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Dan Snow's History Hit
Rommel's Defeat in North Africa
01:01:47
Discover how the Allies turned the tide against Rommel and why Tunisia’s fall was as pivotal as Stalingrad.
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- [00:00]
Dan Snow
Hello folks, Dan Snow here. I am throwing a party to celebrate 10 years of Dan Snow's history. I'd love for you to be there. Join me for a very special live recording of the podcast in London in England on 12th September to celebrate the 10 years. You can find out more about it. Get tickets with the link in the show notes. Look forward to seeing you there.
- [00:27]
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- [01:00]
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- [01:34]
Dan Snow
Hi there everybody. Welcome to Dan Snow's history hit. Have I got a treat for you. If you're looking for drama and impact importance in the first half of the Second World War, first half of World War II, look no further than North Africa. In fighting that stretched across a continent. The North African theater was one of the most fiercely contested and it could have proved really very decisive. I think if Hitler had ever seen its potential. Italian dictator Mussolini did. He was determined to control the Mediterranean. He wanted to expand on Italy's colonial holdings in northeast Africa. He believed that that could provide a gateway to the Middle east and beyond. The Allies knew how important it was too. If North Africa fell, so too probably with the Middle east with its oil, that great fulcrum of Eurasia gone might be the Allies hope of victory. There are breakneck advances and retreats. There are legendary desert tank duels between Rommel and Montgomery and Patton. Well not between Patton Montgomery, but sort of, but you know what I mean. There are daring Allied landings and Operation Torches, the Americans first entry into the war in the West. The campaign was brutal and fast moving and ultimately decisive. The climax of it all was in Tunisia. Tunis became the last Axis stronghold in Africa and its capture in 1943 wasn't just a military win, it was one of the great page turns in the Second World War. It marked the collapse of Hitler's ambitions in Africa. It reinforced the sense that the tide was turning and it opened the door for the Allied invasion of Europe. In this episode, we're going to be looking at how the Allies turned the tide in the desert war and why the fall of Tunis really is just as important as Stalingrad in Russia and Guadalcanal in the Pacific. Very happy to say that. Joining us is Saul David. He's a best selling military historian, novelist and broadcaster. You know who he is, He's a friend of the podcast, been on many times. He's been on history hit TV many times too. And he'll be on it again in the future. He's author of Victory in Africa, just published. Here he is. Enjoy.
- [03:46]
Saul David
Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the King. No black white unity till there is first some black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And liftoff. And the shuttle has cleared the tower.
- [04:03]
Dan Snow
Saul, thanks very much for coming on the pod.
- [04:05]
Saul David
Delighted to be here. Thank you for the invite.
- [04:08]
Dan Snow
First of all, as I was describing the introduction, why is North Africa north and East Africa? Why is Winston Churchill worrying about that at all, say in 1940? Give me the political geography, the whole global strategic geography. Why does it matter?
- [04:20]
Saul David
One word, Suez Canal. I mean, we know that that's two words. Two words, one place, two words. Yeah. I mean, 10 years later we'll go to war against the Egyptians for control of the Suez Canal. But to go back to the Second World War, this is absolutely vital because it's a line of communic, not just to the oil fields of the Middle east, but to the rest of the British Empire. And it's the quick way back to Europe if you're transporting supplies or troops one way or another. And of course a lot of troops are eventually going to come and fight in the Mediterranean. Europe more generally that come from the Indian garrison. So it's an absolutely vital lifeline. If the Axis forces can get hold of it, on the other hand, they can interdict, basically cut the Empire in two. But more importantly, they can get their hands on oil. I mean, people forget one of the sort of key things for the Germans all the way through the Second World War and the Italians, of course, when they're still in the war, is getting their hands on enough oil so that their motorized forces, particularly for the Germans, can actually keep operating plasti oil fields in Romania. Become a key strategic target. But actually they should have been more joined up, thinking Rommel's very much of the opinion, yes, let's get to the oil. But Hitler, where we meet in the other way, coming down from the Caucasus, possibly, but it really should have been an objective for them.
- [05:38]
Dan Snow
But as you're saying that, I was thinking the many strange decisions he makes is the Middle east should have been a much bigger priority than the Soviet Union. And from there, you've got into British India. You really are bursting out of your European prison, aren't you? Why did Hitler not put a bigger premium on that?
- [05:54]
Saul David
Because he's thinking in terms of continental power, not sea power. And that's basically the difference between continental Europe and all the powers that are there, particularly powers without a huge coastline or like the Germans, a coastline that has easy access to the seas. They have to come through the Baltic. There's easy to interdict. The Germans are relatively easy to interdict them until they get, of course, a Western Europe coastline. The British and the Americans, on the other hand, our whole mindset is about sea power and, of course, ultimately in the Second World War, air power. And it's really interesting when you look at the strategy, which no doubt we'll come on to when the Americans do come into the war proper, as to how they're actually going to finish off Germany. Churchill, as someone who's born of the British Empire, is thinking very much in terms of restricting Germany through blockade, through air power, through the gradual wasting away of German resources. And so, interestingly enough, is Roosevelt. But a lot of these senior American commanders are thinking, no, let's get straight into there. Let's get into continental Europe and let's finish off the Germans as quickly as possible.
- [06:58]
Dan Snow
Drive a tank to Berlin, for God's sake.
- [06:59]
Saul David
How hard could it be?
- [07:01]
Dan Snow
Yeah, okay, we may come onto that. But let's talk about north and northeast Africa at the outbreak of war. Obvious friction. Italy enters the war, summer in 1940. The Italians control Libya.
- [07:11]
Saul David
They control Libya. Have done since 1912. They've also got their hands on Abyssinia. Very controversial campaign in the 1930s. And they're really looking to join up those two colonies. What's in between? Well, these vital areas that we've already discussed, Egypt, which is not a British colony, it's not even a British protectorate anymore. It's a former protectorate, but we do still have a sizable garrison there, and that's really the key. Why? Because we need to control the Suez Canal. The Italians are very much thinking in terms of Mussolini's thinking in terms of a new Roman Empire. I'll control the whole of the North African coast, join up those two bits of the Italian Empire as existed at that time, and I'm gonna become a new Caesar. I mean, it sounds a bit mad, but that was pretty much in his mind. And he's also thinking, if I joined the war in June 1940 at a time when France and Britain are already beaten, or at least in his mind they were beaten, how hard can it be really, to knock the British out of North Africa?
- [08:09]
Dan Snow
Well, it turns out it was a little bit harder than he thought, because we've got these campaigns, haven't we, that we won't go through them all in extraordinary detail. But the British enjoy stunning success against the Italians at this point of the war.
