Chapter 48 Chapter Forty Seven

Global Waterloo III, Rommel (from Armin Von Long's "World Massacre") A twist of fate for Winston.In his memoirs, Churchill called the Battle of Alamein "the turning point of fate".In fact, it was an interesting example of an encounter, a desert reenactment of World War I tactics.The political double impact of Alamein and Operation Torch3 was undoubtedly serious.Just as the United States was cautiously getting involved in the European war at the western end of North Africa, the legendary "Desert Fox" was driven out of Egypt at the eastern end.The whole world was shocked.The morale of the Allies was boosted, the morale of Germany was low, and that of Italy was low.

Although the North African battlefield is extremely long and the battle is going on, it is a secondary battlefield after all.The Mediterranean strategy was the last chance to win the war, and once Hitler gave it up, the front was reduced to a costly and tragic skirmish; and when he threw large numbers of troops into Tunisia too , it turned into a military hemorrhage.Churchill did not change his nature, and spent more than twenty pages writing about the Battle of Alamein, while the narration of the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Guadalcanal only totaled about seven pages.The short-sightedness of history can be regarded as the pinnacle.

Churchill's Biggest Mistake First of all, Churchill's stupid interference with his army commander created this situation in North Africa, of course he didn't say a word about it. The British deserted their allies in the crisis at Dunkirk and fled themselves.France was untenable, so Mussolini threw Italy into war in 1940.Convinced that he could easily reap the spoils of two fallen empires, the Italian dictator invaded Egypt from the vast and arid territory of Libya.This situation is like a dog mistaking a wounded lion for a dead lion and biting it prematurely.Britain's air force and navy remained almost intact.The same goes for their Middle East Legion.They not only counterattacked from land and air, forcing the Italians to flee to the west, but also sent a small force to the south, taking Somalia and Ethiopia in one fell swoop, thus clearing obstacles for British maritime transportation in the Red Sea and the coast of East Africa.

At that time, the Italians were beaten to pieces on the Mediterranean coast.Wherever the British armored columns appeared, the Italians surrendered without a fight, although they were vastly outnumbered.It seemed that Britain was about to win the war in North Africa and reach the neutral French Tunisia.In other words, they have mastered the command of the sea and the air in the Mediterranean Sea, which will bring us extremely serious consequences. Although Hitler was preoccupied with planning the invasion of Russia, the chain of events prompted him to send an air force to Sicily and a small armored force to Tripoli to reinforce the collapsing Italian forces.This is how the immortal Rommel appeared.When he landed in Tripoli in February 1941, just as the Italian army was on the brink of disintegration, he was an unknown and inexperienced general of the armored forces.His 10,000-strong Afrika Korps alone could hardly hold back the rapidly approaching British army, but one of Churchill's most foolish moves of the entire war provided Rommel with a historic opportunity.

At that time, the foolhardy Mussolini was in trouble in Greece, but Hitler wanted to repair the Balkan countries first in order to attack Russia.On the face of it, we could very well invade Greece to stabilize the situation there.It was precisely because of Churchill's judgment that he ordered the victorious African troops to stop advancing, and forcibly dispatched four divisions with the strongest combat effectiveness to be shipped to Greece!His old Balkan madness had returned, for which he had embarrassed himself at Gallipoli during the First World War. During the two world wars, Churchill was possessed by a weird idea, which made him think that the many people who spoke various languages ​​and babbled in the Balkans, and the ruins left by the earlier Ottoman Empire The many small countries put together like a jigsaw puzzle on the wall will be coaxed and united to "rise up against Germany".This time his stupid actions caused Britain to experience another small Dunkirk withdrawal, failed miserably in Greece and Crete, and at the same time lost the opportunity to preserve North Africa.When the four divisions were defeated and returned to Libya, their equipment was in tatters and their energy was exhausted, but Rommel had gained a firm foothold, and the desert campaign continued.It would take two years of fierce fighting, the combined attack of the entire mighty British and American forces, to make up for the losses caused by Churchill's follies, and to recapture what Britain had already lost.

