Belly Up

The Allied swoops had knocked the Axis off balance:

> Hitler cannot soon replace his losses in Egypt and Libya; he may not even try. Of 500 tanks on the Alamein front, Rommel had probably rescued fewer than 50. His casualties already exceeded 75,000 men and the whole Afrika Korps faced extinction.

>At week’s end the Russians held the initiative all along the Eastern Front from Leningrad to the Caucasus. Around Stalingrad the chilled and unhappy Germans were backing up before a sudden Russian offensive.

>Hitler’s dilemma in Yugoslavia, Greece, Rumania and Middle Europe—so often reported and exaggerated that it was hard for the Allies to take it seriously—was now genuinely grave. The Nazis dared not relax their throat hold on Western Europe.

Pincers Turned. But it was the soft southern belly of the Axis that had suddenly become vulnerable. Bombed and frightened Italy might be more of a liability than a help to Hitler. Turkey, Syria, Iraq—the whole Middle East—were no longer an open road for the German armies. The Nazis might be pulling back in the Caucasus, building up their stores in the Balkans for a sudden blow through Turkey—but the British also had strengthened their forces in the Middle East, and the Germans no longer had the lower blade of their pincers in Egypt. The Allied occupation of French North Africa left the Germans almost no chance to close the Mediterranean by seizing Gibraltar, as they once had planned. The pincers had been turned upon Hitler.

Time and the Fortress. Hitler was bound to guard the Festung Europa (the European Fortress). He sent troops into France—the only major Axis troop movement reliably reported up to last week. German soldiers also filtered into Italy. He punched as many soldiers as possible into Tunisia, to fight a delaying action.

Into the triangle of Sardinia, Sicily and Tunisia he poured air strength. Reports last week were that he already had 1,000 planes in the area. By stripping European, Russian, Balkan, Italian air forces to the minimum, he could put an estimated 3,000 planes into the area, possibly prevent the junction of Allied North African forces, win himself more time to bolster his defenses of southern Europe

That was the only strategy he had shown so far in his suddenly capsized position—to fight for time. But that was no reason to underestimate him. On its back, with its belly up, the cat is deadly.