History of the Second World War (30 page)

In 1941 the course of the war in Africa went through a series of startling changes that upset expectation on either side in turn but had no conclusive issue. It was a war of swift movement — but see-saw movement, repeatedly tilting up and down. The year had begun with the British throwing the Italians out of Cyrenaica, but then a German force arrived on the scene under the leadership of General Erwin Rommel, and barely two months later the British were thrown out of Cyrenaica except for a foothold which they retained at the small port of Tobruk. Rommel in turn was repulsed in two successive attacks on Tobruk, but then the British suffered reverses in two successive attempts to relieve the besieged garrison. After five months’ pause to build up strength, they made a bigger effort in November that produced a see-saw battle of a month’s duration, with repeated changes of fortune before the exhausted remains of the opposing army was forced to withdraw once again to the western border of Cyrenaica. But even then Rommel delivered a frontier riposte in the last week of the year, which proved a foreshadowing of another dramatic reversal of the British advance.*

* For maps, see pp. 110-11.

Rommel’s opening thrust at the end of March 1941, and its far-reaching exploitation, created all the greater shock because the possibility of an early advance by the enemy had been discounted on the British side. In an appreciation of the situation that Wavell sent to the Chiefs of Staff in London on March 2, after a warning report that German troops had begun to arrive in Tripoli, he emphasised that they would need to build up their strength to two divisions or more before attempting a serious attack, and concluded that the difficulties ‘make it unlikely that such an attack could develop before the end of the summer’. In contrast, Churchill’s messages showed apprehension that the Germans would not wait to complete an orthodox build-up, and a strong sense of the need for offensive counteraction, although over-optimistic about the capacity of the actual British forces. On March 26 he telegraphed to Wavell:

We are naturally concerned at rapid German advance to Agheila. It is their habit to push on wherever they are not resisted. I presume you are only waiting for the tortoise to stick his head out far enough before chopping it off. It seems extremely important to give them an early taste of our quality.*

* Churchill:
The Second World War,
vol. III, p. 178.

But quality was lacking, both technically and tactically. Although the depleted 2nd Armoured Division that was posted in the forward area still had three armoured units to Rommel’s two, and a numerically favourable balance of gun-armed tanks, a large proportion of these were captured Italian M.13s that had been taken over by British crews to compensate the shortage of British cruiser tanks, while almost all were in badly worn condition. The prospects of such a scratch force were diminished by Wavell’s instructions that ‘if attacked’ it was to fall back and ‘fight a delaying action’. For by abandoning the bottleneck position east of Agheila at Rommel’s initial onset, on March 31, it opened the way for him to enter a desert expanse where he could exploit a wide choice of alternative routes and alternative objectives to its own confusion, while being itself in no fit state for such strenuous manoeuvring. In the days that followed, Rommel allowed it no respite. Most of its tanks were lost, not in fighting, but through breaking down or running out of fuel in a prolonged and disjointed series of withdrawals.

In less than a week the British had fallen back more than 200 miles from their position on the western border of Cyrenaica. In less than a fortnight they were 400 miles back, on the eastern border of Cyrenaica — and western frontier of Egypt — except for a force invested at Tobruk. The decision to hold on to this small port, and the retention of that position as a ‘thorn in the enemy’s side’, had a far-reaching influence on the course of the African campaign during the next twelve months.

The swiftly spreading collapse had naturally tended to shake the confidence of commanders and troops on the British side, while leading them to magnify the strength of the attackers. At a distance it was easier to keep account of the enemy’s limited strength and strategic handicaps. Churchill in London, duly weighing them, telegraphed to Wavell on April 7:

You should surely be able to hold Tobruk, with its permanent Italian defences, at least until or unless the enemy brings up strong artillery forces. It seems difficult to believe that he can do this for some weeks. He would run great risks in masking Tobruk and advancing upon Egypt, observing that we can reinforce from the sea and would menace his communications. Tobruk therefore seems to be a place to be held to the death without thought of retirement. I should be glad to hear of your intentions.*

* Churchill:
The Second World War,
vol, III, p. 183.

