The Desert War: The Classic Trilogy on the North African Campaign 1940-43

630 Pages·2012·3.27 MB·English

by  Moorehead

‘Moorehead is . . . perfectly equipped for his task . . . there is something of
genius in the breadth and penetration of his vision which encompasses the whole
panorama of war and then narrows it down to the particular: the soldier stubbing
out his cigarette before going into action, the expression on a tank commander’s
face as he is hit . . . The story of the African campaigns will go down in history
as one of the great epics of mankind . . . largely thanks to Mr Moorehead’s
account which makes one of the most remarkable books of this or any other
modern war.’—New Statesman

‘Alan Moorehead’s eye-witness account of the African campaign is a classic . . .
Moorehead is more than a first-class reporter. He is an artist . . . Some of his
battle pieces stand comparison with the famous battle descriptions of Stendhal
and Tolstoy.’—Observer

‘Moorehead is easily first of all the war correspondents . . . The book is shrewd,
exciting and immensely readable. You cannot put it down.’—Listener

‘Moorehead has an inspired story to tell: no wonder he tells it so well . . . a grand
book.’—Times Literary Supplement

‘Brilliant . . . imaginative . . . Not only has he a fine control of language, a
constant curiosity that keeps him ferreting out the campaign every minute of his
time, and a stimulating judgment, but he has a balanced sense of perspective . . .
He has come closer to the soldiers than other correspondents . . . I cannot think
of a more spacious and more bitterly living treatment.’—V S. Pritchett, New
Statesman

‘I know of no writer so competent to express the atmosphere of war or to
provide with a few sentences a brilliant outline sketch of a position . . . It is a
book that one does not want to stop reading even for sleep or food . . . The entire
situation passes before the mind as though one saw it, with its mud, dust,
miseries, humorous incidents and grim happenings. I recommend this book as
one of the best, if not the best book of the war.’—Hobart Mercury
‘A miracle of observation and reporting skill.’—Daily Sketch

‘A master of narrative.’—Illustrated London News
OTHER BOOKS BY ALAN MOOREHEAD

Eclipse
Montgomery
The Rage of the Vulture
The Villa Diana
The Traitors
Rum Jungle
A Summer Night
Gallipoli
The Russian Revolution
No Room in the Ark
The White Nile
The Blue Nile
Cooper’s Creek
The Fatal Impact
Darwin and the Beagle
A Late Education

Contents
Preface
BOOK ONE
Mediterranean Front:
The Year of Wavell, 1940–41
BOOK TWO
A Year of Battle:
The Year of Auchinleck, 1941–42
BOOK THREE
The End in Africa:
The Year of Eisenhower, Alexander and Montgomery, 1942–43
Index
Copyright

