Pod Insights Dan Snow's History Hit Rommel's Defeat in North Africa About this episode Today, we unravel the dramatic North African campaign of World War II. Discover how the Allies turned the tide against Rommel, why Tunisia’s fall was as pivotal as Stalingrad, and how these battles shaped the fate of Europe.
We're joined by Saul David, broadcaster, historian and author of 'Tunisgrad: Victory in Africa' for a sweeping look at strategy, leadership, and global stakes of the desert war.
Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.
We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.
You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] .
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript 13,710 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dan Snow? Hey friends, if you love this podcast and want to decide what history we cover, then you need to become a Dan Snow's History Hit subscriber. Pitch your topic and if I like it, we'll make it into a subscriber exclusive episode. So far, we've covered the English Reformation, the Hudson Bay Company, the Trail of Tears, all of which have been decided by dedicated subscribers. So take the reins of your favourite podcast by heading over to historyhit.com/subscribe or sign up in your podcast player.
0:32 Speaker 01 Outdated technology isn't going to improve a disconnected healthcare system.
0:37 Speaker 02 Next.
0:37 Speaker 01 So what will? At Optum, we wake up every day and work for better. We call it healthy optimism. It's how we use insights and technology to help providers focus less on paperwork and more on patients. Will we fix it all overnight? No, but we'll wake up trying, again and again, until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's healthy optimism. Learn more at optum.com.
1:02 Speaker 03 Granger knows if you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory? Costs climb. Too little? Production slows. Granger's $2 billion in on-hand inventory helps you get what you need, when you need it, so you can help keep budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.
1:32 Speaker 04 This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2% daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market. Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favourite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound? Means I just got 2% daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval.
2:15 Speaker 04 Apple Card, issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
2:28 Dan Snow? Hi there, everybody. Welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Have I got a treat for you. If you're looking for drama and impact, importance, in the first half of the Second World War, first half of World War Two, look no further than North Africa. In fighting that stretched across a continent, the North African theatre was one of the most fiercely contested. And it could have proved really very decisive, I think, if Hitler had ever seen its potential. Italian dictator Mussolini did. He was determined to control the Mediterranean. He wanted to expand on Italy's colonial holdings in North East Africa. He believed that that could provide a gateway to the Middle East and beyond. The Allies knew how important it was, too.
3:13 Dan Snow? If North Africa fell, so too, probably, with the Middle East, with its oil. That great fulcrum of Eurasia, gone, might be the Allies' hope of victory. There are breakneck advances and retreats. There are legendary desert tank duels between Rommel and Montgomery and Patton. Well, not between Patton and Montgomery, but sort of, but you know what I mean. There are daring Allied landings in Operation Torch, the Americans' first entry into the war in the West. The campaign was brutal and fast-moving and ultimately decisive. The climax of it all was in Tunisia. Tunis became the last Axis stronghold in Africa. And its capture in 1943 wasn't just a military win. It was one of the great page turns in the Second World War.
3:56 Dan Snow? It marked the collapse of Hitler's ambitions in Africa. It reinforced the sense that the tide was turning and it opened the door for the Allied invasion of Europe.
4:11 Dan Snow? In this episode, we're going to be looking at how the Allies turned the tide in the Desert War and why the fall of Tunis really was just as important as Stalingrad in Russia and Guadalcanal in the Pacific. Very happy to say that joining us is Saul David. He's a bestselling military historian, novelist and broadcaster. You know who he is. He's a friend of the podcast, been on many times. He's been on History Hit TV many times, too. And he'll be on again in the future. He's author of Tunis Grad: Victory in Africa, just published. Here he is. Enjoy.
4:39 Speaker 02 T minus ten.
4:40 Speaker 05 The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black, white unity till there is first and black unity.
4:48 Speaker 02 Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower.
4:57 Dan Snow? Saul, thanks very much for coming on the pod.
4:59 Speaker 06 Delighted to be here. Thank you for the invite.
5:01 Dan Snow? First of all, as I was describing the introduction, why is North Africa, North and East Africa, why is Winston Churchill worrying about that all saying 1940? Give me the political geography, the whole global strategic geography. Why does it matter?
5:14 Speaker 06 One word, Suez Canal. I mean, we know that.
5:17 Dan Snow? That's two words.
5:18 Speaker 06 Two words. One place, two words. Yeah, I mean, 10 years later, we'll go to war against the Egyptians for control of the Suez Canal. But to go back to the Second World War, this is absolutely vital because it's a line of communication, not just to the oil fields of the Middle East, but to the rest of the British Empire. And it's the quick way back to Europe. If you're transporting supplies or troops one way or another. And of course, a lot of troops are eventually going to come and fight in the Mediterranean, Europe more generally, that come from the Indian garrison. So it's an absolutely vital lifeline. If the Axis forces can get hold of it, on the other hand, they can interdict our, basically cut the empire in two. But more importantly, they can get their hands on oil.
6:02 Speaker 06 I mean, people forget, one of the sort of key things for the Germans all the way through the Second World War, and the Italians, of course, when they're still in the war, is getting their hands on enough oil so that their motorized forces, particularly for the Germans, can actually keep operating. Plus, the oil fields in Romania become a key strategic target. But actually, they should have been more joined up thinking. Rommel's very much of the opinion, yes, let's get to the oil. But Hitler, where we meet in the other way, coming down from the Caucasus possibly. But it really should have been an objective for them.
6:31 Dan Snow? But as you're saying that, I'm thinking the many strange decisions you make is the Middle East should have been a much bigger priority than the Soviet Union. And from there, you've got into British India, you really are bursting out of your European prison, aren't you? Why, why did Hitler not put a bigger premium on that?
6:47 Speaker 06 Because he's thinking in terms of continental power and not sea power. And that's basically the difference between continental Europe and all the powers that are there, particularly powers without a huge coastline or like the Germans, a coastline that has easy access to the seas. They have to come through the Baltic, there's easy to interdict, the Germans are relatively easy to interdict them, until they get, of course, a Western Europe coastline. The British and the Americans, on the other hand, our whole mindset is about sea power. And of course, ultimately in the Second World War, air power. And it's really interesting when you look at the strategy, which no doubt we'll come on to when the Americans do come into the war properest, how they're actually going to finish off Germany.
7:29 Speaker 06 Churchill, as someone who's born of the British Empire, is thinking very much in terms of restricting Germany through blockade, through air power, through the gradual wasting away of German resources. And so interestingly enough is Roosevelt, but a lot of the senior American commanders are thinking, no, let's get straight into there. Let's get into continental Europe and let's finish off the Germans as quickly as possible.
7:52 Dan Snow? Drive a tank to Berlin for God's sake.
7:53 Speaker 06 How hard could it be?
7:54 Dan Snow? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we may come on to that, but let's talk about North and North East Africa at the outbreak of war. Obvious friction, Italy enters the war summer 1940, the Italians control Libya.
8:05 Speaker 06 They control Libya, have done since 1912. They've also got their hands on Abyssinia, a very controversial campaign in the 1930s. And they're really looking to join up those two colonies. What's in between? Well, these vital area that we've already discussed. Egypt, which is not a British colony, it's not even a British protectorate anymore. It's a former protectorate, but we do still have a sizable garrison there. And that's really the key. Why? Because we need to control the Suez Canal. The Italians are very much thinking in terms of Mussolini's thinking in terms of a new Roman Empire. I'll control the whole of the North African coast, join up those. Those two bits of the Italian Empire has existed at that time and I'm going to become a new Caesar. I mean, that, you know, it sounds a bit mad, but that was pretty
8:49 Speaker 06 much in his mind. And he's also thinking, if I join the war in June 1940, at a time when France and Britain are already beaten, or at least in his mind, they were beaten, how hard can it be really to knock the British out of North Africa?
9:03 Dan Snow? Well, it turns out it was a little bit harder than he thought because we've got these campaigns, haven't we, that we won't go through them all in extraordinary detail. But the British enjoy stunning success against the Italians at this point of the war.