English translator's note: There is no great person who does not make mistakes.Churchill's move to Greece from North Africa was a miscalculation of timing.But Churchill didn't admit it in his bold and brilliant six-volume history of the Second World War.If one wants to have a clearer understanding of what happened then one has to read some of the works of others, including works like Long's. The Desert Battle in North Africa was a tug-of-war for a year and a half between the two seaport bases of Tripoli, Libya, and Alexandria, Egypt, 1,400 miles apart.It was a game of chasing each other in turn, first with the Afrika Korps and then with the British units, each stretching the supply lines for the attack, each retreating to base for lack of supplies.Rommel wrote: "The victory or defeat of the desert battle is decided by the munitions unit before the exchange of fire," which shows the key role of logistics supply in this battle.

Expose the southern flank at Erwin.Rommel's excellent desert tactics dominated.To the north is the Mediterranean Sea, and to the south is a vast desert area. Facing this endless exposed flank, the traditional land warfare rules are useless.It was with this flanking movement that Rommel scored victory after victory as he kept changing his maneuvers to dazzle his bewildered enemies. Yet the range of a desert army, like a fleet, depends on the amount of fuel, food, and water it can carry, and the equivalent amount of reserves required to return to base.Rommel was somewhat ignorant of this limitation as he went straight ahead; fortunately, his staff did not forget this.And Adolf.Hitler could never understand this.His mind was still that of an infantryman in the First World War.In Europe, where plentiful supply lines are taken for granted, our armies can be fed from occupied rich countries like France and Ukraine.Hitler couldn't imagine the scene of an armored column marching in a vast desert area where there was no grass.Although he was constantly watching newsreel films at High Command, the contents of these films did not leave any traces in his rigid mind.

I was present on two occasions when Rommel flew to the Führer's headquarters in East Prussia to request additional supplies.Goering was there once.The indifferent, bewildered eyes of these two politicians must have disgusted Rommel.Hitler reacted in exactly the same way both times, making wild jokes about the great general on the battlefield, calling him a "pessimist," promising better supplies, and expressing an enthusiastic belief that Rommel "doesn't matter I can handle anything that happens"; and then awarded him a medal. Göring intervened only once, when Rommel said that the British were using the power of the new American Tomahawk fighter-bombers.As soon as he touched his sore spot in the Luftwaffe, he laughed dryly and said, "Nonsense, the Americans can only make refrigerators and blades."

Rommel immediately retorted: "Marshal, Afrika Korps welcomes us with a large batch of these blades." But Rommel's bold words to these two big bosses were fruitless.In order to save Mussolini's face, the African battlefield was still commanded by Italy; but the Italians did not fulfill Mussolini's promise to provide more supplies quickly. Tobruk: Poisonous Victory June 1942, when Rommel went straight to Tobruk, marked the climax for us.This climax came at a time when Manstein had captured Sevastopol, and the number of enemy ships sunk by our submarines was skyrocketing, and the conquest of Tobruk thus shook the world.The British retreated steadily until they reached El Alamein in Egypt, only eighty miles from Alexandria.The spoils of war in Tobruk were plentiful—oil, food, tanks, guns, ammunition—in quantities only the enemy could have, but we never had.Exhausted and out of ammunition and food, the Afrika Korps, like a starved lion, catches a gazelle and devours it, and then regains its strength and flourishes.Rommel asked to authorize him to take advantage of the victory to win a decisive victory.Hitler gave him the green light.Advance to Suez and even to the Persian Gulf I In those days there was an air of excitement and intoxication in the map room.I vividly remember the pale, swollen Führer with his arms erect on the map table of North Africa—a proud gesture of his—and wearing presbyopic glasses the public had never seen before, stretching out A short, stubby white hand, trembling slightly, quickly crossed Suez, Palestine and Iraq from Tobruk, and pointed directly at the mouth of the Euphrates.Unfortunately, the Führer routinely sweeps the armed forces with a wave of his arms.He was bored with logistics.He either brushed off specific nagging supply issues, or yelled and intimidated generals who pushed him too hard with such trivial matters.Because sometimes his formidable strength of will worked miraculously, he was in the habit of making demands that could not be fulfilled.

