Author Gershom Gorenberg (Courtesy)The war in North Africa started as Mussolini’s romantic, but futile, attempt to restore a lost Roman empire. At least until El Alamein he worshiped the fuehrer who kept promoting him for his blitzkrieg style of warfare, but Nazi ideology seems to have eluded him. He chose El Alamein, an excellent location for a last stand, because it forced Rommel’s army into a bottle-neck 40 miles wide between the impassable Qattara Depression and the sea. By rushing to Mersa Matruh so soon after the leak from his “good source” Rommel compromised the source. The master tactician of desert war would have thought through his strategy a little longer and prepared better for the showdown at El Alamein or avoided it.

Source: The North Africa Journal July 15, 2021 17:26 UTC