 1919 after secret provisions among the Allies awarded German occupied Shandong to Japan. The betrayal by the Allies was a massive blow to Chinese government which had sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese laborers to France. In the end, the Chinese delegation walked out and refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles. It was a huge loss of face for the Chinese nation and it started the May 4th movement. Much of China's leaders had gotten their start during those protests and they had started a campaign some months before to have the conference in Paris. (Though at the time they assumed the city itself would end up being liberated by the British.) As the frontline moved closer, the move gained huge popular support among urban professionals and students. Chen Shunyü, writing in an editorial for the Shanghai Times (申報),said, "What our nation has won by force of arms is not the right of plunder or lordship, but an opportunity. An opportunity to end the system by which the West has domineered and bullied its way across the Earth for 5 centuries. They already know what is wrong and what is right, but they do not believe it. Paris is the heart of Europe so there we will plant the seed so deep that it shall never be uprooted."
Chinese military band on parade through Paris one week after it was seized.
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32年 8月 17日
In Denmark, the Germans had finally been pushed out of Copenhagen and they had retreated into neutral Sweden. Chinese troops would remain in Copenhagen but it was really a formality as the troops were disarmed by the Swedish military the minute they arrived on Swedish soil.
32年 8月 18日
Xue Ye was pushing the last Italian troops in Greece into the sea.
32年 8月 19日
Wang Jingwei's mobile troops smashed into a Gebirgsjäger division that was sheltering some battered German infantry. Chinese troops crossing the Marais Poltevin were aided by French Resistance fighters who guided the snaking columns across the winding tracks that crisscrossed the woods. The German defenders in the area had left too many of these tracks lightly defended as they expected the Chinese to keep to Route Nationale 11 from Niort to La Rochelle.
32年 8月 20日
Back in Italy, the Italian defenders had been pushed to the coast and they were promptly attacked from all sides as Chinese troops raced to liberate Pescara.
32年 8月 22日
The Chinese mobile forces had raced ahead of the German defenders still retreating from La Rochelle to cross the Gironde and take Bordeaux.
American made M5 Light tanks were part of the standard complement in Chinese mechanized divisions. While their 35mm armament lacked the power to engage German tanks head to head, they could keep pace with the lighter trucks and performed well in dense vegetation. Here Chinese tankers pause for a picture a few miles north of Bordeaux.
32年 8月 24日
The war in the Balkans played out its final chapter as almost 100,000 Italian troops surrendered on the shores of the Adriatic.
Back in Italy, the last Italian soldiers remaining on the boot were forced to retreat into the Appenines, before radioing their surrender a few days later.
32年 8月 26日
Chinese transports had been sent through the Suez to ferry Chinese troops from Greece to attack Sicily. They were escorted by Royal Navy Force Z under admiral Cunningham consisting of the twin Queen Elizabeth class Battleships Warspite and Malaya along with 8 cruisers, HMS Devonshire, HMS Shropshire, HMS Sussex, HMS Delhi, HMS Norfolk, HMS Eidsvold, HMS Exeter, HMS London and 14 destroyers. Such a strong force was needed because the Italians had been winning in the Mediterranean. Since the outbreak of the war, the Regia Marina had lost 11 light cruisers, around 50 destroyers, and 60 submarines. The Royal Navy had been unable to sink any of the Italian capital ships. The British naval attache with the ROCN was a little more discrete but post war records would show that the Regia Marina had sunk the British light carrier Hermes, the French Carrier, Bearn, the French Battleship, Provence, and the French Battlecruiser, Dunkerque. Among smaller ships, it was even worse. The Allied navies had lost 7 heavy cruisers, 21 light cruisers, 70 destroyers and 78 submarines to the Italians. The fall of Gibraltar had allowed the Italians to build an extensive network of camouflaged harbors and supply ships in Spain, Greece and Italy and they had used them to good effect against the British. The British had tried and failed to force a capital ship engagement multiple times but the Italian battleships had always escaped and British carrier planes were laughably bad compared to the plentiful Italian fighters.