Wavell had already decided to hold Tobruk if possible, but when he flew there from Cairo on the 8th he reported that the situation had greatly deteriorated, and sounded so dubious about the prospects of defending the place that Churchill, in conclave with the Chiefs of Staff, drafted a still more emphatic message saying that ‘it seems unthinkable that the fortress of Tobruk should be abandoned’. Before the message was despatched, however, word came from Wavell that he had made up his mind to hold on there for a time, and assemble a mobile force on the frontier to divert the enemy and ease the pressure, while striving ‘to build up old plan of defence in Mersa Matruh area’ — 200 miles farther back. In the event there was no further withdrawal, thanks to the stubborn defence of Tobruk, though nearly eight months passed before it was relieved.

The main part of the garrison was provided by the 9th Australian Division under General Morshead, which had got back safely from the Benghazi area. In addition the 18th Infantry Brigade (of the 7th Australian Division) had arrived by sea, and was followed by detachments of the 1st and 7th Royal Tank Regiment with which a small armoured force of fifty odd tanks was built up.

Rommel’s attack opened on Good Friday, April 11, with probing thrusts. The main attack was launched early on Easter Monday, against the middle stretch of the southern face of the thirty-mile perimeter, some nine miles from the port. It broke through the thin defences, and the leading panzer battalion drove on two miles northward, but was there checked by the defender’s artillery, and then squeezed out of the narrow pocket it had made, losing sixteen tanks out of the thirty-eight engaged — a total that revealed the slenderness of Rommel’s strength. The Italians attempted an attack on the 16th, but their effort quickly collapsed, and nearly a thousand surrendered when counterattacked by an Australian battalion.

The Italian Supreme Command in Rome, already uneasy about Rommel’s deep advance, now begged the German Supreme Command to restrain his adventurous initiative and reported intention of thrusting into Egypt. Halder, the Chief of the German General Staff, was equally anxious to curb any action overseas that might require reinforcement at the expense of the German forces in the main theatre that were now preparing to invade Russia. He also had an instinctive dislike of Hitler’s inclination to back dynamic leaders, such as Rommel, who did not conform to General Staff pattern. So Halder’s deputy, General Paulus, was sent on a visit to Africa ‘to head off this soldier gone stark mad’, as Halder bitingly wrote in his diary. Paulus came, saw, and checked — but after administering an admonition, he sanctioned a fresh assault on Tobruk.

The assault was launched on April 30, by which time some advance elements of the 15th Panzer Division — though not its tank regiment — had arrived from Europe to reinforce the 5th Light Division. This time the blow was aimed at the south-western corner of the defences, and delivered under cover of darkness. By daylight on May 1 the German infantry had made a breach more than a mile wide, and the leading wave of tanks then started an exploiting drive towards Tobruk, ten miles away. But after advancing a mile they ran unsuspectingly on a minefield that had been newly laid, as a trap, and seventeen tanks out of forty were disabled — though all except five got back safely, after their tracks had been repaired under fire. The second wave of tanks and infantry wheeled south-eastward along the back of the perimeter to roll up the defences. But after a lateral advance of nearly three miles they were finally checked by the combination of fire from artillery deployed behind the minefield, a counterattack by twenty British tanks, and the continued resistance of several Australian posts which they had failed to subdue. As for the Italian supporting troops, they were slow in backing up and quick in backing out.

Next day only thirty-five German tanks out of the initial 70-odd remained fit for action, and the attack was suspended. On the night of the 3rd, Morshead launched a counterattack with his reserve infantry brigade, but this in turn failed, and the situation became one of mutual frustration. The south-western corner of the perimeter remained in Rommel’s grip, but it was evident that his strength was not adequate for the capture of Tobruk, and Paulus, before returning home, imposed a veto on any attempt to renew the attack. So a state of siege developed, which lasted until late in the year — after the failure of two early efforts by Wavell to drive Rommel back and bring relief to the garrison.

