Italy’s Greatest Weapon Is Surrender | Monty vs Rommel (Part 2/4)

We've waited twenty years to finish this boardgame. Monty & Rommel (Part Two) The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened.  For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon ⁠patreon.com/fintaylor This episode of Fin vs History is brought to you by Surfshark. Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code FVH for an extra 4 months at https://surfshark.com/fvh Chapters: 00:00 - Charlie’s Hiccup 03:33 - The Autistic Boardgame 09:48 - I Stood Up 17:06 - The Baby Fox 21:16 - Operation Sunflower 26:13 - New Errol Clip! 32:29 -It Was A Different Time 37:35 - A Load Of Sand 42:34 - The Panty Division Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 1:43Speaker 03

  Welcome back to Vin vs. History. I'm with Erasjo Gould.

• 1:46Speaker 04

  Hello.

• 1:47Speaker 03

  And this is part two of the Desert War.

• 1:49Speaker 04

  We're here.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  Monty vs. Rommel, the most crucial moment in World War II.

• 1:54Speaker 04

  The most crucial front.

• 1:56Speaker 03

  We have arrived at the Desert War.

• 1:57Speaker 04

  The turning point of the war. I mean, it is sort of the turning point of the war time-wise. It's just, that's probably because of what happened at Stalingrad. But it is around the time of the war.

• 2:06Speaker 03

  Stalingrad is irrelevant. Stalingrad is completely irrelevant to where the war is lost.

• 2:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  At El Alamein.

• 2:14Speaker 04

  Grad.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  At Alamein Grad. To recap, Monty and Rommel are two professional soldiers. They have fought in World War One, where they have sort of outlined their new, what was that?

• 2:29Speaker 05

  Sorry, that's a hiccup.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:31Speaker 04

  Are you gonna have hiccups the whole episode?

• 2:32Speaker 05

  I can't confirm.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  Right. As a producer, you cannot have hiccups while we're recording.

• 2:38Speaker 05

  I don't think I can help that.

• 2:39Speaker 04

  No, you can't help it.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  It's not a protected characteristic, okay?

• 2:42Speaker 04

  Say something that might scare him.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  It's not a Martin Luther King speech, okay?

• 2:45Speaker 05

  I have a hiccup.

• 2:46Speaker 03

  You cannot use hiccups as an excuse.

• 2:48Speaker 04

  A mortgage, trying to scare him.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, imagine a mortgage, imagine being married to a woman.

• 2:54Speaker 05

  I'd love that.

• 2:54Speaker 03

  Imagine being married to a woman who just sees your asshole as a poo gutter and not a playground.

• 3:01Speaker 04

  Sorry, I don't know what, I don't know what you mean at all there.

• 3:05Speaker 03

  Come on, you know what I mean?

• 3:07Speaker 04

  I don't, I don't, do you get that, Charlie?

• 3:09Speaker 05

  No.

• 3:09Speaker 03

  Your asshole's a playground.

• 3:10Speaker 05

  He's trying to upset me.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes I am, trying to stop you hiccuping.

• 3:13Speaker 04

  Right, you're gonna be so scared.

• 3:14Speaker 05

  Trying to depress the hiccups out of me.

• 3:16Speaker 03

  Yes, I am.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  No, because you know, when you scare someone and they no longer have hiccups, he tried to do that by you imagining having a future wife who only viewed your arse as a poo gutter and not a playground. And Finn was expecting you to go.

• 3:29Speaker 03

  I used too many words, I didn't understand what I meant.

• 3:33Speaker 03

  We're in the desert, okay, we're in the desert where assholes are poo gutters and not a playground, because there's a lot of sands getting involved.

• 3:41Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  Right, the bottoms are not.

• 3:44Speaker 04

  Lovely.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  The bottoms, I'm a professional broadcaster, the bottoms are not clean, it's clean, it's difficult to clean your bottom in the desert front, okay?

• 3:53Speaker 04

  This is Melvin Bragg sort of stuff.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Unlike the picnic of the Eastern Front, where bottoms are being wiped, right?

• 3:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  There is sandy bottoms in the desert, okay? And these bottoms are Italian, so they're hairy as well, all right? As I was saying to you before we started recording, I frequently have to cut shit out of my dog's matted arse. That is my actual dog before you make a joke about my wife.

• 4:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I wouldn't, I would write them for you to say.

• 4:20Speaker 03

  For me to say, yeah, yeah.

• 4:22Speaker 04

  But you were saying, because you're giving your dog away for a week to our producer. And you've said you're going to pre-cut the shit out of their arse.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  She currently has some dry shit matted into her fur at the back of her arse. If I just gave the dog to our producer. I would be giving, other Charlie, I would, I would be giving her.

• 4:43Speaker 04

  Not you, Charlie.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  I would be giving her basically a shit wrapped in fluff.

• 4:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Essentially.

• 4:47Speaker 04

  So you're going to do it pre-cut. But seeing as you have to do that anyway, I was wondering if you could put Charlie in because you've already got the scissors out.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  While I'm down there.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. Just give Charlie, we're going to cut some shit out of Charlie's arse.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  Your arse as well.

• 4:58Speaker 05

  I don't want you to do that.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Okay, no. You hold on to it like it's some kind of crystal, I imagine. Anyway, we're in the desert, okay? It's September 1940. Italy has invaded Libya. Italy has invaded from Libya into Egypt. They've crossed into British territory.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  And the Brits are like, what, excuse, what the fuck? Now, Italians have nearly quarter of a million men, but again, this is a big number.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  Huge number, that's a big force.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  It's not a big force because they're Italian.

• 5:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  And, you know, this is.

• 5:33Speaker 04

  Practically speaking, five men.

• 5:35Speaker 03

  Yes. It's the same as five British men. It's a quarter of a million Italians or a platoon of Brits, right? The advance has no clear plan.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  That's their main weapon is being a genuine liability. This is like a public health problem.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  The key element is surprise, except they've surprised themselves. Oh, right, we're invading, are we? So the advance has no plan and no long-term objective that's not Mussolini riding a horse topless in Cairo.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  Because the Italian navy in the Mediterranean is basically like a.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  Bunga bunga party.

• 6:05Speaker 04

  Bunga bunga cruise, right? Because they got the prostitutes onto the boat.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  So they were shagging, it was a floating brothel.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  Was their lead.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  It's like, we're going to set sail for Cairo, get the prostitutes on. The prostitutes arrived, they went, what were we even doing in the first place? I forgot, this is great, let's just hang out with these guys. Now, the, what the Italians do is they build a series of camps in the desert. Disconnected camps that themselves.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  The difference between the German camps and Italian camps.

• 6:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:35Speaker 03

  There is no sort of infrastructure in between the camps. They're isolated.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  And they're thinking, right, we've got some times we're going to really hunker down. They build really fortified, structured camps.

• 6:46Speaker 03

  Pasta kitchens.

• 6:47Speaker 04

  But they, yeah. But they make them super far from each other, so it's not a taller line.

