The Battle for North Africa

El Alamein and the Turning Point for World War II

Glyn Harper

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780253031426
• eBook ISBN: 9780253031433
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de l'Afrique

"A well-researched and highly readable account of one of World War II's most important 'turning point' battles." —Jerry D. Morelock, Senior Editor at HistoryNet.com
 
In the early years of World War II, Germany shocked the world with a devastating blitzkrieg, rapidly conquered most of Europe, and pushed into North Africa. As the Allies scrambled to counter the Axis armies, the British Eighth Army confronted the experienced Afrika Corps, led by German field marshal Erwin Rommel, in three battles at El Alamein. In the first battle, the Eighth Army narrowly halted the advance of the Germans during the summer of 1942. However, the stalemate left Nazi troops within striking distance of the Suez Canal, which would provide a critical tactical advantage to the controlling force. War historian Glyn Harper dives into the story, vividly narrating the events, strategies, and personalities surrounding the battles and paying particular attention to the Second Battle of El Alamein, a crucial turning point in the war that would be described by Winston Churchill as "the end of the beginning." Moving beyond a simple narrative of the conflict, The Battle for North Africa tackles critical themes, such as the problems of coalition warfare, the use of military intelligence, the role of celebrity generals, and the importance of an all-arms approach to modern warfare.

ONE

THE MILITARY BACKGROUND

Since late 1940, after Italy joined the war on the side of the Axis on June 10 that year, both sides had waged military offensives in the Western Desert with varying degrees of success. Egypt was a vital cog in Britain’s war effort, described by John Connell as “the fulcrum of the British Empire.”¹ Egypt protected the sources of oil in the Middle East and its route to the United Kingdom. It was a center of communications for the far-flung parts of the Empire “east of Suez” and a critical base for naval operations in the Mediterranean. For these reasons, Egypt became the largest British military base outside of the United Kingdom. It was a vital, strategic asset. But, after June 1940, one of Britain’s Axis enemies was just across the border in Libya with a huge military force. Italian forces in Libya, under Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, numbered 250,000 organized into two armies and fourteen divisions. British forces in Egypt under General Sir Archibald Wavell had just 36,000 men and consisted primarily of an understrength armored and two infantry divisions. The Western Desert Force, as these were called—there were not yet enough assets to form a corps or an army—was short of much essential equipment including artillery, tanks, transport, and logistical support.

Given their overwhelming force, it was natural that the Italians should strike first. They took some time doing so, though. It was not until September 13 that the Italians crossed the border and began a slow, ponderous advance into Egypt. After four days, all the time harassed by artillery fire, minefields, and bombed by the Royal Air Force (RAF), the Italians reached Sidi Barrani, just sixty-five miles into Egypt. There they halted, dug in, and planned their next moves.

They were still contemplating them when, on December 9, the Western Desert Force launched Operation Compass. It achieved complete surprise and was a stunning success. Within two days, the Sidi Barrani position was captured, four Italian divisions destroyed, and the remainder of the Italian force sent reeling back in utter defeat. Amongst the 38,000 Italian prisoners taken were four generals. Also captured were 237 guns, seventy-three tanks, and more than 1,000 vehicles. Losses in the Western Desert Force were 624 killed, missing, or wounded.² As an exultant Anthony Eden informed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, “debasing a golden phrase” in the process, “Never before has so much been surrendered by so many to so few.”³

In the pursuit phase that followed the Italians’ rout, British forces advanced deep into Libya. On January 3, 1941, they captured Bardia just over the border and pushed on. On January 22, Tobruk was captured, Derna eight days later, and Benghazi fell on February 7. Two days later, the Western Desert Force, now renamed 13 Corps, reached El Agheila, where they halted. This was the first British offensive of the Second World War and their first land victory. It was a significant one, too. In just two months, a British force, never numbering more than 30,000 men, had advanced some 500 miles, destroyed ten Italian divisions, captured 130,000 prisoners, 850 guns, 400 tanks, and given the British Commonwealth something to celebrate in the darkest of times. British casualties had been fewer than 2,000.⁴ It was an impressive victory and the Allies would not have another like it for nearly two years.

The success of the British forces in Operation Compass had the effect of tarnishing the reputation of the Italian army there. But Operation Compass was an aberration where Italian troops had been inexperienced, lacked vital equipment, and were poorly led. The Italians fought in North Africa for almost three years, “its longest campaign of the Second World War.” From 1941–43, in concert with its German allies, “most Italian soldiers fought well against the British forces.”⁵ Italian losses in various actions were similar to German losses, indicating that their formations had fought equally hard. The North African campaign would eventually result in twenty-six Italian divisions being destroyed, with 12,000 Italian soldiers being killed in action.⁶

