Inferno - Max Hastings [242]
The British Army was vastly cheered by the sense of redemption that accompanied its arrival in Tunis. After almost three years of hard campaigning, it had achieved a victory which won enthusiastic applause at home. Despite the overblown acclaim lavished on Montgomery, the Eighth Army’s commander had shown himself a steady professional. His record was tarnished by failure to destroy Rommel’s army after Alamein, the sluggishness of his subsequent pursuit and some important failures against German defensive positions. British lieutenant general Sir Frederick Morgan, a bitter critic, asserted that “the pursuit of Rommel across Africa was in the nature rather of a stately procession than of a rout of a defeated army.” But Montgomery had proved himself the ablest British general of the war thus far, with a shrewd awareness of the limitations of his citizen army.
The North African campaign established the reputations of the Allied commanders who would dominate the big western campaigns in Europe—“Monty,” Alexander, Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley. It was their good fortune to face the Germans when the Allies had substantial material superiority and the Wehrmacht had suffered debilitating losses in Russia. There is no reason to suppose that any of the battlefield stars of 1942–45 would have fared better than their French and British predecessors, had they borne responsibility for the earlier campaigns of the war. The first requirement of a general eager to forge a great reputation is to lead an army with sufficient strength to overcome its opponents.
By May 1943, after the Germans’ epic defeat at Stalingrad and expulsion from North Africa, there was no doubt among the Allied nations, and little among the Axis peoples, about the outcome of the war. Lt. Vicenzo Formica, whose hopes of desert victory were so high on 1 November 1942, reflected wretchedly on the disillusionment that had followed: “I think back with pride to those far-off days, and my heart bleeds on contemplating the reality of life around us today. I am a prisoner in a concentration camp [his description of his POW camp] in the middle of North America.” Yet, if the tide was now running strongly for the Allies, great uncertainties persisted about the course and duration of the war. It seemed plausible that the Nazi empire might survive until 1947 or 1948. While Churchill ordered the church bells of Britain rung for victory in North Africa, much more pain and hardship lay ahead before the Allies would enjoy real cause for celebration.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE BEAR TURNS: RUSSIA IN 1943
IN 1943, while the Western Allies were still conducting modest operations in the Mediterranean, the Soviet Union inflicted on Germany a series of massive defeats, causing irreparable losses of men, tanks, guns and aircraft. The superiority of Stalin’s armies grew alongside the confidence of his generals. Soaring weapons output increased the Red Army’s advantage: the Russians were building more than 1,200 T-34s a month, while the Germans produced only 5,976 Panthers and 1,354 Tigers, their best tanks, during the whole war. After the triumphs of the winter, Stalin’s people had no doubt of final victory. Nonetheless, until the end they were obliged to fight hard and to accept massive casualties.
The plight of Russia’s civilians remained dire, with millions nudging starvation even when the tide of war ebbed from their immediate vicinity. In January 1943, some people who had sent their families out of Moscow when the city seemed doomed now brought them back, but Lazar Brontman was deterred by continuing shortages of fuel, electricity and rations. “Everyone talks incessantly of food,” the journalist wrote. “We recall the menus of dinners gone by, and if somebody dines in richer and more fortunate company, he afterwards torments others with details of the dishes served.” In the printworks of Pravda, it was necessary to remove lightbulbs as soon as the daily edition was dispatched to prevent them from being stolen. Amid