• 6:51Speaker 03

  And one of the big things about the North African theatre, okay, about the desert war is it is it's probably the most autistic front because nothing grows there. It's all supplies have to be shipped in. It is a war completely of logistics. And a Patreon sent me a link to an article, right, of the most autistic board game ever invented. It is called the Campaign for North Africa. We've got the Wikipedia article up here. In, it was made in 1978. It is a strategic board war game that simulates, simulates the entire North African campaign. It is considered one of the most complex games ever published with 10 recommended players,

• 7:34Speaker 03

  an estimated total playtime of 1,500 hours.

• 7:37Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 7:38Speaker 03

  It was not tested before release and no one, the game, they think, has never been completed. Right, so if you just go down.

• 7:45Speaker 04

  Who made it?

• 7:46Speaker 03

  It's made by Richard Berg.

• 7:49Speaker 04

  Oh my god. Oh my god. Richard H. Berg.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  Sorry, known as the Pope of War Gaming.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  Winner of the industry award for best game design 13 times. This man is, that's right, I should say, that's the Patreon that messaged me, Richard H. Berg.

• 8:08Speaker 03

  Now, if you scroll up to the actual.

• 8:10Speaker 04

  This is a board game too far for Berg though. He's won all these awards, but this is too much. This is his Stalin格.

• 8:15Speaker 03

  Right, so this is the game, right, the game player, the game player's hilarious. A reviewer said that if you and your group meet for three hours at a time, twice a month, you'd wrap up the campaign in 20 years.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  But that's longer than the North African frog.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  It has been called the most complex war game ever designed. With a commonly cited example, the Italian troops require additional water supplies to prepare pasta. Reviewer Nicholas Palmer outlined the actions for one side's single turn. As a first step before playing, the player or team must make unit organisation charts for every one of the hundreds of counters on their side. Then, each turn, they have to plan strategic air missions, raid Malta, plan Axis convoys, raid convoys, distribute stores and consume stores, calculate spillage evaporation of water and adjust all supply dumps.

• 9:06Speaker 04

  Keep going, keep going.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Reorganise units, calculate attrition of units short of water in stores, begin building construction, begin training, rearrange supplies, transport cargo between African ports, bring convoys ashore, deploy Commonwealth fleet, ship repair, plan tactical air mission if airplanes are fuelled, begin air mission, which would involve a side mission of fly the air-to-air combat, fire flak, carry out mission return to base, airplane maintenance, place land units on reserve, move units, enter reaction, move more units. Then you get into the combat phase of the turn.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  This is where we start combat.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Designate each tank and gun as deployed forward or back, plot and fire barrages, retreat before assault, secretly sign all units to anti-armour or closer assault roles, adjust ammunition, deploy, destroy tank markers and update unit records to reflect losses, carry out probes and close assaults, release reserves, move rear trucks, begin repair of breakdowns, make patrols, repeat all movement a second time, repeat all movement a third time. This entire sequence would then be repeated by the other player, which would complete one turn.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  You know when you're on a family holiday and you're playing a card game and someone's never played it before?

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:13Speaker 04

  And he's like, I'll explain to you the rules. Imagine trying to explain, right, it's simple. So we play this every year. So it's quite a simple game.

• 10:19Speaker 03

  We play it every 20 years. We play it once in a generation. But you know what they say is, oh, you'll pick up as we go along. That's what they say. The rules have become obvious.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  Let's do a practice round.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  No, you've moved your tank too early, you've not calculated the water evaporation from the desert. There's even...

• 10:35Speaker 04

  Wow, that's incredible. Shout out.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  There's even a moment where they say that if you're playing as the British, more of your water gets evaporated because you're not using jerrycans, you're using barrels.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  Christ.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  I mean, it's the most, and this is what people do for fun. And in the reviews, they say, this is not a game. This is a historic simulation of running a war campaign in the desert.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  That's absolutely incredible.

• 11:04Speaker 03

  Anyway, so that's why the camp, this theatre is so autistic. It's such an autistic magnet.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  It's so technical.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  It's all logistics, it's all supplies. Ultimately, you could say that is why Monty prevails.

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• 12:49Speaker 03

  So anyway, so the Italians invade, except they don't. They build loads of camps and the camps aren't connected to each other at all. So even though they're quite fortified, they're not actually.

• 13:01Speaker 04

  No, they're not mobile at all. They're hunkered down.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Making passes.

• 13:04Speaker 04

  Spaces like let's split up all the forces.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:07Speaker 04

  And so make them have no connection with each other.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  A quarter of a million men, the, the, the British garrison in Egypt has maybe thirty, forty thousand, something like that. Thirty six thousand troops. So they wait in these camps, the Italians, until engineers were meant to build this victory road would go along.

• 13:24Speaker 04

  Oh, so that's still the main thing. That's the most important thing is building the road for the Muslims.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  The parade. Before the Premier League starts, well, let's plan the parade route.

• 13:33Speaker 03

  Right. Now, the North African theatre is quite unique in that it's basically, there is one road going along the coast.

• 13:41Speaker 04

  Well, sorry, the Italians do it like the board game. If I was playing it without knowing the rules.

• 13:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. And you hadn't planned on playing the game.

• 13:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, if you haven't played it. It's basically, that's how Italians play it. That's, there should be one person who doesn't know the rules.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  Yes, they're the Italians, yeah. They think, they think they're playing Boggle. Well, why don't you just say, hey, they're, they're. So they build these camps and then the Brits essentially just pick them off.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:07Speaker 03

  So at the time of the invasion, Commander Earl Archibald Wavell, the golfing commander. He was a man who would be, he would be asked about like a serious situation. He'd be like, I'm just gonna go play around a golf.

• 14:20Speaker 04

  He wants to clear it.

• 14:21Speaker 03

  Please, I just need to, I just need to clear my head.

• 14:23Speaker 04

  He needs like a post golf clarity before he can dig.

• 14:25Speaker 03

  Exactly. You can't do anything without post golf clarity. He had one eye, was caricatured as the old general. And, you know, pompous, aristocratic, an empire man. Again, what's so great about this series, this really, this is the empire's last hurrah. In that, in that it's men with big shorts who are trained in hot temperatures.

• 14:43Speaker 04

  It's on an imperial theatre.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  All the forces, you know, the Australians, the Indians, the Indians to play a part in this. And we beat the Nazis.

• 14:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Without the Americans. And then after this, never really, which is, you know, obviously we're around on D-Day.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Falklands is just, we're rerunning it. It's a, you know.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Well, as we, as we say, it's every 40 years, you know, Dunkirk and North Africa.

• 15:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  Then it's the Falklands, then it's the Thai air rescue. Okay. It does get, you know, less, the scale goes down as we go through. Anyway, so Archibald Wavell, the golfing commander, the one-eyed golfer, him and General Richard O'Connor lead Operation Compass in December 1940, which is a massive counter-attack. So it's one road going all along the coast of Libya, which at this time is called Cyrenica, and Egypt, and then pretty much everything south of, I don't know, pick a town, I don't know, Safati is just inhospitable desert. They have these sand seas, the Sea of Sands.

