Blitzkrieg tactics

The British could reach the rest of the Commonwealth without using the Suez Canal (and never used Suez when it comes to receiving shipments from Canada). And it is what they did, as soon as Italy entered the war. A handful of fast cargo ships went from Gibraltar to Alex or the other way around, and most of the other traffic in the Med was related to keeping Malta in the fight.
Everything else went along the Cape route.

But we agree Rommel's first task was preventing the whole North Africa to collapse, which might just have happened without him and a couple of German mobile/armored divisions.

The cost of going round the Cape is obviously higher than going through the Suez. And the U-boat blockade made fuel stocks especially precious.

Hi Guys,

I would suggest the following:

1) Germany could have won the war if it had mounted a campaign against the British position in the Middle East immediately after the fall of France. It had over 100 divisions available. Britain had about two. (In this connection it is worth noting that Hitler first told his staff to prepare plans for the attack on Russia when his pleasure at France's surrender was spoilt by news that the USSR was demanding Bucovina off Romania - something not agreed under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact).

2) In the long run, Rommel's success in propping up the Italians for two years may well have helped the Western Allies. If the British had successfully cleared the Italians out of Africa in early 1941 they would then have faced the prospect of trying to land in Europe with only about three divisions (one British, one Australian and one Indian) with any experience of success against the European Axis, and then only against the Italians. By contrast, by mid 1943 they had some fifteen Commonwealth and American divisions with experience of combat success against the Germans as well and thus had gained valuable experience before attempting any landings in continental Europe.

Cheers,

Sid.

Very true, Sid, but this is similar to what Guderian suggested days after the fall of France.

Guderian's was a three-pronged suggestion: continue down to the Mediteranean before signing the Armisitice with France. Then, take Malta, which at the time was not prepared for air attacks. Finally, he concludes that 4-6 Panzer Divisions in North Africa would have been enough to annihilate the weak British forces in Egypt.

He proposed this strategy to Hitler through General Ripp, but Hitler was not interested at the moment.

I find very speculative any hypothesis of Germany conclusively winning the war before any involvement of the Soviet Union in the conflict.

1) I dont think the Germans could have entered the North African theater earlier than the Italian defeats without seriously upsetting their allies. Afterall, 250,000 Italians were there to take care of the issue. I am not sure they could have done that without Italian approval.

2) Sure, the british drew first blood from the germans there, and coalesced the 8th Army with that occasion, but considering that wouldnt have happened, I do not think the british would have launched any invasion with the meager forces they had there initially.

Hi Mabadesc,

Very true. That was the consensus of German military opinion.

That is why it is so interesting that Hitler started planning to attack the USSR immediately after the fall of France. He was apparently just about to mount the railway carriage at Compiegne in which the French were going to sign the armistice when he was told of Stalin's demand for Bucovina. This tarnished his moment of supreme triumph.

Within days, before the end of June and even before the Red Army had completed its occupation of Basarabia and Northern Bucovina, von Weisacker of the German foreign ministry had returned to Berlin and told the German General staff that Russia was on the immediate target list. By early July Hitler had ordered maps of the USSR to be delivered to Berchtesgarten and on (I think) 20 July - the day immediately after the victory parade in Berlin for the French Campaign - he ordered the first concrete planning to begin.

Stalin seems to have put a political spanner-in-the-works of the German campaign against the British Empire well before the Battle of Britain, and the trigger for this was his excessive demands of territory off Romania, which went well beyond that already agreed between Ribbentrop and Molotov in August 1939. Why? Because the USSR and Romania were Germany's main sources of oil and Stalin was moving into a position where he might gain control of both.

It might even be argued tongue-in-cheek that Romania inadvertently saved the British Empire in 1940 and thereby changed the outcome of WWII!

Cheers,

Sid.

Cheers,

Sid.

Hi Dragos,

"Counter-factual" history is always speculative.

I am not saying that German victory over Britain in the Middle East would of itself have finished the war. However, it would quite possibly have forced the British to sue for a compromise peace, because all their Asian and African possessions would have been vulnerable.

