The Desert Generals

MontyB

MontyB

All-Blacks Supporter
I have just got through watching this series and one of the comments made in it has made me think, the statement was "If Britain had lost the North African campaign then the war would have been unwinnable".

I have always believed that North Africa was a bit of a side show so I would be interested to hear what others think of this statement because I am not sure I agree with it.
 
If we had lost North Africa then the we would have not only lost the Suez Canal but whole of the Med;, along with all the oil fields. It would of course been a huge set back but it would not have been the end of the world or the end of the war as we were still quite strong in other parts of Africa. There again this is all just a personal opinion
 
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I certainly don't agree with it Monty. It sounds like a series that suffers from the usual Western bias when determining the importance of events in winning WW2.

The Red Army made, by far, the biggest contribution to Allied victory in WW2.

This is not open to debate.
 
it would probably depend on when the victory was won. my initial thought that any time at the end of '41 would have secured the Germans some significant advantages, but ultimately to win the war it would have been required before the attack on Pearl Harbour. my reasoning is this; the Japanese attacked America because its source of oil had been cut off by the Allied embargo. but if the Germans had conquered North Africa and defeated the main British effort, then it was poised to seize the oil fields of the Arabian peninsular. it is likely that the arabs, already significantly pro- German (or at least anti- British), would have aided in this effort. this would provide Japan with all the oil it could possibly want; in such a situation it is unlikely that Britain would have added to its woes by attacking Japanese merchantmen transporting the oil home. without the attack on Pearl Harbour then Hitler would not have declared war on America, essentially removing the British as a factor in future operations for some years. Without a build up of forces to counter the Western allies this would free more men for Russia.
but ultimately it would have placed German forces on the doorstep of the Caucusus, the Soviet's own supply of oil. would the Soviet attack against Kharkov have been launched with German forces in the middle east and a hostile Japan at its back? if this attack had not gone ahead then the German offensive into the Caucusus could have been launched sooner with the added advantage of a German army striking from the south, directly into the target area. if this was the case, then the German push into the area from Russia could have been lighter, thus enabling the forces that pushed towards Stalingrad to be strengthened and perhaps removing the need to use the satellite troops on the flanks of the battle. since it is regularly argued that German troops would not have broken like the Rumanians, Hungarians and Italians, what would this have meant for the subsequent siege? would a strengthened German drive have even allowed a siege? without oil or a strong position to launch an attack to recover those fields how would the Soviets have fared then? a direct route from Stalingrad north takes an attacker well behind Moscow.
and without an American war, might the Japanese have been emboldened at this juncture to consider an attack on Russia? without a Pearl Harbour could Roosevelt have brought America into the war on the basis of this, or even if the Japanese simply chose to attack the British and Dutch possessions in South East Asia? Perhaps without a Phillipines campaign the Japanese might have struck more strongly into India?
its a tempting scenario to contemplate.
 
Doppleganger said:
The Red Army made, by far, the biggest contribution to Allied victory in WW2.

This is not open to debate.
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But I believe it is - Hitler's ridiculous decision to attack Russia when he did must have been the greatest contribution therefore - by your own measure; (which I do not necessarily agree with anyway.)
 
Doppleganger said:
I certainly don't agree with it Monty. It sounds like a series that suffers from the usual Western bias when determining the importance of events in winning WW2.

The Red Army made, by far, the biggest contribution to Allied victory in WW2.

This is not open to debate.
Click to expand...

Of course it is open to debate.

The biggest contributor to the Allied victory was Germany itself. By opening up so many fronts, overextending themselves, not securing enough areas with the resources needed to replenish their war machine they handed the Allies the victory!:smile:

This is not open to debate... or is it?
 
Let me just say that Hitler had very little choice when it came to the decision to attack Russia. Whether you believe Suvorov or not, most historians now believe that Stalin would have attacked Hitler at some point. It can be argued that Hitler chose the best possible time to launch, in 1941 when the Red Army, according to David Glantz, was in the middle of a vast reorganisation and rebuilding programme.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov

Hitler and Germany found themselves in a position where the war ran away from them. I don't believe they had too much control over the events that unfolded from a strategic viewpoint. Operationally was a different matter of course.
 