• 15:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  Where you're just like an ocean, you just get lost in the desert. And when we're talking about the SAS, which we'll get into on the Patreon, they based, they, they start using the desert, which is part of the reason that they become successful. Because really it's quite a narrow battlefield. It's very, very, very wide.

• 16:03Speaker 04

  You need to be near the coast because that's where all the supplies.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  Supplies are coming from, because I don't need to reiterate the game. Before you attack, you need to refuel, you need to account for evaporation, how much more excess water. This is how Monty wins the war. Anyway, Operation Compass, the Brits pour out of Egypt and they just one by one pick off these big Italian, essentially garden pasta kitchens.

• 16:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  The Allies push Italy back into Libyan territory. 130,000 Italian POWs are taken.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  That's their main weapon, is how, having to deal with that many prisoners of war.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  Hostages. Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  So that many people who weren't even killed because they gave up.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  The police, no, no, no, no, no.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  There's so many people.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  If you surrender en masse, you become more of a problem than if you carried on fighting.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 16:50Speaker 03

  Because now.

• 16:51Speaker 04

  They can't just kill you.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  If, if you look at the, the amount of, in the gameplay of the North African, the Western Desert Campaign, you now have to, all those supplies.

• 17:00Speaker 04

  Keep them alive.

• 17:00Speaker 03

  You have to keep them alive. It's a fucking nightmare.

• 17:03Speaker 04

  Where do these prisoners of war get kept? Because I've always wondered that with like massive, it must be keeping them for like the whole war.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  There's also, there's like, there's like four, four British blokes per 50 Italians. Free range and battery.

• 17:15Speaker 04

  Well, the Japanese were battery farming prisons.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  They were, they were.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  They just said, don't care.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  You should not, if you're eating Japanese eggs in the, in the forties, it's, it's not good stuff.

• 17:24Speaker 04

  The way they treat them, it was more, we're like human rights. They said, fuck off, basically.

• 17:28Speaker 03

  So Compass gets halted by the Allies. They decide not to push them further into Libya and out of North Africa.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  Which is a debated decision.

• 17:38Speaker 03

  Yes, now this is where it gets very, very interesting because the, basically what's happening is that the Italians have also gone into Greece at the end of 1940. Um, but somehow in this kind of like nap derby.

• 17:53Speaker 04

  Like, yeah, nap mogging. They finally, finally found a place they got nap mogged.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  And yet the Italians, the Italians are that incompetent that they get flummoxed by the Greek resistance. Greek resistance. And that's not just throwing a plastic chair at the Italians. They can't handle that. So this, now arguably you could make the case that Italy, how bad they are, fucks the World War for the Nazis.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  Because Hitler at this time is planning Operation Barbarossa.

• 18:26Speaker 04

  That's his big thing.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  His big thing. He wants to invade.

• 18:28Speaker 04

  His dream.

• 18:29Speaker 03

  May 41, before, uh, the winter comes in Russia. Get it done before the winter. However, because the Italians can't even beat the Greeks and have been pushed all the way back out of Egypt.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  He doesn't care about North Africa. That's just not.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  No.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  He doesn't care about it at all.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  Mussolini wants to ride topless on a horse. That's his dream. He's like a Make-A-Wish kid essentially.

• 18:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:53Speaker 03

  And so Hitler decides that he, Mussolini asks Hitler for help and Hitler agrees in January 41, which then means that.

• 19:02Speaker 04

  Because he's scared of, look, basically Italy collapsing and there's another front that he's going to defend. And also the morale booster will give the Britain having a win under their belt.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  So he sends, uh, German troops into Greece. Uh, they obviously make quite light work of that.

• 19:19Speaker 04

  I mean, they have done. They're still making light work of the Greeks.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  The Germans are still fucking Greece to this day. Hitler ordered the Nazis into Greece in 41 and they've never left.

• 19:28Speaker 04

  They're fucking booting Yanofarafakis out the window.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  Get the fuck off. Stand up, get out that chair. My parents have been, my sister's been in Greece the last two weeks and every day I've got a photo of a plastic chair on its own.

• 19:40Speaker 04

  Really?

• 19:41Speaker 03

  Somewhere, yeah. Every day, just a field with a plastic chair in it.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  Maybe the economy's collapsing.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  I think it's right. If they're not sitting in the chair, they were empty. I think, I think economies, I think the economy's booming.

• 19:53Speaker 04

  What biohacking Greece?

• 19:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. Stand up. The Greek Stephen Bartlett.

• 19:58Speaker 04

  Brian Johnson of Greece.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  I stood up. It's crazy what you can do when you stand up. It's absolutely amazing. So Rommel is summoned to Berlin to meet with Hitler in February 1941. And they come up with Operation Zonnenblum, Operation Sunflower. What a lovely name for an operation, Sunflower. This will be Germany's intervention in North Africa. They, they form a new unit, the Deutsches Afrika Korps, with Rommel at its head. So Rommel enters Tripoli in February 1941, March 1941, something like that. And immediately what he does is because he knows there's loads of spies. He, he organizes a parade, but they basically do a loop.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  And they just make it look like there's fucking loads of them.

• 20:45Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  So the British spies go back.

• 20:47Speaker 04

  Freak them out.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  The other problem is that Britain had sent most of the Western Desert Force to Greece in an effort to try and save the Greeks. And also there'd been this big old ding dong in Crete where the Germans, I think that's one of the first paratroop assaults on, in the war. And yet they get, they, they take Crete from the Allies, but at quite a cost, there's quite a lot of, we should do an episode about Crete, that's quite interesting. Anyway, Rommel is in North Africa. Operation Sunflower commences on the 24th of March, 1941.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  Even though he'd been told not to do anything. But this is his great skill.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  He just goes, nah, fuck it. They're weak. So the Allies were expecting a much more cautious German approach. I don't know why at this point in the war.

• 21:37Speaker 04

  They should have picked up.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  Genuinely, for the last 10 years, Germany's been steamrolling through places. The Germans have the Schwerer Panzer Speewagen, which is an eight-wheel, heavy armored car. And it's much faster than British cars. Rommel's known as the Desert Fox because he would strike.

• 21:55Speaker 04

  That's propaganda, right?

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 04

  It's Goebbels stuff, right?

• 21:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, Goebbels stuff.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  However, this is what Rommel will make his name.

• 22:03Speaker 04

  Because also, this is the beginning in this war, unlike World War One, publicity is a huge part. So all these commanders, even the fact that we're talking about them with such personalities, it's partly manufactured. You all need to have an iconic look, you know, because it's a huge part of the propaganda.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  It's Pep wearing a t-shirt.

• 22:18Speaker 04

  Hundred percent.

• 22:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's just.

• 22:20Speaker 03

  Hundred percent. Hundred percent.

• 22:23Speaker 04

  Your self idiosyncrasies.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 04

  Monty decided to wear a beret.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Yes, Monty made his own uniform.

• 22:30Speaker 04

  You got, yeah, you got to pick something that makes you stand out. What would you pick, Charlie, if you're going to be a commander and you wanted to have like an iconic piece of clothing?