Preface
THE WAR in Africa and the Middle East fell naturally into three phases, each
lasting twelve months.
At first General Wavell had command from 1940 to 1941, and that was the
year of tremendous experiments, of thrusting about in the dark; the year of bluff
and quick movement when nobody knew what was going to happen. Whole
armies and fleets were flung about from one place to another, and in its frantic
efforts to find a new equilibrium the Middle East erupted at half a dozen places
at once.
At one stage Wavell had five separate campaigns on his hands—the Western
Desert, Greece, Crete, Italian East Africa and Syria—and there were other side-
shows like Iraq and British Somaliland as well. Most of this was essentially
colonial warfare carried out with small groups of men using weapons that would
be regarded as obsolete now.
Looking back, I see what a feeling of excitement and high adventure we had
then when we went off on these little isolated expeditions. We did not quite
realise the real grimness of war except at certain moments. The honours between
the sides were fairly even. The Germans held Greece and Crete; we held Syria,
Abyssinia and all Italian East Africa. The Axis and the British were balanced in
the desert.
Then General Auchinleck arrived to take command, and 1941–42 became the
year of set battles and eventual retreat. It was no longer colonial warfare, but the
war of modern European armies fighting out a decisive issue in Africa. This
fighting was focused on the desert, and in that flat and limitless arena the war
developed into a straight-out issue between man and man, tank and tank, army
and army.
There are a thousand considerations to be taken into account, but it will have
to be admitted that the Germans had the better army. They had better weapons,
more soundly trained men and better generalship than we had.
Despite this stiffening and enlargement of the desert fighting, the war in the
Middle East became something of a side issue through this year because Russia,
Middle East became something of a side issue through this year because Russia,
Japan and America had now entered the war. Instead of being an isolated theatre,
the Middle East was becoming part of world strategy.
In that black summer of 1942 it even began to look as if the Germans would
reach out from Stalingrad in Russia and from Alamein, Middle East, and
eventually join hands with the Japanese in India. But Stalingrad and Alamein
held, and that was the turning-point of the war.
Then the final year, 1942–43, the year of Eisenhower, Alexander and
Montgomery, the year of success. As Montgomery struck from the desert, the
Anglo-American forces landed in North Africa. The tumultuous and victorious
meeting of the Eighth and the First Armies in Tunisia must go down as one of
the great military strokes of history.
The Middle East was secured. The Mediterranean was reopened. And far off
in the East the Japanese dynamic had at last expended itself on the borders of
India. Practically the whole of the British and American Empires in the Far East
had fallen, but for the moment the Japanese could do no more. And at Stalingrad
the Russians had begun their great westward sweep. With Africa freed, we could
at last look forward to the invasion of Europe.
As each of these three separate years of battle ended in the Middle East I
wrote a book describing the operations—Mediterranean Front, A Year of Battle
and The End in Africa. These three are now combined in this volume.
The text is essentially the same except that here and there I have made minor
corrections and deletions.
When I first began to put the three books together I planned to remove many
of the personal references and shape the material into a more cohesive and
historical form. But I soon found this quite impracticable. It is impossible to
write a definitive history of the campaigns at this stage. Too many matters are
still the subject of controversy, too much is secret, so much material remains to
be gathered. The war diaries and the dispatches of the commanders have still to
be published.
And so these books must remain what they are—a rambling and personal
story. I think every major happening is included, and I have tried to bind the
sweep of these great events into a perspective. But it is essentially an intimate
picture of the Mediterranean war from one man’s point of view. There are long
digressions, such as the Indian chapters and the description of my journey round
the world when I left Egypt in the summer, called at New York in the fall and
London in the winter, and ended a little breathlessly in Tunisia in the spring.
These journeys were essentially part of my search to obtain a wider and fuller
knowledge of the war, and the digressions will be justified if they establish only
this—that the struggle which began in the desert as a simple military issue
this—that the struggle which began in the desert as a simple military issue
became in the end a vast imbroglio of politics and warfare in which the whole
world was concerned.
Very little here has been suppressed through censorship: I have said almost all
I wanted to say. Inevitably there are many mistakes. Since one is writing so close
to events, one cannot weed out all the errors, and for those that remain, unknown
to me, I apologise. I was present at most of the events described here, and very
often I discussed them on the spot or shortly afterwards with the soldiers and
their commanders and the politicians. But I must emphasise that one man can see
very little of a battle, and the opinions expressed in that highly charged
atmosphere are not always complete and balanced.
Throughout these three years I was writing dispatches for my newspaper the
London Daily Express, and here and there at perhaps half a dozen places I felt I
could not improve on those messages, and I have threaded them into the
narrative.
I was also strongly tempted to add an account of the Sicilian and Italian
campaigns. But these are not part of the pattern of this book; they belong not to
Africa but to Europe, and the invasion of Europe is another story.
Among all the many people who have helped this book to publication I must
place first my wife. She shared in many of the adventures. Quite apart from the
tedious business of handling the proofs, the results of her correction and
suggestion are on every page. A great part of the book is hers. Next I must thank
Lieutenant-Colonel J. O. Ewart, of the Intelligence staff, who has patiently
combed through these many thousand words and given me his account of the
battle of Alamein.
I cannot easily repay my debt to Lord Wavell, for his encouragement to me
through these years.
At different times General Montgomery, General Auchinleck and many of
their senior officers like the late General Gott discussed their battles with me and
gave me access to certain documents and war diaries, and I am particularly
grateful to them. I have also profited greatly from the conferences given to
correspondents by General Eisenhower, General Alexander, Air Chief Marshal
Tedder, Air Marshal Coningham, Admiral Cunningham and their British and
American staff officers.
The late Mr P. P. Howe, who was editor to my publisher Hamish Hamilton,
did a great deal of work on these books. I must also thank the hundreds of
correspondents and reviewers who have used me kindly in the past; and the
companion of so many of my journeys, Alexander Clifford. Evelyn Montague of
the Manchester Guardian has also checked many facts. And there is my editor,