- [08:20]
Saul David
Yeah, the initial Italian attack by their 10th army, under a general called Graziani, has a lot of success. Initially, they invade Egypt and the British forces there just pull back in front of them. Why? Because they're heavily outnumbered, probably by about 5 to 1. But the British and Commonwealth troops there, they've got some very good people. They've got what becomes the famous desert rats, the 7th Armored Division, also the 4th Indian Division. These are tough formations, well trained, with reasonable kit. They didn't have the best kit. They didn't have any. What are going to be the kind of standard tank in the Allied forces, the Shermans. They didn't come into play until 1942. They had Valentines and various other tanks. Tanks. And they were better than anything the Italians had had. So that when the Italians began to move into Egypt, they were strung out on long supply lines, eventually built a series of forts, which tells you everything you need to know. That is not the most aggressive move. It's a very defensive move. The plan, of course, is to build up their forces. And it's at this point that the commander of the Western Desert Force, a man called Richard o', Connor, actually only recently a major general, I mean, he's not that senior in rank, takes the opportunity to launch a series of probing attacks, so called Operation Compass as it was, that become so successful isolating these various Italian garrisons, that they just keep attacking. And in essence, Dan, the Italians fold. This is one of the reasons they have such a poor reputation. And it is interesting when you look at their performance, particularly some of their armoured formations later on in the war. They do do very well and they don't deserve the reputation of being always in reverse gear. But this is where it comes from, because a much smaller force of about 36,000 defeats, a force of about 200,000, 130,000 captured. So that by February 1941, they are on the brink of kicking the Italians out of Africa. There's only one major port to capture and that's Tripoli. And that's the last foothold the Italians have in North Africa.
- [10:17]
Dan Snow
That's astonishing. So that's an appalling reverse for Mussolini and his ambitions. And so the Brits and Commonwealth troops advance all the way along that coast. They're deep into Libya. What happens now?
- [10:28]
Saul David
Well, o' Connor was all for, you know, just let me off the leash, let me keep going. Almost certainly he would have taken Tripoli. But what intervenes, unfortunately considered to be one of the great strategic errors that Churchill makes in the Second World War, his decision to support Greece. They've got intelligence that the Germans are likely to invade Greece in the not too distant future. The British have already helped the Greeks repel the Italians who are trying to come in through Albania. But there's very much a kind of sense that if the Germans get hold of Greece, they are going to dominate the whole of the Balkans. And there's a danger this will bring the Turks in on the side of the Germans. And that's something you see all the way through the war. Churchill's desperately trying to get the Turks in on our side, unlike in the First World War, of course, when they were on the Central Powers side. So that's pretty much his thinking. It wasn't just a question of protecting Greece, it's a question of influencing the whole of the Balkans and Turkey. And it backfires horribly because the 50,000 strong army that's sent to Greece, including a number of the veterans who had been fighting in Oconnors force, are badly defeated by the Germans. They withdraw, leave about 14,000 men behind, they move back to Crete, first of all. And we know what happens there because the huge German airborne operation in May 1941, although the Germans lose a lot of people trying to capture the island, they eventually overwhelm a bigger defending force. So it's a total disaster. Meanwhile, Oconnors lost the opportunity to take Tripoli because so many of his best troops were taken away.
- [12:00]
Dan Snow
Some of those units had a wild ride, didn't they? They retreat into Egypt, they then burst into all the way to western Libya, then they advanced into Greece, then been pushed out of Greece. They'd done a lot of miles.
- [12:11]
Saul David
Yeah, they're doing a lot of miles. I mean, Churchill's seeing the big picture, to be fair to him, he's seeing the big broad strategic picture. I mentioned Turkey, the whole of the Balkans haven't fallen under German sway, although they're about to. And remember, context of the time, this is early 1941. Dan, we know the Americans are going to come in late 1941 because we're historians, but at the time he's scrabbling around for allies. He's scrabbling around for anything that can give him a foothold in the war against Germany. And it is understandable, I think when you see the big picture that he paused. It also appears to us because we know what happens next, a fatal error. Now the fatal error was compounded by the fact that Adolf Hitler, who had really very little interest in North Africa, we've already mentioned that he should have been aware of the importance of oil, of the need to take the Suez Canal, both in combating his enemies, but also in establishing a strong position for himself. But he never did. But what he did do in a desperate attempt to shore up the Italians and his fellow dictator Mussolini, who it might be strange to say he was quite fond of. I mean he didn't seem quite as an equal, but they were brothers in arms. The pact of steel. And so he sends one of his best generals, Rommel, with two divisions, a corps, the so called Africa Corps to north North Africa. And it's at that point that things begin to turn very nasty for the British and Commonwealth troops on the continent of Africa as opposed to what's just happened to them in Greece.
- [13:37]
Dan Snow
Because this is that drama of this campaign from that last little Italian toehold on the coast that just enough they've still got the port, they can insert those two divisions and Rommel goes on a bit of a rampage.
- [13:47]
Saul David
He does. I mean this is where you see Rommel at his best. Now we can debate long and hard the talents Rommel had. What he was an absolute genius at island tactical fighting and operations. In other words, okay, I've got an enemy against me, set up certain number of divisions, how am I going to defeat him? It was all about maneuver, surprise, appearing when you're least expected. And he'd done all this in the 1940 campaign when he commanded the so called Ghost Division, the seventh Panzer Division. It's interesting because he had no training as a Panzer commander. He wasn't one of those guys in.
- [14:19]
Dan Snow
The 90s, virtually wrote the manual infantry fight after World War I.
- [14:22]
Saul David
Exactly. Infantry attacks. He was a man who'd made his name fighting in the mountains in Italy in the First World War. He wins the Paula Merit the Blue Max, the equivalent of the top award, the Knight's Cross in the Second World War. He's a man who really understands how infantry soldiers fight, but he's also someone who can learn very quickly. To be fair, a lot of the tactics he's using in the First World War with infantry were similar to what he was doing with tanks. It's just that he can. Infiltration, infiltration. And he understood the shock. And it's absolutely classic kind of blitzkrieg warfare. If you appear when the enemy least expects, you've got a multiplying force there. The shock to their kind of. Of nerve center, their lines of communication, their ability to command, it outdoes anything you've got there in terms of actual material force. And he used exactly the same tactics in the desert and for a long time was very successful because if you're.
- [15:12]
Dan Snow
On the front line, you pick up the phone to your HQ and there's a German there, you panic, you just give up. Now, the fact is, it could just be one or two vehicles, but it just. At this point, you kind of go into a sort of paralysis.
- [15:22]
Saul David
Yeah. And he shows time and again that actually taking risks produces extraordinary results. The big problem he had is that for all his talent as a tactical and operational commander, he wasn't great on strategy. And what do I mean by that? Well, the whole big picture, which is that if I get to the Suez Canal, what's going to happen next? He often spoke about the possibility of joining up with German forces coming down through the Caucasus. My instinct is that this was a bit after the event, you know, this was 1943, 1944. He's looking back at what might have been. In reality, he's just driving forward, he's trying to get to the Suez Canal and he's not too concerned about logistics. A lot of the great commanders in history, as you well know, Dan, including, you know, my personal favourite, and that's the Duke of Marlborough, were absolutely detail oriented about making sure that you always have the supplies you need to do the job. Rommel was much more, let's defeat the enemy and let's see if the supplies can catch up after the event.
- [16:16]
Dan Snow
Cavalier.
- [16:17]
Saul David
And the biggest problem he had in the whole of North Africa is the more success he had and the deeper he went into Egypt, and he does eventually go very deep into Egypt prior to the Alamein battle. His lines of supply are getting further and further and further away, and this is causing increasing problems for the Italians in particular. Most of his supplies are coming through Italy. They're not being flown direct from Germany for obvious reasons. They're going down to the airfields down in Sicily and they're coming across with Italian shipping. And while on the one hand they did a pretty good job, the Italians at getting supplies across, it was never enough to satisfy this essential demand that Rommel had.