This time he really asked Rommel to do an impossible thing, because he used the fall of Tobruk as an excuse to cancel the "Operation Hercules" plan to take Malta.The island base of Malta is a small but strong fortress, just across Rommel's supply line, a hundred miles from Sicily.Mussolini wanted to occupy the island.But Hitler had been hesitating for a year because he was concentrating on the Eastern Front, and now he's letting it go.This is a serious mistake.Malta's blocking role is endless.Every tank, every munitions ship sunk weakened Rommel's strength.Hitler was convinced that the Luftwaffe bombing could render Malta immobile.But the British patched up the airstrip, and brought in more planes; under cover of convoys, more submarines slid in, and the garrison was supplied.

The battle of Tobruk convinced Hitler and Mussolini that Rommel was superhuman and could be invincible and invincible with his bare hands, and that his complaints about supply were nothing but the capricious rage of a leading heroine .The pressure to supply him was also relieved.As Rommel advanced on Alamein, and a failed attack in late August, the looting of Tobruk gradually signaled that supplies were still not coming.His great fame brought him into a corner. The loss of Tobruk, the British gathering force, had just the opposite effect on the British side. Churchill was in Washington, and Roosevelt asked him what help he needed.Churchill, who had never been shy, asked for three hundred Sherman tanks.This tank is the newest weapon in the US military.Over the objections of the military, Roosevelt acceded to the request and added an additional hundred Grant tanks, many new anti-tank guns, and other supplies.A large convoy of tens of thousands of urgent convoys immediately set off and sailed to Egypt via the Cape of Good Hope.The convoy unloaded in September, and that convoy alone carried more arms and supplies than the Afrika Korps had for the Battle of El Alamein.At the time, the British were also vigorously rearming Montgomery from the Mediterranean.Moreover, the oil refineries in Persia and the reserve forces stationed in Palestine can be used at any time. In fact, it's not a contest anymore.Rommel was criticized for this, saying that he should have withdrawn his troops from Alamein earlier to avoid this tough battle, because the power assembled by Britain was becoming more and more amazing. Translator's note: Long here has compiled a table showing that the British outnumbered tanks, planes and troops at the Battle of Alamein was more than five to one.Although the figures listed in the British records may not be reliable, the comparison of the strengths of the two sides is indeed true. But Rommel couldn't go away.His logistics situation was so bad, the Supreme Command was so desperate to save him, and the damage caused by the Malta blockade was so great, in fact, Afrika Korps did not even have the gasoline needed to cross Libya.Rommel could only stand still and prepare for battle, exhausting all his gasoline and fighting to the death.After Alamein is Alexandria, a much richer supply base than Tobruk, and beyond that is Suez, which is still beckoning to him from afar.He had thwarted the British many times, and his patience with them was well known.Fight another battle, win another victory, and things are still promising! Alamein is a solid position that the British have operated for a long time, with strong fortifications and dense mines.The forty-mile battle line stretched from the coast to the Katara Depression, where the cliffs below lay a vast expanse of salt marsh and quicksand two hundred feet below the sea.This terrain was ideal for the state of mind of the British High Command during the First World War, and Rommel's desert tactics were useless here. Rommel laid extensive mines along the entire front to a depth of nine miles, mostly captured from the British.He fortified on the high ground, saving fuel and ammunition.He pleaded, argued, even lost his temper for more supplies, and waited for the enemy to attack.But his opponent Bernard.Montgomery was in no hurry.Montgomery was impassioned and stern when he opened his mouth, but he was extremely cautious when formulating plans and directing operations.Eisenhower once called him an excellent "step-by-step commander."Montgomery must prepare for this step-by-step operation against Rommel. Erwin.Rommel was already sick, and his health could not last.He took sick leave to fly back to Germany.He was still in the hospital when the battle broke out, while the Anglo-American Armada sailed the seas for French North Africa. Allah was full of war. On a moonlit night in October, Montgomery attacked.A thousand cannons fired densely, and the shells poured down like a platoon at the battle of Verdun; then the infantry moved in waves through the minefields to seize the forward positions; mine sappers cleared the mines yard by yard along the longitudinal narrow