World Battlefronts: Lessons from Defeat

That the British met disaster in Libya, and in the first stages of the battle for Egypt, was something for the U.S. to ponder prayerfully: the U.S. Army has yet to meet and beat the German Army in World War II. And, for British and U.S. military men alike, Libya and Matrûh held many a lesson.

Brains still win, and the Germans had the best brains. A World War I subaltern in the Kaiser's Armies, who later became Hitler's personal thug, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel has become one of the most competent soldiers of his time.

His tricks and tactics were not essentially new. An old-fashioned ambush broke the back of Britain's armored forces in Libya. Tobruk and Matrûh fell to typical shock assaults by land and air. In the U.S. Civil War, Stonewall Jackson and William Tecumseh Sherman won battles and made great advances just as Rommel did—by forced marches and surprise attacks when, according to the rules, their armies should have been resting for the next round.

The best guns were German guns, particularly their 88-mm., all-purpose field pieces, which blew the British tank forces to shreds. These guns should have been no surprise; they are standard German equipment. But Rommel massed them in unprecedented numbers, towed some in conventional fashion, mounted others in self-propelled units. In last year's Libyan campaign, the British confounded Rommel with their lighter, but then effective, 25-pounders. He took the lesson to heart, this year outdid the British in their own anti-tank tactics.

The best tanks were the German Mark IVs. Short on speed, engine power and armor protection, these tanks confirmed a U.S. doctrine which the British accepted last year, but did not put into effect in time for Libya and Egypt: that, above all else, tanks must have superior fire power. The Mark IVs main guns were better than anything in most of the British tanks. The British had many U.S. medium tanks ("General Grants") which theoretically outgunned even the Mark IVs. But the Grants had a serious fault: their main guns' limited field of fire.

Air power was as vital as it has been elsewhere in World War II. The fact that the British had more planes in the air most of the time proved that the Nazis put their planes to better use than the British did.

The Luftwaffe laid the foundations for Rommel's victory by concentrating the right kinds of planes where they would do the most good: over the narrow Mediterranean area through which supplies flowed to Rommel by sea and air. If the British in turn had concentrated enough long-range fighters and bombers against Rommel's lifeline, he might have been beaten before he started. Instead, the British did what the Axis expected them to do. They tried, and failed, to hold the Mediterranean primarily with warships, and they concentrated their Mediterranean aircraft on the defense of Malta. Even now, properly used in the Mediterranean, as many bombers as the British sent over Bremen might make Alexandria and Suez secure.