- [16:53]
Dan Snow
So rommel, in spring 1941, he advances, he gets to Tobruk, famous. And that would have helped because it's a big port. Quite useful to have a port and facilitate those supplies coming in.
- [17:01]
Saul David
Yeah, you could argue actually his failure to take to Brook in 1941. He does take it in 1942. His failure to take it in 1941. The famous siege that's finally relieved at the end of 1941 with Operation Crusader, which was one of Alconlex, the orc, as he was called, former Indian army officer, but very effective commander. History, I don't think has been that fair to him because of course he's relieved of command just before the famous Alamein battle, which I'm sure we'll come on to. But the Auk institutes a number of changes and proves to be a pretty effective commander. Operation Crusader finally relieves the siege.
- [17:37]
Dan Snow
We're now at the end of 1941.
- [17:38]
Saul David
End of 1941, and it's that crucial six or seven month period, I suspect, Dan, before the British and Commonwealth troops were able to build up their resources properly, which they do in 1942, particularly of course, after America comes into the war at the end of 1941, that was the real opportunity to defeat the British and Commonwealth troops in North Africa. And he doesn't take it partly because he, he fails to capture the port of Tobruk, which would have allowed him to bring his supplies much closer to the actual area of battle. Now ultimately he's hoping to catch Alexandria and that would have solved the problem thereafter. But he's got to get to Alexandria first. And standing in his way, as we will come onto, I know, is El Alamein. Meanwhile, in early 1942, having been pushed back by Operation Crusader, he then advances again. So this is a second kind of movement towards Egypt.
- [18:28]
Dan Snow
So Operation Crusader, Auchinlech, they do well, they push the Germans back into Libya, but then he's coming again. So early 1942, here comes the Axis again up that same road.
- [18:39]
Saul David
Yeah. And there is one really key moment during the battle for Gazala, which is in May, June of 1942, when we look like we've built a pretty strong defensive position and this is in Libya. We've got the port of Tobruk behind. But once that battle is lost, then it's lost because of some incredibly effective feints and you know, as we were discovering before, the so called left hook where he goes right round the southern defences of the Allies in the Gazala Line. This is known as the Battle of Gazala.
- [19:08]
Dan Snow
Deep into the desert.
- [19:09]
Saul David
Deep into the desert. Appearing when he's least expected. Although you might have thought they'd have caught the message by this point. Completely dislocates the Allies defensive system at that point forces a withdrawal back to Egypt, which uncovers Tobruk. Now all the Allies are thinking, well, of course Tobruk held out before. He can hold that again. It's got a garrison of about 35,000. But the Germans this time don't put it under siege, they attack directly. So Rommel launches his two Panzer divisions, the 15th and the 21st, and some of his very effective Italian motorised troops into a direct attack on what he sees as the weak spot in the Tobruk garrison. Tobruk was commanded by a guy called Klopper. Slightly unfortunate name a South African. There are South African troops there who haven't been there very long and they pretty much get the blame for the defeat, which happens very quickly. I mean, if you surrender a garrison of 30,000 plus Dan, that's not gonna go down well with your.
- [20:06]
Dan Snow
Look, I don't intend to. I don't know why you're looking at me like that. I feel like I'm.
- [20:09]
Saul David
It was the second worst Allied defeat in terms of numbers, British, British and Commonwealth defeat of the Second World War after Singapore. And we all know what Churchill thought about that. He happens to be in America when he gets news of Tobruk, trying to convince the Americans.
- [20:22]
Dan Snow
Not that long after Singapore, we should.
- [20:23]
Saul David
Say so, you know, just a few months later. I mean, if you think of the first six months of 1942, they have not gone well. And this final shock to the system is losing the Battle of Gazala and then To Brook Falls within a matter of days. Defeat is one thing, disgrace is another. Is what Churchill said about that. Admittedly he wrote about that after the event, but nevertheless, that would have been the way he was thinking at the time. The one good thing that came out of it was, as I say, he was in America at the time. And he convinces Roosevelt and the senior American chiefs, including Marshall, to donate 300 brand new Sherman Tax, which hadn't even been issued to the American armored forces. And you can imagine how irritated they were. But Roosevelt realized this is an emergency. And so they're sent very quickly to North Africa, going the long way round. Of course, they had to go all the way around and up through the Red Sea. This is one of the reasons why control of the Mediterranean is so important. And got there in time for the crucial battles to come.
- [21:22]
Dan Snow
Also, at what stage does Churchill persuade the Americans? Cause this is rather extraordinary as well, that what they really want to do, they've got global war, they're at war against Hitler and they're at war against the Japanese Pacific. Actually the best thing you could possibly do, one of the first things you should do is land on the west coast of North Africa. Yeah, it's not the obvious move.
- [21:41]
Saul David
Is wasn't the obvious move. Churchill had multiple factors in mind. He was aware that if the Western Allies went straight for northwest Europe, which was the Americans host, certainly the Chiefs of Staff. Marshal I mentioned, the US Army Chief of Staff had written a very detailed memorandum called the Marshall Memorandum. He came over to Britain in about March 1942 and they discussed what would happen next. Now, the agreement had been, since America entered the war, Germany first. In other words, we'll deal with Germany first, that's the bigger threat. And then we'll move on to Japan afterwards. In other words, we're going to devote most of our resources as we begin to build up our armed forces, the U.S. army. U.S. armed forces famously are absolutely minuscule at the start of the Second World War, but they are being built up through 1940 and 1941, even before America comes into the war. But most of the US Chiefs of Staff are convinced, let's go straight into northwest Europe. It's the quickest way to get to Berlin. Fortunately for the British, who were very much of the opinion, it's far too soon. The Germans are still too strong. We will be badly beaten if we go too early. And there are other things we can do to support the Soviets. So one of the key, key drivers for the Americans getting into France in 1942 is we must help the Soviets. They're under pressure. They've been attacked by the Germans the year before. They've narrowly held out and held on to Moscow. But there's now a renewed attack, the start of the Stalingrad campaign, and we've got to do something to help them. And the best thing we can do is get into northwest France. Churchill's very much of the opposite opinion, as are his Chiefs of Staff, including Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. They feel it's too early and there's a lot of Good, that can be done. If they can get to North Africa, yes, they're going to assist British interest to a certain extent. That is the Suez Canal, but the oil fields. But this was big picture stuff here. There's also a sense of sea power is going to be crucial in the Second World War. We throttle Germany's ability to communicate with the rest of the world. Yes, ultimately they're going to have to be defeated on the continent, but they can be heavily eroded by a sea blockade, an air campaign. The strategic bombing campaign is beginning to gather momentum. It will do so even more in 43 and 44. But we can also do serious damage to their aspirations and their alliance with Italy by retaking North Africa. Not only is that gonna safeguard all the strategic interests in North Africa. Suez Canal, oil fields, lines of communication with empire, it's also gonna provide a springboard into Europe, the southern underbelly of.