The ROCN had arrived in theater some months before to interdict shipping to North Africa. The Italian fleet had retreated to its base in Taranto unwilling to meet the Chinese or the much more concentrated British fleets in the area. The rapid collapse of the defenses in Italy caught the Regia Marina by surprise and it was forced to steam out of port under the cover of darkness to make for safe harbor in either Crete or Sicily on the night of the 24th. At 10:05 on the 26th, the entire Italian Fleet, including all of their battleships, was approximately 35 km Northwest of the Force Z heading due east to Crete under the command of Admiral Carlo Bergamini. In a stroke of luck for the Italians, the British fleet was spotted by an aging Ca. 111 float plane before it was shot down.
It was a surprise when Force Z met the entire Regia Marina apparently bound for Crete. The British cruiser group along with some of the destroyers were spread out in front of Warspite and at 11:15 they caught sight of the southern end of the Italian main battle force and the two groups opened fire at 21,500 meters. The Italian rangefinding was better than the Allied and they had immense practice hitting the more nimble British cruisers, and within three minutes they had found the distance even though they were firing at extreme range. Although the Allies' rangefinding was not as good and they had trouble with their rounds falling short, the Allied gunlaying was better and they were able to place their rounds in much tighter groups. Generally the gunnery of the two forces was fairly well matched. After only a few minutes the range was down to 20,000 metres and the Allied guns became useful. However, by 11:22, the Italian fire came dangerously close to the Allied cruisers and Vice Admiral Tovey decided to disengage with the cruisers. Whether he was merely trying to retreat or actively luring the fleet into range of the Warspite is debated to this day. At this point splinters from a 6" shell fired by the cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi hit HMS Sussex, damaging her catapult and the reconnaissance aircraft beyond repair. The cruisers continued to open the range and, at 11:30, fire had ceased. The transports were ordered to turn North and make for Greece while Warspite and Malaya along with most of the British taskforce raced to engage the Italians. Unfortunately, the British had failed to realize that the Italian fleet was Northwest and assumed that the bulk of the Italian fleet was almost due west of his position. He slowed down to allow the Malaya and most of the smaller ships to assume battle formations and started heading west by northwest.
The transport ships were slow to get reorganized and didn't make their turn until 11:30. The British left the transports with 2 older cruisers, HMS Delhi and HMS London, along with six destroyers inherited from annexed nations while the rest of ships formed up to face a threat coming from the wrong direction. Admiral Bergamini, for his part, correctly guessed the course of the transports but he incorrectly assumed that the British would leave the two battleships with them and he ordered his fleet east to intercept the transports with expectation that the battleships were with them.
They made contact at 12:35 when the Chinese transports were almost 40 km from the main British fleet. The battleship Littorio immediately opened fire on the outclassed British escorts which were spread thin trying to protect 183 Chinese transports. The escorting destroyers immediately started laying smoke screens hoping that the Italian observers wouldn't realize that most of Force Z was now due south of the Italian battleships. It was successful and Bergamini hadn't yet figured out that the British fleet was in no position to protect the transports. At 12:36, Admiral Cunningham caught his mistake and turned the fleet Northeast to attack the Italian fleet now almost directly between him and the transports. For almost an hour, the two British cruisers left with the transports darted in and out of the smoke screens, dodging shells from 3 Italian battleships before the Littorio hit and sunk the Delhi at 1:15 followed by the HMS London which was struck amidships by a shell from the light cruiser Giovanni delle Bande Nere at 1:20. Bergamini had feared that the smokescreen was a trap and had been unwilling to press forward until the Malaya and Warspite were spotted within the transport fleet. At 1:10 they were spotted but coming from the southwest. The battleship, Littorio, after realizing its mistake penetrated the smokescreen and proceeded to sink eleven of the Chinese transports from 1:10 to 1:17.
Of the six destroyers guarding the transports, two were the surviving Sleipnir class destroyers of Royal Norwegian Navy that had escaped the Nazi invasion. In a move of absolute desperation, the two ships turned from the fleeing transports and launched torpedoes at the Littorio. When both salvos of torpedoes missed, the destroyers, despite receiving heavy damage from several of the Littorios's lighter guns, turned and attempted to close to point blank range for another salvo of torpedoes. The Sleipnir's tubes were unable to fire due to battle damage and the Gyller received a direct hit from the one of the Littorio's 15 inch guns and split in half. In in a final desperate effort to sink or at least seriously damage her opponent, Sleipnir then attempted to ram Littorio. One of the Littorio's shells hit the Sleipnir’s mast, but even that failed to stop the ship. As the ships collided, Littorio suffered major damage, with a large underwater gash in her bow. With the two ships locked together, Sleipnir fired one last shot from her 4 inch guns into Littorio at point blank range. Sleipnir was pushed under the battleship's bow and her entire forecastle was sheared off up to the bridge. For several minutes she drifted, on fire, alongside Littorio, then capsized and sank at 1:33.