• 22:37Speaker 05

  Like a bonnet.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  A bonnet? Like a sick dog.

• 22:41Speaker 04

  I mean, there's something kind of terrifying if you are a successful commander.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  If you're successful. If you're not, you're just a cunt in a bonnet in the desert.

• 22:50Speaker 04

  I guess there's nothing you can wear that makes you look ridiculous if you're a very successful commander.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  Look at what we're wearing. We're wearing shorts and a beret.

• 22:57Speaker 04

  Because I guess if you are as successful as Rommel was in the early total war and you have like a dummy in your mouth going. That is terrifying because suddenly it'd be like, did baby fox?

• 23:07Speaker 03

  The desert baby, fuck. And he's in a Nazi nappy with a swastika on it.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're right, actually. I mean, when we get to Monty, we get to the next episode, he designs this uniform himself.

• 23:21Speaker 04

  I might do like denim cutoffs.

• 23:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:23Speaker 04

  And then like a mesh vest frayed at the edges.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  Have like a pink whistle.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 23:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Yeah. Rommel starts, he finds these tank goggles and he wears them on the bridge of his cap and that becomes his look.

• 23:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's funny, you all have to have, pick out your, customize your fighter, basically.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  But this is very, very unnazi.

• 23:44Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  Isn't it? It's to kind of, he's got individuality, which is not really the Nazi way.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  He's not listening to orders. This is, he's Pep, he's Cruyff.

• 23:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  He starts just seeing gaps in the lines and just going through them and forcing the Brits to retreat. He doesn't engage the Brits, like, you know, he doesn't follow the laws of cricket and go, you know, town by town. He just goes, fuck it, we'll go around you and circle you. Churchill describes Rommel in the House of Commons as a daring and skillful opponent, may I say, across the havoc of war, a great general. He's probably the only general that the Allies are-

• 24:21Speaker 04

  Gets as much respect.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, and this is why this theatre of the war is, you know, is cricket.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  I think that's also why there's a revisionism about his Nazism.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 24:28Speaker 04

  Where they're constantly trying to say, yeah, you know, he was actually-

• 24:31Speaker 03

  But again, he was more-

• 24:32Speaker 04

  He actually had no idea.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  He was a German military commander. He wasn't a Nazi commander.

• 24:37Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  Your honour.

• 24:39Speaker 04

  No, he couldn't be less Nazi.

• 24:41Speaker 03

  No. No, listen, if you're using the perspective of everyone who's ever lived-

• 24:44Speaker 04

  A general Nazi I command couldn't be less of a Nazi.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  Of all the Nazis, it's tallest dwarf, okay? It's the, it's the least Nazi Nazi. All right. Now, Operation Sunflower continues into April of 41.

• 24:56Speaker 04

  It does have quite special needs, Operation Sunflower.

• 24:58Speaker 03

  Sunflower lanyard.

• 25:01Speaker 04

  It's like that coffee shop you go to.

• 25:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 25:04Speaker 04

  That's Operation Sunflower.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Every, every time I go there, it is Operation Sunflower. Will I get a coffee? Who knows? I might get a banana. Whatever. Operation Sunflower continues. Rapid outflanking of the Allies, this is again, the Ghost Division. It would appear unexpectedly behind enemy lines before anyone can react. And it's powered by Pervitin, Nazi speed.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  So as with the blitzkrieg in the Western Front, they're up for three days, three nights in the desert, just pounding it through. And on the 3rd of April, allied personnel are pushed back across the Egyptian border. So this is where the ding dong begins, right?

• 25:44Speaker 04

  End to end stuff.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  It is end to end stuff. And Rommel is in a tank at the front line.

• 25:50Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  He prefers basically taking initiative over any kind of planning.

• 25:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Which, as we see in the board game, is not how you win.

• 25:58Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  It's not a game of initiative. It does not reward improv. It's crushing planning.

• 26:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Imagine playing a 20-year board game. What happens if just like a counter gets knocked off?

• 26:09Speaker 04

  Well, think about the life events that happen over 20 years.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  You get divorced. You definitely get divorced.

• 26:13Speaker 04

  Of course you get divorced.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Divorced twice.

• 26:14Speaker 04

  Also having to play it during the divorce, like the different levels of proceedings.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:19Speaker 04

  It's pretty amazing.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. Anyway, so Rommel's also an absolute dog, of course, because his, to recap, he married, he engaged with someone, went somewhere else, knocked someone up, had a kid, went back and married his original one, and then the baby mama killed herself. But then she was called Wahlburger.

• 26:39Speaker 04

  Wahlburger Stammer.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  So all well that ends well. Now, Zonin Blumer, Operation Sunflower, the special needs operation, it fails to capture Tobruk. A siege begins on the 10th of April 1941. Tobruk is basically staffed with Australians.

• 26:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  This is their bit.

• 26:57Speaker 04

  But the Aussies are some of the most fierce fighters of the war, apparently.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  Well, yeah.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  Like in the Pacific there as well, they're fucking nuts.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:03Speaker 04

  Because there's not that many of them, but they seem to always...

• 27:06Speaker 03

  They hold out for something like 200 days, don't they? How long is a siege at Tobruk? Can you find out? What is it, Charlie? What were you going to ask?

• 27:11Speaker 05

  Well, is this kind of, are they more likely to be good because we're closer to them all being kind of prisoners? Is it the closer you get to the start?

• 27:19Speaker 04

  I mean, I imagine there's a wildness to the Aussies.

• 27:21Speaker 05

  Especially at the start, which is...

• 27:22Speaker 03

  Oh, I thought, oh, I thought you meant the fact that they're besieged, that they kind of were like, oh, brilliant, oh, we're in jail. Oh, I get it.

• 27:29Speaker 04

  That's stupid, if that's what you're saying.

• 27:31Speaker 05

  No, I'm saying because it's quite a new country.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Yes, genetically. Yes, no, I think I would say, I would support that theory.

• 27:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're tough.

• 27:40Speaker 03

  Your Honour, I'd support that theory.

• 27:42Speaker 04

  They're tough fuckers.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  Because this, so what, Australia is sort of colonized early 19th century, right? So 1800, so what, you're saying five generations?

• 27:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, thieves.

• 27:51Speaker 04

  Also, they're white people who, in the heat, they've been acclimatized to the desert.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Whites in the desert.

• 27:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 03

  You know.

• 27:59Speaker 04

  Angry. Dangerous.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  Angry.

• 28:01Speaker 04

  Red.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Burnt. Right.

• 28:04Speaker 04

  There's nothing more racist than a white, a burnt white guy.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Sunburnt whites.

• 28:07Speaker 04

  That is, that's also our most racist.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  Stay away from the sunburnt whites.

• 28:11Speaker 04

  Everyone's like, oh god, it's white power, it's red power. That's what you call me.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  It is red power, yeah. SPF 50, when was it invented? I'm sure, I'm sure it will track with instances of hate crime. I'm guaranteed. November 2012.

• 28:27Speaker 04

  Wow. No.

• 28:28Speaker 03

  Do you know what I mean?