- [24:14]
Dan Snow
Europe, the soft underbelly of Europe. And also, I suppose, look, Americans, we're fighting the Germans in North Africa. That's just where we are. Why not get involved? So as well as getting these tanks, he's got a commitment from the Americans that as they're fighting in Egypt and Libya, the Americans are going to launch this massive amphibious assault in northwest Africa, sort of modern Morocco and Algeria and all that later in the year. Okay, so that's all coming together through 1942. Meantime though, the Brits have got to hold on because that'd be embarrassing if they've been kicked out of the continent. In the meantime, through the spring and summer of 1942, Rommel is advancing deep into Egypt.
- [24:44]
Saul David
Yeah, he's taken Tobruk, as we've mentioned in June 1942 and his next move is the Suez Canal. So he's advancing up to a position at which the, the British have got their last fortified stronghold. And this is the El Alamein position. It's quite interesting because it's a choke point and the key point about a choke point. It's about 40 miles from the coast to the Qatara Depression. You can't move armour and motorized forces or any large scale armed forces through the Qatara Depression. It's basically sand dunes. So you've got to come through this 40 mile gap which the British of heavily defended. Okay. And it's going to mean that all the advantages that Rommel normally has of manoeuvre and outflanking are negated in the end. He's going to have to batter his head against what is a brick wall. And will he be able to batter his way through. Well, the first battle takes place in July of 1942, and that's known as the First Battle of El Alamein. It's a defensive action conducted by Auchinleck, who's now taken over command of the 8th Army. He's also overall commander in chief, but he's second sacked his army commander, Ritchie, and he's now in operational control of the 8th army and does very well in that battle. But it's not enough to save his bacon. He is relieved of command shortly after. There's very much a feeling from Churchill who goes over to North Africa, meets him and thinks he's exhausted and you need new blood, you need someone new to take over. And he puts in place more by luck than design because it wasn't the original intention. He puts in place what becomes the dream team in North Africa. That's Harold Alexander as the overall commander and new 8th army commander. Monty Bernard Montgomery, who was never intended to be the 8th army commander, a man called Gott got command originally, Strafer Gott as he was known. But Gott dies in a plane crash. He's flying back to take command, literally on his way to take command, and he gets shot down by the Germans. And so Monty's given the job instead.
- [26:43]
Dan Snow
And he's also given lots of new kit, isn't he?
- [26:46]
Saul David
Monty's known certainly for some historians who, not all historians, have a lot of time for him. I've got a bit more time for him actually, having studied him not only in North Africa but now in Northwest Europe, I've got a lot more time for him. He is known by a lot of historians as a lucky general. In other words, he arrived in North Africa at the right time because that's when the material and men imbalance really began to benefit the Allies. And by the time the famous battle that we're gonna discuss in a moment comes along, that's the second Battle of El Alamein. Although a lot of people just call it the Battle of El Alamein. By the time that battle takes place, he's basically got a two to one majority of everything. Men about 200,000 men, tanks, about a thousand tanks to the 500 Germans and artillery pieces, the same thing. He's got double what Rommel's got. So you could argue that it was a foregone conclusion, but I'm not even sure that's necessarily the case. The other thing he does, Dan, is reasonably well known, but it is true he's a great trainer of men, but he was also great on men's morale. He made it his business to go out and meet all the individual units, units in person, famously handing out cigarettes and telling them that he was convinced they were going to win the battle. And what we need to remember the 8th army up to this point is it had had so many setbacks. One step forward, two steps back. Here was Amanda saying, this ends now. We're going to fight the next battle. Because there's a battle just prior to the second El Alamein battle called the Battle of Alam Halfa, which was the last opportunity for Rommel to break through to the, the Suez Canal. And he tells the men, before they fight that battle, we die here. We're not going a step further back.
- [28:18]
Dan Snow
Burning all the plans for further withdrawal.
- [28:20]
Saul David
And meanwhile, by the way, they're burning codes and everything else in Cairo because the people at HQ are not so convinced he's gonna hold that. But he is utterly convinced and he manages to convince enough people in the 8th army too.
- [28:33]
Dan Snow
And Rommel does launch this last assault at Alam Halfa. It is broken up. So people growing confidence and then Monty's able to switch the offensive.
- [28:41]
Saul David
Yeah. And meanwhile, so Adam Halford takes place at the end of August 1942. And Churchill's very impatient at this point. He always was. You endlessly find him harassing commanders all across the different theaters of the Second World War, but nowhere more so than in North Africa in late 1942. And where Monty also comes out very well, in my opinion, is he's determined not to go until he's ready, until the men are properly trained up, until he's got enough, enough kit, that's tanks and artillery in particular. Because his main method of fighting a battle is just using firepower. And a lot of people criticize him and say, well, you know, you're not really taking any risks and where's the manoeuvre? There's no flare there. But it was exactly what was needed at the time. There's a wonderful quote by Carver, who goes on to be Field Marshal later on in his career, but he's the Chief of staff of the 7th Armored Division at the time and he said, this is exactly what we needed. We didn't need another setback. We needed a battle that, that was properly planned, would take advantage of all the things we were good at and actually take the risk out of it. And that's exactly what happened. Even after Alamein is won, after this eight day slogging match. And finally Rommel admits defeat and withdraws without orders from the high command. Hitler's ordered him to stand fast and he basically disobeys Hitler's orders and from that point, interestingly enough, is never properly trusted by Hitler thereafter. He's not sacked, of course, but he has basically broken this, this bond that's existed between him and Hitler since he took over his bodyguard effectively in the 1930s. And then he was in command of his field headquarters during the Polish campaign. And they're quite close. I mean, we remember Rommel as a man who's ultimately forced to commit suicide in 1944 because he's been implicated in the bomb plot. And this somehow kind of whitewashes him of having really quite strong pro Hitler and pro Nazi feelings. He was never a member of the Nazi party. It's important to put that on the record. But was he admirer of Hitler? He absolutely was until things started to turn go pear shaped.
- [30:42]
Dan Snow
And it's October, November 1942, that Montgomery launches this gigantic sort of firepower led battle to just smash his way through German Italian lines. Battle of El Alamein. It's a success. And as you say, so then Hitler says, stand fast. Rommel says, no, and he turns and you get another period now of advancing along this North African desert road.
- [31:02]
Saul David
Yeah. And it's at this point you would get all the wonderful famous quotes, of course, about El Alamein. We'd never had a victory before and we never had a defeat after. That's from Churchill. You know, is this the beginning of the end? No, but it's the end of the beginning. It was a real turning point. A lot of those quotes, of course, come after the event, but at the time there was really a feeling that with the advantages they were now getting in terms of manpower and the knowledge that the Americans are about to ride to the rescue on the far side. Just imagine this, Dan. So for all of this fighting, you've basically had one side moving towards the enemy's terrain and then coming back the other way. What they were planning with Operation Torch is you're gonna catch Rommel and his Italian German army in a vice between two armies. And that is going to be fatal for him.
- [31:47]
Dan Snow
And it's lovely for Churchill to have that win in Egypt before the Americans land in force at the other end, North Africa, and they can start just to squeeze them.