minefields; The tank moved slowly behind them.The war had the legitimacy of a Sandhurst field exercise: a dense, unimaginative, relentless operation.Montgomery had superiority in men, shells, and steel, and he did not want to outmanoeuvre.Our troops and several excellent Italian divisions concealed themselves in deep trenches along the entire line and fought tenaciously.By daylight, the attack was halted in minefields and surrounded by heavy anti-tank fire. Hitler ordered the "Desert Fox" to be discharged from the hospital and flew back to Alamein to continue commanding operations.This disparity in strength between the two sides fought fiercely for a week.Just as he did not care about human life and material resources in World War I, Montgomery also invested a large number of soldiers and tanks, but still failed to break through the defense line.Rommel fought back brilliantly, spreading his dwindling and few tanks around.In fact, before each counterattack, he had to count the number of shells and count the number of gasoline tanks. Churchill anxiously awaited news of the breakthrough in London.He was going to order the churches all over England to ring the victory bell, the first victory bell in this war; likewise, Mussolini flew to Libya in July—with his entourage, white horse, and Fully outfitted - for the grand entrance into Alexandria.But the days passed and the victory bells were temporarily cancelled.The relentless fact was that the Afrika Korps had held off Montgomery's offensive.In both Alexandria and London there was growing concern that the fighting might have to be withdrawn, a desert stalemate like that on the Western Front in 1916. But Rommel's consumption was too great, his tank army was wiped out, and his artillery shells were almost all used up.He had no air support; the RAF could bomb him at will.With no tanks to drain his gas, he can now use the leftovers to run trucks and bring troops back to Libya.He decided to do so, but he made the grave mistake of telegraphing Hitler to ask permission to retreat.Of course, the answer came immediately: stand firm at all costs, never step back, our army must write a new and glorious page in German history, etc., etc. This telegram delayed the retreat of the loyal Rommel by a full forty-eight hours and forced him to abandon one of their Italian infantry divisions in order to save the African Army.Two days ago, he could have withdrawn all his troops, but now he only has one priority, and he must first preserve his strike force.Montgomery moved slowly in pursuit, and the "Desert Fox" retreated smoothly to Libya and Tunisia. Such was the truth about the much-vaunted "turning point of fate" at the Battle of Alamein. By October 1942, the Afrika Korps was almost on the verge of total collapse, deprived of supplies due to criminal malpractice by the domestic authorities.Montgomery, after an unprecedentedly intimidating preparation, aimed the pistol of the Eighth Army at the temple of the weary Rommel and pulled the trigger—a miss.The desert fox jumped and ran away, and that's the main thing that happened. After the British and American troops landed, the facts fully proved that the supplies urgently needed at that time, including troops, tanks, fuel, aircraft, and anti-tank guns, could be shipped in large quantities at any time, but it was too late now.When the sensitive political nerves of Hitler and Mussolini were stabbed, they rushed the entire army to Tunisia by sea and air, and gradually assembled nearly 300,000 troops.Had such reinforcements been provided to Rommel in July, it would have allowed German forces to reach the Persian oil fields and India.Rommel shrugged off the distracted pursuers, crossed the North African continent in a pitched battle, and assumed command of the Tunisian pocket, disrupting the timetable of the Allied Mediterranean strategy.But Suez and the dream of going forward from Suez are gone forever. "Operation Torch": Brief Introduction The North African campaign jointly conducted by the United Kingdom and the United States, even before Rommel's debut, seemed not necessarily brilliant.The Bizerte-Tunisian seaport area bordering the Strait of Sicily is the key.This area is only a hundred miles from Europe.The British wanted to land near this area and make a quick assault on the target.However, facing the test of the first battle, the US army did not dare to venture deep into the Strait of Gibraltar.What will happen to the Luftwaffe?How likely is Spain to intervene?Because it was able to cut off the supply lines of this expeditionary force.These are the doubts in the minds of Yankee generals who have no actual combat experience.They wanted to make a discreet landing in the rough Atlantic waters of Casablanca, a bulge on the outer edge of Africa.From there only a rugged railway line connected the key operational areas.The final compromise was to land at Casablanca, also to hold beachheads in the Strait of