• 28:29Speaker 04

  No, no, no.

• 28:29Speaker 03

  No, hang on, hang on. First developed in the 60s.

• 28:31Speaker 04

  60s, right.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  But that, no, that's SPF.

• 28:35Speaker 04

  When was sun cream invented?

• 28:36Speaker 03

  32.

• 28:37Speaker 04

  By an Australian. So this is, to place this.

• 28:40Speaker 03

  Yes, we should place this.

• 28:42Speaker 04

  After they invented sun cream, before they invented SPF 50. So racism's being moved, but it's still, it's in a midpoint. It's an awkward midpoint.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  It's the beginning of the end for racism. It's the 30s and the death throes.

• 28:55Speaker 04

  Wait, were you saying racism ended in the 60s then?

• 28:57Speaker 03

  Obviously, it ended in the 60s. Obviously.

• 28:59Speaker 04

  I mean, obviously.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  It's common knowledge.

• 29:01Speaker 04

  Have you seen another recent clip of Errol Musk?

• 29:03Speaker 03

  No, another one.

• 29:03Speaker 04

  Oh, it's an unbelievable clip. But this time he's being interviewed by someone who's.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  Oh, fuck, we have. The Mandela one.

• 29:08Speaker 04

  The Mandela one.

• 29:09Speaker 03

  We've got to get up.

• 29:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, let's get up.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, Errol Musk talking about Nelson Mandela. We're just checking back in.

• 29:14Speaker 04

  This is so good. I mean, before you play this, what's fascinating about this version of Errol is the interviewer here is quite different to the interviewer before.

• 29:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  The interviewer before was kind of like, oh, that's kind of interesting. This guy's actually calling him out. And it's quite interesting to see a man of such ignorance.

• 29:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:29Speaker 04

  Being called out by facts. It's quite interesting to see how he starts to move.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  This is, I'd say this is, we're reaching the, the peak, like, impenetrability of Errol Musk's self-delusions.

• 29:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  In that even an aggressive, Paxman-esque interviewer, he's just swatting it away like it's nothing. Like, this is excellent bowling and he's just like, plonk.

• 29:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  Have you seen that, that new wonder kid at the IPL?

• 29:50Speaker 04

  No.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  Who's basically smashing bumba around the park. It's terrifying. He's 17.

• 29:54Speaker 04

  Right.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  That's Errol Musk in this. Right, play it.

• 29:57Speaker 07

  As far as oppressing the blacks were concerned, that's not true. Every black had work. Blacks had owned their homelands and we were not allowed to buy land in their homelands.

• 30:06Speaker 04

  Victory to the whites.

• 30:07Speaker 07

  And white people, you know, had more or less the worst land.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  Errol, that's just completely incorrect. The homelands were 14% of the total land of South Africa. The vast majority of the land, 86%.

• 30:18Speaker 06

  Was black people were forbidden from buying land or which was traditionally their land.

• 30:22Speaker 03

  That's our understanding.

• 30:23Speaker 06

  There. This is just the basic understanding of what apartheid was.

• 30:26Speaker 07

  As an English speaking South African, I had absolutely no say in the government. The government is run by the Afghans group.

• 30:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, but you could vote. But you could vote.

• 30:36Speaker 07

  Well, you you could vote, but the voting was hopeless, you know. We we had elections which we only lost because the the numbers were were too small for our side.

• 30:47Speaker 06

  But black people were not allowed to vote. They were completely excluded from the election process. I want to come back to some of the things that you have said in other interviews where you've compared Tommy Robinson to Mandela specifically. Do you do you agree with that comparison? Do you think that Tommy Robinson is like Mandela?

• 31:02Speaker 07

  Well, yes.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:04Speaker 06

  Mandela's a common knowledge.

• 31:06Speaker 07

  You know, killed many people with the the things that him and his group did, you know, women and children.

• 31:12Speaker 06

  When did when did when did Mandela kill women and children?

• 31:16Speaker 03

  But, uh, come on.

• 31:18Speaker 07

  Well. Nineteen sixty-three, they planted various bombs around the country. You know, I don't want to get into that.

• 31:25Speaker 06

  No, I mean, but no, but I think it's quite it's quite important to get into it because you say that he was guilty of killing women and children, but he was never charged with that. He was he was charged with something else. He was he was charged with with with he was charged with sabotage and conspiracy to to to plan guerrilla warfare against military targets. He was never charged with killing women and children.

• 31:47Speaker 07

  He was naturally found guilty of. No, they were.

• 31:50Speaker 06

  He wasn't found guilty. He wasn't found guilty. He he he admitted to. He he pleaded guilty to the act of sabotage and to to to organizing guerrilla warfare. And so there wasn't even, I mean, he actually pleaded guilty. He didn't he didn't take the non guilty plea.

• 32:07Speaker 07

  Well, I was there, you know, so.

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Well, I was there, so it felt like I was right.

• 32:13Speaker 04

  What he wants to say is shut up, you fucking nerd.

• 32:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 04

  Like, who gives a fuck about stats? You're a fucking nerd.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  But what's amazing about him is how he's so bored by reality.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  He's constantly reminded of like, we actually did this. Well, I fucking, I don't want to think that.

• 32:30Speaker 04

  And it's funny, we bring up Errol Musk is such a meme of person, but historically, if we think about now, in a hundred years, how people will look back at 2026, the historic figures, Putin, Trump, probably Musk will be viewed as one of the most historic figures of the last 20, 30 years.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  Well.

• 32:45Speaker 04

  With his AI, Twitter.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  Elon certainly, but Errol is the real.

• 32:49Speaker 04

  I'm just saying, for such a, one of the true historic figures of the age, which you will be remembered of.

• 32:53Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  The fact that his dad, who fed him, like, this is of hu- we keep bringing him up, but it is of huge historic importance.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  As I was saying, I read a brilliant book on holiday called The Netanyahu's by Josh Cohen, and it's all about basically Netanyahu's dad, who was a revisionist Zionist, and he is the intellectual foundation for everything Bibi Netanyahu is doing. Very interesting, fascinating. In the same way.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  Look at the dads.

• 33:14Speaker 03

  Look at the dads.

• 33:15Speaker 04

  Always look at the dads.

• 33:16Speaker 03

  Look at your dad. Monty's dad. Monty's dad, planning.

• 33:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  He proposed to a 14-year-old, didn't marry till she was 16, proposed at 14.

• 33:24Speaker 04

  Planned.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Planned. He met, he met an 11-year-old and he went, well, five years of planning. I need to, I need to account, I need to account for the evaporation of water. Okay? Who's May Musk?

• 33:35Speaker 05

  Is that Elon's mum?

• 33:36Speaker 03

  Lovely. Fine.

• 33:38Speaker 04

  His mum's a dietitian, but then Elon Musk has one of the strangest builds of all time. Get Elon Musk's chest. How does one acquire this chest? Yeah, what's going on there? Like, look at that. I've never seen that build on anyone.

• 33:51Speaker 03

  I'd kill for that chest.

• 33:54Speaker 04

  Something's going on.

