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In my opinion, North Africa was a diversion compared to Stalingrad. It may have been one of Hitler's fatal decisions to open up a front in North Africa. Germany needed oil and grain, and Ukraine and the Caspian Sea area could have provided both. Stalingrad was a major railroad center, with tractor and tank manufacturing and the strategic linchpin, as it were, to the southern eastern front. By changing the emphasis of his attack, Hitler dissipated his forces. Failing to take Moscow, he directed his attention to Stalingrad, where his forces met stiff Soviet resistance.
Even after Hitler knew he couldn't take the city, he stubbornly refused to allow Von Paulus' army to breakout, and he prevented other German forces from making a major rescue effort. It was fateful decision that may have changed the course of the war. According to one source, Goring failed in his promise to supply needed supplies to the encircled Sixth Army, for one reason, because transport planes had been diverted to the Tunisian campaign.
Stalingrad was the first major defeat of the German Army in WWII, much more so than the defeat at El Alamein. Prior to Stalingrad the Russians thought the Germans were invincible. The Russians put on a massive pincers movement around Stalingrad and later took Rostov, which jeopardized the German forces driving toward the oil fields in the Caspian Sea and Caucasus areas. Most of the German forces in that area had to retreat back through the Crimes to escape being cut off by the Russian advance.
After Stalingrad, the next major turning point for the Germans was the terrible battle at Kursk, which probably marked the beginning of the long German retreat. Some argue that Kursk wasn't a defeat for the Germans, but the losses were so horrendous that they never recovered their momentum. The Russians were producing 4 or 5 tanks to one by the Germans and the attrition of men couldn't be sustained by the Germans.
This is an aside, but William Craig, author of Enemy at the Gates, tells the story of General de Gaulle visiting Stalingrad in 1944 and surveying the wreckage and devastation. A journalist asked him his impressions of the scene and he remarked, in French, to the effect that, "These are a formidable and remarkable people." The journalist thought he was referring to the Russians. De Gaulle quickly cut him off and he said "That they [the Germans] should have come so far." Discounting, for a moment, the terrible human suffering and death brought to the Russian people it was a remarkable achievement that any army could penetrate over a thousand miles into Russia to the approaches of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea. It's questionable that any other army could have done the same.
I admit I am not nearly as well read about the North African campaign as I am about the Eastern Front, but it seems to be Hitler always ran the North African camapign in a less intense, half----- way. iIf he wouldve put more resources there,broke through in Egypt, and gotten to the Iraqi and Saudi oil, the USSR ( and the rest of Eurasia west of China and Japan) would have been in BIG trouble.
I trust your judgement, but didnt the USSR still have huge amounts of manpower and weaponry remaining, even at that late date?
Well, their industrial base was still in terrible shape, and the Soviet Army relied on America for a great deal of their food and their equipment. The Red Army marched on American food.
The other thing is that, had this really happened, you would have been dealing with a number of factors that would have differentiated the ensuing conflict with that with the Germans.
Airpower. The strategic airpower, from bombing to tactical air support was nothing less than overwhelming. The United States and British would have retasked their strategic bomber forces from pounding German cities into dirt into destroying Soviet communications and transportation with near impunity. What's more, the American and British tactical air support was, by war's end, highly effective.
Logistical. This has already been discussed, but it's also worth discussing that the Soviets in Western Europe would have had incredibly extended supply lines, easily disrupted from the air.
Naval Power. The British and American navies could pretty much land large number of troops anywhere along the Soviets' flanks, from the Baltic states to the Crimea to Vladivostok.
Manpower. The American army was not inconsiderable in 1945. 11 million well-armed, well-supplied troops backed by superior artillery, naval power, air power, and logistics is nothing to sneeze at.
Intangibles. If there had been an all-out shooting war between the Soviet Union and the West, would Soviet troops have been nearly as motivated as they had been against the Germans? After all, during the early stages of the war, the Germans were considered liberators by large numbers of the Soviet population until Hitler's brutal occupation proved otherwise. Even then, large numbers of disaffected Russians fought the Red Army under Vlasov. So, the battle between Soviets and Nazis was a no-holds-barred war of mutual hatred based on real outrages perpetrated on the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. Would the same dynamic had been at work versus the Americans and the Brits, particularly if the stated objective of the Western powers was the liberation of Eastern Europe from Stalin?
