Chapter 25
6-17-42 23:59hrs El Dabba Egypt Axis forward airfield Pyramid 12, Field Marshal Irwin Rommel Commander Panzer Army Africa, Oberst Siegfried Westphal C chief of PAA operations, Major Alfred Seebohme commander 621st Radio Interception company, chief of PAA special communications; JU-52 1st transportation Gruppen JC+A4 Commander Hauptman Joseph "Sepp" Von Theil, close escort 12 BF-110, 6 from Africa, 6 from Crete
It was bitter, bitter sweet as Rommel felt the BMW engines surge to full power as Theil's crate began surging along the coastal strip headed for Athens, and then on to Rome and Berlin. He was going home for the first time in over a year, he would see Germany. The Reichsmarshal and the foreign minister had given him a general overview of things at home and the many challenges on the eastern front.
He longed to spend a quiet night at home with his wife and son, but he knew this wasn't likely to be a traditional soldier's leave. Germany and even more so Italy, as Count Ciano had told him, where thrilled by the progress of the Panzer Army Africa reaching Alexandria; the battle of Gazala, fought at extreme speed with unlimited freedom of movement was something that easily captured the imagination and there where medals, to be awarded and publicity photos to be taken to buoy morale on the home front. The Goebbles propaganda machine had already been spinning after Rommel's stunning victory that through his ardent belief in National Socialism that a new Hidenberg had emerged, a true German warrior who could outfight the very best the British had
Rommel knew the truth though, he had read Fellers mail and lived the battle; the British troops fought bravely, and where collapsed as much by their terrible luck in the first 48 hours of the battle and terrible political interference than any brilliance of command he had brought to the table... still he thought war luck, was taught to him as a junior staff officer a quarter century before as the meeting of opportunity and action, Ritchie and Fellers and Churchill and the terrible middle and upper level officer actions by the British had given him the opportunity, but the DAK and the PAA had taken the action to exploit it. Many risks where run, the army fighting 3 separate actions spaced 50 miles apart sometimes but gradually the pockets where reduced and overwhelming strength was brought against the tougher and more experienced British divisions, after he was able to hopelessly cut them off for their supply network and motorized transport
He was leaving for home as the great victor of Egypt without having done any real fighting. Auchinlek had simply pulled his army back once his rear became unstable, very smart in Rommel's opinion. He regarded Auchinlek as a far more ruthless opponent than Ritchie, there was maybe a great victory that was left on the table at Alamein, where the rampaging Egyptians might have denied Auchinlek all forms of supply and disorganized his airforce; presenting Rommel the opportunity to pierce the line, roll it up and force the last of Auchinlek's army to surrender. It might have been very close run given how strung out his own army was and that he didn't have the ability to enjoy any air support that far forward. He didn't want to think about the state his army would have been if Auchinlek had been able to stop him at Alamein, that would not have been a pretty withdrawal.
He had spent the last 24 hours after his long sleep and entertainment of the high ranking government ministers trying to find a way to assess his new situation in the Western Delta. His army was in tact and steadily displacing forward. Ration strength was 92,000 and tanks where being repaired and marched to the best of the DAK service crew abilities. The special 10th Italian tank regiment would perhaps be fully operational on the captured British runners in August, particularly with their over-running the divisional workshops, and given that the tanks they had captured where practically brand new from the factory, he hoped he might be able to keep them going for a good while, it burned his insides when Westphal joked that they had more spares for British tanks and trucks than they had for the Panzer 3 and 4 specials
The two great unknowns where fluttering before him as his the junkers cruised above the blue waters of the Med. He had been informed early this morning by Count Ciano just before he started driving back to El Dabba that Italy's minister at the Vatican had been contacted by his British Counter Part seeking terms for Italy to take custody of the island, how he wished he could have had that a year earlier when the British where so much more weak in Africa. Taking the island now didn't mean much other than pride for Italy, the base had been destroyed for months and he didn't want to send any more ships into Tripoli if he could avoid it, but still it was a powerful blow to British prestige and would allow considerable assets still in Italy or in OKW reserves, particularly the air forces to be redeployed to help other operations. And also this morning an emissary of King Farouk had arrived to his headquarters in the ruined naval command building seeking to bring Rommel or an appropriate stand in to Cairo to negotiate how Egypt might be permitted to neutralize and have all the war parties leave her soil.
Rommel knew such a request would fall on deaf ears with Mussolini, who coveted Egypt to help round out his vision of the old Roman empire, he wondered if the Fuhrer might perhaps have a different interest, given that he had correspondence with Farouk last year and that alliance with the Muslim Arabs tied hand in hand with certain government political goals. Regardless, positive relations with the Egyptian public where intended by both of his masters and in his absence the DAK had been ordered to maintain good manners and relations with the people of Alexandria and it's suburbs and that all measures of discipline would be vigorously maintained. One of Rommel's harder choices was who would keep watch of his troopers whilst he was in Italy and Germany. When Cruell had been captured, almost bizarrely by the standards he had faced throughout his time in Africa, Rommel received an immediate replacement in General Der Panzer Truppen Walther Nehring who was a grizzled veteran of France and the Eastern Front. And late last week on Rommel's recommendation back from the day Cruell was captured Berlin had promoted Ulrich Kleeman of the 90th light to General Der Panzertruppen. He had nearly forgotten about that due to 24/7 operational tempo of the march through Libya and Egypt but it had come through and was backdated to March.