9:13 Speaker 06 Yeah, the initial Italian attack by their 10th Army under a general called Graziani has a lot of success initially. They invade Egypt and the British forces there just pull back in front of them. Why? Because they're heavily outnumbered, probably by about five to one. But the British and Commonwealth troops there, they've got some very good people. They've got what becomes the famous Desert Rats, the 7th Armoured Division, also the 4th Indian Division. These are tough formations, well-trained, with reasonable kit. They didn't have the best kit. They didn't have any, or what are going to be the kind of standard tank in the Allied forces, the Shermans, they didn't come into play until 1942. They had Valentines and various other tanks and they were better
9:54 Speaker 06 than anything the Italians had had. So that when the Italians began to move into Egypt, they were strung out on long supply lines, eventually built a series of force, which tells you everything you need to know. That is not the most aggressive move. It's a very defensive move. The plan, of course, is to build up their forces. And it's at this point that the commander of the Western Desert Force, a man called Richard O'Connor, actually only recently a major general, and he's not that senior in rank, takes the opportunity to launch a series of probing attacks, so-called Operation Compass, as it was known, that become so successful isolating these various Italian garrisons that they just keep attacking. And in essence, Dan, the Italians fold. This is one of the reasons
10:36 Speaker 06 they have such a poor reputation. And it is interesting when you look at their performance, particularly some of their armoured formations later on in the war. They do do very well and they don't deserve the reputation of being always in reverse gear. But this is where it comes from, because a much smaller force of about Thirty six thousand defeats a force of about two hundred thousand, one hundred and thirty thousand captured, so that by February nineteen forty one, they are on the brink of kicking the Italians out of Africa. There's only one major port to capture, and that's Tripoli, and that's the last foothold the Italians have in North Africa.
11:10 Dan Snow? That's astonishing. So that's an appalling reverse for Mussolini and his ambitions. And so the Brits and Commonwealth troops advance all the way along that coast, they're deep into Libya. What happens now?
11:22 Speaker 06 Well, O'Connor was all for, you know, just let me off the leash, let me keep going. Almost certainly, he would have taken Tripoli. But what intervenes, unfortunately, considered to be one of the great strategic errors that Churchill makes in the Second World War, his decision to support Greece. They've got intelligence that the Germans are likely to invade Greece in the not-too-distant future. The British have already helped the Greeks repel the Italians who are trying to come in through Albania. But there's very much a kind of sense that if the Germans get hold of Greece, they are going to dominate the whole of the Balkans. And there's a danger this will bring the Turks in on the side of the Germans. And that's something you see all the way through the war, Churchill's desperately trying to get
12:04 Speaker 06 the Turks in on our side, unlike in the First World War, of course, when they were on the Central Powers' side. So that's pretty much his thinking. It wasn't just a question of protecting Greece, it's a question of influencing the whole of the Balkans and Turkey. And it backfires horribly because the fifty thousand-strong army that's sent to Greece, including a number of the veterans who had been fighting in O'Connor's force, are badly defeated by the Germans. They withdraw, leave about fourteen thousand men behind, they move back to Crete, first of all, and we know what happens there because a huge German airborne operation in May nineteen forty one. Although the Germans lose a lot of people trying to capture the island, they eventually overwhelm a bigger defending force. So it's
12:47 Speaker 06 a total disaster. Meanwhile, O'Connor's lost the opportunity to take Tripoli because so many of his best troops were taken away.
12:54 Dan Snow? Some of those units had a wild ride, didn't they? They retreated into Egypt, they then burst into all the way to Western Libya, then they advanced into Greece, then been pushed out of Greece. They've done a lot of miles.
13:04 Speaker 06 Yeah, they're doing a lot of miles. I mean Churchill's seeing the big picture, to be fair to him. He's seeing the big, broad strategic picture. I mentioned Turkey, the whole of the Balkans haven't fallen under German sway, although they're about to. And remember the context of the time, this is early 1941, Dan. We know the Americans are going to come in in late 1941 because we're historians. But at the time, he's scrabbling around for allies, he's scrabbling around for anything that can give him a foothold in the war against Germany. And it is understandable, I think, when you see the big picture that he paused, it also appears to us, because we know what happens next, a fatal error. Now, the fatal error was compounded by the fact that Adolf Hitler, who had really very little interest in North Africa, we've already
13:48 Speaker 06 mentioned that at the top, he should have been aware of the importance of oil, of the need to take the Suez Canal, both in combating his enemies, but also in establishing a strong position for himself. But he never did. But what he did do in a desperate attempt to shore up the Italians and his fellow dictator Mussolini, who it might be strange to say he was quite fond of, I mean, he didn't see him quite as an equal, but they were brothers in arms, the Pact of Steel. And so he sends one of his best generals, Rommel, with two divisions, a corps, the so-called Africa Corps, to North Africa. And it's at that point that things begin to turn very nasty for the British and Commonwealth troops on the continent of Africa, as opposed to what's just happened to them in Greece.
14:31 Dan Snow? Because this is that drama of this campaign, from that last little Italian toehold on the coast, that just enough, they've still got the port, they can assert those two divisions, and Rommel goes on a bit of a rampage.
14:41 Speaker 06 He does. I mean, this is where you see Rommel at his best. Now, we can debate long and hard the talents Rommel had. What he was an absolute genius at is tactical fighting and operations. In other words, okay, I've got an enemy against me, set up certain number of divisions, how am I going to defeat him? It was all about maneuver, surprise, appearing when you're least expected. And he'd done all this in the 1940 campaign. When he commanded the so-called Ghost Division, the Seventh Panzer Division. It's interesting because he had no training as a Panzer commander. He wasn't one of those guys in the nineteen.
15:13 Dan Snow? He wrote virtually wrote the manual infantry fighting after World War One.
15:16 Speaker 06 Infantry attacks. He was a man who'd made his name fighting in the mountains in Italy in the First World War. He wins the Paula Merit, the Blue Max, the equivalent of the top award, the Knight's Cross in the Second World War. He's a man who really understands how infantry soldiers fight, but he's also someone who can learn very quickly. To be fair, a lot of the tactics he's using in the First World War with infantry was similar to what he was doing with tanks. It's just that he can.
15:42 Dan Snow? Infiltration.
15:42 Speaker 06 Infiltration and he understood the shock and it's absolutely classic kind of blitzkrieg warfare. If you appear when the enemy least expects, you've got a multiplying force there. The shock to their kind of nerve center, their their lines of communication, their ability to command. It outdoes anything you've got there in terms of actual material force. And he used exactly the same tactics in the desert and for a long time was very successful.
16:06 Dan Snow? Because if you're on the front line, you pick up the phone to your HQ and there's a German there, you panic, you just give up. Now, the fact is, it could just be one or two vehicles, but it just, at this point, you kind of go into a sort of paralysis.
16:15 Speaker 06 Yeah, and he shows time and again that actually taking risks produces extraordinary results. The big problem he had is that for all his talent as a tactical and operational commander, he wasn't great on strategy. And what do I mean by that? Well, the whole big picture, which is that if I get to the Suez Canal, what's going to happen next? He often spoke about the possibility of joining up with German forces coming down through the Caucasus. My instinct is that this was a bit after the event, you know, this was nineteen forty-three, nineteen forty-four. He's looking back at what might have been. In reality, he's just driving forward. He's trying to get to the Suez Canal and he's not too concerned about logistics. A lot of the great commanders in history, as you well know, Dan, including, you know, my personal favorite, and that's the Duke of Marlborough,
16:59 Speaker 06 were absolutely detail oriented about making sure that you always have the supplies you need to do the job. Rommel was much more, let's defeat the enemy and let's see if the supplies can catch up after the event.
17:10 Dan Snow? It's a bit cavalier.