- [31:55]
Saul David
Yeah, I think it's really important to remember, actually, that's absolutely true. Churchill knows the writing is on the wall. When American resources and manpower get up to speed, which they probably will by mid-1943, certainly by 1944, the alliance is going to change. He still holds the whip hand in terms of strategy, partly because most of the resources naval, but also the troops on the ground are British and Commonwealth. That is going to change. But it's interesting when you look at the fighting in North Africa. Yes, it's the first opportunity for the Americans to come up against what is a pretty formidable foe. That's the Germans. They're learning on the job. There are a number of setbacks which I'm sure we'll get onto. But it's also important to remember that most of the troops that are doing the fighting in North Africa, our British and Commonwealth, and that's right up to the end of the campaign. And that's something I think that Churchill takes advantage of, particularly when they're trying to decide what to do next, because it's the perennial problem battle between the Brits and the Americans. When do we go into Northwest Europe?
- [32:57]
Dan Snow
You listen to Dan Snow's history. Don't go anywhere. There's more to come.
- [33:09]
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- [33:44]
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- [34:38]
Dan Snow
But for the meantime, as the British and Commonwealth troops are starting to chase Rommel back into Libya, suddenly this thunderbolt lands at the other end of North Africa. Operation Torch. Morocco, Algeria. And now the Germans, having been on the well within spitting distance of the Suez Canal, now presumably the Axis are worried about complete annihilation. It just flips, does it, in the space of a fortnight.
- [34:57]
Saul David
It's amazing if you think of it from the German perspective, November is described in Walter Voilemont. He was the deputy chief of operations at okw, which is the German armed forces senior command. He writes, November is the month of disaster for the German Army. He's also referring to November in 1918, of course.
- [35:17]
Dan Snow
Oh, I see, okay.
- [35:17]
Saul David
But he's basically saying this is when all the disasters are happen at the same time. And it's extraordinary if you think about it. So we've got the Stalingrad campaign, which is the furthest point east that the German armed forces get in the Second World War, okay? So they've got to their zenith, so to speak. They're advancing high water mark, their high water mark. They've gone deep into the Caucasus to get their hands on the oil, as we were discussing earlier. And they've also almost got to the Suez Canal. So they are within touching distance really of crippling the Western Allies. And everything turns. First of all, you get the Alamein battle, which changes everything in North Africa. Then you get Stalingrad Operation Uranus, which happens a couple of weeks later when the Russians break through on either side of Stalingrad and encircle the 6th Army. And we all know what happens next. And then thirdly, you get Operation Torch. And Operation Torch is going to introduce a new Allied army on the far side of Rommel's position that is going to make it almost impossible for him to survive unless. Unless something dramatic happens and that something dramatic does happen.
- [36:24]
Dan Snow
Well, tell me what dramatic things do.
- [36:26]
Saul David
Happen at that point, I start my Tuners grad book with the story of Hitler traveling on his train, his special train, the Sonderzug, from Berlin down to Munich. He's just going to Obersalzberg for a little bit of time and he always takes his headquarters with him. So he's got all his OKW people with him, his senior military staff. And on that journey down there in the early hours of the 8th of November, he's given the news that hits him and his staff like a thunderclap. No one was expecting it. The Americans have landed in North Africa. They didn't realize the Brits are there as well, by the way, mainly because everyone involved in Operation Torch is wearing American uniform with an American stars of stripe on their shoulders. Why? Because they don't want to upset the French. And one of the key strategic aims of getting into French North Africa is actually to bring the French, who since their defeat in 1940, their country of course has been partitioned. But the bit that's still under French control, Vichy, which still controls its empire. There's a feeling, can we bring Vichy in on the side of the Western Allies? And this could be a big game changer. And that was another of the strategic aims.
- [37:34]
Dan Snow
The one thing that doesn't usually persuade the French of anything in a positive direction is to put a lot of British lads with weapons on their territory.
- [37:41]
Saul David
Yeah. Hence the attempt at subterfuge, which didn't last very long. But Hitler, of course, gets this information that the Americans have landed and says, what can we do about it? And basically the response is very little, partly because it's Vichy France and partly because the distance involved, and this was deliberate by the Western Allies, the distance involved is too far away from Sicily and their remaining foothold in Libya to do anything about in terms of getting troops and air power over there. So they have got a hope that the French are going to hold out. And the French are not going to hold out for very long. Just two days.
- [38:14]
Dan Snow
Right. So extraordinary. Within two days. This. You always see different maps of this period. No one ever knows how to color in the Vichy bit of North Africa, because it's Axis aligned territory, isn't it, really? France is in a Vichy France, we call them. But France is an ally of Germany, you say, or certainly friendly.
- [38:30]
Saul David
Yeah, it's a very good point. They're technically neutral, Dan, but we all know that they were under extreme pressure and influence of the Germans. If the Germans wanted them to do something, which is, in the case of this invasion, close their ports, close their airfields on the one hand to the Allies, or on the other hand, open their ports and their airfields to the Axis armed forces forces, which technically, of course, they shouldn't have done as a neutral power, they were going to do it. And you have both things playing out in Operation Torch, because on the one hand, the local French commanders do fight the Allies for a while, and then they realize the game's up and they're kind of persuaded because there are a certain number of people in the French armed forces who are, of course, pro Allied. The Free French forces are coming out from deeper into Africa, but at the same time they are prepared to allow enough Axis forces into the third third of the French colonies in French North Africa, which hadn't been attacked by the Western Allies because it's too deep into the Mediterranean and it's protected by air power and sea power from Sicily and Italy. And that, of course, is Tunisia. So it's that crucial decision that Hitler makes almost on that train journey in which he says, we must protect French North Africa. Get as Many troops as you can into Tunisia that will play a dual role. They will be able to combat the Western allies who've just landed at the rest of French North Africa. And also this will be a supply route for Rommel's forces. So it'll prevent Rommel's forces being isolated. But the really interesting question is how big a gamble is he prepared to take? How many troops is he prepared to send to North Africa? If you think up to this point, he hasn't sent many.
- [40:07]
Dan Snow
He wouldn't send them when they were winning.
- [40:08]
Saul David
I know, it's really extraordinary when you think of it. There's a great quote by one of his senior advisors. I think it's Yodel who's the operations chief at okw. He describes French North Africa as the glacis of Europe. This is the outer bastion. But if you allow the enemy to, to get their hands on it, as opposed to Nazi leaning neutral power, you give them free latitude of the Mediterranean. And more importantly, there's a big danger that Mussolini is going to be knocked out of the war. I think that was really uppermost in Hitler's mind. He's thinking if the Western Allies can get control of North Africa and kick the Italians out, it's going to be Sicily and Italy next. And I'm going to lose one of my major allies.
- [40:48]
Dan Snow
So in the space of a couple of weeks they go from, from we are still in a very strong position, North Africa. We're at the gates of the Canal to oh my goodness, French North Africa has fallen. We are now in an existential crisis. We're talking about Italy being knocked out of the war.
- [41:02]
Saul David
Yeah, I mean, lots of people debate when the big turning points of the Second World War are. Dan, as you know, some people say when he's turned back from Moscow, some people even say when he decided to invade the Soviet Union in the first place. But in my mind it's pretty clear that by November 1942 things have turned irreparably for the Germans, but also the Japanese, if we want to take the big picture of the war, are involved in this to and fro struggle for Guadalcanal, which is not just a land battle, it's also a sea battle. A number of naval actions are fought there and these three actions all happening at the same time. Stalingrad, Tunisia, which ultimately is called Tunisgrad because it's perceived by the German public as being as big a disaster as Stalingrad and Guadalcanal. This is the moment that everything changes for the Axis powers.
