I need a history lesson

[parsifal]

The German forces came to the aid of the Italians who were seeking an African empire. The aim of the German forces was to conquer Eygpt and cut off the Suez canal - greatly restricting British movements.

I beg to differ on that point. The original orders issued to Rommel were principally defensive. Essentially they were sent there to protect Libya, , and indirectly to shore their flagging ally, Italy. The shoring up bit came later, after the weakness and failure of italy became an embarrasing fact. The germans did become intersted in the region because the british were there, so that part i agree with. Finally, to an extent, the germans were sucked into the vortex of Balkan politics, Metaxas, the greek dictator, was actually a Nazi sympathizer, to a large extent, but Hitler had to crush Greece (and Yugolslavia, for similar reasons), because of the forcing of the greeks to the Allied camp by the italian invasion, and because of the voluntary drift in the same direction by the Yugoslavs. If the status quo could have been maintained, in the Med theatre, the germans would have been happy enough to leave things alone. The later extensions of german objectives, such as the conquest of the ME oilfields were projected, but not seriously planned for, because the theatre as a whole was seen as a distraction from the main games.

 

[plan_D]

You are right, the initial aim of German forces was to hold the British in Libya. However, the German forces under Rommel were driven to distraction by the British 8th Army and their aim was to wipe out the British in Eygpt and take the Suez Canal. The German High Command in Berlin certainly had mixed opinions of North Africa; one side wanted Rommel to push; others wanted to maintain a defensive hold while others still wanted all resources in the Med sent against Malta.

 

[parsifal]

Thanks Plan D

What is your opinion, if, in 1941, the defence of tobruk had failed, and the port had been captured. Would Rommel with his two depleted divisions, plus a gaggle Italian formations (all pretty badly worn already) have been able to bounce the remaining defences in Egypt???? We would need to know with some accuracy what the british forces in the theatre actually were. There were quite a few semi trained formations training in the Delta at the time, so I am a bit hard pressed to predict what might have happened