17:11 Speaker 06 And the biggest problem he had in the whole of North Africa is the more successful. He had and the deeper he went into Egypt and he does eventually go very deep into Egypt prior to the Alamein battle, his lines of supply are getting further and further and further away and this is causing increasing problems for the Italians in particular. Most of his supplies are coming through Italy, they're not being flown direct from Germany for obvious reasons, they're going down to the airfields down in Sicily and they're coming across with Italian shipping. And while on the one hand, they did a pretty good job, the Italians at getting supplies across, it was never enough to satisfy this essential demand that Rommel had.
17:47 Dan Snow? So Rommel in spring 1941, he advances, he gets to Tobruk, famous, and that would have helped because it's a big port, quite useful of a port and facilitate those supplies coming in.
17:55 Speaker 06 Yeah, you could argue, actually, his failure to take Tobruk in 1941, he does take it in 1942, his failure to take it in 1941, the famous siege that's finally relieved at the end of 1941 with Operation Crusader, which was one of Alkanlek's, the Orc as he was called, former Indian army officer, but very effective commander. History, I don't think, has been that fair to him because of course, he's relieved of command just before the famous Alamein battle, which I'm sure we'll come on to. But the Orc institutes a number of changes and proves to be a pretty effective commander. Operation Crusader finally relieves the siege.
18:30 Dan Snow? We're now at the end of 1941.
18:32 Speaker 06 End of 1941.
18:33 Dan Snow? Yeah.
18:33 Speaker 06 And it's that crucial six or seven month period, I suspect, Dan, before the British and Commonwealth troops were able to build up their resources properly, which they do in 1942, particularly of course, after America comes into the war at the end of 1941, that was the real opportunity to defeat the British and Commonwealth troops in North Africa. And he doesn't take it partly because he fails to capture the port of Tobruk, which would have allowed him to bring his supplies much closer to the actual area of battle. Now ultimately, he's hoping to catch Alexandria and that would have solved the problem thereafter. But he's got to get to Alexandria first and standing in his way, as we will come on to, I know, is Al-Alemany. Meanwhile, in early 1942, having been pushed back by Operation Crusader, he then advances
19:18 Speaker 06 again. So this is a second kind of movement towards Egypt.
19:22 Dan Snow? So Operation Crusader, Alkanlek, they do well, they push the Germans back into Libya.
19:27 Speaker 06 Yeah.
19:28 Dan Snow? But then he's coming again. So early 1942, here comes the Axis again up that same road.
19:32 Speaker 06 Yeah, and there was one really key moment during the Battle for Gazala, which is in May, June of 1942, when we look like we've built a pretty strong defensive position, and this is in Libya. We've got the port of Tobruk behind, but once that battle is lost, then it's lost because of some incredibly effective feints. And, you know, as we were discovering before, the so-called left hook, where he goes right round the southern defences of the Allies in the Gazala line. This is known as the Battle of Gazala. Deep in the desert. Deep into the desert, appearing when he's least expected, although you might have thought that had caught the message by this point. Completely dislocates the Allies' defensive system at that point. Forces a withdrawal back to Egypt, which uncovers Tobruk.
20:18 Speaker 06 Now, all the Allies are thinking, well, of course, Tobruk held out before he can hold out again. It's got a garrison of about 35,000. But the Germans this time don't put it under siege, they attack directly. So Rommel launches his two Panzer divisions, the 15th and the 21st, and some of his very effective Italian motorised troops into a direct attack on what he sees as the weak spot in the Tobruk garrison. Tobruk was commanded by a guy called Klop, a slightly unfortunate name, a South African. There were South African troops there who haven't been there very long, and they pretty much get the blame for the defeat, which happens very quickly. I mean, if you surrender a garrison of 30,000 plus, Dan, that's not going to go down well with your. Look, I don't intend to. I don't know why you're looking at me like that. I feel like I've.
21:03 Speaker 06 It was the second worst Allied defeat in terms of numbers, British, British and Commonwealth defeat of the Second World War after Singapore. And we all know what Churchill thought about that. He happens to be in America when he gets news of Tobruk, trying to convince the Americans. Not that long after Singapore, we should say, so, you know. Just a few months later. I mean, if you think of the first six months of 1942, they have not gone well. And this final shock to the system is losing the Battle of Gazala, and then Tobruk falls within a matter of days. Defeat is one thing, disgrace is another, is what Churchill said about that. Admittedly, he wrote about that after the event, but nevertheless, that would have been the way he was thinking at the time. The one good thing that came out of it was, as I say, he was. America at the time and he convinces Roosevelt and the senior American chiefs, including Marshall,
21:48 Speaker 06 to donate three hundred brand new Sherman tanks, which hadn't even been issued to the American armed forces. And you can imagine how irritated they were. But Roosevelt realized this is an emergency and so they're sent very quickly to North Africa. Going the long way round, of course, they had to go all the way round and up through the Red Sea. This is one of the reasons why control of the Mediterranean is so important. And got there in time for the crucial battles to come.
22:16 Dan Snow? Also, at what stage does Churchill persuade the Americans, because this is rather extraordinary as well, that what they really want to do, they've got a global war, they're at war against Hitler and they're at war against the Japanese Pacific. Actually, the best thing you could possibly do, one of the first things you should do is land on the west coast of North Africa.
22:34 Speaker 06 Yeah.
22:34 Dan Snow? It's not the obvious move, is it?
22:36 Speaker 06 It wasn't the obvious move. Churchill had multiple factors in mind. He was aware that if the Western Allies went straight for Northwest Europe, which was the Americans' hope. Certainly, the chiefs of staff, Marshall, I mentioned, the US Army Chief of Staff, had written a very detailed memorandum called the Marshall Memorandum. He came over to Britain in about March nineteen forty-two and they discussed what would happen next. Now, the agreement had been, since America entered the war, Germany first. In other words, we'll deal with Germany first, that's the bigger threat, and then we'll move on to Japan afterwards. In other words, we're going to devote most of our resources as we begin to build up our armed forces. The US Army and US Armed Forces famously are absolutely minuscule at the start of the Second World War.
23:21 Speaker 06 But they are being built up between nineteen forty and nineteen forty-one, even before America comes into the war. But most of the US chiefs of staff are convinced, let's go straight into Northwest Europe. It's the quickest way to get to Berlin. Fortunately for the British, who were very much of the opinion, it's far too soon. The Germans are still too strong, we will be badly beaten if we go too early. And there are other things we can do to support the Soviets. So one of the key drivers for the Americans getting into France in nineteen forty-two is we must help the Soviets. Under pressure, they've been attacked by the Germans the year before, they've narrowly held out and held on to Moscow. But there's now a renewed attack, the start of the Stalingrad campaign, and we've got to do something to help them. And the best thing we can do is
24:05 Speaker 06 get into North West France. Churchill's very much of the opposite opinion, as are his chiefs of staff, including Brooke, the chief of the Imperial General Staff. They feel it's too early, and there's a lot of good that can be done if they can get to North Africa. Yes, they're going to assist British interests to a certain extent, that is, the Suez Canal, but the oil fields. But this was big picture stuff here. There's also a sense of sea power is going to be crucial in the Second World War. We throttle Germany's ability to communicate with the rest of the world. Yes, ultimately, they're going to have to be defeated on the continent, but they can be heavily eroded by a sea blockade, an air campaign, the strategic bombing campaign is beginning to gather momentum. It will do so even more in forty-three and forty-four. But we can also
24:48 Speaker 06 do serious damage to their aspirations and their alliance with Italy by retaking North Africa. Not only is that going to safeguard all the strategic interests in North Africa, Suez Canal, oil fields, lines of communication with empire, it's also going to provide a springboard into Europe, the southern underbelly.
25:07 Dan Snow? The soft underbelly of Europe. And also, I suppose, look, Americans, we're fighting the Germans in North Africa. That's just where we are. Why not get involved? So as well as getting these tanks, he's got a commitment from the Americans that as they're fighting in Egypt and Libya, the Americans are going to launch this massive amphibious assault in North West Africa, sort of modern Morocco and Algeria and all that, later in the year. Okay, so that's all coming together through nineteen forty-two. Meantime, though, the Brits have got to hold on, because that'd be embarrassing if they'd been kicked out of the continent in the meantime. Through the spring and summer of nineteen forty-two, Rommel is advancing deep into Egypt.