Doppleganger said:
I certainly don't agree with it Monty. It sounds like a series that suffers from the usual Western bias when determining the importance of events in winning WW2.

The Red Army made, by far, the biggest contribution to Allied victory in WW2.

This is not open to debate.
Click to expand...


It does make some fairly optimistic scenarios for the Germans, primarily that had Cairo fell the British and Commonwealth would have simply packed up and left the Middle East thus enabling Germany to attack Russia on two fronts through the Caucus's and via the west.
 
Either way you read it, Herr Hitler was the victim of the circumstances that he created. His need for oil led to the march to the Caucasus & all that followed. Don't forget that Richard Sorge's info that the Japanese would not be pursuing further expansion into Russian territory enabled the Russians to shift a huge amount of forces to their FEBA with Germany.

Coming back to the original question; I think that WWII would have gone on longer but the end result would've been the same.

The allies would not have had the benefit of lessons learnt from seabourne landings, but therre is no way that Africa would have ended up in the German camp, it is simply to vast and disparate a continent to pacify - in fact I believe that it would have sucked up a huge amount of the Nazi war effort, just to chase the resources they wanted. Then there would be the resupply route, which was a constant problem to the Kriegsmarine, due to RN interdiction!
 
Hitler made the mistake by attacking russia, I agree that he needed to have a good amount of men on that side to hold of the russians if they did try to attack, however he should have killed off britain and used it's resources. Then devoted a good bit of supply and other forces (Rommel) to attack Russia instead of attacking preimtivly to soon.

Now originally he did great in the opening fighting but he went to far in to soon, after crushing much the opposing forces he should have stopped and waited for supply lines tobe more secure and wait for more troops, not tons but a good amount of reserves to stop an encirclement like the one that destroyed the 6th....Obvious blunder, never leave your flanks weak, the reserves would have been able to help the parts getting attacked and would have probably stopped the encirclement.

On Topic, Hilter may have pulled most of his forces into the Hilly part of Italy (The Alps) which would have been a great defensive spot, keeping the medertrain and the whole Italian pensula would have gave him a nice little defense and opened him up to asia and a possible tie with Japan. By taking africa we pressured him to send troops to aid Italy, thus weakening him and giving him a bit of mesaure. Over streching him ourselves, and indeed Rommel, the Desert Fox was short on oil I believe. He was an amazing General but never given the resources he needed to really do the damage he could in africa.
 
BootStomp said:
Hitler made the mistake by attacking russia, I agree that he needed to have a good amount of men on that side to hold of the russians if they did try to attack, however he should have killed off britain and used it's resources. Then devoted a good bit of supply and other forces (Rommel) to attack Russia instead of attacking preimtivly to soon.

Now originally he did great in the opening fighting but he went to far in to soon, after crushing much the opposing forces he should have stopped and waited for supply lines tobe more secure and wait for more troops, not tons but a good amount of reserves to stop an encirclement like the one that destroyed the 6th....Obvious blunder, never leave your flanks weak, the reserves would have been able to help the parts getting attacked and would have probably stopped the encirclement.

On Topic, Hilter may have pulled most of his forces into the Hilly part of Italy (The Alps) which would have been a great defensive spot, keeping the medertrain and the whole Italian pensula would have gave him a nice little defense and opened him up to asia and a possible tie with Japan. By taking africa we pressured him to send troops to aid Italy, thus weakening him and giving him a bit of mesaure. Over streching him ourselves, and indeed Rommel, the Desert Fox was short on oil I believe. He was an amazing General but never given the resources he needed to really do the damage he could in africa.
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Interesting viewpoint, but what resources did GB have? It survived through imports and being a trading nation, thats how and partially the reason why the British Empire was built.

Rommel was over extended and not getting the reinforcements that he needed, because of the war in Russia. The reason being that Hitler was pushing for the Caucusus oil fields. Potentially he could then have exploited this gain further south & really hit the allies in the fuel tank!

The German domination of the Mediterranean was not in the allied strategic interests, so they took steps to prevent it. This also coincided with the Russian demands for a second front to relieve some of the pressure on their country.
 
GB did have little resources agreed, but it was a nice port having area nad having a naval fleet there would have been a nice collection point for attacking America, which we all know would have happen sooner or later.

