The vast Sahara Desert, lying quietly in North Africa, emits irritating heat waves. The Battle of El Alamein, which turned the tide of the War in North Africa during World War II, took place here.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said that before the Battle of El Alamein, we were invincible. After the Battle of El Alamein, we were invincible.
What kind of battle was the Battle of El Alamein that earned him such a high rating as British Wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill? Let's turn our minds back to the Battlefield of North Africa more than half a century ago.
El Alamein, located about sixty kilometers southwest of Alexandria, Egypt, is an impossible position to be encircled in the entire western desert of North Africa.
In July 1942, the sun was shining on the El Alamein front, and the dry desert was crisscrossed with bare, cracked rocks and occasional bushes that camels could eat.
In October, the famous battle between the British General Montgomery and the LinkedIn Eighth Army and the German-Italian African Tank Group commanded by German Field Marshal Rommel was fought here.
By this time the British Empire had suffered defeats on almost all battlefields. On the battlefields of Dunkirk and Africa, Rommel swept across the country, leading to the defeat of many famous British generals.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill exclaimed in the House of Commons: "A brave and sophisticated opponent is fighting us." Although our two sides attacked and killed each other in the catastrophe of war. But let me say that he was a great general. ”
The commander of the German Army of North Africa, Rommel, was anxiously awaiting the latest orders from the German high command. At this time, the German Afrika Korps under his command were turning into the defense here.
It was imperative to move to the defensive, knowing that this was a unit that had just won the battle. Not long ago, he led the German Afrika Korps in a fierce attack on Topruk, an important military base for the British army. After only fourteen hours of fierce fighting. The British base, guarded by more than 30,000 British troops, was called an indomitable fortress.
In the history of World War II operations, Erwin Rommel was a legendary general unlike most senior German generals. Rommel did not come from a military family, but grew up in a family of wisdom. Their father was a secondary school principal. His father believed that Rommel had developed in the army, which allowed Rommel, who had been reluctant to join the army, to join the army at the age of eighteen.
Rommel was not tall and weak, but this man was very good at fighting. Soon after he joined the army, he caught up with the First World War. He became the leader of three soldiers, repelled the attack of twenty-one French soldiers, and was awarded the War Medal four times.
He based his combat experience and lessons in the First World War. Wrote an academic work called Infantry in Attack.
When Hitler saw the book, he appreciated Rommel so much that he transferred Rommel to his side and became the commander of his guard battalion. After the outbreak of World War II, Rommel was promoted to division commander of the Seventh Panzer Division.
In 1942, the Italian army was defeated by the British Eighth Army in the North African theater. Mussolini turned to Hitler to help him undo the delay in North Africa, and Hitler sent him to Africa to defend this trump card Rommel to Africa, where he defeated the British Eighth Army and fought all the way to El Alamein. Rommel won the battle with fewer victories and more victories, so he must have made a name for himself. It was called "Desert Fox" by the British Army.
The victory in this battle was not only the capture of more than 30,000 men by Rommel, but also the capture of enough supplies and about 10,000 tons of fuel for a quarter. Relying on these captured Rommel to lead his Afrika Korps, he quickly approached Egypt. Fight all the way down.
In early July, it entered the El Alamein region. Alexandria is only sixty kilometers away. By this time, The Egyptian capital, Cairo, was in disarray, and government agencies began burning archives and preparing for evacuation.
Rommel's Afrika Korps also encountered great difficulties at this time. Hitler was busy sending troops and supplies to the Soviet-German battlefield, and the Afrika Korps were slow to keep the logistical supplies and replenishments desperately needed for the offensive. Without these necessary additions, Rommel was no longer able to break through to the east and develop an offensive. He had to stop in the El Alamein area to turn to the defensive, waiting for replenishment.
At that time, the situation in the North African war was generally very unfavorable to the German and Italian armies. But it should be said that Rommel's understanding of this grim strategic situation was insufficient. Arriving in the El Alamein region was not actually his ultimate goal, he was just forced to wait for logistical supplies. Because he was leading a mechanized force. Such a mechanized force, without the supply of raw materials and sufficient logistical support, has no combat capability. So Rommel was convinced that as long as his logistical supplies were guaranteed, he could fight all the way. Rommel, who was galloping across the European and African battlefields, caused many famous British generals to lose. Now of course he had reason to have confidence in himself. All he lacked was logistical supplies.
However, the results were disappointing, as the Germans were increasingly strained on the Soviet-German battlefield and had to transfer large quantities of troops and supplies to the Eastern Front. The British Air Force regained control of italy's main sea lines of communication from North Africa, and axis convoys to North Africa were hit hard again. The situation in North Africa and the Mediterranean was even more unfavorable for Germany and Italy. Hitler could not bring Rommel the supplies he desperately needed, and could only award him a field marshal's staff.
