World Battlefronts, STRATEGY: If Egypt Falls . . .

If Egypt Falls. . .

Within reach of his sand-scarred hands Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had the greatest war prize since the Japanese took the Dutch East Indies. If he lays his hands on Alexandria, already within easy bombing range of his forward bases, the Mediterranean will belong to the Axis. Give him Suez, and he will have opened the gate of the Near East, to the Axis.

More than that, the fall of Egypt would be a threat to the entire Russian front, for the eastern European front extends in fact from Murmansk down through the Caucasus to the wreckage of Matrûh.

By the mere threat of an offensive based on Suez, the Axis might well force Turkey out of her stubborn neutrality into collaboration with Germany. Then Russia would have the foe on her left flank, within reach of the Caucasian oilfields. But the threat would be greater than that. Once in the Near East, the German would be near British oil—the great wealth of the Iraq fields. These fields (with Russia's) are the last big oil source for a vast strategic area in which the Japanese have already snatched the rest of the wells. The sub-harried tankers of the United Nations could not make up the deficit for many exhausting months to come.

From Egypt, the Nazis could also swing south, strike at the great U.S. concentration base in Eritrea. From the Near East, they could swing farther east into India, striking at the communications lines of the United Nations to China. Wherever they went, south, east, or both, they could well expect to get some help from the native populations, for the loss of Egypt would strike British prestige a severe blow in all Mohammedan countries.

Yet, except for the taking of the Mediterranean (which could be done at a stroke by depriving the British Fleet of its Egyptian bases) all this would take time—time to organize and employ greater armies than Germany now has on the south side of the Mediterranean. And time would give the United Nations opportunity to organize new resistance at the southern end of the Red Sea and the head of the Persian Gulf. At those two strategic gateways a fight can still be made, which, if successful, will still keep the Nazis and their allies, the Japanese, from joining hands.

But the words of Churchill and Roosevelt last week intimated that the United Nations would stake their forces not so much upon defense in the Near East as on offense in Europe (see below). If it succeeds, Germany will be defeated soon. If it fails, the war may last for many years and the democratic world will bleed.

Second Front

"Coming operations . . . will divert German strength from the attack on Russia."

So President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill promised the world. When they spoke, in a joint statement issued in Washington and London, the United Nations had come on critical days.

If the two Allied leaders can make good on their promise, all the bad news from Libya and Egypt may be discounted: if German strength is diverted from Russia, it will be diverted also from other theaters, including Africa.