The first of these, in mid-May, had a tentativeness that was expressed in its codename, ‘Operation Brevity’, but greater weight was given and much greater hopes attached to its mid-June successor, ‘Operation Battleaxe’. The outcome was poor compensation for the heavy risks that had been taken, on Churchill’s initiative, to ensure its success — the risk of providing a large reinforcement of tanks for Egypt at a time when the forces defending England were still ill-equipped, and when Hitler had not yet turned away to attack Russia; also, the further risk of despatching this reinforcement by the Mediterranean route, ‘running the gauntlet’ of the enemy’s air forces.

Churchill’s bold readiness to run such double risks, in the endeavour to gain success in Africa and preserve the British position in Egypt, was in striking contrast to the attitude of Hitler and Halder, who were agreed in trying to curtail the German commitment in the Mediterranean theatre. In October, when General von Thoma had been sent on an exploratory visit to Cyrenaica, he had reported that a force of four panzer divisions would be needed, and should suffice, to ensure success in the invasion of Egypt, but Mussolini had been as unwilling to accept such a scale of German help as Hitler was to provide it. Rommel’s small force of two divisions had only been despatched there after the Italian defeat, in an effort to preserve Tripoli. Even when he had shown how far he could go with such a small panzer force, Hitler and Halder remained unwilling to provide the relatively small reinforcement that would in all probability have decided the issue. By that refusal they forfeited the chance of conquering Egypt and ousting the British from the Mediterranean area at a time when the British were still weak — while they were led to make a much greater commitment, and sacrifice, in the long run.

But in Britain, despite her still scanty resources, a convoy with large armoured reinforcements had already been assembled in April for despatch to Egypt. It was about to sail when a telegram came from Wavell, on April 20, emphasising the gravity of the situation and the urgency of his need for more armour. Churchill immediately proposed*, and got the Chiefs of Staff to agree, that the five fast ships carrying the tanks should turn east at Gibraltar and take the short cut through the Mediterranean — which would save nearly six weeks in time of arrival. He also insisted that the scale of the reinforcement should be increased and a hundred of the latest cruiser tanks included, although the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Dill, opposed such a subtraction from the slender strength available at home to meet a possible spring invasion.

* In a personal minute that day for the Chiefs of Staff, he pungently wrote: ‘The fate of the war in the Middle East, the loss of the Suez Canal, the frustration or confusion of the enormous forces we have built up in Egypt, the closing of all prospects of American co-operation through the Red Sea — all may turn on a few hundred armoured vehicles. They must if possible be carried there at all costs.’
(The Second World War,
vol. III, p. 218.)

This ‘Operation Tiger’ was the first attempt to pass a convoy through the Mediterranean since the Luftwaffe had made its appearance there in January. Helped by misty weather, the convoy was successfully taken through without suffering damage from the air, though one of the ships, with fifty-seven tanks, was sunk by a mine in passing through the Sicilian Narrows. The other four ships reached Alexandria safely on May 12, with 238 tanks (135 Matildas, eighty-two cruiser, and twenty-one lights) — which was four times as many as those which Wavell had been able to scrape together for the defence of Egypt.

Without waiting for this large reinforcement, however, Wavell had decided to take advantage of Rommel’s rebuff at Tobruk, and reported acute shortage of supplies, by trying an offensive stroke with the scratch force assembled near the frontier, under Brigadier Gott„ This was ‘Operation Brevity’. Wavell’s initial aim was to recapture the frontier positions near the coast — which he knew were lightly held — and scupper their garrisons before the enemy reinforced them. He hoped to do more than that, as he told Churchill in a telegram on May 13: ‘If successful will consider immediate combined action by Gott’s force and Tobruk garrison to drive enemy west of Tobruk.’

Two tank units were brought up to provide the punch for Gott’s force — the 2nd R.T.R., equipped with twenty-nine old-type cruisers which had been reconditioned, and the 4th R.T.R. with twenty-six Matildas, heavily armoured, relatively slow, and officially classified as ‘infantry tanks’. The 2nd R.T.R. with a support group of motorised infantry and artillery was to move round the desert flank of the fortified positions to Sidi Azeiz, and block the enemy’s route of reinforcement and retreat. The 4th R.T.R. was to lead the motorised 22nd Guards Brigade in the direct assault.