I think I may have jumped the gun in an earlier update and said Turkey was on the Axis side. This screenshot shows that hasn’t happened yet. Italian and Greek troops are flooded across the Bosporous on two fronts, having already captured Istanbul, and driving into mainland Turkey.
Much of the Portuguese war during the last of October and the beginning of November, 1940, was characterized by a mopping up of British opposition in already opened theatres. By the end of October, the last Dutch/British resistance was eliminated from Sumatra. Only a small Dutch headquarters detachment remained, and they were finished off in mid-November.
It’s definitely nice that we can now supply 32 units of Crude Oil to Germany and have plenty left to refine for our own uses!
We have been intermittently going after those trapped British divisions north of Singapore. Their strength is significantly reduced now, which means they’re closer to the day when they’ll no longer be mostly useless and instead will be completely useless in a prison camp.
This is a little out of chronological order, but it’s important to note that by mid-November the number of troops brought to bear against the British in Guyana was telling. The British had been out of supply for two months, and that, combined with constant pressure, had worn them down. A squadron of tactical bombers was brought in from Africa to relentlessly beat the British down, further reducing their numbers and organization.
On 19 November, the British under Mountbatten surrendered, and all of Dutch and British Guyana became fully occupied by Portugal – a closed frontier! This, of course, meant those troops could be re-deployed except a small force to maintain security and control.
On the 6th of November, the 4th Cavalry, which had been making the rounds of the interior of Guyana, and had had quite some time to recover from their earlier exhaustion, landed at Andros in the Bahamas again.
Immediately, a battle began. But the 4th Cavalry was more prepared to resist it at this time. They kept fighting until the 10th Garrison Division could be brought in from its completed duties in Guyana. They attacked Grand Bahama from Eleuthera. This double-fronted battle against what then became a superior number of Portuguese divisions caused the British 43rd Wessex Division to cease their attack upon Andros.
Then, the second phase of this new invasion started. The 4th Cavalry was withdrawn, and so was the 10th Garrison. They were sent off to capture the southern Bahama Islands. This allowed the 43rd to recapture Eleuthera, but, of course, this exposed Grand Bahama, which was left undefended except for small detachments. The 10th was dropped into Grand Bahama, and thereby cut the 43rd off from supply, just as had been done in Guyana.
Suddenly, the 43rd was trapped on Eleuthera without supply, and the entire rest of the Bahamas Island chain was in Portuguese control – just three short weeks after the whole operation began. Supply was being run in to the Portuguese through Grand Bahama, and once they were no longer required in Guyana Gen. Gouveia’s squadron of bombers was brought in to hammer the Wessex Division as other divisions began to attack it – making this battle much like those in Singapore, Sumatra, Guyana and elsewhere.
The Portuguese were blessed to now have access to the stockpiled supplies in the Bahamas, too. Supplies that had been gathered there to support British operations throughout the Caribbean.
Portuguese dominance in South Africa was also made evident by the end of November. Not only was the southern coast entirely in Portuguese hands, and units driving northeast on two fronts from Capetown, but other operations to the north were causing South African commanders to worry gravely.
In fact, as the South Africans retreated, they became aware that another division of Portuguese cavalry had actually connected with the Portuguese holdings in northern Mozambique – a solid line of territory across the breadth of Africa. Portuguese units remaining in Mozambique were again given access to supplies, and could begin to make offensive moves again.
The South African invasion of Mozambique had stalled, months before, when the Portuguese drive along the western coast had gained steam. That early worry had become completely realized, and the South Africans had never completed their conquest of Mozambique – which had seemed entirely certain at one point.
The 3rd Cavalry, by early December, having first connected with Portuguese Mozambique, was now forced to fight the retreating British units who were trapped in the south. Most particularly, they found themselves in heavy combat with the 7th Motorized Division of the British Army, which had been stationed in Bechuanaland, but which had had its attentions focused southward because of the Commonwealth defeats there.
They had remained rooted in Bechuanaland until it was too late, and they became trapped. Units just to the north, in Tanganyika, were performing a strategic withdrawal upon orders from High Command, which had decided that the situation in South Africa had deteriorated to the point of no return. British units in East Africa would retreat to defensive positions and would prepare to hold the torrent of Portuguese strength which was expected to be directed there.
If the Portuguese didn’t come, then this would be the barrier to northward progress by the Axis. This situation was undermined by the fact that the Italians controlled Ethiopia and Somaliland, and though they were not as active as the Portuguese, they had already ventured south into the frontier areas of Kenya. The year 1940 had not been at all friendly to the Allies. It was, in fact, a total disaster, from which little could still be recouped.