• 33:56Speaker 03

  I think he's absolutely ripped. Look at him. A beautiful boxy figure. That's, that's the ideal man, that.

• 34:02Speaker 03

  He's built like a brick shithouse. What are you talking about?

• 34:04Speaker 04

  The male beauty standard.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  That is male, that's my male beauty standards. I want a thin back and a massive upper chest. No belly. No belly. Huge chest. Massive rib cage.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  Small head.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  Small head. The lateral raises he's doing. How has he got, he looks pregnant, but like, and his chest, phenomenal.

• 34:22Speaker 04

  Apparently it's because he's had like a gastric belt or fucking Ozempic and he ate through it. So it's like warped it.

• 34:29Speaker 03

  Lovely. Phenomenal. So anyway, so the Australians.

• 34:34Speaker 04

  It looks like he's got a pillow under it like a jumper.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  He looks like he's had to have reconstructive surgery after a butt plug has gone through him in an MRI.

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• 36:11Speaker 03

  Anyway, we need to get back just to check on Errol Musk, which is important. He's the grandfather of the pod.

• 36:16Speaker 04

  Errol, if you're listening, please do more interviews. We love it.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  I love it. I'm pleased. We'd gladly have you on the show.

• 36:22Speaker 04

  Ideally over Zoom. There's something funnier about him over Zoom because he looks like more of a dad.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  But also there's a delay and I think he's more in his element over Zoom. I don't believe that at all. No, I'm in my own.

• 36:32Speaker 04

  It feels like FaceTiming your dad.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  I'm in my own house. I'm in my own house. I say what I want in my own house. You're on a Zoom call, a live podcast. I don't care. One woman's another woman. Fucking, the blacks were not oppressed. Yeah, you could vote, but they never won who you voted for. So it's pointless.

• 36:48Speaker 04

  A mental point.

• 36:49Speaker 03

  Blacks didn't have the vote.

• 36:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, but no one I voted for won anyway.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  So it's pointless.

• 36:53Speaker 04

  So I basically didn't have the vote. It's not how it works at all.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  I was oppressed. No, you had the vote. They didn't win though. So apartheid was against me. Anyway, a hero is on the wall of

• 37:05Speaker 04

  Friend of the pod.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  Friend of the pod, grandfather of the pod. So the rats of Tobruk, the Australians, that's what they're named. They're not just calling Australians rats. They hold the besieged port for 241 days. One of the great sieges of the war, Tobruk, constant bombardment.

• 37:23Speaker 04

  So they're called the rats because they hid underground in caves.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Yes, in the daytime, they would hide underground while the Germans would shell them. And then at night, they'd come over ground and they'd fight and try and push them back.

• 37:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  This, it changes, how many times has Tobruk changed hands in the course of the North Desert? What, I mean, Pierre will know this off the top of his head.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  Three times.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  Three times during World War Two. This is also, so this is Romulus's height is in the sort of summer autumn of 1941. Now Hitler at this point has invaded the Russian front, which is kind of a sort of side quest, really. It's kind of irrelevant, that's sort of the grand scheme of the war. But he's sucking more and more troops and resources that way, which is taking a crucial man away from the crux.

• 38:14Speaker 04

  The most important. This is the big mistake.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  It's Hitler's great mistake is that he prioritizes Russia.

• 38:20Speaker 04

  When he should be prioritizing Libya.

• 38:22Speaker 03

  And again, we must say, why are the Nazis here? It is because, well, they're here because the Italians fucked it.

• 38:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  But why the Italians were here is that they, do you know what? I was gonna say they want the Suez Canal. They don't even want that. They want Mussolini to ride on the horse to Cairo.

• 38:36Speaker 04

  Because they misremembered a history book about Romans, basically.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  Now, Operation Crusader happens in November 41, and this is under the first commander, Claude Auchinleck, the Orchard. I don't know how, if I'm saying that correct. Now, he was a homosexual, we think. I think a lot of people in

• 38:58Speaker 04

  And why is that? Is the size of the shorts, how, what?

• 39:00Speaker 03

  Yes, he was wearing hot pants.

• 39:03Speaker 03

  You can spot a homosexual in the desert campaign very easily. In that everyone was in big shorts apart from the general who was in tiny denim cutoffs. And what's so weird about that? So weird about that general. He's also wearing high heels.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  Well, they, are you homosexual? How did you guess?

• 39:20Speaker 03

  How dare you?

• 39:21Speaker 04

  It's your denim cutoffs that have booty written on your arse.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Got juicy written on the back. I'm fighting fire with fire, right? It's desert chemsex. No, so it was rumored that the orc was let off with a warning from his superiors after a relationship with young Indian boys.

• 39:37Speaker 04

  It's a different time.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  Indian boys, lovely.

• 39:41Speaker 04

  But it is, it's one of those times where it's a slap on the wrist for paedophilia. Can you not?

• 39:45Speaker 03

  Please, but this is, this is again the 40s, you're slapping on the wrist. And also, this is what I mean, it's the last spasm of empire, right? Racialized paedophilia. Young Indian boys, crazy. It's crazy that that's your thing. Young Indian boys.

• 40:03Speaker 04

  Why is it crazy that's your thing?

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Well, it's just crazy to live in a time.

• 40:06Speaker 04

  There's a lot of young Indian boys listening to this.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Really? Really? A lot of young Indian boys listen to this?

• 40:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, and they'll be hurt that you think it's crazy that you.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  They'll be, they'll be hurt that it's crazy.

• 40:21Speaker 04

  That you think it's crazy that you'd wanna molest a young Indian boy.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  You've completely distorted my words.

• 40:26Speaker 04

  It is, no, it's obvious.

• 40:27Speaker 03

  No, I said to live in a time where you could be slapped on the wrist for racialized paedophilia. And I wonder.

• 40:34Speaker 04

  You said that's worse paedophilia.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I am, yeah, I am.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, not to be all woke.

• 40:40Speaker 04

  No, yeah, probably is.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  As in my campaign literature, I'm standing for the green party.

• 40:45Speaker 04

  I'm no longer raping.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  Well, I'm no longer talking to Indians about rape, is that what you were gonna say?

• 40:54Speaker 03

  They just don't listen. They just do it all the time. All right. It's pointless. It's pointless talking to Indians about rape. Absolutely pointless. What is it, Charlie?

• 41:00Speaker 05

  I was hit on by a Indian boy at the Russian spa and I just kept calling him brother. I just, I couldn't, I didn't know what to do because he was like.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  Was he a young Indian boy?

• 41:08Speaker 05

  He was quite young, yeah. He was massaging my kind of.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  Was he saying, send balls? What was he saying?

• 41:13Speaker 05

  Send bum.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  Send bum.

• 41:14Speaker 05

  And he was like, massaging my bum.

• 41:16Speaker 04

  Whoa, um, is he in a suit?

• 41:18Speaker 05

  No, he just gave it as a kind of freebie.

• 41:20Speaker 03

  You go to a gay spa?

• 41:21Speaker 05

  No, there are gay guys there though. Someone.