In the middle of the desert, Rommel could only wait any longer. In order to prevent the British counterattack, Rommel arranged his German-Italian army in a deep echelon configuration, in an attempt to organize and crush the British attack by relying on a strong defensive line that combined a ring defense with a large area of brawling support points. The entire defensive zone was about sixty kilometers wide and about fifteen kilometers deep. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Katara Basin to the south. Mined areas are not only large in size, but also dense in mine-laying. However, Rommel knew that the British counterattack would not take long.
Even the strongest defensive line needs to have enough strength and support. The police are weak and underfunct and will not be able to sustain a protracted war of attrition if they are not replenished. He still needed additional support from the rear. As Rommel expected, the British counteroffensive had indeed begun.
The British were well aware of the situation in the North African theater, and Rommel was currently in trouble, but once he had the supplies he needed, the desert fox would re-extend its claws to pounce on the British, and once he had rushed into Egypt and opened up the fleets of Iran, Pakistan, Italy and Germany, he would be free to enter and leave the Red Sea and control the South African route deep into the Indian Ocean. The British must not let him get this opportunity.
On August 4, 1942, Churchill flew to Cairo and began to deploy operations against Rommel. Initially, he appointed Goth as commander of the British Eighth Army. However, on the way to the Goth's mission, his landline was hit by the Germans and killed. So Churchill turned his attention to another famous player, Montgomery.
In mid-August, Montgomery took over as commander of the British Eighth Army and took up the offensive to drive german and Italian troops out of North Africa and began to replenish their troops and equipment. Strengthen training, boost morale, adopt camouflage measures, etc.
Montgomery's idea was to carry out a feint attack south of El Alamein to attract the attention of the Germans, while the main force was concentrated in the north, developing an offensive along the Sidi-Hamid line. It strives to compress the main German army in the coastal area and annihilate it, and finally realize the strategic intention of expelling all German and Italian troops from North Africa.
Montgomery went to school at the Royal Army Academy in Saxster in 1909. Once the troops conducted an examination, the examiner asked, How many times a day do mules pull? He blurted out, "Six times." ”
The examiner said at the time, "No, eight times." If you look closely, you will find that your point of view is wrong. Montgomery said this mule pulls a few times, how do you observe it so finely? So he really went to observe, because he was curious. Sure enough, he found their mule camp, and the mule pulled eight times a day.
The impact of this on Montgomery was very large. He said that a soldier has superhuman powers of observation and thinking, and a meticulous plan comes from the wholehearted observation and thinking of the planner. So throughout World War II, the Mongol Marley was called a near-perfect general by Westerners. In the North African operation, he calculated accurately to each armored division of an armored division, and the fuel consumption and combat progress of each armored vehicle. In this Battle of El Alamein, he carefully analyzed the situation of the battlefield and the weaknesses of the enemy through the knowledge he had accumulated in peacetime and his own knowledge of military theory.
The main force of the war throughout the Second World was favorable to the anti-fascist side. The Battle of El Alamein was launched.
At this time, the British Eighth Army had seven infantry divisions, four armored divisions and five brigades of the Thirtieth, Tenth and Thirteenth Armouries, with 1,029 tanks, 2,311 artillery pieces, 750 aircraft, and a total strength of 19.5 million people.
In order to ensure the suddenness of the battle, Montgomery took a series of camouflage measures. He set up a large number of fake munitions stations in the rear of southern El Alamein, simulating tanks, artillery, etc., and even laid a pipeline. At the same time, he frequently used radio there, deliberately revealing to the enemy that the British would launch an attack on the Germans in the south in early November. At the same time, a large number of British troops took advantage of the darkness of the night to enter the offensive starting positions in the north of the front. Just as the Great War was about to break out, Rommel suffered a heart attack and was forced to return to Germany to recuperate, replaced by General Sturm.
At 21:40 on 23 October 1942, after three consecutive days of aviation fire preparations, the British offensive began. Twelve hundred artillery pieces opened simultaneous fire on the Germans, and then the infantry charged at the enemy's forward positions. In the main direction of attack, the Thirtieth Army, with the Australian Ninth Division and the British Fifty-first Division, proposed that the progress was smooth, and after breaking through the German front, it quickly opened a way for subsequent armored forces in the minefield. The left-wing Indian Fourth Division was met with stubborn resistance north of the Rovisat Ridge and its offensive was blocked.
At two o'clock in the morning of the twenty-fourth day, the First and Tenth Panzer Divisions of the Tenth Army were ordered to enter the battle from the minefield where the passage was being opened. Due to the depth of the minefield, it exceeded expectations.
In the early morning of the 25th, New Zealand opened a passage in the minefield and approached the Mackalya Ridge to the southwest, but was counterattacked by the 15th Armoured Division.
On the 26th, the Australian Ninth Division advanced to the coast after capturing part of the German positions at the northern end of the front, threatening the flank of the German 164th Division and repelling the counterattack of the German 15th Panzer Division.
