Germany Wins!

Hitler wins! The Mediterranean Strategy for winning World War Two Chapter One: North Africa February 1941 Erwin Rommel stepped out of the Junkers aircraft and squinted in the blinding Tunisian sun. He was the first of many more German soldiers to come to North Africa to rescue the failed imperial dreams of Benito Mussolini who had just suffered a massive defeat at the hands of a much smaller British army. Rommel mused to himself over the incompetence of the Italians. How could an army of over 250,000 be defeated by a small British force of only 31,000 men? But this was why he was here; he was Hitler’s fire brigade and trouble shooter. He would soon make things right, he thought It was February 1941 and the Italian colonial “empire” was a total mess. At the same time as they were getting their lunch handed to them in the Libyan Desert, the British mounted attacks on the East African colonies of Somaliland, Ethiopia and Eritrea. In less than four months the Italian forces in these provinces surrendered leaving the Italians with a presence in only Tunisia. The Italian invasion of Greece was turning into another fiasco with the small but efficient Greek army throwing the invaders back. These disasters infuriated Mussolini while a skeptical Hitler laughed in amusement at his allies’ military forces ineptitude. The war had proceeded nicely in the favor of the Axis who conquered Poland, France, Belgium, Denmark, and Norway and had left Britain isolated from the continent. However, Hitler would not let his friend lose the last foothold in North Africa and convened a top level meeting of OKH generals in January 1941 to determine a strategy and an order of battle for German forces being sent to the rescue. At this point in the war, Hitler had also initiated planning for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia and he and the general staff were consumed by the myriad of details this involved. North Africa and Greece were backwaters by comparison and the general consensus was to let the Italians’ flounder. “Why divert forces to these strategically unimportant theaters when massive numbers of troops would be needed to deal with the sheer size of an invasion of Russia?” asked Hitler’s favorite toady Keitel. The room went silent as all eyes went to Hitler in order to see what his reaction and direction was going to be. It didn’t bode well for a general to disagree with the Fuhrer and careers and lives could be lost quite quickly if you did. Hitler merely stared at his collection of generals impassively and said nothing to add to the tension. Suddenly, a voice from the shadows spoke out. “This war is about obtaining resources for the Reich so we can grow and expand our living space. Oil is the key resource and we don’t have much but the British and Russians do.” The hawk like nose of General Eric Von Manstein protruded into the light of the conference table as he leaned forward to make his point. He was the architect of the brilliant plan to invade France and it was spectacularly successful. So successful, that senior officer jealousy had dismissed him from the general staff and put him in command of just an infantry corps. It was only Hitler’s gratitude that interceded on his behalf and placed him back on the general staff much to others consternation. “If we control the Middle East and the Caucasus we will control much of the world’s known supplies of oil and there is only one way to do this. We must drive the British from North Africa, attack the Middle East and then lunge into the Caucasus when we invade Russia. The room was silent and no one dared speak as all eyes went to Hitler again. Hitler said nothing at first, preferring to heighten the nervousness of his generals while some of them were quietly hoping that he would tear apart Manstein’s idea. “I see you understand something my other generals do not Herr Manstein,” Hitler said in a playful tone that had some heads lowered. “And what is that my Fuhrer?” Manstein calmly replied. “Economics,” Hitler barked. “It is the real reason we will grow and succeed in this war and oil will be the key!” he triumphantly announced, not the least bit concerned that he had appropriated Manstein’s idea for himself as he also did for the attack on France. Manstein did not care about who got credit, he only wanted to win and now that he had Hitler’s backing he was free to develop his plans. “We will begin to develop plans immediately to throw the British out of North Africa, conquer the Middle East and include an attack from the South on the Caucasus as an additional element of our attack on Russia. I want this completed in one month and ready for my personal review,” Hitler ordered his staff. “One more thing,” Hitler paused. “General Von Manstein, you are promoted to Field Marshall and will command the entire theater of operations. General Rommel will be in charge of the German forces and Marshall Graziani of the Italian army will report directly to you.” The room bustled with urgent movement as Hitler strode confidently from the room. Manstein revealed a slight smile knowing inside that Hitler would give him the resources he needed and that his plan would succeed. Rommel wasted no time after arriving in Tunisia by quickly ushering the first German unit to arrive, the 5th Light division (later upgraded and renamed the 21st Panzer division) up to the crumbling front held by the Italians. One fact boded well for Rommel as he now faced a depleted Desert Force composed of rookie Australian and Indian divisions with very little armor. The original, more experienced Desert Force units had been withdrawn to refit or be sent to help the Greeks against the Italian invasion. He also was due to receive another panzer division, the 15th as well as the 90th light mechanized division. He immediately began to re-supply and reorganize his demoralized Italian troops with little interference from the lethargic Italian high command. A new Italian armored division Ariete had also arrived and by the end of March he was ready to strike. On March 31st German panzer divisions struck and overran 8th Army’s forward unit the under strength 2nd Armored brigade at El Agheila. The Italian Ariete armored division along with several foot bound, slow marching infantry divisions followed the coast road towards Benghazi while the German panzers swept into the desert towards Mechili and Msus in order to shorten their route to the key objective port of Tobruk and possibly cut the retreating British off as well. The British were harassed from the air by the Luftwaffe (German air force) and abandoned equipment traced the line of retreat. The British rushed the new 9th Australian infantry division to Tobruk who dug in just in time to repel a premature German attack. Meanwhile Rommel’s spearheads bypassed Tobruk and continued to chase the British back to their original start point and fortifications in Egypt. It was a stunning success but marred by two major problems. Not capturing Tobruk meant that Rommel’s supplies had to be shipped to Benghazi and driven overland hundreds of miles to the front. The second issue was British control of the Mediterranean Sea lanes with supply convoys constantly being attacked by the Royal Navy and aircraft and submarines based in Malta. Without a constant stream of supplies Rommel would not be able to do much more than go on the defensive but before Manstein could begin to work his magic another significant event changed the landscape completely.