• 41:23Speaker 03

  Is that a gay spa?

• 41:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 05

  Well, there's gay guys everywhere.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  I think there's more of them in the spa you go to.

• 41:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. And he kept, and then I was like, how do I do this? How do I let, make this not sexy anymore? So I kept calling him brother and I think that worked.

• 41:35Speaker 04

  Just get him off.

• 41:36Speaker 05

  Hello, thanks. That feels really good, brother.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  Just tell him one anecdote about what you did. Just tell him what you did last night. I'll probably.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  Sounds quite gay.

• 41:43Speaker 05

  Kiss me, brother.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  That feels really good, brother. I'd say, don't say that's, I'd say, I'd say brother, uh.

• 41:50Speaker 04

  Brother, uh.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. Rather than that feels, you touched my arse feels really good, brother.

• 41:54Speaker 05

  It did feel really good. I just don't want to do any more.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:57Speaker 05

  Just leave it at that.

• 41:57Speaker 04

  Very polite.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 05

  Thank you, brother.

• 41:59Speaker 03

  So he, it's under his leadership, right, that the SAS begins because they're not, they're not, they're basically on the back foot the entire time, the Brits. And that Rommel has cleaned through Libya into Egypt. And the SAS is ultimately born out of some very frustrated, uh, top ranking soldiers.

• 42:20Speaker 04

  Who started with the, the.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  In action.

• 42:22Speaker 04

  Right.

• 42:23Speaker 03

  And they're not, we're not on the front foot because, um, Orch is just saying, we've got to just protect Cairo, but Rommel's just dashing through them.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  So Operation Crusader is launched in November of 41. Uh, this is the big counteroffensive to try and stop Rommel. They, they meet at the first battle of El Alamein. Okay. Now this is a key stretch because essentially, uh, this is the la, it's on the south, you've got the, uh, is it the Qatara Depression, I believe?

• 42:55Speaker 04

  It is the Qatara Depression.

• 42:57Speaker 03

  Have you been to the Qatara Depression?

• 42:58Speaker 04

  I've never been to the Qatara Depression.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  I've experienced the Qatara Depression.

• 43:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  That's when I got very bored watching a documentary about Egypt.

• 43:05Speaker 03

  The Qatara Depression. Now, is that just a load of sand? Is that a posh way of saying sand?

• 43:09Speaker 04

  I don't actually know, but it.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  I think it's a lot of sand, the Qatara Depression.

• 43:13Speaker 04

  Or is it a canyon and it dips?

• 43:15Speaker 03

  Don't know.

• 43:16Speaker 04

  Maybe that was the, the people who built the stadiums at the World Cup.

• 43:18Speaker 03

  Yes, you're right. That's exactly what it was. The Qatara Depression. It's a big load of sand and basically that's essentially a hard border on the conflict. And then Al-Ahman is this stretch between the Qatar Depression and the coast. That's the last bit before you get into Cairo, Alexandria, Suez Canal.

• 43:36Speaker 04

  So Al-Ahman is deep into Egypt, actually. So it's right on the back, right before the Suez Canal.

• 43:41Speaker 03

  So Operation Crusader had broken the siege of Tobruk. They pushed Rommel back, but then in 42, by February 42, both sides have rebuilt their strength to launch fresh offensives.

• 43:54Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  So Crusader had forced Rommel back to El Aguila, which is, I don't fucking, who cares?

• 44:03Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 44:04Speaker 03

  July 1942, the first battle of Al-Ahman, deep into Egypt. Rommel has advanced and brought the Axis forces all the way back in. So it swung again. Crusader pushed them back towards Libya. He's invaded again into Egypt.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  But the problem with his style is that you can only go so far before they run out of steam, right?

• 44:25Speaker 03

  Because it's one long road and Libya is massive, maybe not the size of India, but it's very big, right? And also at this point, Malta's involved in that Malta is a key strategic island for the shipping.

• 44:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:40Speaker 03

  And so there's a lot of British naval operations trying to stop, interrupt Axis supply lines.

• 44:46Speaker 04

  I mean, Britain must have much better naval, in the Mediterranean must be easier for them because they've got water.

• 44:54Speaker 03

  Italy is there, right? Spain aren't featuring at this point, of course. So Italy, it's all, it's all basically won and lost in how the supply gets from Italy to the coast or Malta. So there's a big battle for Malta, the Luftwaffe do loads of raids.

• 45:10Speaker 04

  And that's happening during this.

• 45:11Speaker 03

  This is all happening during this, right? But the problem with Rommel was that he just sees a gap and just goes for it and doesn't think about how he's got, how the water evaporation is not accounting for using jerry cans.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  He wouldn't play the board game.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  No, and yet.

• 45:24Speaker 04

  Monty would.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  Well, that's why Monty wins.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, because he was playing the board game.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  By himself.

• 45:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. Imagine playing by yourself. That's real. That's real. Do you know what? I'm going to put a bet now that Pierre has at least heard of this board game. So, the first Battle of El Alamein, it's a gay man in denim cutoffs fighting Rommel, who's sucking on a dummy. Now, there are a series of ridges and positions, and the control of these ridges changes hands multiple times. We should say actually a bit about how grim life in the desert war was. Flies. You don't think about the flies.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  I don't know if we want to do another episode where we talk about all of World War II and we rank all the things, but-

• 46:02Speaker 03

  Love to do that.

• 46:04Speaker 03

  Put it in the diary now.

• 46:06Speaker 04

  Can you hide your erection, please?

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Sorry, sorry.

• 46:09Speaker 04

  It's at half-mast.

• 46:09Speaker 03

  Love to rank theatres of war.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  The Queen is at Windsor.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  Sorry.

• 46:13Speaker 04

  The Queen is at Buckingham Palace.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  London Bridge has fallen.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  Because I don't know what's the worst conditions across all theatres, because the jungle's pretty fucking awful. Desert's bad, trench is bad. Like, what is the worst one? Like, you'd imagine Mediterranean is quite nice.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  No, but Italy gets, like, that's pretty brutal. A lot of the, because there's no infrastructure in Italy, so it's all just rocky and climbing up. But the flies are awful. There's the sand, obviously, the snakes. You know, they're all wearing kind of like mosquito net burkas to try and eat. Fucking snakes!

• 46:48Speaker 04

  The desert's filled with fucking snakes. Talking to you, Laura, bitch.

• 46:52Speaker 03

  Well, that's the orc on Instagram Live. It's denim cutoffs. There's snakes everywhere.

• 46:56Speaker 04

  The real problem with this is all the fucking snakes.

• 46:59Speaker 03

  So if Britain lose control of El Alamein, then they basically have a free run into Suez Canal. So, the Panzer divisions come and launch a massive assault first July.

• 47:08Speaker 04

  They do sound like the panty divisions. Do you know what I mean?

• 47:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 47:12Speaker 04

  It's close.

• 47:12Speaker 03

  It is close.

• 47:13Speaker 04

  And they sound like they're sniffing panties as they go. They're going, they're furiously huffing panties.