In the direction of assists, the XIII Corps launched an attack on the southern section of the German line, but was blocked by German minefields and artillery fire, and made little progress.
On the morning of the twenty-fourth day, the Seventh Panzer Division and the Forty-fourth and Fiftieth Infantry Divisions of the Army attacked again. After passing the first lightning strike, it was blocked by German fire, and after several days of fierce fighting, both sides suffered heavy losses.
By this time the German army was in chaos, for it was General Sternm who was in place of Rommel. A day after the campaign began, he died of a heart attack.
In the crisis on the front line, Hitler had to order again, and Rommel returned to the front line with illness.
On 25 October, Rommel arrived in El Alamein and continued to command the beleaguered force.
On the twenty-sixth day, Rommel determined the main direction of the British attack and began to transfer the German Twenty-first Panzer Division to the northern front. The British offensive was thwarted. The attack was suspended on the twenty-seventh day.
Montgomery's British Seventh Panzer was the main direction of the northern transfer, and the strength of the other units of the Thirteenth Army temporarily took the defensive position, only with small detachments and artillery attacks to contain the enemy.
This was a good time for the Germans to counterattack. However, the logistical supply of the German and Italian armies could not guarantee the offensive operation.
From the 26th to the 28th, all the oil tankers that were transporting fuel from Italy to Africa were sunk by the British Navy and Air Force, leaving the German army in a desperate shortage of fuel and logistical supplies. The armored forces were unable to organize a large-scale counterattack.
On the twenty-ninth day, the Australian Ninth Division and the British Ninth Panzer Brigade advanced toward the coast, but were repulsed by the Germans, and the main German 21st Panzer Division transferred from the southern front moved to the northern coast in an attempt to organize the British army to advance west along the road.
Montgomery changed his plans and decided to make a deep breakthrough on the weak German defenses north of Waist Ridge.
On the 31st, the Australian Ninth Division arrived and took control of the coastal areas. Cut off the retreat of the German 164th Division. The German 21st Panzer Division and the 90th Light Panzer Division organized a counterattack, and although they achieved certain results, they also suffered heavy losses. There were only about two hundred German-Italian tanks left. The British still had more than 800 tanks on the northern part of the front that had not been put into battle, and the British still had a strong offensive capability.
Montgomery was indeed a genius tactician. He captured this weakness of the German army very accurately. So by the beginning of November, he decided it was a new battle plan. He called this battle plan the Booster Plan. It was a more violent attack on the German and Italian armies, which were already in a predicament.
In the early hours of November 2, after this heavy artillery preparation, he led his 151st and 152nd Infantry Brigades and the Ninth Panzer Brigade to attack the combined headquarters of the German Fifteenth and Twenty-first Panzer Divisions. Soon a breakthrough was torn open in the defensive positions of the combined units of the two divisions. He then threw in three more divisions and continued his attack deeper.
At this time Rommel's troops were in a great predicament. Because his mechanized troops now have basically no fuel to supply. Most of the mechanized troops are in a position where they cannot fight and cannot be mobile. And his troops had no air cover, so a large number of tanks were destroyed by air fire. In such a situation, Rommel had to order that the battle be ended and the battle quickly withdrawn.
But in the process of organizing the retreat of Rommel's troops, due to a large number of weapons and equipment, especially a large number of mechanized things like tanks, because there is no oil, only manpower. So there was actually no way to withdraw, and the roads were very congested, so Rommel's troops suffered heavy losses throughout the retreat. By the time of the sixth day, due to heavy rain, the road was very muddy, and the British army was forced to stop chasing, so the Battle of El Alamein ended in this situation.
In the Battle of El Alamein, the British army had more than 4,600 dead, wounded more than 8,900 people, achieved a major victory of annihilating the enemy at the cost of 5.5 million, capturing more than 400 artillery pieces, and destroying 350 captured tanks.
The British achieved the surprise of the battle with clever camouflage, concentrating superior forces to carry out a frontal assault, and infantry, artillery, and tank soldiers closely coordinated to break through the opposing line. In particular, in view of the high degree of mechanization of the German and Italian armies and their strong dependence on logistics supplies, they gave full play to the advantages of their navy and air force to block and destroy the rear supply lines of the German army. The combat capability of the German and Italian armies was greatly weakened.
The Battle of El Alamein fully demonstrated Montgomery's superb art of command. After this battle, the German and Italian armies retreated and lost all their strength, and there was no longer any way to control the North African battlefield.
The great victory at the Battle of El Alamein was historic in the Second World War. It was not only a turning point in the war in North Africa. It also enabled the Allies to grasp the strategic initiative from then on, hastening the demise of fascism. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill not only proudly said that after the Battle of El Alamein, we have not lost a single battle. He also said that the Battle of El Alamein was the key to fate.