25:37 Speaker 06 Yeah, he's taken to Brooke, as we've mentioned, in June nineteen forty-two, and his next move is the Suez Canal. So he's advancing up to a position at which the British have got their last fortified stronghold, and this is the El Alamein position. It's quite interesting because it's a choke point. And the key point about a choke point is about forty miles from the coast to the Qatara Depression. You can't move armour and motor. Forces or any large scale armed forces through the Qatar Depression. It's basically sand dunes. So you've got to come through this 40 mile gap, which the British have heavily defended. Okay. And it's going to mean that all the advantages that Rommel normally has of manoeuvre and outflanking are negated.
26:22 Speaker 06 In the end, he's going to have to batter his head against what is a brick wall. And will he be able to batter his way through? Well, the first battle takes place in July of 1942, and that's known as the first battle of El Alamein. It's a defensive action conducted by Orkan Leck, who's now taken over command of the Eighth Army. He's also overall commander in chief, but he sacked his army commander Ritchie. And he's now in operational control of the Eighth Army and does very well in that battle. But it's not enough to save his bacon. He is relieved of command shortly after. There's very much a feeling from Churchill, who goes over to North Africa, meets him and thinks he's exhausted and you need new blood, you need someone new to take over.
27:04 Speaker 06 And he puts in place, more by luck than design, because it wasn't the original intention, he puts in place what becomes the dream team in North Africa. That's Harold Alexander as the overall commander and new Eighth Army commander, Monty Burnham Montgomery, who was never intended to be the Eighth Army commander. A man called Gott got the command originally, Straefer Gott, as he was known. But Gott dies in a plane crash. He's flying back to take command, literally on his way to take command. And he gets shot down by the Germans and so Monty's given the job instead.
27:37 Dan Snow? And he's also given lots of new kit, isn't he?
27:39 Speaker 06 Monty's known certainly for some historians, who not all historians have a lot of time for him. I've got a bit more time for him, actually, having studied him, not only in North Africa, but now in North West Europe. I've got a lot more time for him. He is known by a lot of historians as a lucky general. In other words, he arrived in North Africa at the right time because that's when the material and men imbalance really began to benefit the Allies. And by the time the famous battle that we're going to discuss in a moment comes along, that's the second battle of El Alamein, although a lot of people just call it the Battle of El Alamein. By the time that battle takes place, he's Basically got a two to one majority of everything. Men, about 200,000 men, tanks, about 1,000 tanks, the 500 Germans. And artillery piece is the same thing. He's got double what Rommel's got.
28:24 Speaker 06 So you could argue that it was a foregone conclusion, but I'm not even sure that's necessarily the case. The other thing he does, Dan, is reasonably well known, but it is true. He was a great trainer of men, but he was also great on men's morale. He made it his business to go out and meet all the individual units in person, famously handing out cigarettes and telling them that he was convinced they were going to win the battle. And what we need to remember, the Eighth Army up to this point is it had so many setbacks. One step forward, two steps back. Here was a man who's saying, this ends now. We're going to fight the next battle because there's a battle just prior to the Second El Alamein battle called the Battle of Al Amhalfa, which was the last opportunity for Rommel to break through to the Suez Canal.
29:06 Speaker 06 And he tells the men before they fight that battle, we die here. We're not going a step further back.
29:11 Dan Snow? I'm burning all the plans for further withdrawal.
29:13 Speaker 06 And meanwhile, by the way, they're burning codes and everything else in Cairo because the people at HQ are not so convinced he's going to hold out. But he is utterly convinced and he manages to convince enough people in the Eighth Army too.
29:26 Dan Snow? And Rommel does launch this last assault at Al Amhalfa. It is broken up. So people grow in confidence and then Monty's able to switch the offensive.
29:35 Speaker 06 Yeah. And meanwhile, so Al Amhalfa takes place at the end of August 1942. And Churchill's very impatient at this point. He always was. You end up see find him harassing commanders all across the different theatres of the Second World War, but nowhere more so than in North Africa in late 1942. And where Monty also comes out very well, in my opinion, is he's determined not to go until he's ready, until the men are properly trained up, until he's got enough kit, that's tanks and artillery in particular, because his main method of fighting a battle is just using firepower. And a lot of people have criticised him and said, well, you know, you're not really taking any risks and where's the manoeuvre?
30:12 Dan Snow? Not very flair.
30:13 Speaker 06 No, there's no flair there, but it was exactly what was needed at the time. There's a wonderful quote by Carver, who goes on to be a field marshal later on in his career, but he's the Chief of Staff. The 7th Armoured Division at the time, and he said, this is exactly what we needed. We didn't need another setback. We needed a battle that was properly planned, would take advantage of all the things we were good at and actually take the risk out of it. And that's exactly what happened. Even after Al-Ahman is won, after this eight day slogging match, and finally Rommel admits defeat and withdraws without orders from the High Command. Hitler's ordered him to stand fast and he basically disobeys Hitler's orders. And from that point, interestingly enough, is never properly trusted by Hitler thereafter.
30:56 Speaker 06 He's not sacked, of course, but he has basically broken this bond that's existed between him and Hitler since he took over his bodyguard effectively in the 1930s. And then he was in command of his field headquarters during the Polish campaign. And they're quite close. I mean, we remember Rommel as a man who was ultimately forced to commit suicide in 1944 because he's been implicated in the bomb plot. And this somehow kind of whitewashes him of having really quite strong pro Hitler and pro Nazi feelings. He was never a member of the Nazi party. It's important to put that on the record. But was he an admirer of Hitler? He absolutely was until things started to turn go pear shaped.
31:36 Dan Snow? And it's October, November 1942 that Montgomery launches this gigantic sort of firepower led battle to just smash his way through German Italian lines. Battle of El Alamein. It's a success. And as you say, so then Hitler, Hitler says, stand fast. Rommel says, no. And he turns and you get another period now of advancing along this North African desert road.
31:56 Speaker 06 Yeah. And it's at this point, you would get all the wonderful famous quotes, of course, about El Alamein. We'd never had a victory before and we never had a defeat after. That's from Churchill. You know, is this the beginning of the end? No, but it's the end of the beginning. It was a real turning point. A lot of those quotes, of course, come after the event. But at the time, there was really a feeling that with the advantages they were now getting in terms of manpower and the knowledge that the Americans are about to ride to the rescue on the far side of, just imagine this, Dan. So for all of this fighting, you've basically had one side moving towards the enemy's terrain and then coming back the other way. What they were planning with Operation Torch is you're going to catch Rommel and his Italian German army in a vice between two armies. And that is going to be fatal for him.
32:41 Dan Snow? And it's lovely for Churchill to have that win in Egypt before the Americans land in force at the other end of North Africa and they can start just to squeeze them.
32:49 Speaker 06 Yeah, I think it's really important to remember, actually, that's absolutely true. Churchill knows the writing is on the wall. When American resources and manpower get up to speed, which they probably will by mid 1943, certainly by 1944, the alliance is going to change. He still holds the whip hand in terms of strategy, partly because most of the resources, naval, but also the troops on the ground are British and Commonwealth. That is going to change. But it's interesting when you, when you look at the fighting in North Africa. Yes, it's the first opportunity for the Americans to come up against what is a pretty formidable foe. That's the Germans. They're learning on the job. There are a number of setbacks which I'm sure we'll get on to. But it's also important to remember
33:30 Speaker 06 that most of the troops that are doing the fighting in North Africa are British and Commonwealth, and that's right up to the end of the campaign. And that's something I think that Churchill takes advantage of, particularly when they're trying to decide what to do next, because it's a perennial problem, battle between the Brits and the Americans. When do we go into North West Europe?