Kleeman always ran his own fiefdom and because it served the army's interests so well Rommel was content to let Kleeman continue to do so; and he was invested with establishing positive relations with the Egyptian public and Farook, he had shown a strong knack of working with the arabs throughout his time in africa. Kleeman didn't gripe about being passed over for the DAK, if anything he enjoyed being able to pull rank while still wielding his scalpel of the 90th light division
In either case both where far too junior to command the Panzer Army Africa and bringing someone from out of the theater would not sit well, nor would Hitler easily yield to an Italian commanding the PAA in it's glow of victory, but the solution was on hand, in the form of Field Marshal Kesselring who had grabbed a ground command during the height of Gazala and had so many positive relations and connections in both war partners command staffs; Despite his status as theater commander and the most active Luftwaffe commander, he still styled himself a thoughtful ground forces commander from his younger days in the army and he gladly accepted Rommel's request that he be the army's caretaker while he was gone
Rommel looked at his own field marshal's epulettes on his collar, if I was in Russia I would be commanding a million men; and thought to himself that his own tasks in the unique conditions of Africa where at least 3 times as complicated as what his collegues were facing in Russia. He wondered if his new situation in Africa was not unlike February 1941, with Malta now replaced with Cyprus and if Alexandria was as untenable as Tripoli was back then. Even though Italian and German engineering squads where diligently trying to increase the shipping capacity at Toburk, they estimated that it would be October before they could restore the harbor to 2/3 of it's prewar capacity, they simply didnt have the heavy breakdown equipment or the fuel to move any faster. This made his circular problem against Auchinlek so so difficult to consider
Rommel knew from his final intercepted reports that he was at infantry parity with Auchinlek and probably had more tanks, but because of the terrain and incredible amounts of ground he needed to secure in lower Egypt, that he needed infantry, not just replacements but the army needed to grow, and this would take time to get formations deployed to Africa and for the ports to be opened up enough to keep their bellies and cartridge pouches full, but he also knew from those same reports and other work done by the Abwehr that Auchinlek would be undergoing massive reinforcement, not only with 3 fresh large British divisions but 3 very large and well equipped American divisions. He had seen this problem play out in the desert a half a dozen times already and the problem remained the same the British would always reinforce faster than he could, so he was compelled to attack whilst they where still building up and unprepared; he wondered though, how many more times could he reach into that bag and how could he ever replicate the combat strength and surprise he had pulled off on May 26th at the point of attack at Gazala.
He had spoken on the progress and strength of the Eastern Front divisions with Nehring, Kesselring and Ribbentrop and he wasn't encouraged, unlike some of the less militarily educated members of the German goverment leadership cabal, Rommel could read a map and he had experience marching 100s of kilometers into vast swathes of nothing and enemies, which was not all together different that what the army would find marching towards Russia's oil producing regions. The thought they would be able to penetrate all their way to the Persian and Turkish borders this year and exert pressure which might be helpful to Rommel was something he found laughable looking at a map, even I wouldn't be so ambitious. He compared that against his own situation maps of Egypt, he was vastly closer to his strategic objectives than anything the army was in Russia, certainly for this year as it was already becoming late June and their offensive hadn't even started yet due to the need to counter attack (successfully he admitted) several Russian advances from the spring
It would be a hard discussion and ask, but as field marshal, let alone one basking in the glow of victory Rommel was entitled to present his opinion to Hitler. He would do his best as Goring suggested to tell the Fuhrer that victory was within sight in Egypt, and that the army should shift it's priorities to nourish and grow the PAA for it's drive on the Suez Canal and should either only mount a limited offensive in the East this year or shift more broadly to the defensive but with active panzer army reserves for counter attacks and let the axis use the sharpest points of it's inventory in Africa. He would want this proceed in tandem with a large scale arming of the Egyptian civilian population and formation of Egyptian legions who would fight the British if not as outright allies, at least as co-belligerents; he felt there were incredible opportunities in that arena to fundamentally weaken the overarching British strategic advantages in the theater and that should he be able to cross the canal and reach Palestine that those conditions could be escalated even further via his continuing to arm arabs and the messaging of Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. bringing them to the Axis cause against the British and the Jews
The alternatives where hard to consider because even the easiest one, negotiating to neutralize and evacuate Egypt like Farouk wanted, would mean abandoning everything the army had fought so hard and lost so many men to achieve, he shuddered thinking about it. If that becomes the most sensible course of action, I have failed as a general.
He barely noticed the aircraft touching down and refueling in Athens before lifting off again across the Adriatic for Rome as he furiously wrote possible plans for a drive on the canal on one table and updated his diaries and war memoirs on another; after all the war would end one day and he was certainly not doing to wait 15 years to publish his books this time.
