World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF EGYPT: Change of Wind

The wind blew in another direction in Egypt. Two rival generals, hinting at future policies, revealed a change of tempers that presaged a reversal of the fighting in North Africa.

“We are preparing now for the next round.” So spoke Lieut. General Bernard Law Montgomery, field chief of General Sir Harold Alexander.

“We did not advance into Egypt merely to be thrown out again.” So spoke Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

There were incidents to bear out the interpretation that the British had become offensive-minded, Rommel defensive. The British advanced. In a short, fierce infantry attack they nipped off a small wedge which Rommel was holding near the center of the El Alamein line. This was Montgomery’s first round. His troops were ready. Their victory a month ago, when they hurled Rommel back, hurt and bloody, had bucked up the sick, sore, tired Imperials. The Eighth Army wanted to get moving.

As for Rommel, last week he was in Berlin (see p. 23). He had gone to report to Hitler, probably to ask for more supplies and more air support. His statements to German newsmen carried no prophecies; they significantly emphasized past successes and the mounting difficulties of his African campaign.

Reports from Cairo made clear what those difficulties were. The British were hacking and unraveling his supply lines. In the last three and a half months Allied planes had plastered the Axis port of Tobruk with almost 4,000 tons of bombs.

Since June planes and submarines had sunk upward of 140,000 tons of Axis shipping in the Mediterranean. According to the New York Herald Tribune’s Russell Hill, not a single convoy from Italy, via Greece, makes the crossing without being spotted, attacked and attacked again. Montgomery, on the other hand, was getting reinforcements in a thickening stream: U.S. tanks, mobile artillery, planes. Ships unloaded supplies at Suez at the rate of 10,000 tons a day.

When and how Montgomery’s second round would develop was the General Staff’s secret. It might be a sudden onslaught. It might be other short, sharp jabs. Or it might be a blow at an unexpected spot. Despite the change of wind, no one was discounting the wile of Erwin Rommel.