33:51 Dan Snow? You're listening to Dan Snow's History. Don't go anywhere, there's more to come.
34:01 Dan Snow? This episode is brought to you by TikTok. I never thought about the history of coffee. You make it, you drink it, nothing more to it. Then I've had a TikTok video about how people in the 1700s would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it. I love that sort of discovery, a detail. But suddenly you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialized. Now I wonder what all baffled historians about us. Mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.
34:43 Dan Snow? This episode is brought to you by Decagon. If you've ever been trapped in phone tree hell, pushing zero 50 times while a voice robot pretends not to hear you, you know true psychological warfare. It's brutal, folks. Thankfully, that kind of horror is now confined to the history books. Customer service has evolved. Decagon helps companies create personalized, concierge-style customer experiences with AI agents across chat, email, voice, and SMS. They're available 24/7, feel natural to talk to, and can resolve customer requests on their own so businesses can keep up with requests without losing their personal touch. Plus, because workflows can be updated using natural language, teams can make changes themselves. Decagon gives your team full visibility
35:28 Dan Snow? into why agents make decisions and what's happening across every conversation, helping to power millions of conversations every day. Ready to transform your customer support? Go to decagon.ai/dansnow to see what Decagon can do for your team. That's decagon.ai/dansnow. Check Decagon out at decagon.ai/dansnow.
35:55 Speaker 07 This is the story of the one. As a shipping manager, he's running the dock, stocking supplies, and making sure every order goes out on time. And Granger helps him stay prepared. From shipping supplies to PPE to hand tools, he counts on Granger to keep products moving and trucks rolling so his operation runs smoothly, no matter the shift. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click Granger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.
36:25 Speaker 04 This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2% daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market. Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound? Means I just got 2% daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval.
37:08 Speaker 04 Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
37:24 Dan Snow? But for the meantime, as the British and Commonwealth troops are starting to chase Rommel back into Libya, suddenly this thunderbolt lands at the other end of North Africa. Operation Torch, Morocco, Algeria, and now the Germans, having been on the, well, within pretty distance of the Suez Canal, now presumably the Axis are worried about complete annihilation. It just flips, does it, in the space of a fortnight?
37:43 Speaker 06 It's amazing, if you think of it from the German perspective. November is described in Voltaire voilement. He was the deputy chief of operations at OKW, which is the German Armed Forces' senior command. He writes, "November is the month of disaster for the German army." He's also referring to November in 1918, of course.
38:03 Dan Snow? Oh, I see, okay.
38:04 Speaker 06 But he's basically saying this is when all the disasters happen at the same time. And it's extraordinary if you think about it. So we've got the Stalingrad campaign, which is the furthest point east that the German Armed Forces get in the Second World War, okay? So they've got to their zenith, so to speak, their advancing.
38:19 Dan Snow? A high water mark.
38:20 Speaker 06 Their high water mark. They've gone deep into the Caucasus to get their hands on the oil, as we were discussing earlier. And they've also almost got to the Suez Canal, so they are within touching distance, really, of crippling the Western Allies. And everything turns. First of all, you get the Alamein battle, which changes everything in North Africa. Then you get Stalingrad, Operation Uranus, which happens a couple of weeks later, when the Russians break through on either side of Stalingrad and encircle the 6th Army. And we all know what happens next. And then, thirdly, you get Operation Torch. And Operation Torch is going to introduce a new Allied army on the far side of Rommel's
39:00 Speaker 06 position that is going to make it almost impossible for him to survive unless, unless something dramatic happens. And that something dramatic does happen.
39:10 Dan Snow? Well, tell me what dramatic things do happen at that point.
39:13 Speaker 06 I start my Tunis grad book with the story of Hitler travelling on his train, his special train, the Sonderzug, from Berlin down to Munich. He's just going to Ober Salzburg for a little bit of time and he always takes his headquarters with him. So he's got all his OKW people with him, his senior military staff. And on that journey down there, in the early hours of the 8th of November, he's given the news that hits him and his staff like a thunderclap. No one was expecting it. The Americans have landed in North Africa. They didn't realise the Brits were there as well, by the way, mainly because everyone involved in Operation Torch is wearing American uniform with an American Stars of Stripe on their shoulders. Why? Because they don't want to upset the French. And one of the
39:56 Speaker 06 key strategic aims of getting into French North Africa is actually to bring the French, who, since their defeat in 1940, their country, of course, has been partitioned, but the bit that's still under French control, Vichy, which still controls its empire, there's a feeling, can we bring Vichy in on the side of the Western Allies? And this could be a big game changer. And that was another of the strategic aims.
40:20 Dan Snow? The one thing that doesn't usually persuade the French of anything in a positive direction is to put a lot of British lads with weapons on their territory.
40:27 Speaker 06 Yeah, hence the attempt at subterfuge.
40:29 Dan Snow? They're all Americans.
40:30 Speaker 06 Which didn't last very long. But Hitler, of course, gets this information that the Americans have landed and says, what can we do about it? And basically, the response is very little, partly because it's Vichy France and partly because the distance involved, and this was deliberate by the Western Allies, the distance involved is too far away from Sicily and their remaining foothold in Libya to do anything about in terms of getting troops and air power over there. So they have got to hope that the French are going to hold out and the French are not going to hold out for very long, just two days.
41:00 Dan Snow? Right, so extraordinary. Within two days, this, you always see different maps of this period. No one ever knows how to colour in the Vichy bit of North Africa because it's axis-aligned territory, isn't it, really? France is in a Vichy France, we call them, but France is an ally of Germany, you say, or certainly friendly?
41:16 Speaker 06 Yeah, it's a very good point. They're technically neutral, Dan, but we all know. That they were under extreme pressure and influence of the Germans. If the Germans wanted them to do something, which is in the case of this invasion, close their ports, close their airfields on the one hand to the Allies, or on the other hand, open their ports and their airfields to the Axis armed forces, which technically, of course, they shouldn't have done as a neutral power. They were going to do it. And you have both things playing out in Operation Torch, because on the one hand, the local French commanders do fight the Allies for a while, and then they realise the game's up and they're kind of persuaded, because there are a certain number of people in the French Armed Forces who are, of course, pro-allied.
41:59 Speaker 06 The Free French Forces are coming up from deeper into Africa. But at the same time, they are prepared to allow enough Axis forces into the third of the French colonies in French North Africa, which hadn't been attacked by the Western Allies, because it's too deep into the Mediterranean and it's protected by air power and sea power from Sicily and Italy. And that, of course, is Tunisia. So it's that crucial decision that Hitler makes almost on that train journey in which he says, we must protect French North Africa. Get as many troops as you can into Tunisia. That will play a dual role. They will be able to combat the Western Allies who've just landed, the rest of French North Africa. And also, this will be a supply route for Rommel's forces. So it'll prevent Rommel's forces being isolated.
42:44 Speaker 06 But the really interesting question is, how big a gamble is he prepared to take? How many troops is he prepared to send to North Africa? If you think up to this point, he hasn't sent many.
42:53 Dan Snow? He wouldn't send them when they were winning.
42:54 Speaker 06 I know. It's really extraordinary when you think of it. There's a great quote by one of his senior advisers, I think it's Yodel, who's the operations chief at OKW. He describes French North Africa as the glassy of Europe. This is the outer bastion. But if you allow the enemy to get their hands on it, as opposed to a Nazi-leaning neutral power, you give them free latitude of the Mediterranean. And more importantly, there's a big danger that Mussolini is going to be knocked out of the war. I think that was really up a most in Hitler's mind. He's thinking, if the Western Allies can get control of North Africa and kick the Italians out, it's going to be Sicily and Italy next, and I'm going to lose one of my major allies.
43:34 Dan Snow? So in the space of a couple of weeks, they go from, we are still in a very strong position in North Africa, we're at the gates of the canal, to, oh my goodness, French North Africa has fallen. We are now in an existential crisis. We're talking about Italy being knocked out of the war.
