A wide-ranging, technical analysis of the bitter campaign,
throughout the second half of 1942, for dominion of Egypt. Barr
(Defense Studies/Kings College London) examines the North African
theater in the context of the larger war, and in particular what
was happening on the near periphery: the Nazi airborne assault on
the island of Crete, naval actions in the Mediterranean, ground
combat in Ethiopia and an uprising in Iraq through which "Britain
came dangerously close to losing its control of the Middle Eastern
oil supplies." Charged with relieving the besieged port of Tobruk,
much of the British Eighth Army found itself penned up west of the
city. Even though Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps had fewer soldiers
and a third fewer tanks, it threw the defenders back to the
Egyptian frontier in a disorganized retreat that caused an American
military attache to observe that the Eighth's "tactical conceptions
were always wrong . . . its reactions to the lightning changes of
the battlefield were always slow." The destruction would have been
worse had the German ground forces not outrun their air support.
Even so, centered on the little rail stop of El Alamein, the Eighth
rebuilt its command, removing many staff officers and instituting
the brigade rather than the division as the main unit of combat and
movement. Though some officers were not eager to hurry back into
combat with Rommel, Winston Churchill was eager to have a British
victory before American forces landed in Morocco in Operation
Torch, accelerating the schedule for a major offensive led by
Bernard Montgomery. Surprising some observers, and certainly
surprising Rommel, the Eighth rose to the occasion very capably
indeed. Barr closes by concluding that in the Alamein campaign the
force "was granted the breathing space it needed to assimilate
lessons that transformed it from a clumsy and inept fighting
formation into an effective and battle-winning army." A useful
study of the war in the desert, though meant for readers with some
appreciation of strategy, logistics, and tactics. (Kirkus Reviews)
A compelling new history of a crucial turning point in the Second
World War which also provides a detailed picture of the British
Army at a critical stage in its fight against Hitler's Germany. In
late June 1942, the dispirited and defeated British Eighth Army was
pouring back towards the tiny railway halt of El Alamein in the
western desert of Egypt. Tobruk had fallen and Eighth Army had
suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Rommel's Panzerarmee
Afrika. Yet just five months later, the famous bombardment opened
the Eighth Army's own offensive which destroyed the Axis threat to
Egypt. Explanations for the remarkable change of fortune have
generally been sought in the abrasive personality of the new army
commander Lieutenant-General Bernard Law Montgomery. But as Niall
Barr shows in this new interpretation, based on extensive original
research, the long running controversies surrounding the commanders
of Eighth Army - Generals Auchinleck and Montgomery - and that of
their legendary opponent, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, have often
been allowed to obscure the true nature of the Alamein campaign.
This book is the story of how an army learnt from its mistakes. the
Eighth Army transform itself from a tactically inept collection of
units into a battle-winning force. Pendulum of War explores how the
Eighth Army learnt from bitter experience to develop tactical and
operational methods that eventually mastered the veterans of
Rommel's Afrika Korps and provides a vivid and fresh perspective on
the fighting at El Alamein from the early desperate days of July to
the final costly victory in November.
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