- [41:48]
Dan Snow
It's amazing Isn't it? Take me through. So we got Axis forces flooding into Tunisia, trying to plug a catastrophic hole in a dam, but how many forces does hit? Given that he's got an existential crisis on the Eastern front now, how many forces does he end up sending to northeast?
- [42:01]
Saul David
Yeah, eventually there'll be quarter of a million troops there. Of course, that doesn't take account of casualties. So he's probably going to send in total. But this of course, includes some of the guys who are already there, about 350,000 troops.
- [42:13]
Dan Snow
And if he'd done that, Saul, in the summer of 41, that could really have changed the course of the Second World War.
- [42:21]
Saul David
Yeah, totally. Right. I mean, I'm not a great fan of counterfactuals, but this is one I really do like getting my teeth into. Because it seems so obvious to me that when you look at the kind of arguments that Churchill was giving for going into North Africa. And yes, there were some Americans thinking, well, he's just defending the British Empire. No, he saw the big picture. He saw how everything fitted together. He saw how Selena and sea power and control of vital resources are what wins wars, not individual battles, not even the wastage of soldiers against soldiers. It's about slowly constricting the ability of your enemy to get enough resources so that he can keep going.
- [42:59]
Dan Snow
Well, as you're saying that I'm thinking, turns out the one person who did agree with Churchill was Hitler, because he met the farm on trying to hold on to North Africa.
- [43:06]
Saul David
Yeah, he did at this point, but you could say it's too late. I mean, if they'd been joined up thinking Dan, he would have coincided the drive by Rommel in 1941 with a serious attempt to get to the Caucasus through the Soviet Union. And there was this kind of vague thinking, and as I mentioned before, I think it was a lot of it was after the event kind of thinking, yes, in an ideal world. There was also talk about coming down through the Levant at one stage and somehow restricting the Suez Canal from both sides, but never really taken seriously. And again, I think that comes back to the fact that Hitler, as indeed most Germans are, think in continental terms, this is also an ideological war for him. We mustn't forget. He's got two big enemies, really, and one is Marxism and the other are the Jews. And he's thinking about dealing with them on the continent, if he can get a few colonies here or there. All well and good, but he's not really seeing the big picture. And I think in the end, that's going to prove to be fatal for him.
- [44:01]
Dan Snow
If you hate Marxists and Jews, it doesn't make much sense to invade Turkey.
- [44:06]
Saul David
No, exactly right. You know, almost the opposite. There was a moment when, of course, he's thinking or he's convinced by some of his subordinates that doing some kind of deal over sending all the Jews to Palestine. And that was one of the kind of nutty ideas they had in the back of their head before they decided to murder everyone. Because actually, the failure to defeat Britain and the fact that Germany was constricted in terms of sea lanes made it very difficult for them to then. And I'm not excusing the Germans by making this point, but it is a point that they're thinking, yeah, maybe we can send them to Madagascar, maybe we can send them to Palestine. And of course, all those options were available, eventually closed off.
- [44:42]
Dan Snow
Let's go back to Tunisia. So we've got. Rommel is retreating now through Libya. He's got vast amounts of reinforcements. He must have cursed all his reinforcements arriving so long after his decisive opportunity he had. Anyway, they're all flooding in. Is it a slow crushing of this Axis pocket? Are there key moments or a key perimeter he tries to establish?
- [44:59]
Saul David
Yeah, I mean, you need to think of the two theaters as separate for a period of time. So in effect, most of the troops that are sent by Hitler to defend Tunisia. And he's got this mad idea they're gonna get all the way to Casablanca. He thinks we can retake the whole of French North Africa. But anyway, let's defend Tunisia first. This is a force that eventually comes under the command of von Arnim. He's a colonel general, so one rank below Rommel. He's made his name on the Eastern front. He's seen as a safe pair of hands, typical kind of Junker, aristocratic German army officer. Most of the new guys going to North Africa come under his command. So although Rommel's thinking, yeah, there are more German and Italian troops in North Africa, he still doesn't have the lion's share of them. Eventually he's going to be given, very briefly, command of what's known as Army Group Africa. So the first time there's actually been enough troops to justify calling it an army group. But in the meanwhile, he's going to be controlling his Panzer army, and that's chiefly up against the 8th Army. While this new force, this new 5th Panzer army as it was known under von Arnim, is fighting in Tunisia against the Allied forces that have landed. There are some Americans there, the 2nd American Corps, there are some French guys there fighting not very effective forces. They've come over, over from Vichy France over to the British side. And there is also is a British army which the Americans and the French come under overall operational control, and that's known as the first army, commanded by a guy I bet you've never heard of, Dan, or if you have, you won't know much about him. A guy called General Anderson.
- [46:26]
Dan Snow
Never heard of, never heard of him.
- [46:27]
Saul David
He's the man, you know, the lost army commander, Kenneth Anderson, just as a quick aside, was the guy who trained up second army. That's the British second Army before the Normandy campaign. Now British second Army is the main British striking force on D Day. It's under the command of Dempsey, who's one of Monty's acolytes, one of his proteges. And Anderson was a pretty dull, unimpressive specimen. He only gets the job because various other people have been passed over for command of first army, including, interestingly enough, Alex, Alexander and Monty. And he's kind of plodding his way forward into Tunis. The so called race for Tunis, which happens towards the end of 1940, is an attempt by the Allies to get to Chuniz and force out the few Axis forces that arrive there before more reinforcements can come. They lose that race. So it's interesting, for the first four or five months of the Tunisian campaign, as the Allies advance from Algeria and Morocco towards the battlefield in Tunisia, those are almost all Axis victories, tactical victories, it's true. They don't smash and defeat any huge number of forces.
- [47:31]
Dan Snow
They.
- [47:32]
Saul David
But they defeat commander attacks against them, the parachute drops going on. There's all kinds of stuff. I mean, there's a lot of drama going on. Colonel Frost, who you'll know from the Arnhem story and the famous Colonel Frost of the bridge, he's a colonel commanding a battalion of paratroopers in North Africa. His battalion almost gets completely wiped out, actually, in a slightly madcap attempt to get to Tunis. But the broad beats of the story is that the attempt to get to Tunis before they can bring in enough Axis reinforcements is a failure.
- [47:59]
Dan Snow
So this is through December 1942 into January. Okay. And is this where you get a bit of a rep that Brits going, oh, bloody are these Americans can't fight? And a bit of friction between the Allies.
- [48:10]
Saul David
The real disaster in reputational terms for the Americans comes in February 1943, and it comes as a result of Allied success. So Monty's managed to push Rommel's forces all the way back to southern Tunisia. Meanwhile, in northern Tunisia, Von Ahn has built up his forces, but they're really only controlling what is the coastal plain in Tunisia. And there's an unbroken line all the way from Turkey, Tunis and Bizerta, those ports in the north, all the way to the southern Tunisia. So now these two armies have united. They're not under the same operational control list, but both fighting separately.
- [48:41]
Dan Snow
So Monty's joined up with all the people that landed in operation.
- [48:44]
Saul David
They haven't actually linked hands yet, although the Germans Italian forces have. So in a sense, you've got advantage to the Axis forces. They're operating, as we love to say in military historians, they're operating on interior lines.
- [48:58]
Dan Snow
The Germans are very good at that.
