Chapter 287 Joke

That night, the French held a grand welcome party for the officers and soldiers of the Zoave Corps. On the one hand, this was to win over the hearts of the people, and on the other hand, it was to tell the people of Toulon and even all the French about this rare victory to boost morale.

More importantly, the French Navy was demonstrating to the Vichy government and even the Germans... The French Navy has always been dissatisfied with the control of the Vichy government. There was no problem with Darlan's appointment as the commander-in-chief of the navy before, because the French Navy can be said to be Darlan's own creation and realization of the revival of the French Navy. Darlan has a high reputation in the French Navy.

Therefore, after the war in North Africa and Darlan's capture, the French Navy was eager to enter North Africa to reinforce Algiers... This is completely feasible militarily. The navy's cannons and ships have reached 80 ships. At the speed of warships, it will take less than a day to reach Algiers, which is likely to change the situation in Algiers and rescue Darlan.

But the Pétain government rejected this idea without thinking... The Pétain government certainly would not agree to this approach. Once the navy is invested, it means a full-scale war, and the Pétain government will not be able to save it.

On the other hand, in order to control the navy, Pétain appointed Laval as the commander-in-chief of the navy... Laval was a person who completely turned to Germany. It was not an exaggeration to call him a French traitor, which caused extreme dissatisfaction among the French navy.

(Note: In history, Laval ordered the Toulon fleet to surrender to Germany, and the French navy refused to execute this order and chose to blow up the ship)

So, in order to express their dissatisfaction, the French navy held a large social gathering in Toulon.

This was of course what Zémamouche hoped for. In fact, in the plan of Qinchuan and Zémamouche, there was a clause to induce the French army to hold a party. Now that the French army took the initiative to do so, Zémamouche also went with the flow.

"I suggest that the navy soldiers come to the shore to attend this party!" Zémamouche said: "The navy ensured that we arrived at the port of Toulon smoothly, and my soldiers hope to thank them in person!"

The French Navy sent several warships to greet the fleet.

General Claude had no idea that there was a trick, so he agreed without thinking.

Of course, there were still soldiers on duty on the warships.

Zemamouche would never let the soldiers suffer. He was very considerate and asked the Algerian soldiers to carry boxes of wine and food to the warships for the French soldiers. For a while, the port of Toulon was brightly lit and full of laughter.

What the French didn't know was that at this time, the transport ships brought by Zemamouche and others had some movement... Several Algerian officers took advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention, moved the layers of wooden boxes stacked outside, opened the bottom cabin of the transport ship, and used flashlights to send a signal inside, and one by one the German soldiers and crew members climbed out from inside.

This was arranged by Qin Chuan early in the morning. Each of the three large transport ships hid a hundred German soldiers and fifty experienced crew members... Most of these crew members were Italians, all had experience in driving warships, and some were even active Italian navy, and were urgently airlifted from the Italian navy by Rommel.

Among them were German submarine crews... The Toulon fleet had 21 submarines, which led to a serious shortage of submarine crews that might be needed, so Rommel directly ordered two German submarines to rush to Algiers and vacate all the crews to make up for it.

Of course, the German soldiers and crews had changed into French uniforms in advance, so that they could move more conveniently and avoid being discovered by the enemy as much as possible... The only shortcoming was that these French uniforms were captured in Algiers, so they were army uniforms.

These people walked onto the deck carefully, lowered ropes and rubber boats on the other side, and then rowed rubber boats in teams to approach the French warships... On the other side of these French warships, there was also a hanging rope, which was arranged by Algerian soldiers when they were communicating with French soldiers. There were even two Algerian soldiers on the other end of the rope to meet them.

So one after another, German soldiers and crews climbed onto the warships.

The most difficult of these was the submarine... Submarines are a bit like tanks in the sea. Once a hatch is closed, people outside often can't do anything about them unless they use explosives to blow them up.

But it was not difficult at all. The German soldiers in French Army uniforms jumped onto the submarine deck and waved to the submarine sentry while handing over cigarettes.

The submarine sentry did not suspect anything. After all, this was a large-scale party, and there were many soldiers from Toulon and other places who came to join in the fun, so he took the cigarette. He thought the soldier was taking out a match, but he didn't expect that the other party pulled out a bayonet. Before he could react, his mouth was covered and then a sharp pain came...

The gunshot came from one of the submarines. A clever submarine sentry found the abnormality and fired a warning shot.

But the gunshot did not attract too many people's attention. Some people regarded it as fireworks, and some people thought it was just a soldier playing with a gun after drinking.

But when the gunshots became more and more intense, they realized that something was wrong.

"What's going on?" General Claude asked.

"I don't know, General!" The staff officer replied, "Maybe the soldiers were drunk!"

"No, General!" Seeing that the time had come, Zemamuché pulled out his pistol and pointed it at General Claude's back and said, "I am honored to tell you that you are our prisoner!"

"That's not funny, Colonel!" General Claude thought it was a joke.

"It's not funny!" Zémamouche replied, "Because this is not a joke!"

Several French officers found something strange and wanted to come over, but they were soon pointed at by several Algerian soldiers. Then gunshots soon rang out, and a team of French soldiers who wanted to rush in were knocked down in a pool of blood on the spot.

The venue was in chaos, screams were heard everywhere, and the people who came to the party ran around. French officers and soldiers were often killed by the well-prepared Algerian soldiers as soon as they tried to resist.

Algerian soldiers may still habitually listen to the command of French officers when they are in Algiers, but if Zémamouche is there, they will certainly stand on the side of Zémamouche. Zémamouche has the advantages of ethnicity and country, so before arriving at Toulon Port, Algerian soldiers are no longer under the control of French officers.

"Retreat to the warship!" Zemamouche ordered loudly: "Pay attention to the person with the white towel tied to his left arm, he is one of us!"

Zemamouche dragged General Claude towards the warship, and only then did General Claude realize that this was not a joke.