Now, despite these points, I certainly do not believe that a war between the Russians and the US/UK/French would have been anything less than a bloodbath in the early stages. However, I think any number of strategic factors would have ultimately weighed in the West's favor, tipping the balance, even if the atomic bomb had not been brought into service in the conflict.
Which still does not exactly help one's manpower situation when dealing with a total population of maybe 200 million, tops.
Stalin had lots of help in committing his crimes.............as did Hitler.
Stalin killed many people in his own nation, still, the Soviet army outpowered the Wehrmacht. Germany wasn't that well prepared. Add in a bad winter and people who were willing to starve to death for their country and the Wehrmacht's gun power was not that meaningful. This was considering Stalin killed almost 10 percent of his own population, including people in the army. What I was trying to say was that even with the rages of Stalin and the number of deaths, the Russian Army had a better chance than Germany.
I admit I am not nearly as well read about the North African campaign as I am about the Eastern Front, but it seems to be Hitler always ran the North African camapign in a less intense, half----- way. iIf he wouldve put more resources there,broke through in Egypt, and gotten to the Iraqi and Saudi oil, the USSR ( and the rest of Eurasia west of China and Japan) would have been in BIG trouble.
Daryl,
In the words of Richard Natkiel, one of Britain's leading military and historical cartographers, who has made a study of both world wars, "The German High Command saw North Africa as a distinctly minor theater and allocated forces and supplies accordingly." In his book, Famous Land Battles, military historian Richard Humble echos similar sentiments, "The war in North Africa began almost by accident and was a thorough nuisance to the Germans, who had never intended to go there at all. But Mussollini wanted a cheap victory to put him on a par with Hitler, so he invaded Egypt from the colony of Libya in September 1940." As he states further, Hitler sent an "under-strength Panzer corps" out to Libya under Erwin Rommel "to save Tripoli for Mussolini and the axis powers."
I understand your point about the prize of mid-east oil. However, it poses the question of the logistics of transporting oil to where the axis forces could process it, since the British later controlled much of the Mediterranean air space and sea lanes, and overland transport through neutral Turkey wasn't an option. Hitler had early set his sights on the Soviet Caspian oil fields, and came very close to securing his objective, with German forces driving to the outskirts of Grozny, just short of the rich oil fields. However, the catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad exposed the Trans-Caucausus Front, and the German forces were obliged to withdraw.
In the words of Richard Natkiel, one of Britain's leading military and historical cartographers, who has made a study of both world wars, "The German High Command saw North Africa as a distinctly minor theater and allocated forces and supplies accordingly." In his book, Famous Land Battles, military historian Richard Humble echos similar sentiments, "The war in North Africa began almost by accident and was a thorough nuisance to the Germans, who had never intended to go there at all. But Mussollini wanted a cheap victory to put him on a par with Hitler, so he invaded Egypt from the colony of Libya in September 1940." As he states further, Hitler sent an "under-strength Panzer corps" out to Libya under Erwin Rommel "to save Tripoli for Mussolini and the axis powers."
I understand your point about the prize of mid-east oil. However, it poses the question of the logistics of transporting oil to where the axis forces could process it, since the British later controlled much of the Mediterranean air space and sea lanes, and overland transport through neutral Turkey wasn't an option. Hitler had early set his sights on the Soviet Caspian oil fields, and came very close to securing his objective, with German forces driving to the outskirts of Grozny, just short of the rich oil fields. However, the catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad exposed the Trans-Caucausus Front, and the German forces were obliged to withdraw.
I agee Hitler underrated the importance of the African campaign, but if hw would have put his full forces behind it before invading the USSR, Europe and Asia (except for the areas Japan wanted for themselves) would have been in big trouble.
Four of five German Casualties were on the eastern front. Wehrmacht Staff Studies, which were accurate, concluded that the war was lost.
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