What if Hitler had ordered evacuation of african Early 1943

Horseshoe

Banned
What if Hitler had for whatever reason in Early 1943 considered the Africa campaign lost and ordered the evacuation of as many of the troops as possible as well as cancelling as future reinforcement to Africa?
  • How many men and equipment/supplies would Germany/Italy had saved from being killed/captured in Africa by its evacuation plus no OTL reinforcement ?
  • how would this affect for the allies it's OTL plans for invasion of italy and for the German not having lost OTL troops and equipment/supplies in Africa and the troops movement in the eastern front caused by Hitler OTL attempt to hold onto tunisia by reinforcing it by weakening it's mainland italy forces as well as the Easter front by pulling troops to the Mediterranean and african campaign
 
It's going be more difficult for the allies to invade Italy with the Germans/Italians having extra troops and resources not wasted in Africa in TTL not to mention a Italian goverment who did not just a large part of their armed forces in Africa as pows
 
All the troops thrown into Tunisia after Torch were being prepared for the Eastern Front. Could make an impact on the tale end of Stalingrad.
Africa Corp could be rested, rebuilt, and used to build up Sicily.
 

nbcman

Donor
All the troops thrown into Tunisia after Torch were being prepared for the Eastern Front. Could make an impact on the tale end of Stalingrad.
Africa Corp could be rested, rebuilt, and used to build up Sicily.
Nope. The remnants of German-Italian Panzer Army would have been lost in Tripolitania or even Cyrenaica since the British 1st Army would easily beat them to Tunisia. The British would be in Tunisia in November while the ‘Africa Corp’ was hundreds of miles to the east.
 
Wasn’t thinking of relocating Africa via Tunis. Based on original post I was proposing Hitler decides the gig is up as soon as Wallies lamd in Algeria and immediately withdraws everything possible from Libya through Tripoli without a Germany of Italian unit ever setting foot in French North Africa.
 
difficult to see Hitler giving up on anything. Brooke counted on the fact that Hitler would allow troops to stay in place rather than withdraw to better positions. On top of Hitler was fine with re-enforcing a lost cause.

We could even let it be more obvious: Hitler pulls out of Africa just before Torch and just after the first battles of El Alamein (somewhat end of October)

Rommel perfectly well knew that when Monty had got his equipment sorted and getting started, he could not stay. The terrain prevented any major defensive options; hence Rommel was pushing hard to get it over with before Monty could roll.

If the pull-out is effected prior to any major loss of troops and equipment. we have a few 'funnies':

Eisenhower would not be a great general
Monty's fame would not be there
The french forces would battle the Allied - and maybe have more reason to do so as there would be not German troops around
US forces would not 'learn' in Africa (Kasserina etc). Any 'learning on the job' would be in Italy
Panzer VI would not be 'wasted' in Africa
Several German divisions not POVs

Would it change the final outcome? not at all, only the trajectory.

Husky would probably still go ahead as OTL. Planning and execution still takes some time, so moving it up in time might not be possible

Salerno/Anzio still goes ahead. No reason not to.

Could anything be allocated to Stalingrad? Highly unlikely. It takes time to gather up a division and get it moving (on rail!) to Staingrad.

The problem with Stalingrad was that it looked as though 'victory' was within reach, right up until October. Just one more push...

If we take this to its conclusion, it could mean a total re-alignment of German fronts:
Out of Africa - before it goes pear-shaped
Pull back from Stalingrad in October
Secure Italy (how?)
... etc

All well and good but that would mean recognising that the war is lost.

Any re-alignment in 1943 is not going to win any war.
 
Could anything be allocated to Stalingrad? Highly unlikely. It takes time to gather up a division and get it moving (on rail!) to Staingrad.
Whether or not anything pulled out of Africa can be re-allocated to Stalingrad is irrelevant regarding the forces that were originally supposed to go East and ended up being re-allocated to Africa instead. Those will almost certainly make it in time. Forces that FYI contained a very disproportionately high number of transport planes.
 
even so, transport planes have difficulty transport trucks and tanks.

... but it takes time to gather it all up.
 
IOTL the British and Americans took Tunis on May 13th, 1943. I've seen it argued that this came late enough to restrict Allied strategic options. Since the summer would have had to been spent repositioning forces, any other offensives in 1943 really had to be in the Mediterranean. Take Tunis in February, and a 1943 invasion of France is feasible, you could even take Sicily and still try a 1943 invasion of France, or move up the invasion of Italy instead. I do think securing Tunisia and Sicily was close to a necessity due to the shipping situation, and so the Axis contesting them almost means that the Allies are going to spend the 1943 campaigning season mainly doing that.

OTOH, if the Axis writes off Africa completely, it gives the Germans a few months in 1943 where they can just ignore the Mediterranean, and this helps in Russia. But then the Italians might try to switch sides earlier.
 

thaddeus

Donor
IOTL the British and Americans took Tunis on May 13th, 1943. I've seen it argued that this came late enough to restrict Allied strategic options. Since the summer would have had to been spent repositioning forces, any other offensives in 1943 really had to be in the Mediterranean. Take Tunis in February, and a 1943 invasion of France is feasible, you could even take Sicily and still try a 1943 invasion of France, or move up the invasion of Italy instead. I do think securing Tunisia and Sicily was close to a necessity due to the shipping situation, and so the Axis contesting them almost means that the Allies are going to spend the 1943 campaigning season mainly doing that.

OTOH, if the Axis writes off Africa completely, it gives the Germans a few months in 1943 where they can just ignore the Mediterranean, and this helps in Russia. But then the Italians might try to switch sides earlier.
it was not an insane idea to choose to hang on in Tunisia as it seemed to offer advantages over their prior situation in Libya? overnight shipping times, water, etc. (and they didn't have to capture it)

my speculation has always centered around avoiding the destruction of the Afrika Korps in Egypt, that was the troops and tanks, not a whole replacement army drained from other fronts, that could have tried to hold Tunisia?
 

Horseshoe

Banned
Just how many troops/equipment did Hitler/mussolini spend/waste/Lost on tunisia and Africa starting in 1943?
 
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