At El Alamein, Rommel had 4 divisions (90th light, 164th light, 15th Pz, 21st Pz) and a brigade (labeled Ramcke Brig on this map: File:2 Battle of El Alamein 001.png - Wikipedia ). Were those divisions “short”? (The German Army began to experience manpower issues by '42. Many divisions were at partial strength, and many experienced veterans were shuffled around to form a core cadre in newly created formations.)
Without pinching off the Med as Little Nemo suggests, I think the Italians would have a heck of a hard time supplying the forces in North Africa.
That means a campaign through Spain. While Franco was a fascist, I don’t know if he would have sided with Hitler or Churchill if Hitler laid down an ultimatum for troop passage. Hitler would have probably wanted to garrison Spain (and maybe Portugal), and Franco might not like that idea…
That also means a campaign through Turkey to get to the Suez. Turkey’s interior was rugged, and I suspect not condusive to the kind of land war Hitler’s generals liked to fight.
Most of the armchair generals here are ignoring the real reason why such plans probably wouldn’t have worked; logisitics. Most wargames give this short shrift (as did both Hitler and Mussolini), but the Italian merchant marine wasn’t exactly huge by any stretch, and continued attrition by British planes based on Malta just made things even worse. The Germans only had 3 divisions down there, yes partly because Hitler saw it as a minor sideshow, but mainly because the logistical situation prevented a significant expansion of forces. During El-Alamein (which was a series of battles over several months), it was said that the fuel tanker trucks would burn just as much petrol as they ended up delivering to the front. I don’t even want to think about how you are going to supply an army as it attempts to march/drive across the desert sands (which did a good job of eating away at vital mechanical parts) in the direction of Iraq and the Caucasus.
And on top of that the Axis were on a timer (even if they didn’t know it), as in August 1942 the Americans will be landing in French West Africa. What’s Rommel going to do about his threatened supply lines when he’s over in Iraq driving north towards Russia while the Americans drive east into Libya?
Probably easier to take Malta (unless he could get Franco on board) and Alexandria - would have the same effect of making entry to the Med pretty much suicidal for the RN. Either way, once the Med is under control all sorts of strategic options come on the table.
If Das Loon was prepared to stay snuggly with uncle joe, freeing up another 60-100 divisions for beating up on the Brits - well, all sorts of fun ideas would have become viable, such as Sea Lion II or maybe even Meeting Up With The Japanese if he fancied playing at being Alexander and heading for India. Certainly it would have been plenty of force to take down anyone in the EMEA theatre APART from the Russians. If he’d been willing to settle for his agreed bit of Europe, plus all of Africa and most of the Middle East, he might have built a vast totalitarian hell-hole Reich that could have lasted a few generations. Possibly, if he was lucky, and he wasn’t a loony.
Capture Cyprus (using paratroops). An air base on Cyprus would make the Royal Navy base at Alexandria untenable.
capture Malta: this would be for the Italians, they could probably pull thisoff
3)push Montgomery’s Army back; capture Egypt.
Now, the Royal Navy must leave the Med- german dive bombers make the Sea a deathtrap for British ships.
The Afrikakorps now can drive into the levant, and capture the Iraqi oil fields.
This would have paid off big time; Stalin may have been sufficiently frightened by this, to sign a treaty with hitler.
Sweden was also a major exporter of metal ores to Germany, one of the few that the Allied blockades couldn’t effect. It was one of the major reasons why Germany invaded Norway (to protect those northern ore fields, and the winter shipping routes they took to Germany).
Also, I imagine (but it’s really a hunch) that a lot of upper class German’s had money and buisness ties with Sweden (as well as Switzerland), as well as a shared cultural heritage.
Malta, Alexandria, and Crete had strategic locations but mostly for the British. Malta, for example, didn’t have any value for the Axis that they didn’t already gain from Sicily. The only reason for Germany to have taken Malta would have been to deny its use to the British.
But entry to the Mediterranean narrowed down to a ten mile wide passage at Gibraltar and a twenty mile wide Bab-el-Mandeb passage near Aden. In that small an area, good air and naval cover can virtually attack any ship trying to go in or out. So by controlling these two areas, Germany would have controlled all traffic in the Mediterranean (and the Red and Black Seas).
The Suez would have achieved the same purpose for the eastern entry into the Med but it was located in Egypt, an area with a good British garrison. The Bab-el-Mandeb, on the other hand, was under Axis control early in the war. The Italians captured the southern and western side of the passage and had a 6-1 numerical superiority over the British forces in the area. That opportunity should have been exploited. Instead, the Italian advance stopped and the British were able to reinforce and recapture the area.