- [48:59]
Saul David
So. So they've got an advantage in terms of moving from one part of the battlefield to the other. And they come up with this really quite effective plan that they are going to defeat the two converging Allied armies, the first army, which was Anderson's, as I mentioned, and Monty's Eighth army, that are trying to link up but haven't yet done. So they are going to defeat them in detail, basically defeat them one after another. And they come quite close to doing that.
- [49:22]
Dan Snow
Well, it's a story as old as time when it comes to the German military dashed from flank to flank, almost defeating all of your enemies that crowd around you.
- [49:29]
Saul David
I feel in many ways quite torn about the way I look at the Tunisian campaign. And we shouldn't, you know, look at it with rose tinted glasses. I've already mentioned the fact that Rommel was a much more ambiguous character than I think history's really allowed him to be. And yet they fought a relatively fair fight. There were very few people shot out of hand on the battlefield, very few atrocities being committed. It was a relatively fair fight. That is not propaganda. Soldiers on both sides felt that it was a tough fight, but it was a relatively fair fight. And the Germans in many cases do very well. Why? Because they've got a lot of vector veteran troops there. They've got people who've proven themselves in the desert warfare, but also people that have been coming from the fighting on the Eastern front. They've got a lot of very good people, particularly their armored forces, and they are going to bloody the American noses quite severely. What's fascinating about the Tunisian campaign is not so much the bad reputation the Americans get for defeat at places like Sidi Bou Zid and Kasserine Pass, it's how quickly they come back from that. Dan, they're great learners of bad experiences this Americans. And it helps that they've got some of the people who are going to be the finest American commanders of the Second World War beginning to earn their stripes. And I'm talking about people like Patton and people like Bradley and of course Ike. So if you think about all those people who ultimately in northwest Europe are going to do most of the heavy lifting in terms of command, Monty and those three American commanders I've just mentioned, Dempsey is also there. All of them earn their stripes in North Africa.
- [51:01]
Dan Snow
You listen to Dan Snow's history hit don't give up on us just yet. There's more coming. Only Boost Mobile Boost Mobile will give.
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- [51:28]
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- [52:12]
Dan Snow
How would you characterize this fighting? You mentioned, you know, city Bruid, you mentioned Kasserine Pass. Is this just Allies attempt to advance, they get a bloody nose at any stages. There are a big Axis attempt to sort of counterattack and make serious advances themselves.
- [52:25]
Saul David
Rommel feels it's a real missed opportunity. His plan, as he explained to his superiors at the time and then wrote about afterwards, was I'm going to and this is typical Rommel, I'm going to drive through the weak crust of the defensive positions in the mountains of central Tunisia. If you think about the geography of Tunisia, you've basically got two mountain ranges coming from the north in an inverted V. And the Allies are defending both of those mountain ranges. They're effectively defending the passes. And so Rommel's plan is to break through not just one pass, but the second pass. And by that point he's going to be into the rear area of the British first army, including the American position. And he reckons he can drive all the way up to the coast and effectively defeat Anderson's army in total. But the problem he's got is he doesn't have unified command at this point. So he's having to do this with von Arnhem's cooperation. And he's not going to get it basically because they are jealous of each other. And eventually actually Kesselring, who was our overall command, he's the overall German commander in the Mediterranean, says to Rommel, your plans are too ambitious. I'm going to reduce them in scope. And Rommel always believes or believed to his dying day, which is not going to be that much later, a year later, that this was a real missed opportunity. And by reducing the depth of his advance to a location called Le Kef as opposed to much deeper, he's going to lose the opportunity to get right behind all the reserve positions and actually it's just, just going to push him towards the American and British reserves who were coming down from the north, which is exactly what happened. So Rommel believes it was a real missed opportunity. I think if you look at the disparity in manpower and the speed with which the Americans recover from the early shocks of these defeats at Kasserine and Sidi Bou Zid, actually you come to the conclusion he was never going to.
- [54:12]
Dan Snow
Win that battle and instead the noose just tightens.
- [54:16]
Saul David
The noose tightens and there's a lot more to ing and froing. I mean obviously it goes without saying that only having a relatively short period of time to talk about the whole North African campaign, we have to miss out a lot. There are a lot of other key battles, quite famous battles actually, many of which were fought by Montgomery against Rommel and then Rommel's successors. Because interestingly, Rommel in early March after he has been defeated in his last attempt to break 8th army and that's the Battle of Medenine. He's effectively defeated by incredibly large number of well sighted anti tank guns, but also Monty's armour. He's defeated at Medenine in early March and realizes the game's up and so flies to, to Hitler's headquarters, which actually at the time were in Ukraine at Vinnitsa, the so called werewolf headquarters. And he tells Hitler the game's up and you can imagine this is not going to go down well. He says, look, last chance is to get these veteran guys out, get them out, they can be used to defend southern Europe. There's a lot more fighting to come. Let's play the long game here. Hitler's not having any of that. He sees this defeatist talk he doesn't sack Rommel, but he insists on him going to a sanitarium, not for mental treatment, but because his health's been very bad up to this point. And he effectively takes him out of the. And that is the last moment that Rommel is present in North Africa. He's always associated, of course, chiefly with North Africa. That's the last contribution he makes to the campaign. And it's a slow death from that point on as these two armies slowly but surely constrict the remaining Axis forces. But there are still a lot of them. And I think the key moment probably is early April 1943, when the 1st army joins hands with the 8th Army. And that is the moment at which the game's really up for the.
- [55:58]
Dan Snow
So this is that moment. So now the Allies have truly, well, encircled circle Axis forces in North Africa.
- [56:05]
Saul David
Yeah. And it's going to take another six weeks to finish it off. By the way, one fascinating codicil I loved when I was researching Tunisgrad is that a day after those two armies joined forces, the Axis, of course, are withdrawing, as you imagine they would be. And it's during that withdrawal that someone who, of course, is very famous to his, but at the time was operations officer for the 10th Panzer Division, a man called Claus von Stauffenberg, is very badly wounded in an air attack. He's in a staff car. He's trying to direct the withdrawal of his division. Typical Stauffenberg. Very brave, very clever, very capable staff officer. He's so badly injured that he loses one of his eyes, one of his hands and three fingers in his other hand. So he's basically left with two digits. Why does this matter? Because when he's trying to prime the bomb that will kill Hitler, he hopes he only has two fingers to. And this is given as one of the reasons why he doesn't prime both blocks of explosive. And therefore, that bomb that goes off on the 20th of July doesn't create a big enough explosion to kill Hitler, although it could have done if it wasn't put behind a piece of wood. So lots of bad luck involved. But it is fascinating that the Tunisian campaign does play a little bit of a part in Hitler's survival.
- [57:15]
Dan Snow
Again, it's just one of these stories of Hitler refusing to allow any withdrawals. Does he evacuate anybody? At the end?
- [57:21]
Saul David
There's a plan to get what they call the technicians out.
- [57:23]
Dan Snow
You know, Stalingrad technicians.
