Who said about the situation in the African theater during World War II???

On November 8, 1942, more than 100,000 U.S. and British troops landed in Algiers, Oran and Casablanca on 664** and transport ships. On 26 December, Rommel, who had lost the Battle of El Alamein, led 10,000 men of the African Panzer Army (including 30,000 Germans) and more than 130 tanks to retreat to the Maret Line, on the southern border between Libya and Tunisia, and approached Anim's troops. Hitler ordered Rommel to return home for treatment after consolidating his new position.

His African Panzer Army would also be renamed the Italian 1st Army, commanded by Marshal Messer of Italy. On February 14, 1943, the German and Italian forces launched an offensive codenamed Operation "Spring Breeze". The 5th Army in Arnim in the north launched a main attack on the positions of the US 2nd Army from the Verde Pass, and the German 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions flanked on both sides, inflicting heavy losses on the US 1st Panzer Division and capturing Sidibuzid.

On the 15th, Rommel's forces to the south also captured Gafsa and advanced towards Feriana. On the 17th, Rommel entered and occupied Feriana. Rommel's offensive inflicted heavy losses on the American troops.

Of the 30,000 men of the 30,000 men of the 2nd Army, 3,000 were killed, 4,000 were captured, and 260 tanks were destroyed or captured, the worst defeat of the American army in the North African theater. On 20 March, Montgomery commanded the British 8th Army to attack the Marette Line, and the U.S. 2nd Army under Patton's command had attacked the rear of the Maret Line from the southwest three days earlier. On May 13, Admiral Ashim and Marshal Messer surrendered to the Allies, and about 100,000 German and 150,000 Italian troops were captured, and only 633 escaped from the sea.

The Battle of Tunis ended with an Allied victory. After two years and eight months of tug-of-war, the war in North Africa came to an end. The Allied victory in North Africa opened the Mediterranean shipping lanes and paved the way for the next step in returning to Europe through Sicily.

On November 8, 1942, British and American troops landed in Morocco and Algeria during Operation Torch. The troops of the local Vichy France barely put up any resistance. Eventually, the German and Italian forces were flanked by Algerian and Libyan forces.

Allied forces attacking simultaneously from both the east and the west completely drove the German and Italian forces out of Africa on 13 May 1943. On the battlefields of North Africa, 250,000 Axis soldiers were taken prisoner.

There are still too many stories between Germany and Britain during World War II, and one of the things I am talking about today is that during World War II, it is said that Germany and Britain actually fought on African soil, so many people have to ask, why did they fight, and what kind of stories did they have? Let's take a brief look at it.

The African theater has never been Germany's strategic focus, and according to the division of power of the Axis powers, Africa is Italy's strategic goal. In World War II, the Italian army's will to fight was hard to compliment. To assist Italy in maintaining the North African front, Germany formed the Afrika Korps.

The main strategic objective of the Afrika Korps is to maintain the situation in North Africa, and only to maintain the front. Because the British army firmly controlled Malta on the Mediterranean. The planes taking off from the airport on the island of Malta had a combat radius of Athens and Crete in Greece in the east, Libya in the south, Algeria in the west, and Florence in central Italy in the north, covering almost all important targets around the Mediterranean Sea and tightly blocking the supply lines of the German and Italian troops.

But Germany also did not want to lose North Africa, once it lost North Africa, British supplies in the Far East would no longer need to bypass the whole of Africa, and could be transported to Britain through the Suez Canal, and Germany's pressure on Britain would be multiplied.

Erwin, February 1941. General Rommel arrived in North Africa to form the North African Corps, which was the early stage of Germany's preparation for the implementation of Barbarossa, and the German army drew part of its troops from the already tense Eastern Front troops, which had a certain impact on the initial Soviet-German battlefield. With Rommel's victory in North Africa, he constantly adjusted his strategic goals in anticipation of greater results.

And Germany was already mired in the Soviet-German battlefield, and its forces were already stretched. Although Rommel, carried away by the victory, completely ignored the disadvantages of the supply lines, he still came with some troops ready to replenish the Soviet-German battlefield. But it was a drop in the bucket for the German army's attrition in North Africa, and it also seriously affected the overall strategy of the German army on the Soviet-German battlefield.

Therefore, Hitler knew from the beginning that it was impossible to occupy North Africa without sea and air superiority, and Germany's strategic goal in North Africa was to maintain the front line, so that the supplies transported by Britain to the mainland could not pass comfortably through the Mediterranean, and weaken Britain's war capability. The strategic goal of Britain was to expel the German and Italian forces from Africa and land in Italy to open up a new battlefield. Rommel surprised everyone with his superb command skills, and also presented Hitler with a problem.

So there is a saying: "Field Marshal Rommel is a tactical giant, a strategic dwarf." ”

This was because Italy was very poor in World War II, so Germany was only able to enter the front to maintain North Africa.

Because the African theater has never been Germany's strategic focus, according to the division of power of the Axis powers, Africa is Italy's strategic goal. In World War II, the Italian army's will to fight was hard to compliment. To assist Italy in maintaining the North African front, Germany formed the Afrika Korps.

On the one hand, because Africa is relatively large enough to fight, and on the other hand, because they both want to seize African property and take African slaves for themselves, so they started a war, and Germany won later.

It was China's battlefield, because Japan invaded China at that time and killed a large number of Chinese in China's northeast and eastern coastal areas, which made China's Asian battlefield the most tragic.

The battlefield in Europe was the most tragic, because the main battlefield of the hegemonic Germany at that time was in Europe, and each country invested the most troops in Europe.

Although Japan and China suffered many casualties in the Asian battlefield, there were more countries in Europe, such as the Soviet Union, Germany, France, etc., and the total number of casualties was greater than that of China.

The African theater of World War II was a tug-of-war for colonies, fought mainly on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa (not far south was the Sahara Desert, where neither side could survive). Italy first provoked a war of aggression against Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia), but was defeated by the British and retreated to Libya. Erwin, 1941.

Rommel led the German Afrika Korps to North Africa, thus beginning the most glorious chapter of his war career, he unified the command of the German and Italian Afrika Korps, swept through the British army with always weak forces, successively conquered Tobruk and Benghazi, and fought east to the El Alamein Pass in Egypt, looking at the lighthouse in Alexandria. He was promoted to German Field Marshal for his exploits in Africa, and was called the "Desert Fox" by the British Army.

British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill was forced to replace the commander of the British army in Egypt, Montgomery appeared, commanded the British army to win the Battle of El Alamein with superior forces, Rommel left North Africa due to illness at the same time, and the situation of the German-Italian Afrika Korps took a sharp turn for the worse in February 1943, and in February 1943, the United States and Britain carried out the "Operation Torch", landed in Morocco, the colony of Vichy France, and attacked the German-Italian Afrika Korps with the British troops from Egypt in the east (but the retreating German and Italian troops inflicted heavy losses on the American troops at the Kesselring Pass, temporarily stabilizing the front. This is shown at the beginning of the movie "General Patton"). By May 1943, 250,000 German-Italian Afrika Korps had surrendered, and the war in Africa was over.

The African theater of World War II was a tug-of-war, armored movement warfare, desert warfare, and a logistics war, and the key to the failure of the German-Italian war in Africa was that the logistical supply was cut off by the British Royal Navy.