The order to begin Barbarossa wasn’t as wrong-headed as the disastrous results would indicate. As John DiFool already mentioned, North Africa and the Middle East were difficult to supply. Germany was already getting enough oil from Romania–mainly in Ploesti–and there were oil fields in Russia that might have been of use.
Despite the pact between the two, Germany and Russia were on a collision course; the two leaders hated each other and Stalin had started his own plans for a surprise invasion of Germany. From Germany’s view 1941 was a perfect time to invade; Stalin had purged much of his capable generals, Britain was weak, and the US wasn’t yet in the picture. Barbarossa was originally scheduled for mid-May; if it had started on time the results might have been very different.
You made blanket general statements (“You can’t just say “I’m letting his forces through, but I’m not part of your war.” (…) As soon as foreign troops set foot on your soil, you’re in the game. There are no half measures in WW2.”), and those are what I responded to.
My mistake - comes of working from memory while at work 3 or 4 doesn’t really effect the argument about the proportion of the German strength that was in Africa as opposed to Eastern Europe.
No, not ignoring supply issues. The base assumption is that Hitler stands on the defensive in the East and uses the bulk of his mobile forces in an attempt to drive Britain from the Middle East and capture the Iraqi and Iranian oil fields. With a more effective mobilisation of Western Europe’s resources in 1941 a way could have been found to close the Med to the Royal Navy and the RAF (capture Malta, close the Straights, move in more U-boats etc) and to build sufficient shipping to supply a complete German army - even a doubling, 6-8 divisions, of German strength would probably been too much for the British.
That’s a mighty big assumption. If the British had been defeated in Egypt I can’t see any way Roosevelt and Marshall would have agreed to Torch. The American objective was always an early return to Western Europe - it was the British talked them into the African and Mediterranean route. With no British army coming the other way I just can’t see it happening. The concentration would have been on a quicker build up of forces in Britain ready for THE invasion.
But again I should say this was never a likely scenario. Hitler had no real interest in destroying the British Empire - he would much rather have reached some sort of settlement (with the British in a subordinate role of course) - his focus was always on the East and the defeat of the Soviet Union. But there again he was the armchair General and a crap strategist - he could never focus on the key objective - destroy the Soviet Union: capture Moscow and make friends with the Ukranians; capture natural resources: head for the Caucuses and the oil; make the Baltic a German lake: drive north for Leningrad; just don’t try and do all of them at once.
Exactly. Knock Malta out of action and the RN has nowhere to go between Gibraltar and Alexandria, which is a long way in enemy waters and would make any navel venture very risky. It also simplifies supply of the Afrika Corps a great deal by removing any british air presence from the supply lanes. Knock out Alexandria too and the British couldn’t do anything in the Eastern Med without steaming all the way from Gibraltar and back again, unless they wanted to try the canal - either of which would be near-suicidal.
Taking Alexandria would involve knocking out all British forces in Egypt, which wouldn’t be easy - but then I’m not clear on why the Axis would secure Aden without dealing with Egypt first anyhow - going overland to Aden would seem to be very tricky, and ditto going through Palestine to Iraq, and then all the way round the peninsula by sea. The most (only?) viable way route is straight down the Red Sea. Aden would certainly be an excellent way of blocking any Allied attempts to get back into the area and generally making life miserable for the British (perhaps by letting the IJN use it as a base?), but if I was the Loony-In-Chief I would only go for it if I had plenty of forces left after clearing Mesopotamia and North Africa.
I agree - the whole thing would have been a pretty pointless sideshow, and far riskier too. Catching the germans from both sides after they were already on the run with their supply chain disrupted is a whole different prospect from taking them on single-handed and having to push them all the way back across the continent when they have a secure rear but your logistics are coming from the UK and US. How the Vichy and Spaniards would have reacted to a total German victory in the Med is an unknown, but might have come into play too.
I’m not sure Cyprus gets you much closer than Crete, and that’s not close enough. The Germans weren’t able to close down Alexandria from Crete, and they weren’t able to close down Malta properly even though it’s virtually within spitting distance of Sicily. It may be that they weren’t really trying that hard, but you need an awful lot of air power to really shut down an area completely.
3 or 4 doesn’t really effect the argument about the proportion of the German strength that was in Africa as opposed to Eastern Europe.