43:48 Speaker 06 Yeah, I mean, lots of people debate when the big turning points of the Second World War are, Dan, as you know, some people say when he's turned back from Moscow, some people even say when he decided to invade the Soviet Union in the first place. But in my mind, it's pretty clear that by November 1942, things have turned irreparably for the Germans, but also the Japanese, if we want to take the big picture of the war, are involved in this to and fro struggle for Guadalcanal, which is not just a land battle, it's also a sea battle, a number of naval actions are fought there. And these three actions all happening at the same time, Stalingrad, Tunisia, which ultimately is called Tunis-Grab because it's perceived by the German public as being as big a disaster as Stalingrad, and Guadalcanal. This is the moment that everything changes for the Axis powers.
44:33 Dan Snow? It's amazing, isn't it? Take me through. So we've got Axis forces flooding into Tunisia, trying to plug a catastrophic hole in a dam. But how many forces does it, given that he's got an existential crisis on the eastern front now, how many forces does he end up sending to?
44:47 Speaker 06 Yeah, eventually, there'll be quarter of a million troops there. Of course, that doesn't take account of casualties. So he's probably going to send in total, but this, of course, includes some of the guys who are already there, about 350,000 troops.
44:59 Dan Snow? And if he'd done that, so in the summer of 41, that could really have changed the course of the Second World War.
45:06 Speaker 06 Yeah, totally right. I mean, I'm not a great fan of counterfactuals, but this is one I really do like getting my teeth into because it seems so obvious to me that when you look at the kind of arguments that Churchill was giving for going into North Africa, and yes, there were some Americans thinking, well, he's just defending the British Empire. No, he saw the big picture. He saw how everything fitted together. He saw how sea lanes and sea power and control of vital resources are what wins wars, not individual battles, not even the wastage of soldiers against soldiers. It's about slowly constricting the ability of your enemy to get enough resources so that he can keep going.
45:45 Dan Snow? Well, as you're saying, I'm thinking, turns out the one person who did agree with Churchill was Hitler, because he bet the farm on trying to hold on to North Africa.
45:52 Speaker 06 Yeah, he did at this point, but you could say it's too late. I mean, if they'd been joined up thinking, Dan, he would have coincided the drive by Rommel in 1941 with a serious attempt to get to the Caucasus through the Soviet Union. And there was this kind of vague thinking, and as I mentioned before, I think it was a lot of it was after the event, kind of thinking, yes, in an ideal world. There was also talk about coming down through the Levant at one stage and somehow restricting the Suez Canal from both sides, but never really taken seriously. And again, I think that comes back to the fact that Hitler, as indeed most Germans are, think in continental terms. This is also an ideological war for him. We mustn't forget, he's got two big enemies, really, and one is Marxism and the other are the Jews.
46:36 Speaker 06 And he's thinking about dealing with them on the continent. If he can get a few colonies here or there, all well and good, he's not really seeing the big picture. And I think in the end, that's going to prove to be fatal for him.
46:47 Dan Snow? If you hate Marxists and Jews, it doesn't make much sense to invade Turkey.
46:52 Speaker 06 No, exactly right. You know, almost the opposite. There was a moment when, of course, he's thinking, or he's convinced by some of his subordinates, that doing some kind of deal over sending all the Jews to Palestine, and that was one of the kind of nutty ideas they had in the back of their head before they decided to murder everyone, because actually, the failure to defeat Britain and the fact that Germany was constricted in terms of sea lanes made it very difficult for them to that. And I'm not excusing the Germans by making this point, but it is a point that they're thinking, yeah, maybe we can send them to Madagascar, maybe we can send them to Palestine. And of course, all those options were eventually closed off.
47:27 Dan Snow? Let's go back to Tunisia. So we've got Rommel is retreating now through Libya. He's got vast amounts of reinforcements. He must have cursed all his reinforcements arriving so long after his decisive opportunity he had. Anyway, they're all flooding in. Is it a slow crushing of this Axis pocket? Are there key moments or a key perimeter he tries to establish?
47:45 Speaker 06 Yeah, I mean, you need to think of the two theatres as separate for a period of time. So in effect, most of the troops that are sent by Hitler to defend Tunisia, and he's got this mad idea they're going to get all the way to Casablanca. He thinks we can retake the whole of French North Africa. But anyway, let's defend Tunisia first. This is a force that eventually comes under the command of Von Arnim. He's a Colonel General, so one rank below Rommel. He's made his name on the Eastern Front. He's seen as a safe pair of hands, typical kind of Junker aristocratic German army officer. Most of the new guys going to North Africa come under his command. So although Rommel's thinking, yeah, there are more German and Italian troops in North Africa, he still doesn't have the lion's share of them. Eventually, he's going to be given, very briefly, command of what's known as Army Group Africa.
48:31 Speaker 06 So the first time there's actually been enough troops to justify calling it an army group. But in the meanwhile, he's going to be controlling his Panzer Army, and that's chiefly up against the Eighth Army, while this new force, this new Fifth Panzer Army, as it was known under Von Arnim, is fighting in Tunisia against the Allied forces that have landed. There are some Americans there, the Second American Corps. There are some French guys there, fighting, and not very effective forces. They've come over from Vichy France over to the British side. And there is also is a British Army, which the Americans and the French come under overall operational control, and that's known as the First Army, commanded by a guy I bet you've never heard of, Dan, or if you have, you won't know much about him, a guy called General Anderson. Never heard of him. Never heard of him. He's the man, you know, the lost army commander.
49:16 Speaker 06 Kenneth Anderson, just as a quick aside, was the guy who trained up Second Army, that's the British Second Army, before the Normandy campaign. Now, British Second Army is the main British striking force on D-Day. It's under the command of Dempsey, who's one of Monty's acolytes, one of his proteges. And Anderson was a pretty dour, unimpressive specimen. He only gets the job because various other people have been passed over for command of First Army, including, interestingly enough, Alex, Alexander and Monty. And he's kind of plodding his way forward into Tunis. The so-called Race for Tunis, which happens towards the end of 1942, is an attempt by the Allies to get to Tunis and force out the few Axis forces that are right.
49:55 Speaker 06 There before more reinforcements can come, they lose that race. So it's interesting for the first four or five months of the Tunisian campaign. As the Allies advance from Algeria and Morocco towards the battlefield in Tunisia. Those are almost all Axis victories, tactical victories. It's true. They don't smash and defeat. Any huge number of forces, but they defeat commander attacks against them, the parachute drops going on. There's all kinds of stuff. I mean, there's a lot of drama going on. Colonel Frost, who you'll know from the Arnim story and the famous Colonel Frost of the bridge. He's a Colonel commanding a battalion of paratroopers in North Africa. His battalion almost gets completely wiped out, actually, in a slightly madcap attempt to get to Tunis.
50:38 Speaker 06 But the broad beats of the story is that the attempt to get to Tunis before they can bring in enough Axis reinforcements is a failure.
50:45 Dan Snow? So this is through December nineteen forty two into January. Okay. And is this where you get a bit of a reputation that Britain's going, oh, these Americans can't fight and a bit of friction between the Allies?
50:55 Speaker 06 The real disaster in reputational terms to the Americans comes in February nineteen forty three. And it comes as a result of Allied success. So Monty's managed to push Rommel's forces all the way back to southern Tunisia. Meanwhile, in northern Tunisia, Von Arnheims built up his forces, but they're really only controlling what is the coastal plain in Tunisia. And there's an unbroken line all the way from Tunis and Baserta, those ports in the north, all the way to the southern Tunisia. So now these two armies have united. They're not under the same operational control, but both fighting separately.
51:27 Dan Snow? So Monty's joined up with all the people that landed in operation.
51:30 Speaker 06 They haven't actually linked hands yet, although the Germans Italian forces have. So in a sense, you've got advantage to the Axis forces. They're operating, as we love to say in military historians, they're operating on interior lines.
51:44 Dan Snow? The Germans are very good at that.