They hadn't died in vain. The Littorio was forced to slow, leaving it unable to pursue or rejoin the other battleships to engage the Malaya and Warspite. The Italian fleet had been deployed to guard against major attacks from the east and was out of position when the British battleships started firing at 1:32 from a range of 22,000 meters. The Andrea Doria class Battleship Caio Duilio was closest and it found itself bracketed by the guns of the two irate British warships. The rest of the Italian fleet was turning and started peppering the British fleet. At 2:03 the Malaya and the Caio Duilio had received numerous hits but were still fighting. The stage looked set for the final decisive battle that would decide who was master of the Med as the rest of the Italian battleships were coming into formation, but at 2:15 a shell from the Warspite nailed the Caio Duilio's stern and she lost all power. The now immobilized ship was hit by two more 15 inch shells directly amidships tearing a huge rent along the hull going well below the waterline.
It was the first time an Italian capital ship had been sunk but the cheers were short lived as Warspite received a hit on her port side and the destroyer Wolfston broke apart after being hit by a torpedo at 2:30. Admiral Bergamini had a quandary, he could engage the rest of the British fleet which was outnumbered and maybe carry the day, but he had already lost one battleship and suffered serious damage to a second. At 2:43 the decision was made for him when the Trieste exploded after receiving shells from the Devonshire. At 2:45, Italian destroyers started laying smoke and the fleet was ordered to disengage.
Admiral Cunningham had several severely damaged warships and he was still unaware that the Littorio had been damaged. The Chinese transports now had enough separation to make for harbors in Greece and the Italians wouldn't follow them into range of ground based artillery and bombers. As far as he knew he was facing a larger force that still had four undamaged battleships to his two. He signaled for the fleet to break off contact and make for Tobruk at 3:00. Both fleets fired at each other intermittently as the battleships steamed in opposite directions. The last Italian ship disappeared over the horizon at 4:40.
For the Chinese navy it was a catastrophic loss. Nineteen transports, thankfully empty of troops, had been sunk in an ocean that was supposed to be clear of enemy fleets. The British viewed the battle as a tactical draw but a strategic victory, they had destroyed an Italian battleship, damaged another and sank a heavy cruiser for the cost of three destroyers, two obsolete cruisers and a bunch of empty Chinese troop transports. The Warspite and the Malaya were both damaged but not critically.
The Chinese Admiral Ouyang Ge was incensed and he saw the Admiral Cunningham's decision to separate the battleships from the convoy after enemy contact as criminally negligent. For a victory starved British press, it was a tactically brilliant ruse that allowed Cunningham's smaller task force to surprise the Italian fleet and defeat it for the first time.
The one thing both sides could agree on was the exceptional heroism Captain Rolf Hag of the Sleipnir, Captain Otto Reinert of the Gyller, and all 3 of the surviving crew members received both a Victoria Cross and a 青天白日勳章 (Order of Blue Sky and White Sun with Grand Cordon) a first considering all of them were Norwegian. The British could rationalize it as the ships were sailing under British command and were thus eligible while the Chinese award could be given regardless of nationality.
32年 8月 27日
The Chinese forces were set to make it across the Messina in small boats under the guns of the First fleet. The troops on the shore had hoped that the Italian fleet would arrive to protect the strait but they were still somewhere near Crete.
In Spain, the English beachhead was expanding slowly. Very slowly. Chinese troops were almost to the northern border of Spain and they weren't going to stop.
32年 8月 28日
The Chinese Third Fleet under Shen Honglie was ready to engage the Italian fleet should it turn east to interfere with the crossing into Sicily. In the early morning mist, the Italian destroyers Leone and Dardo were spotted by scout planes operating from the Bi Nianping at 5:02.