Great Britian does have Manufacting and I believe in the Civil War they were making Iron Clade Warships an din fact did create and give the south 9 I believe before the North told them to stop on the outset of war or stoping trades.
 
The North African campaign was not only a sideshow but a massive drain on naval resources having to ferry supplies all the way around Africa at one point. It was fought for British Empire interests (Suez) due to Churchill's influence.

The only advantage I can think of was that it allowed the Allies to gain experience in amphibious landings, so they would be successful for the big one.
 
perseus said:
The North African campaign was not only a sideshow but a massive drain on naval resources having to ferry supplies all the way around Africa at one point. It was fought for British Empire interests (Suez) due to Churchill's influence.

The only advantage I can think of was that it allowed the Allies to gain experience in amphibious landings, so they would be successful for the big one.
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Perseus, I have to disagree with you that North Africa was side show. It was the main battle for the British & Commonwealth forces. We weren't active in Europe, we'd been kicked out of Scandinavia & had underestimated the Japanese in the Far East.

N Africa was important for several reasons - morale, it gave us a chance to start working with the US forces, the fighting was close to Europe and most importantly it was engaging the German/ Nazi forces directly.

As armchair generals we have the benefit of hindsight and a comfy chair, but we must view these situations holistically (did I really just say that?)

This was total war and as such involved all aspects of society. To keep society motivated and in support of the war it needed to see some point of contact and meaning to their sacrifice - which in this case was N Africa.

What really saddens me is that the 14th Army became the Forgotten Army because of this. I think to the Brits the Germans were the true enemy and the Japs just a sideshow, because they were closer to home!
 
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I will have to agree with Partisan, especially his points on morale and giving the USA a chance to get their feet wet so to speak. After the debacle in Singapore it was a chance for Great Britain to show some spunk.
 
tomtom22 said:
I will have to agree with Partisan, especially his points on morale and giving the USA a chance to get their feet wet so to speak. After the debacle in Singapore it was a chance for Great Britain to show some spunk.
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Oddly enough I will disagree with Partisan as for the Germans there was no reason to be in North Africa, if they wanted control of the Mediterranean they didnt need Egypt they needed Malta, with Malta, Crete and Vichy French territories in North Africa they would have controlled the region and forced the Royal Navy out of it.

I have still yet to see what strategic necessity there was in North Africa, it was going to be a never ending front for the Germans and one that they had no real chance of winning given that the British were always falling back to their major supply bases in South Africa and India while German supply lines grew ever longer.

Further to this lets be a little realistic here and say had the USA stayed out of the war (which at the time was the case) there was no chance in hell that the British or Commonwealth had any hope of invading Europe they simply did not have the material or man power to do it.
 
Del Boy said:
That sounds like game over to me - before the intervention of the Red Army. That doesn't quite match your undebatable statement.
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I'm not sure what you mean Del Boy. Would you mind elaborating a little?

On the subject at hand in isolation the North African campaign was very important for all involved. However, taken into context against the greater scheme of things it was a minor theatre of war. It pales in comparison against the Eastern Front, where more people fought and died than all the other theatres of war put together. Not only was the Eastern Front the deadliest theatre in WW2, it was the deadliest conflict in human history. 30 million people died on the Eastern Front, it resulted in the utter ruin of one superpower and saw the emergence of another.

There is no comparision.
 
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Doppleganger said:
I'm not sure what you mean Del Boy. Would you mind elaborating a little?

On the subject at hand in isolation the North African campaign was very important for all involved. However, taken into context against the greater scheme of things it was a minor theatre of war. It pales in comparison against the Eastern Front, where more people fought and died than all the other theatres of war put together. Not only was the Eastern Front the deadliest theatre in WW2, it was the deadliest conflict in human history. 30 million people died on the Eastern Front, it resulted in the utter ruin of one superpower and saw the emergence of another.

There is no comparision.
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OK well here is a question for you then:
Where was the endpoint of the North African campaign going to be for the Germans?
- Was it over when they reached the Suez?
- Were they going to go south and knock South Africa out of the war?

Once they entered Africa the war became unwinnable for them in my opinion because like Britain and the Commonwealth not having the manpower or logistics to retake Europe Germany did not have the manpower or logistics to take Africa and free themselves of a land based front against Britain and the Commonwealth.
 
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