There have been many criticisms, and in all of them there is at least a grain of truth. If we consider that, according to some authors, the battle of El Alamein should not have been fought at all, it is hard not to say that such a criticism is based on good reasons. In fact, it is quite clear that with the Allied invasion of French North-West Africa Rommel might have been compelled to withdraw his forces from Alamein, on the very simple ground that his supply bases would have been directly threatened, and the battle might have been fought some place else without the hindrances and the difficulties of the Axis defence lines and minefields.
Yet such a criticism, meaningful and reasonable as it is, is not free from a few flaws; there was no assurance, in the first place, that Rommel might have been compelled to withdraw, for the very simple reason that his forces were simply too far away from Tunisia and thus unable to intervene in any case. Since, as it did in fact happen, the Axis might have built a bridgehead in Tunisia to prevent its seizure from the Allies. The Germans, and to some extent all the Axis forces in the Western Desert, already had on many occasions proved their superiority when fighting battles in the open ground, where they could take full advantage of their supremacy in the fields of flexibility and manoeuvrability against the British, Commonwealth, Imperial and Dominion forces.
There had been just too many cases in the past, last but not least a few months before at Gazala and Tobruk, when the numerically superior forces of the Eighth Army had been defeated simply because the Germans fully exploited the tactical advantages they had on the battleground. One should simply try and imagine what if the second battle of El Alamein had been fought reversing the two sides: Even though this is simply a matter of educated guesswork, one can easily come to the conclusion that the advantages given to Rommel and to his soldiers by the defences at El Alamein could hardly be matched by the advantages both would have really enjoyed if given freedom of manoeuvre and shorter and more reliable supply lines.
There are good reasons behind these criticisms; to sum up in a few words the overall style of command, tactics and doctrine of Field Marshal Montgomery it is easy to say that he was one good step ahead of the Allied commanders on the Western Front in His set-piece battles, fought with a strict top-down command system on the basis of detailed plans and with the generous support of every available kind of firepower, although successful they might have been, were the direct descendant of those battles fought in the last stage of the First World War, but were also millions of miles away from the evolution that the German Army had brought into mechanised warfare since May Therefore, the decision to fight at Alamein in a way which compelled Rommel to use his own tactics and doctrine of counterattacking the enemy to prevent a breakthrough in a way that turned them into an advantage for the Eighth Army, eventually proved decisive and largely contributed to success on the battlefield.
That is without taking into account the changes that were to take place after the end of the battle. El Alamein was in fact a turning point, from many perspectives. One of its consequences was the change in the balance that so far outlined the composition of the Eighth Army in the Western Desert campaign; since Alamein there were more British than Commonwealth, Imperial and Dominion forces than there had ever been in the Western Desert. After Alamein the latter would shrink even further; the Australian forces, after some two and a half years of battle in the Western Desert, were eventually withdrawn and sent back home.
The family has papers and Young is a man who can put it all together. He builds up Rommel the superman, the brilliant general who beat the British with limited resources.
First Battle of El Alamein
Even at Alamein, Rommel got his troops out—they were not surrounded, they were able to retreat. Rommel is also an anti-Nazi, plotting against Hitler, who is rumbled after the attempt to assassinate Hitler. Rommel as anti-Nazi hero, as well as great general, is put together by Desmond Young after the war. Like all these things, there is enough in there that is real to make it stand up. Is Rommel a great general? Was Rommel an anti-Nazi? Well, the Germans are still fighting that one out amongst themselves. I think the most recent German feature film on Rommel was in However, you can find many other scholars that would accept him as a potential member of the anti-Hitler opposition.
Young is a good PR man.
Battle of El Alamein - HISTORY
He takes a particular line and weaves it together in a very convincing way. I have to say that when I was reading about this in your book, it made me laugh: Basically, the English develop a penchant for this general who is fighting for the other side, and is the loser.
For some reason, he becomes a great hero for them. There are constituencies that have a vested interest in building him up. The people who defeated Rommel want to big him up because they look awesome as a result of having beaten a great general. So, the people who write Rommel down tend to be a certain kind of German. But many other Germans—especially in the post-war period—want those kinds of heroes. Was he really that awful or did he just not have a good PR man? Montgomery of Alamein is a good general, he wins whilst keeping casualties relatively low in his battles.
Most people who meet Montgomery and spend any time with him, loathe him. Nobody can love Montgomery as much as Montgomery can. He writes almost wholly about himself, and he does so in unsophisticated self-aggrandising terms.
He is never generous to anybody else and he writes like a seven-year old child. But Montgomery is good at one thing. Montgomery kept voluminous papers—he kept a diary and he wrote letters and people wrote to him. There is a huge collection of his papers in the Imperial War Museum and the Army Records Society published a fantastic collection of the key documents in edited form.
But you can also see his genius. When you just read what he wrote about himself, you see him in the round. You never really get the complexity of the man. My favourites are his views of other generals. I should say he is employed again. Montgomery is utterly unforgiving. At the same time, you see this beautiful clarity of how to fight a war. In his reflective moments, he really lays it out. Lots of people come and Montgomery explains exactly what happened, what went well and what went wrong.
He boils it down for other people so they can understand it. A History of the Battle of Britain Bungay wrote a book on Alamein , which is very good, but I happen to prefer this book, on the Battle of Britain. But it has a central dramatic idea which helps us to understand World War II.
Bungay argues that if you look at the RAF and the Luftwaffe, they actually behave in diametrically opposed ways to what racial stereotypes would make you think. If you take the RAF in , they had a culture of insubordination. They really are an undisciplined bunch—on the ground and off duty. But, Bungay says, when they take off they have fantastic flight discipline. In other words, they are a highly professional air fighting force. In particular, they want to be aces. So, the Luftwaffe comes over Britain in the Battle of Britain and the first thing that happens is that the fighters peel off because they want to be in air-to-air combat, they want to be knights of the air.
They have a clear vision about how to win. They thought they were going to roll over these degenerate, democratic powers. And they do roll over France, the Low Countries and the Nordic countries. Bungay locates it in a number of places—in the British economy, in British institutions and also in hidden bits of the British character. They lose in the end, but their generals are so much better, their aircraft are so much better, their tanks are so much better. Bungay is writing popular military history and showing, essentially, what a bunch of dolts they were and how they got their rich deserts.
The Battle of Britain is an amazing story of villainy, heroism, high tech, beautiful women, handsome men, silk scarves and beautiful summer weather. What more do you want? As I understand it, the Germans destroyed Rotterdam and then threatened to do the same to Amsterdam, at which point the Dutch surrendered. Is that what they were trying to do in Britain as well? They started off with attacks on airfields. Essentially, they were trying to clear the way for an invasion. The European countries really do go over like a pack of cards.
The Netherlands holds out for less than a week.
Citation Information
They are utterly ruthless. You mentioned Churchill and his role in El Alamein. Was he an exceptional leader? Nobody is always right. Churchill comes out of El Alamein spectacularly well because he gets in first: Essentially, the British Armed Forces are dolts, Churchill is a genius, and finally he cracks it and he gets the people he needs who can win the war.
The reason he does that is that, for political reasons, he wants to concentrate on Operation Torch—which is the Anglo-American invasion of Northwest Africa. That happens four days after the victory at Alamein is sealed.
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So he wants to big up the Russians and Americans in order to make the coalition, which is fighting the Axis, work better. Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval. Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions. Our editors will review what you've submitted, and if it meets our criteria, we'll add it to the article.
Battles of El-Alamein
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