Furthermore, even Britain had not sued for peace it would have been rendered impotent for a considerable period and possesion of the Middle East would have put Germany in an enormously stronger position to tackle the USSR.

With the Gulf oil fields in its hands Germany would have been less dependent on the USSR. German forces could have been on the USSR's southern border in the Caucasus and based within easy bombing distance of its oil fields there. Countries like Turkey, which had previously been neutral, would quite possibly have joined the Axis. The Lend-Lease route through Persia would never have been opened. Etc., etc..

Cheers,

Sid.

Hi Imperialist,

Yes, Italian attitudes were a significant factor. In the second half of 1940 Mussolini was trying to run a "Parallel War" in the Mediterranean without German assistance. The Italian inability to do so effectively was only fully exposed in November in Albania and December in North Africa. Thus German forces arrived in both the Balkans and North Africa in early 1941 as a result of Italian failure, when the bulk of the Wehrmacht was already committed to an attack on the USSR in mid 1941.

How much better if German forces had been able to intervene in the Balkans, and especially North Africa, six months earlier when the Italians had not suffered any reverses, the British were at their all-time lowest ebb and any attack on the USSR had not been finally resolved upon.

Exactly. The British were completely incapable of launching an invasion of Europe for years. When they and the Americans finally did so in 1943 they were able to do so with combat-experienced formations with a record of success against the Germans in North Africa. Had the North African Campaign finished in early 1941 they would have faced the prospect of trying to invade the European continent with almost completely raw armies at a time when the Germans were building up a mass of campaign experience in the East. Such seaborne invasions were already the most complex military operations ever mounted. They were already fraught with difficulty, without the extra disadvantage of having virtually no combat experience available.

Cheers,

Sid.

This period of chaotic planning is indeed very interesting.
The military planners were focusing on Operation Sea Lion, as evidenced by the OKW order of July 2nd. The first time they were told (officially) by Jodl about the intention to attack the USSR was on July 29th.
The front in North Africa was considered secondary, and forces were to be sent there if operation Sea Lion was to be postponed for 1940 and the italians failed in their own offensive. As both the operation and the italians failed, forces were sent in support of italians.

Well, imo:

1) the British would have destroyed the oil fields' infrastructure before the germans captured them
2) in order to make their presence in the M.E. an advantage and not a vulnerability in the face of the british or soviets, the germans had to secure the Mediterranean. Doing that in 1940 meant lifting the pressure on the British Isles and engaging in the Med. After the Battle of England, battles for the islands in the Med. would have meant further attrition of Luftwaffe forces.

p.s. ofcourse, doing that before the Battle of England is another "what if"

take care

This post has been edited by Imperialist on November 05, 2005 12:03 pm

Hi Imperialist,

The simultaneous planning for Sea Lion and Barbarossa leads one to question whether Sea Lion wasn't just a bluff designed to induce an early British peace. Weisacker arrived back in Berlin talking of Hitler focusing on the USSR at the end of June, even before Sea Lion planning began.

Given the always limited prospects of Sea Lion, to prioritise it over a Mediterranean strategy was a mistake, especially as the vast majority of German forces were never dedicated to Sea Lion in the first place.

Yup. The British would have destroyed the oil fields, but they would gradually have been brought back on tap, some quite quickly. In 1942 the Germans had a special oil brigade in the Caucasus that was beginning to get some demolished wells (at Maikop?) back in working order when they had to be abandoned due to Stalingrad. The Germans were prepared for such eventualities.

Cheers,

Sid.

Well, since the topic is "Blitzkrieg tactics", in my view the principles of blitzkrieg were seriously ignored by delaying any attack on Britain for 2 months.

Hi Imperialist,

I am not sure that the attack on Britain was consciously delayed. There was certainly a delay, but this was unavoidable. Germany had made no preparations for an invasion of the UK. For example, it did not possess a single landing craft. The whole of Sea Lion had to be improvised at very short notice. I would suggest that the Germans moved as fast as they could.

Cheers,

Sid.