![]() ![]() Photo: Wikimedia Commons The balance of forcesīritish and Commonwealth troops faced an enemy heavily entrenched behind a five-mile- deep network of minefields, known as ‘the devil’s gardens’ to their creators. German victory at El Alamein would have threatened British control of the waterway, an indispensable lifeline to the East. Montgomery refused to take on the enemy until he had not only built up the morale of his army, proclaiming that he would ‘hit Rommel for six out of Africa’, but had also received the material resources he needed.īritish warships at the entrance to the Suez Canal, late 1930s. Yet, initially, his replacement was no less resistant to demands for action from London. Sacked by Churchill as Eighth Army commander in August 1942, he departed for India, a disappointed man. ![]() The defensive-minded Auchinleck was arguably ill-treated by a prime minister impatient for a decisive outcome in the Western Desert. It was not the sideshow depicted by some revisionist historians. It would have threatened British control of the Suez Canal, an indispensable lifeline to the East, forcing ships to take the much longer and more dangerous alternative route around southern Africa. Defeat would have given the Germans access to Egypt, with its vital reserves of oil. ![]() The importance of Alamein, and of the wider Middle Eastern campaign, needs to be understood. Erwin Rommel’s mastery of mobile warfare was of limited use there, making an outflanking manoeuvre impossible to execute. Sixty miles west of Alexandria, it was bounded on the north by the Mediterranean and to the south by the Qattara Depression, a vast, low-lying area of cliffs and quicksand that was impassable to mechanised forces. His forces halted the Germans and their Italian allies there in July 1942. It was not Montgomery but his ill-starred predecessor as commander of the Eighth Army, General Claude Auchinleck, who chose El Alamein as the place to make a stand. What was it like to take part in this climactic confrontation, and what was its significance for the course of the Second World War? Prelude to battle British soldiers push forward through smoke and dust during the Battle of El Alamein, October 1942. ![]()
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