ROMMEL'S RETREAT

By STRATEGICUS

MARSHAL ROMMEL has admitted the superiority of the .Eighth Army, and he is falling back rapidly towards the west. General Montgomery requires no ambiguous laurels, so there is no need to praise him for what is no more than the heavy . defeat he administered to the enemy on the El Alamein position. He has, of course, done more than that, since it is obvious he has straightened out his lines of communication and reconcentrated a formidable force far away to the west. But that achievement was assumed, though perhaps rather lightly, in view of the immense work of organisation it entailed. What has to be faced is the fact that Rommel has once again evaded complete destruction, and his success is more significant than at first sight appears.

What was his purpose in organising the strong position about Brega and El Agheila? It was either to delay the Eighth Army or to renew battle upon more favourable terms. Clearly he could hardly hope to achieve the latter. There was little possibility that he coula, so much weaker, defeat the Eighth Army which had beaten him when his strength was at its height. Still less could he hope to repeat his earlier achievement of driving our troops east- ward again. He must, therefore, have been desirous of delaying Montgomery, and this could be either for the purpose of evacuating his battered troops or of falling back intact upon Tripoli. We can rule out the question of evacuation, and it seems certain that, from the invasion of Morocco and Algeria, his main purpose has been to fall back upon the position which General Nehring is attempting to establish in Tunisia.

If this interpretation be correct, it means that the Germans intend to strain every effort to constitute a deep and strong bridgehead in Tunisia. Rommel will hope to pick up certain reinforcements of armour at Tripoli, and the force he will bring to Nehring will be of considerable importance. In pursuance of this design, he will no doubt attempt to impose further delay on the pursuit* of the Eighth Army ; and already, over the forty miles or so he has travelled, he has shown what ingenuity can do to slow it down. He can still further check pursuit by holding the precipitous wadis with resolute rearguards ; and at Misurata, some 250 miles to the east, there is a position which may delay the Eighth Army for perhaps an even longer time than the Brega-El Agheila position. It would not be an overwhelmingly attractive prospect, since Benghazi is only 250 miles by sea to the east and the journey will be in- Lreasingly covered by shore-based aircraft. Fighter support will be available over the greater part of the distance for the advancing troops.

But, despite its disadvantages, that may well be the German plan, to check and delay, and thereby separate the First and Eighth Armies

as long as possible ; and, if given the chance, to intervene in Tunisia

before they can co-operate. For what is it the enemy fears? It is the full co-operation of the two air forces. I said a month ago that it is quite possible "we shall see fought out over Tunisia an air-battle that will be as decisive as the Battle of Britain." That prospect becomes clearer .as the campaign proceeds ; and one of the most important elements in it is the fighter-strength of the Middle East Command. Rommel's stand at El Agheila effectively blotted it out of the Tunisian stryggle, and every stand he can make for some hundreds of miles yet will contribute to the same result. If Rommel can bring ground reinforcements to Nehring, Montgomery can bring stronger ; but of much greater importance is the fact that he can bring an already deployed experienced contingent of fighter aircraft. Rommel is holding off the Blucher of the great battle that is gathering in Tunisia, and in that way he is contributing to the result.

The Allied position in Tunisia is probably better than we could have expected at the outset of the campaign. Then we had little reason to expect that the resistance of the French would be over in a few days. The Allied preparations had to be made on the assumption that there would be a considerable amount of ground-fighting

before we could think of Tunisia. This, which was and is our goal, could not be approached directly because the enemy was in posses- sion of the air superiority that would have made the attempt an invitation to destruction. But, when it was found that the time-table had been advanced because Dalian saw the wisdom of ordering the cease-fire, General Anderson made an attempt to capture the posi- tions commanding the Narrows by a coup de main. Rarely can any commander have pushed even an advanced detachment forward upon such poor communications. The northern railway is not even con- tinuous. The weather, which the Germans freely admit has been their best friend in the struggle to evade the Eighth Army, com- plicated the advance into Tunisia even more thoroughly. Neverthe- less it was a chance ; and General Anderson took it, as he was fully justified in doing.

The result is better than we could have expected. If he did not gain all he wished, he certainly gave the enemy some bad moments, and, if he has not retained all he overran, he has at least secured more than he could have gained except by a battle he had not the force to fight. But the deciding factor has been the air. The enemy is suffering a hammering from the Allied bombers, and this long- distance bombardment cannot be without its effect. But it is fighter support that will turn the balance, and in this direction the enemy has advantages that are at present denied us. Fighters have speed but lack range ; and this means that they cannot operate except from airfields adjacent to the battlefield. They cannot even be flown to North Africa. They have to be shipped, with all the delays and the risks that process entails. Even when they have arrived they must have aerodromes near the battlefield ; and, as a consequence, a large proportion of the aircraft in North Africa may still be grounded. The enemy is in a position to move his aircraft to Tunisia by air and over land, except for the last flight, which is less than ninety miles of sea to cross. In Africa he has, again, two fine airfields within his narrow bridgehead.

It is for this reason that the First Army has been compelled to give way and abandon much of the advantage it gained by its daring dash towards the coast. If it could have held the massif it overran in that advance, the enemy's design would already have been half defeated, since he could not have extended his bridgehead and would have been under the risk of being driven out of it. But lacking the support of fighter aircraft, the weak contingents that went forward could not maintain themselves ; and, driven back, they have ceased to have the chance to throttle Nehring's expansion. But that was merely the first light skirmish with the enemy, and the battle that must shortly be joined will engage much heavier numbers of troops on both sides. The enemy is reinforcing at a rate estimated by a correspondent to be over ten thousand a week. It seems scarcely possible the Allies cannot concentrate more rapidly than that, in spite of mud, mist and bad communications. But they labour under other disadvantages which superior air power could, to some extent, counterbalance. Their armour is inexperienced, whereas the Germans have sent to Tunisia some of their best armoured units.

Apart from the infantry, which, if anything, has proved its superiority to that of the Allies, this force is a " task force," in the sense that it is a very carefully selected unity making use of some of the best German material.

Rommel's army, as we have seen, has played no small part in assisting Nehring to make good his foothold. But this need not disappoint anyone. If the campaign had gone as the Allies had every reason to expect they would not have been as far forward in Tunisia as they actually are. Furthermore, there is no need to

imagine that the Allies must concentrate within operating range a

numerically superior air force in order to be successful. The Battle of Britain was won on no such terms. Finally, it is evident that

if the battle is to be decided in the air the Germans will be com- pelled to concentrate in southern Europe a Luftwaffe strength that will entail drawing upon the force allotted to other fronts and, in

Russia, our ally will continue to be the beneficiary. In fact, it may well be that, as General Arnold said, the air battle which will develop will "decide air-supremacy over the Mediterranean and possibly over Europe."

But if that should be the pattern of the future, it must entail a weakening over every other European battlefield ; and the enemy must already have discovered some of its obvious implications. Russia is determined to maintain her winter attacks upon the German garrisons. The results of the first three weeks of the offensive have been such that the drain, at this stage in the war, must be far- reaching. At present the enemy is counter-attacking about Stalin- grad ; but the immediate success does not at present appear to promise the relief of the encircled troops. Their number must still be great, and their resistance, except for the mass cut off between the Don and the Volga, must diminish rapidly. The strain about Rzhev and Vehicle Luki is also great, and there is evidence that reinforcements are being drawn in. That process cannot go very far without offering invitations on other sectors. The war, in fact, is moving through an unfamiliar phase ; but the suggestion that seems inevitable is that Germany is at length beginning to feel the strain of fighting upon two fronts.