51:45 Speaker 06 So so they've got an advantage in terms of moving from one part of the battlefield to the other. And they come up with this really quite effective plan that they are going to defeat the two converging Allied armies, the first army, which was Anderson's, as I mentioned, and Monty's Eighth Army that are trying to link up but haven't yet done so. They are going to defeat them in detail, basically defeat them one after another, and they come quite close to doing that.
52:08 Dan Snow? It's a story as old as time when it comes to the German military. Dash from flank to flank, almost defeating all of your enemies that crowd around you.
52:15 Speaker 06 I feel in many ways quite torn about the way I look at the Tunisian campaign. I mean, we shouldn't, you know, look at it with rose tinted glasses. I've already mentioned the fact that Rommel was a much more ambiguous character than I think history's really allowed him to be. And yet they fought a relatively fair fight. There were very few people shot out of hand on the battlefield, very few atrocities being committed. It was a relatively fair fight. That is not propaganda. Soldiers on both sides felt that it was a tough fight, but it was a relatively fair fight. And the Germans in many cases do very well. Why? Because they've got a lot of veteran troops there. They've got people who've proven themselves in the desert warfare, but also people that have been coming from the fighting on the eastern front. They've got a lot of very good people, particularly their armored forces.
52:58 Speaker 06 And they are going to bloody the American noses quite severely. What's fascinating about the Tunisian campaign is not so much the bad reputation the Americans get for defeat at places like Sidi Bouzid and Kasserine Pass. It's how quickly they come back from that. They're great learners of bad experiences, the Americans. And it helps that they've got some of the people who are going to be the finest American commanders of the Second World War, beginning to earn their stripes. And I'm talking about people like Patton and people like Bradley and of course Ike. So if you think about all those people who ultimately in northwest Europe are going to do most of the heavy lifting in terms of command, Monty and those three American commanders
53:40 Speaker 06 I've just mentioned, Dempsey's also there, all of them earn their stripes in North Africa.
53:47 Dan Snow? You're listening to Dan Snow's History. Don't give up on us, Tricia. There's more coming.
54:29 Speaker 07 This is the story of the one. As a shipping manager, he's running the dock, stocking supplies and making sure every order goes out on time. And Granger helps him stay prepared. From shipping supplies to PPE to hand tools, he counts on Granger to keep products moving and trucks rolling. So his operation runs smoothly, no matter the shift. Call 1-800 Granger, click Granger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.
55:09 Dan Snow? How would you characterize this fighting? You mentioned, you know, Sidi Bouzid, you mentioned Kasserine Pass. Is this just Allies attempt to advance, they get a bloody nose? At these stages, there are big Axis attempt to sort of counter-attack and, and make serious advances themselves?
55:23 Speaker 06 Rommel feels it's a real missed opportunity. His plan, as he explained to his superiors at the time and then wrote about afterwards, was, I'm going to, and this is typical Rommel, I'm going to drive through the weak crust of the defensive positions in the mountains of central Tunisia. If you think about the geography of Tunisia, you've basically got two mountain ranges coming from the north in an inverted V. And the Allies are defending both of those mountain ranges, they're effectively defending the passes. And so Rommel's plan is to break through not just one pass, but the second pass. And by that point, he's going to be into the rear area of the British First Army, including the American position. And he reckons he can drive all the
56:06 Speaker 06 way up to the coast and effectively defeat Anderson's army in total. But the problem he's got is he doesn't have unified command at this point. So he's having to do this with von Arnhem's cooperation, and he's not going to get it, basically, because they are jealous of each other. And eventually Kesselring, who was our overall commander, he's the overall German commander in the Mediterranean, says to Rommel, your plans are too ambitious, I'm going to reduce them in scope. And Rommel always believes, or believed to his dying day, which is not going to be that much later, a year later, that this was a real missed And by reducing the depth of his advance to a location called Le Kef, as opposed to much deeper, he's going to lose the opportunity to get right behind all the reserve positions.
56:50 Speaker 06 And actually, it's just going to push him towards the American and British reserves who are coming down from the north, which is exactly what happened. So Rommel believes it was a real missed opportunity. I think if you look at the disparity in manpower and the speed with which the Americans recover from the early shocks of these defeats at Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid, actually, you come to the conclusion he was never going to win that that battle.
57:11 Dan Snow? And instead, the news just tightens.
57:14 Speaker 06 The news tightens and there's a lot more toing and froing. I mean, obviously, it goes without saying that only having a relatively short period of time to talk about the whole North African campaign, we have to miss out a lot. There are a lot of other key battles, quite famous battles, actually, many of which were fought by Montgomery against Rommel and then Rommel's successors. Because interestingly, Rommel, in early March, after he has been defeated in his last attempt to break Eighth Army, and that's the Battle of Medenin, he's effectively defeated by incredibly large number of well-sighted anti-tank guns, but also Monty's armour. He's defeated at Medenin in early March and realises the game's up and so flies to Hitler's headquarters, which actually at the time were in Ukraine, at Venice, the so-called
57:59 Speaker 06 Werewolf headquarters. And he tells Hitler the game's up and you can imagine this is not going to go down well. He says, look, last chance is to get these veteran guys out. Get them out, they can be used to defend Southern Europe, there's a lot more fighting to come, let's play the long game here. Hitler's not having any of that. He sees this defeatist talk. He doesn't sack Rommel, but he insists on him going to a sanitarium, not for mental treatment, but because his health's been very bad up to this point. And he effectively takes him out of the game. And that is the last moment that Rommel is present in North Africa. He's always associated, of course, chiefly with North Africa. That's the last contribution he makes to the campaign. And it's a slow death from that point on, as these two armies slowly but surely constrict the remaining Axis forces. But there are still a lot of them.
58:44 Speaker 06 And I think the key moment probably is early April 1943, when the First Army joins hands with the Eighth Army. And that is the moment at which the game's really up for them.
58:56 Dan Snow? This is that moment. So now the Allies have truly, well, encircled Axis forces in North Africa.
59:02 Speaker 06 Yeah, and it's going to take another six weeks to finish it off. By the way, one fascinating codice I loved when I was researching Tunis Grad is that a day after those two armies joined forces, the Axis, of course, are withdrawing, as you imagine they would be. And it's during that withdrawal that someone who, of course, is very famous to history, but at the time was operations officer for the 10th Panzer Division, a man called Klaus von Stauffenberg, is very badly wounded in an air attack. He's in a staff car, he's trying to direct the withdrawal of his division. Typical Stauffenberg, very brave, very clever, very capable staff officer. He's so badly injured that he loses one of his eyes, one of his hands, and three fingers in his other hand, so he's basically left with two digits. Why does this matter?
59:45 Speaker 06 Because when he's trying to prime the bomb that will kill Hitler, he hopes, he only has two fingers to do it, and this is given as one of the reasons why he doesn't prime both blocks of explosive. And therefore, that bomb that goes off on the 20th of July doesn't create a big enough explosion to kill Hitler, although it could have done if it wasn't put behind a piece of wood. So lots of bad luck involved, but it is fascinating that the Tunisian campaign does play a little bit of a part in Hitler's survival.
1:00:13 Dan Snow? Again, it's just one of these stories of Hitler refusing to allow any withdrawals. Does he evacuate anybody at the end?
1:00:19 Speaker 06 There's a plan to get what they call the technicians out.
1:00:21 Dan Snow? The old Stalingrad technicians.
1:00:23 Speaker 06 The technicians, and they're effectively the senior people, and it's never put into place, mainly because the Western Allies, particularly their naval force, have an operation that is geared to interdict anything that's coming across. So both ships and planes are knocked out of the sky and knocked out of the sea by a huge Allied operation, which really, I mean, one of the points I didn't make earlier on is that one of the reasons the Axis have so much success in the early stages of the Tunisian campaign is they have dominance in the air. And this slowly but surely has eroded as the Western Allies bring in more planes and they establish airfields closer to the front. And so by the time the Germans and the Italians are trying to withdraw, far too late, of
1:01:04 Speaker 06 course, there is complete air superiority and also superiority at sea, and there's really no opportunity for them to get anyone out. But imagine what they could have done with that. 250,000, about a half of them, maybe slightly more, are German troops, but these are veteran soldiers, these are some of the best people they've got.
