The 90th light division scooped up arab villagers off the street and sent them to fight and barely bothered to count them. Playfair not only had access to all of the relevant corps and divisional commanders who where living, he had access to Halder, Westphal, Speidel and Rommel's personal papers from his son.Īre there likely errors of poor accounting of casualties at Gazala, at least on the axis side yes. By 1960, West Germany and Britain were firmly allied NATO partners, and the North African campaign was considered an honorable or indeed glamorous campaign for those involved on both sides. Playfair, in his defense didn't have the cold war realities to force lots of lies that writers of the eastern front had to endure. Unfortunately all the living fighters of places like Knightsbridge have passed away so we are left with the official histories, diaries, auto biographies and our common sense ability to blend those sources I have a passing interest in operation orient or wider spread ww2 occuring in the middle east but won't be introducing it to this timeline and wouldn't consider it unless it was a Raeders strategy 1940-41 sort of story because the Germans are going to strategically and tactically get their brains beat in by the fall-early winterĬolonel John Gil has a short alternate history story available where Turkey joins the war parallel to case blue, it an interesting read, but conditions and options of the turkish field army in this period are not something ive done much study on, so like events in the pacific, i will decline to cover them in the story because i would be writing in uninformed generalitiesĬlick to expand.his personal experiences on that where really insightful, The US will not be able to invade France in 1942 (see the Official Histories again)Ĭlick to expand.as much as those things would be vital, he can't move his army to take them, and due to the circumstances of case blue there are no additional axis reserves or fuel or air power that can be given to him and once the British open all the sluices and dams along the nile, Rommel simply lacks the forces, fuel, vehicles and support from Europe to cross masses of water obstacles Looking ahead Britain will certainly want to retake Suez as the link to India. Turkey will want to be in on the spoils of abn Axis victory, regaining at least some of the Ottoman Empire lost in 1918 The victory at Gazala and the Fall of Egypt will convince the Turks Germany is winning especially with the progress being made by Operation Blau during June, July and August. No, Germany can attempt Operation Orient but they have to get Turkey into the war. Suggest you read Colvin's recently published study. Then their roops will need to train and acclimatize for desert warfare. They will have to go r around the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa which will take weeks. After Egypt falls British and US reinforcements and logistics cannot use the Suez Canal. In the short term Rommel could definitely grab Palestine. With a British 8th Army that has al l but collapsed the British position is even more parlous than Rommel. Rommel will no doubt need replacements and resuopoply but, with captured Britsh supply dumps the latter problem is temporarily solved. Bracelet shortener.What is vital is the oil supplies in the middle east, the Suez Canal, and the naval base at Alexandria.
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