The Super Summary of World History - Alan Dale Daniel [190]
After the initial Italian assault in North Africa, British forces drove the Italians back through Libya and captured large numbers of troops and equipment. Mussolini was embarrassed, and it looked as if Britain would soon own North Africa from Egypt to Tunis. Unable to suffer this, Hitler sent a small force to help the Italians in 1940. From this decision the legendary Afrika Korps was born. Their leader, the intrepid General Erwin Rommel, went on the offensive right away. The Germans and their Italian partners soon pushed the English back into Libya, threatening their port redoubt at Tobruk. Back in London Churchill fumed while sending reinforcements, along with demands for new offensive efforts.
Rommel, one of the war’s great generals, consistently bewildered the British in North Africa. He commanded a small military force having so few good tanks it seems miraculous he won at all, much less for so long. The key was his tactical ability. Rommel attacked using combined arms methods mixed with surprise and just enough audacity. He positioned his antitank guns and artillery to support armored assaults. His anti-tank guns included the fearsome 88mm antiaircraft gun adapted to an antitank role. The 88mm could rapidly chew up any group of tanks, thus giving the Afrika Korps an edge in all engagements. On defense, he made the English run a gauntlet of antitank fire before engaging his armor. The English, never absorbing the gist of this, continually attacked without proper artillery or antitank support. Eventually, British General Montgomery used combined arms methods to beat Rommel, but the real key to Montgomery’s victories was overwhelming force. Hitler missed his chance to capture the Suez Canal by failing to reinforce Rommel long before El Alamein, but Hitler consistently refused to reinforce success and just as consistently reinforced failure.
The British took the offensive again in 1942, driving Rommel back toward his start points; but, even though outnumbered he was not to be out-generaled. He struck back at the first opportunity and drove the English east once again, this time conquering Tobruk in 1942. With the fall of Tobruk, Rommel captured some thirty-five thousand enemy troops and a first-rate port. Rommel was eager to press on to Cairo. Nevertheless, there was a rub—supplies.
Rommel’s superior was General Kesselring,[237] in charge of the entire Mediterranean theater of war, and he wanted to halt Rommel’s advance near Tobruk. Kesselring needed all available resources to assault Malta, a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, controlled by the British, and lying directly across Afrika Korps supply lines. This tiny island caused the Axis enormous problems because English subs and aircraft operating from there ravaged Rommel’s supply lines, often sinking one-half of the shipping bound for North Africa. The Italians worried about shipping losses and the Germans worried about the loss of supplies—especially fuel. The hardworking Allied code breakers knew the sailing time and course of Axis convoys traveling from Italy to North Africa, and this information allowed the despoiling of Italian shipping. (Think on what could happen if the Germans intercepted this much information about Allied convoys! Could one-half of the ships bound for Britain have been lost?)[238]
Rommel wanted Cairo, the key to Egypt, Suez, and perhaps the entire near east. Rommel’s reasoning was straightforward. The English were defeated and were on the run. A tight pursuit, pushing them hard, could result in breaking their army, thereby