1:01:22 Dan Snow? And so they go into the back, they just surrender, captured?
1:01:25 Speaker 06 Something like 15 generals, all the divisional commanders, you know, some of the best fighting formations in the German army are taken in the bag. They reconstitute a lot of these divisions, actually, but of course, all the veterans are taken there. Von Arnhem is captured, all his senior commanders are captured. The Italians do very well, you know, I've got to have a quick nod to the Italians because they do get a tough time through their history in the Second World War. Actually, the Italian general is the last one to surrender, a guy called Messer, who's actually commanded Italian forces on the eastern front. He does very well in a number of battles. And one little known battle that Monty doesn't win is the last battle he fights in North Africa, at Nfiedeville, which is really a defensive victory for Messer, who opposes him. He's got this very effective
1:02:09 Speaker 06 defensive position on a number of cliffs. And Monty always tries to kind of gloss over this, you know, because he wants to keep the reputation of a man who's never lost a battle. But frankly, when you look at the detail of what happened there, you could argue that he does lose that battle. So that's a feather in the cap for the Italians, but the outcome is an utter catastrophe for the Axis.
1:02:27 Dan Snow? Did Hitler order them to fight to the last building in the heart of Tunis? Why such a large and organised surrender?
1:02:33 Speaker 06 To the last bullet. Actually, a lot of the senior German commanders disobey at the last moment. They don't quite fight to the last bullet. There are bullets still left, there are still tanks with ammunition. But it is absolutely without question an inevitable defeat, and it would have been slightly pointless for them to have kept fighting. It is quite interesting how tough they fight, up to the point at which their senior commanders, Von Arnhem included, realise, whatever we've been told by Hitler, yeah, we're going to cover our backs to a certain extent, but basically, there's only one way to go now, and that's surrender. And although Rommel had made a request for an evacuation to take place two months earlier, when it would have been possible, so had Von Arnhem himself realised, we're never going to get out of this. He makes that request in late
1:03:15 Speaker 06 April, and of course, it's far too late by that point. And as I say, there were all 250,000 of them are taken. But I think it's the broader strategic position as well that is such a disaster for Axis arms.
1:03:27 Dan Snow? Well, it's May, so it's what, three months, four months after the final surrender at Stalingrad? And you're saying that it was talked about in Germany, talked about at the time as equivalent body blows to the Axis forces, the German Empire.
1:03:40 Speaker 06 Yeah, there's a nice quote by, a contemporaneous quote, Dan, which is always nice, by Goebbels. And he says, "This will be a blow to equal Stalingrad." And he writes that in his diary on the 7th of May. He doesn't realise that Tunis has been captured at that point. The news comes through a day or two later. And of course, the complete surrender takes place six days later. But he already knows that this is a catastrophe. I mean, he refers to the fighting in Tunisia multiple times. The deputy operations chief that I mentioned earlier, Verlamon, also writes at that point, "It was clear that once Tunisia was gone, southern Europe was naked." They fear two things. They fear the loss of their ally, which is inevitable from this point onwards, although
1:04:22 Speaker 06 of course, it takes until another six months later before Italy finally leaves the war. But they also fear the loss of this North African glassee and therefore the approach of the Western Allies through Europe's southern underbelly. Do they fear that there's going to be a major invasion then? No, they still think it's going to come from the north. But a combination of the two is gradually restricting Axis room for manoeuvre. And one obvious point alone is to control the Mediterranean, which they ultimately do, particularly after they take Sicily in the summer of 1943, is also absolutely crucial. Because all of the points, including Italy, that would have been secure with Mediterranean control go.
1:05:05 Speaker 06 All of a sudden, the Western Allies, they reckon they save a million tonnes of shipping by securing the Mediterranean, because of course, they don't have to go all the way around southern Africa. And this is one of the reasons why they managed to persuade the Americans to get involved in the first place, because there's always this trade off with the shipping they're going to devote to their European theatre of operations as opposed to the Pacific. So saving ships is vital for the Americans.
1:05:29 Dan Snow? And suddenly, if you control North Africa, you're looking at the southern France, there's Italy, there's the Balkans, there's Greece. I mean, you've got the whole of Hitler's southern flank is at your beck and call.
1:05:39 Speaker 06 Yeah. And the other really important point to make about the rest of the war, you know, people often ask me, and I'm writing about this at the moment, why were the Russians able to make such huge gains on the eastern front? Well, a lot of it was about air power. So you can put that down partly to the strategic bombing campaign, which on the one hand is degrading the Germans' ability to produce new fighter planes. They particularly targeted the various industries that produce fighter planes. But also, they're bringing in a lot of their fighter planes from these various other theatres, including the Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean alone, the Tunisian campaign alone, they lose 2,400 planes. This is a big challenge. If I was to tell you, Dan, that by the beginning of 1944, okay,
1:06:21 Speaker 06 so just six months later, they have 500 fighters on the whole of the eastern front.
1:06:27 Dan Snow? What?
1:06:27 Speaker 06 And people wonder why they collapsed. That is, the German army group centre collapses in Operation Bagration. Well, you know, the Russians have got so much better at fighting. They had, but they had a huge advantage in air power. And one of the reasons they had that is because of the degrading of the Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean, defending the Reich, and also in, of course, the fighting that is going to begin in Normandy thereafter. And the loss of air supremacy, particularly on the eastern front, was ultimately going to prove fatal.
1:06:58 Dan Snow? We think it cost the Axis nearly a million, the whole North African campaign cost the Axis nearly a million men.
1:07:03 Speaker 06 You never think of that, do you? You know, when we think of those, I think it was 16,000 men the Germans send over initially. Admittedly, the Italians have got a couple of hundred thousand in place at one stage. But to think that Axis forces in total, a million were lost in North Africa, that figure alone will give you a sense of how ultimately pivotal it proved to be.
1:07:23 Dan Snow? Tell everyone, once again, what the name of your book is.
1:07:25 Speaker 06 Yep, Tunis Grad Victory in Africa, which says it all. I mean, of course, it's chiefly about the Tunisian campaign, but you can't really talk about Tunisia without understanding where they got to before then. And that's something I think we tried to do in this chat.
1:07:38 Dan Snow? Thanks. Again, you've come in reminding me just what a global story this is, the Second World War, and stretching, in this conversation, we stretched from Morocco to the Middle East and beyond. So what an amazing tale. Thank you very much.
1:07:50 Speaker 06 Thanks, Dan.
1:07:52 Dan Snow? Thank you so much to you for listening to this episode of Dan Snow's History. We could not make this podcast without you. That's actually true. So make sure, well, if you want to keep it going, that is, to hit follow in your podcast player right now. You'll get new episodes dropped into your podcast library automatically by the power of tech. You can listen anywhere you get your pods, Apple, Spotify, even BBC Sounds. Imagine a world, just imagine, where you never miss an episode of this podcast. I mean, it's there. The technology makes that possible. That could be your reality right now if you hit follow. See you next time.
1:08:35 Speaker 07 This is the story of the one. As a shipping manager, he's running the dock, stocking supplies and making sure every order goes out on time. And Granger helps him stay prepared. From shipping supplies to PPE to hand tools, he counts on Granger to keep products moving and trucks rolling. So his operation runs smoothly, no matter the shift. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click Granger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.
1:09:05 Speaker 04 This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2% daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market. Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favorite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2% daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card, issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake
1:09:50 Speaker 04 City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
1:09:56 Dan Snow? Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? Sign up to History and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like how William conquered England, what it was like to live in the Georgian era, and you can even hear the voice of Richard III. We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, and there's always something more to discover. Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.
Previous The Troubles Explained (Part 2) Next The Greatest Knight That Ever Lived: William the Marshal Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