Two developments occurred in capital cities thousands of miles from the fighting that were to have profound implications on this theater of war. First, on the same day that Bardia fell, Churchill took the decision that offensive operations in the Middle East were to be halted, the advance should not proceed beyond Benghazi and the position there made secure. Then all military assistance should be rendered to Greece in their fight against the Italian invaders there. This was to be the military priority now. From his already stretched resources, Wavell was directed to prepare a sizable expeditionary force to Greece. Then, just over a month later on February 2, 1941, Adolf Hitler wrote to Mussolini expressing his concerns about events in North Africa and offering a German armored division to assist in the defense of Tripoli. Mussolini reluctantly accepted the assistance and things moved quickly from here. On February 6, Adolf Hitler summoned one of his favourite generals to see him. After giving “a detailed account of the situation in Africa,” Hitler informed Erwin Rommel that Rommel “had been recommended to him as the man who would most quickly adapt himself to the altogether different conditions of the African theatre.”⁷ Rommel was elated with his new appointment and wrote to his wife, Lucie-Maria, that evening apologizing for cutting short his leave. “Things are moving fast,” he informed her. “The new job is very big and important.”⁸

Things were certainly moving fast. On February 11, Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel arrived in Rome to discuss military arrangements. Only three days later, the first German units arrived in Tripoli and were immediately dispatched to the front. They would eventually become the famed Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK). The timing was crucial. Just as the British were winding down their operations and diverting their forces to meet other commitments, “a new and formidable factor had entered the desert war.”⁹ It would soon be the British forces’ turn to be surprised and it began the period for them that David Fraser called “the habit of defeat.”¹⁰ On February 16, just two days after their arrival, the Germans were in action against the depleted British forces and Rommel had taken command of the battle front. At the end of March, despite the reluctance of his Italian allies and in defiance of orders from the German Oberkommondo des Heeres (Army High Command), Rommel launched a raid in force against the British positions in Libya. It turned into much more than that. Rommel wrote to his wife on April 3 that their attack had met with “dazzling success” and that the British forces were “falling over each other to get away.”¹¹ It was true. By April 10, the Axis forces had pushed the British back across the Egyptian border, leaving just the isolated Tobruk garrison holding out now eighty miles behind the frontline. By the end of April, the Axis were occupying all the old Italian positions along the frontier and had established a forward outpost at Halfaya Pass, ten miles inside Egypt. Axis casualties had been light and three British generals, including the Army commander Richard O’Connor, had been captured. Rommel and the Axis had clearly won this round of the “Benghazi Handicap” as the race across North Africa was now called. His success was as immensely satisfying to him as it was galling to his British opponents. He wrote to his wife that, “It’s wonderful to have pulled this off against the British.”¹² But there was a tactical thorn that threatened to prick his growing reputation. The town of Tobruk and its wide defended perimeter held out against the Axis. It was defended largely by the 9th Australian Division, which was determined not to lose it. As Barrie Pitt has written, Tobruk “was to prove a continual distraction to Rommel’s further ambition and his attempts to storm its defences were to cause him serious losses in both men and material during the months which followed.”¹³ It would cause considerable losses for the British forces, too.

While Tobruk was besieged, with its harbor providing a tenuous lifeline, three attempts were made by the British to drive the Axis forces back from the Libyan-Egyptian border and lift the siege. The British Army in these early years of the war was hampered by two serious flaws, both of them a legacy of the First World War. While the British Army had pioneered tank development in the 1914–18 war, it had then seriously neglected its development in the decades that followed. Tanks, many felt, were a marginal asset and were certainly unreliable. They were expensive and definitely not as likeable as horses. So it was then that “the British Army entered the Second World War without a coherent doctrine of armoured operations, and with little general understanding of how those operations might change the whole pattern of warfare.”¹⁴ It was a serious gap in the British Army’s warfighting doctrine, one that would be responsible for several disasters ahead and that would affect how the last Alamein battle would be fought. It was also the reason that the British failed to produce a quality tank during the war that could match those of the Germans. In response to the German challenge, “we produced tanks with too thin a skin or too feeble a weapon, or both.”¹⁵ It was not until mid-1942 during the Gazala battle that the M3 Grant provided the British with a tank that could match the best of the German tanks. Later in the year, the British received an even better US-designed M4 tank: the Sherman, which would eventually become the mainstay of British armored formations. The other flaw reflected the shadow of the barbed wire of the trenches of the Western Front. The defense, it was assumed, was the strongest and the wisest method of war. It also engendered, as the historian/soldier David Fraser admitted, “a spirit of caution and hesitancy [that] was never completely eradicated from all parts of the British Command.” But as Fraser acknowledged, often bold offensive moves can lead to fewer casualties when a cautious approach can accumulate many casualties for small gains.¹⁶

The first attempt to relieve Tobruk was the appropriately named Operation Brevity launched on May 15. The offensive began well. The British forces achieved a tactical surprise and initially captured the key border locations of Halfaya Pass, Sollum, and Fort Capuzzo. But the offensive was brought to an abrupt halt when the Axis forces launched spirited counterattacks and the British tanks encountered for the first time ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• · List of Maps
• · Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Eyes of the Whole World, Watching Anxiously
• 1 The Military Background
• 2 The First Battle: July 1942
• 3 “Drastic and Immediate” Changes
• 4 Alam Halfa: Rommel’s Last Attempt
• 5 Preparations and Plans
• 6 Attempting the Break-In: October 23–24
• 7 Slugging It Out
• 8 Operation Supercharge: The Breakthrough
• 9 Reflections and Reputations
• · Bibliography
• · Index