- [57:26]
Saul David
The technicians. And they're effectively the senior people. And it's never put into place, mainly because the Western Allies, particularly Their naval force have an operation that is geared to interdict anything that's coming across. So both ships and planes are knocked out of the sky and knocked out of the sea by a huge Allied operation, which really, I mean, one of the points I didn't make earlier on is that one of the reasons the Axis have so much success in the early stages of the Tunisian campaign is they have dominance in the air. And this slowly but surely has eroded as the Western Allies bring in more planes and they establish airfields closer to the front. And so by the time the Germans and the Italians are trying to withdraw, far too late, of course, there is complete air superiority and also superiority at sea. And there's really no opportunity for them to get anyone out. But imagine what they could have done with that 250,000. About a half of them, maybe slightly more, are German troops. But these are veteran soldiers. These are some of the best people they've got.
- [58:24]
Dan Snow
And so they go into the bag. They just surrender.
- [58:26]
Saul David
Captured something like 15 generals. All the divisional commanders, you know, some of the best fighting formations in the German army are taken in the bag. They reconstitute a lot of these divisions, actually. But of course, all the veterans are taken there. Von Arnhem is captured. All his senior commanders are captured. The Italians do very well. You know, I've got to have a quick nod to the Italians because they do get a tough time through their history in the Second World War. Actually, the Italian general is the last one to surrender, a guy called Messi, who's actually commanded Italian forces on the Eastern Front. He does very well in a number of battles. And one little known battle that Monti doesn't win is the last battle he fights in North Africa at Enfidaville, which is really a defensive victory for Messi, who opposes him. He's got this very effective defensive position on a number of cliffs. And Monti always tries to kind of gloss over this, you know, because he wants to keep the reputation of a man who's never lost a battle. But frankly, when you look at the detail of what happened there, you could argue that he does lose that battle. So that's a feather in the cap for the Italians. But the outcome is an utter catastrophe for the Axis.
- [59:29]
Dan Snow
Did Hitler order them to fight to the last building in the heart of Tunis? Why such a large and organized surrender.
- [59:35]
Saul David
To the last bullet? Actually, a lot of the senior German commanders disobey at the last moment. They don't quite fight to the last bullet. There are bullets still left. There are still tanks with ammunition. But it is absolutely without question an inevitable defeat, and it would have been slightly pointless for them to have kept fighting. It is quite interesting. Interesting how tough they fight up to the point at which their senior commanders, von Arnhem included, realize whatever we've been told by Hitler, yeah, we're going to cover our backs to a certain extent, but basically there's only one way to go now, and that's surrender. And although Rommel had made a request for an evacuation to take place two months earlier, when it would have been possible, so had von Arnhem himself realized we're never going to get out of this, he makes that request in late April, and of course, it's far too late by that point. And as I say, they're all 250,000 of them are taken. But I think it's the broader strategic position as well that is such a disaster for Axis arms.
- [60:30]
Dan Snow
Well, it's May, so it's what, three months, four months after the final surrender at Stalingrad. And you're saying that it talked about in Germany, talked about at the time, as equivalent body blows to the Axis forces, the German Empire.
- [60:42]
Saul David
Yeah. There's a nice quote by a contemporaneous quote, Dan, which is always nice by Goebbels, and he says this will be a blow to equal Stalingrad. And he writes that in his diary on the 7th of May. He doesn't realize that Tunis has been captured at that point. The news comes through a day or two later, and of course, the complete surrender takes place six days later. But he already knows that this is a catastrophe. I mean, he refers to the fighting in Tunisia multiple times. The deputy operations chief that I mentioned earlier, Verlamont, also writes, at that point, it was clear that once Tunisia was. Was gone, Southern Europe was naked. They fear two things. They fear the loss of their ally, which is inevitable from this point onwards, although, of course, it takes until another six months later before Italy finally leaves the war. But they also fear the loss of this North African glacis and therefore the approach of the Western Allies through Europe's southern underbelly. Do they fear that there's going to be a major invasion then? No, they still think it's going to come from the north. But a combination of the two is gradually restricted, restricting Axis room for maneuver. And one obvious point alone is to control the Mediterranean, which they ultimately do, particularly after they take Sicily in the summer of 1943, is also absolutely crucial because all of the points, including Italy, that would have been secure with Mediterranean control go all Of a sudden, the Western Allies, they reckon they save a million tons of shipping by securing the Mediterranean because of course, they don't have to go all the way around southern Africa. And this is one of the reasons why they managed to persuade the Americans to get involved in the first place, because there's always this trade off with the shipping they're going to devote to their European theater of operations as opposed to the Pacific. So saving ships is vital for the Americans.
- [62:31]
Dan Snow
And suddenly, if you control North Africa, looking out, there's southern France, there's Italy, there's the Balkans, there's Greece. I mean, you've got the whole of Hitler's southern flank is at your beck and call.
- [62:42]
Saul David
Yeah. And the other really important point to make about the rest of the war, people often ask me, and I'm writing about this at the moment, why were the Russians able to make such huge gains on the Eastern Front? Well, a lot of it was about air power. So you can put that down partly to the strategic bombing campaign, which on the one hand is degrading the Germans ability to produce new fighter planes. They particularly targeted the various industries that produce fighter planes. But also they're bringing in a lot of their fighter planes from these various other theaters, including the Mediterranean. Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean alone, the Tunisian campaign alone, they lose 2,400 planes. This is a big chunk. If I was to tell you, Dan, that by the beginning of 1944, okay, so just six months later, they have 500 fighters on the whole of the Eastern front.
- [63:29]
Dan Snow
What?
- [63:30]
Saul David
And people wonder why they collapse. That is, the German army group center collapses in Operation Bagration. Well, you know, the Russians have got so much better at fighting. They had, but they had a huge advantage in air power. And one of the reasons they had that is because of the degrading of the Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean defending the Reich. And also in, of course, the fighting that is going to begin in Normandy thereafter. And the loss of air supremacy, particularly on the Eastern front, was ultimately going to prove fatal.
- [64:00]
Dan Snow
We think it cost the Axis nearly the whole North African country campaign cost the Axis nearly a million men.
- [64:05]
Saul David
You never think of that, do you? You know, I mean, when we think of those, I think it was 16,000 men the Germans send over initially, admittedly, the Italians have got a couple of hundred thousand in place at one stage. But to think that Axis forces, in total a million were lost in North Africa. That figure alone will give you a sense of how ultimately pivotal it proved to be.
- [64:25]
Dan Snow
Tell everyone once again what the name of your book is.
- [64:27]
Saul David
Yeah, Tunis grad, victory in Africa, which says it all. I mean, of course it's chiefly about the Tunisian campaign, but you can't really talk about Tunisia with understanding where they got to before then. And that's something I think we tried to do in this in this chat.
- [64:40]
Dan Snow
Thanks again. You've come in reminding me just what a global story this is of the Second World War and stretching in this conversation, we stretched from Morocco to the Middle east and beyond. So what an amazing tale. Thank you very much.
- [64:52]
Saul David
Thanks Dan.
- [64:55]
Dan Snow
Thank you so much to you for listening to this episode of Dan Snow's History it we could not make this podcast without you. That that's actually true. So make sure if you want to keep it going, that is to hit follow in your podcast player right now, you'll get new episodes dropped into your podcast library automatically. By the power of tech, you can listen anywhere you get your pods, Apple, Spotify, even BBC sounds. Imagine a world. Just imagine you never miss an episode of this podcast. I mean it's there. The technology makes that possible. That could be your reality right now if you hit follow. See you next time.
- [65:37]
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