The Chinese fleet immediately moved into battle formation and steamed towards the enemy fleet. It was difficult as the Chinese fleet wanted to engage the enemy fleet at an ideal range of 22 km which was far enough to stay out of range of everything but the battleships while still allowing all the Chinese ships to fire. Unlike the British, the Chinese ships had superior range finding relative to the Italians at least on the advanced Zheng He class cruisers. The Chen Lin class and Shi Lang class heavy cruisers had the same range but they weren't quite as accurate as their smaller cousins, but they made up for it by being able to chuck out more ordnance. The battle was notable because it was the combat debut of the strongest ships in the Chinese battleline, the newly introduced Koxinga class Heavy cruisers.
These had been introduced in late 1941 to combat Japan but that war had finished before they saw combat. Realizing that the Zheng He class light cruisers were consistently more accurate then the current heavy cruisers, the new ship was designed with the new firecontrols installed. It was essentially a larger Zheng He that carried 8 inch guns instead of 6.1's in three turrets of three barrels. The other thing that made it revolutionary was that it was the first Chinese ship to have SG radar systems for surface targets and SK systems for airborne targets. The systems were supposed to be added to all ships but the refit had not been completed in most cases before the Mediterranean deployment. At 17,500 tons, they were the largest ships in the Chinese arsenal short of the scout carriers. They were also faster than either the Chen Lin or Shi Lang class and they could keep up with the Zheng He class light cruisers at 29 knots. With the exception of some Italian supply ships, this would be their first combat test.
The plan was to keep the Italian fleet at a distance and pick off the battleships from far away. Unfortunately, the Italians weren't willing to cooperate. In a daring move, Admiral Bergamini ordered his destroyers to launch a torpedo strike against the slower Shi Lang class cruisers at 6:20 The torpedoes were not expected to hit the enemy but there was a much more important objective. The sudden onrush of Italian escorts all releasing smoke forced the Chinese to move their fire back from the capital ships and onto the advancing destroyers. In the meantime, the Italian capital ships advanced behind the destroyers and opened fire from 18,000 meters. At that range, their heavier fire weight begin to tell. The Shi Lang class cruiser Pang Lirong was hit just ahead of her propellers by an Italian torpedo at 6:42. The Zheng he class cruiser, Cen Peng, received two hits from the Battleship Conte de Cavour at 6:50 but remained seaworthy. The Chinese did exact a heavy price in return. At 6:32 and 6:37, the Italian destroyers Palestro and Solferino each received crippling hits from the Zheng He class Hai Shen. At 6:57, the Trento took a direct hit from the Ben Ben Long's 8 inch guns that punctured the magazine and the ship exploded. At 7:05, the light cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi started receiving fire from four Zheng He class light cruisers and was unable to avoid being holed and it would sink an hour later.
Admiral Bergamini had failed to sink any of the Chinese ships despite scoring several hits. Additionally, the Chinese fire had started to turn back towards the battleships. At 7:15, he gave the order to break contact, but not before the Battleships Andrea Doria and Littorio took several hits from 6.1 inch shells.
It was a clear Chinese victory, but the fleet was not unscathed. In a move that would be questioned after the war, the heavily damaged ships of the Chinese fleet were not ordered to return to friendly ports in Malta or North Africa and instead stayed with the fleet to support the planned amphibious landings in southern Sicily.
During the night, Italian destroyers tried to launch a torpedo attack to finish off some of the damaged Chinese ships. All of the torpedoes failed to hit and four of the ten destroyers did not survive the attempt.
32年 8月 29日
The troop transports in Greece had picked up soldiers in Greece after retreating and they were prepared to land them on the undefended beaches of southern Sicily.
At the end of August, Chinese forces had reached the borders of Spain and were days away from knocking Italy out of the war entirely.. All that remained was Axis Spain where the strong forces arrayed against the English were in no position to defend the country from the north. In the Mediterranean, the Italian fleet was still active after being forced out of any friendly ports.
How will it end? Find out next time on AARight to be Hostile!
Chinese Quiz answer: Communist troops in China found out that eating the local tadpoles cured their night blindness.
New Chinese Quiz: How many new recruits a year would a Chinese division of 7,000 need to replace losses provided there was no combat?