• 47:22Speaker 03

  Yes. Well, at this point, maybe they think it's the, maybe the part of the surprise is that they call themselves the panty divisions. And then the people are expecting strippers to arrive. And actually, it's-

• 47:32Speaker 04

  It was the Italians, for sure.

• 47:33Speaker 03

  Furious meth-addled Nazis. So, despite being outnumbered, the Indian Brigade, that's not what I call-

• 47:40Speaker 04

  That's what you call the local mayoral elections in London.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  Sadiq's cabinet, the Indian Brigade, they hold out for hours. There's a sandstorm, which means Axis tanks overrun the position. This is dare el shime.

• 47:55Speaker 04

  To be fair, not to get all woke with it, but that's one thing that, there's a lot of woke revisionism, but one thing that I think they got right is that the Indian war effort is not mentioned at all.

• 48:05Speaker 03

  No.

• 48:05Speaker 04

  No one brings them up, but they did a lot, they do appear a lot.

• 48:08Speaker 03

  And the Aussies do a lot, yeah.

• 48:09Speaker 04

  And it's just never brought up.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  It's the empire.

• 48:11Speaker 04

  It's the classic empire thing, when we're in a pickle, please help us guys. As soon as we're not in a pickle, fuck off.

• 48:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. But at this time, you know, Gandhi's also sleeping with his knees.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  Running his mouth.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  Running his mouth. He's the real terrorist, of course.

• 48:25Speaker 04

  The real villain.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  The real villain of the story is Mahatma Gandhi, but anyway. Now, this Indian Brigade gets annihilated, but they delay the German advance, which buys the Eighth Army time to reorganise at Al-Aleman. The Eighth Army is what, is the army that's fighting.

• 48:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:38Speaker 03

  For the Brits, the Allies.

• 48:41Speaker 03

  So the geography of the area mean that Rommel can't actually outflank because of the Qatar Depression. So it's, the geography is on the Allied side.

• 48:49Speaker 04

  It's a mental health problem.

• 48:49Speaker 03

  It is, it is a mental, yes, sorry. Rommel gets very, very sad. He's allergic to good views.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:56Speaker 03

  It's all pretty gnarly stuff and Rommel ultimately, by the late July, he goes on for about a month, but ultimately, supply lines are too stretched. He cannot get fuel and resources to the front line.

• 49:07Speaker 04

  He can't get the bag in.

• 49:08Speaker 03

  He cannot get the bag in.

• 49:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like now you're, if you keep getting the bag, you don't add to the come down. But you run out of the bag, the come down's setting in.

• 49:16Speaker 03

  It's trying to buy.

• 49:17Speaker 04

  Call the guy again, we're two, we're in the middle of the fucking desert.

• 49:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's gonna take three days to get here. We're gonna have the come down before the guy gets here. So that, because the supply lines go all the way back to Libya.

• 49:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:29Speaker 03

  They essentially get exhausted from being on drugs, on meth all the time. So essentially, the first battle of Al-Aleman, stalemate. Now, the Brits are obviously fucked, everyone's knackered.

• 49:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:43Speaker 03

  The coordination between the multinational forces was quite bad. The Orc was a gay guy, denim cutoff, he wasn't really concentrating on things.

• 49:51Speaker 04

  The Orc?

• 49:52Speaker 03

  That's what he's called, the Orc.

• 49:53Speaker 04

  It sounds like a, like a bear or an otter, but like it's a gay guy. He's an ugly hairy gay guy, an orc.

• 49:59Speaker 03

  Orchard, orchard like, I don't know how you say it, but. They're obviously knackered from the fucking heat and the sand. I mean, it's also, it's going, it's freezing at night.

• 50:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:09Speaker 03

  It's all, it's pretty, the extremes are bad. Yeah. It's a pretty bad time.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  How would you, where would you want to be placed in a theatre of war?

• 50:18Speaker 03

  I would like to be a sort of guarding Burtus Garden, Eagles Nest.

• 50:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay.

• 50:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, last line of defence.

• 50:26Speaker 04

  So really clean, you're not getting involved at all. You're just standing.

• 50:29Speaker 03

  I'm booby trapped to the nines and I walk out when Easy Company get there in April and I just put my hands up and just blow them all to shit.

• 50:35Speaker 04

  That's good. I like that.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  Anyway, a stalemate, Rommel has completely, Rommel has taken most of North Africa and yet he's been halted by a stalemate at the first battle of El Alamein. Now, in our next.

• 50:52Speaker 04

  We've nearly got halted by it. It's how complicated this is.

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 50:55Speaker 04

  We're stuck in the desert.

• 50:56Speaker 03

  We are stuck in the desert.

• 50:57Speaker 04

  Sand in our tanks at the moment.

• 50:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 50:58Speaker 04

  We're, we're breaking down. It's all looking, the Brits are exhausted.

• 51:02Speaker 03

  Knackered.

• 51:03Speaker 04

  We're knackered.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  We need a naughtistic man with nobly needs to come and sort us out.

• 51:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  We need a dad on holiday.

• 51:10Speaker 04

  Morale is low.

• 51:11Speaker 03

  Morale is low. And our next episode, we will deal, cometh the hour, cometh the artist. Monty will be here, but so will Pian de Velle. He'll be joining us.

• 51:22Speaker 04

  So we are flying an artist in to rebuild the morale of this, this series.

• 51:26Speaker 03

  Genuinely, we've got lost in the desert.

• 51:28Speaker 04

  And now we're helicoptering him.

• 51:30Speaker 03

  Our own Montgomery will be deployed next to fucking sort out where we are. Now, those next two episodes in the Monty Rommel series are already on the Patreon. We have three pounds a month. You too can join a community of people that play the North African board game.

• 51:45Speaker 04

  Stop advertising it. It's done.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay, fine.

• 51:47Speaker 04

  We have too many patrons.

• 51:48Speaker 03

  Too many. Don't join.

• 51:49Speaker 04

  Don't join.

• 51:49Speaker 03

  Don't join.

• 51:50Speaker 04

  We're not having the best time. Don't join. It's not great.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  No, no, it's awful. It's awful. You'd hate it.

• 51:57Speaker 04

  You'd absolutely hate it.

• 51:58Speaker 03

  We're now negging them. Is that what we're trying? You'd hate it in there.

• 52:00Speaker 04

  You'd absolutely hate it. It's not more of the thing you love.

• 52:03Speaker 03

  No, it's less. It's less. Yeah, it's less. Yeah. It actually cheapens the whole thing.

• 52:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  And there's loads of women in it, anyway.

• 52:11Speaker 04

  Inexplicably.

• 52:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, somehow, despite all our best efforts.

• 52:15Speaker 04

  So don't join the Patreon.

• 52:16Speaker 03

  Yeah. Anyway, the rest of the series is on it, though.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  And we're talking about the S A S. Anyway, that's the Patreon. We will see you next time with Pianavelli for Monty's Arrival to the North African Theatre.

• 52:28Speaker 04

  Until then.

• 52:29Speaker 03

  Goodbye.

• 52:30Speaker 04

  Goodbye.

• 52:49Speaker 06

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