Gibraltar, but even these beachheads were still too far from the main objective.Axis reinforcements crossed the Mediterranean by sea and air and captured Tunisia first. Yet winning the race to Tunisia was only a trap.Falling into this trap was a big mistake of the two dictators.We have the entire fortress of Europe to defend, and we are pitted against a strong and intact American industrial system, which is ultimately impossible to win.The troops we sent to Tunisia were doomed to be captives in a big pocket, as the Sixth Army did at Stalingrad.Not even a general of Rommel's stature, even though he shattered the Allies' plans for a quick victory.The North African campaign was the most senseless defeat suffered under our most eminent general; a disaster for the Führer's war policy. Roosevelt's Victory Roosevelt got what he needed from the landings of Operation Torch; a domestic morale-boosting victory, a space for recruits he hadn't heard the gunshots and button-flashing generals to commit at minimal cost. The front where they made their first mistake (which they made quite a few) and the second where they were able to get over the Russians.Marshall correctly predicted that this little drama would drag out the battle for at least a year, but Roosevelt, a politician, reaped the benefits. The easy victory of "Operation Torch" bound Spain to a neutral position, made Turkey afraid to act rashly, and at the same time prompted Mussolini's early downfall. Roosevelt's success in French North Africa came at a cost of some 20,000 Americans killed or captured, plus less than half that number of British casualties.If you add this figure to the casualties in the four-year war that gave America virtual world supremacy, the American combat death toll on all fronts is less than three hundred thousand—about as many as we lost at Stalingrad. Equally—while the Russians lost about eleven million soldiers, we probably lost four million, and Franklin cannot but be said in that respect.Roosevelt's Total War is a masterpiece of malevolent genius. Churchill had never been able to ring his victory bell, and Rommel had knocked Eighth Army down before retreating.Moreover, the United States' unarmed troops are about to launch "Operation Torch", and Churchill may be worried that there will be a big mess there.In short, he thinks it is better to be cautious.Therefore, even as a defeated general, Rommel blocked the bells of the English church. Translator's note: Since Rommel sang such praises to General Rommel, it may be necessary to quote a line from Rommel's "Memoirs"/'The Battle of Alamein, which began on October 23, 1942, Turned the tide of the war against us in Africa.And in fact may have marked a turning point in the entire Great War. "Obviously, Rommel was as 'short-sighted' as Churchill on this point. Rommel is an important and controversial figure in any discussion of military ethics.He was involved in a plot by generals to assassinate Hitler in 1944.Most of the generals remained servilely loyal to Hitler, and the Führer sent two of them to end Rommel's life.They put forward two options for him to choose: to have a public trial for treason, or to die quietly by taking poison (publicly announced that he died of heart failure), and then hold a "heroic funeral" for him to ensure the safety of his family.He died after taking poison and was sent to the hospital.As promised, Hitler declared a day of national mourning for the great "Desert Fox". Rommel fought to the last breath for Hitler.When he was killed, he was dying, disease and a serious car accident took away his health.He knew about the concentration camps where the Jews were exterminated.He considered the Führer to be an amateur in military command.He lamented the wasting of life and property in a lost war.He hated all the Nazis who sacrificed what was left of Germany in order to prolong the power they had seized.Still he fought on until he was helpless; then swallowed the poison sent by the Führer through his robe. Rommel's career provides some objective lessons for all those who join the military, how to choose between the unswerving loyalty that is difficult to draw and the unforgettable stupidity. As for Rommel's statement that "Americans cannot afford losses on the battlefield", I have heard too many times from Europeans.A Russian general once told Eisenhower that his way of clearing minefields was to send a few brigades across them.We Americans, if possible, don't do that.But in the Civil War we also fought some of the bloodiest battles in history, and the South lived on grass and acorns after the Armistice.No one can tell what the Americans can do when they are desperate. Our moral climate does appear to be in decline—I’m writing this in the “counter-cultural” era of 1970—but my elders also issued a message in the “hot-blooded youth” era of the twenties. With the same sigh, I myself may be more or less a part of that group of young people.