Rommel in the Desert

Page 2 of 7

• 1. Man of promise
• 2. Surprise element
• 3. Battles of Gazala and El Alamein
• 4. Opponents' view
• 5. Lucky breaks
• 6. Ultimate failure
• 7. Find out more
• Print entire article

Surprise element

General Archibald Wavell, the senior British commander in Egypt, knew - through intercepted and decoded German radio transmissions - just how weak Rommel's force was when it arrived in Tripoli, and he calculated on having at least a few months to prepare before any German attack.

But Rommel attacked before the British were ready. And his lightning-fast offensive caught his opponents completely off balance. Very quickly the German forces, soon to be famous as the Afrika Korps, were established on the Egyptian frontier along with their Italian allies, while simultaneously besieging the Allied fortress of Tobruk in Libya. The camera loved Rommel, and Goebbels made sure that this victorious general now received plenty of attention from the German media.

'... his lightning-fast offensive caught his opponents completely off balance.'

Yet Rommel was unable to capture Tobruk, and during a series of swirling, bloody battles - codenamed Operation Crusader - in November 1941, he was eventually forced to retreat to his starting point at El Agheila. Much of the reason for this lay in the troubled field of Axis logistics.

The Axis supply lines were much shorter than those of the British, but virtually every Italian convoy to North Africa had to run the gauntlet of attacks from aircraft and submarines based at Malta. This difficult problem frustrated Rommel, but rather than accepting the reality of the situation, he simply blamed his Italian allies and his quartermasters.

Malta's stranglehold over the Axis supply lines was soon lifted when German airpower began to 'neutralise' the island and Rommel quickly bounced back on to the offensive, driving the British back to the Gazala line, just in front of Tobruk.

NextPrevious

Published: 2004-05-10