Germany's failure to defeat Britain in the fall of 1940 dulled the luster of the Wehrmacht's reputation for invincibility and posed the likelihood of a long war. The conflict between Germany and Britain had become a standoff. Although Germany could not invade Britain, the British were in no position to undertake an invasion of the continent. As time passed and both sides increased in strength, there would be little chance that this situation would change unless Britain gained allies. And when Hitler turned his attention in the fall of 1940 to planning his attack on the Soviet Union, he relegated Britain to second place in Germany's strategic considerations. Starting in the late summer of 1940, Hitler also embarked on a series of diplomatic initiatives designed to pressure the countries of the Balkan area of Europe into alliance with Germany. Among other things, this would safeguard his southeastern flank prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union.
COMPLICATIONS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
Hitler did want to exert some pressure on the British, however. Thus, he turned his attention to the Mediterranean where Britain possessed a number of important bases - at Gibraltar on Spain's southern coast, in Egypt, and other parts of the Middle East. But he did not want to commit too many resources to this task and always viewed the Mediterranean as a sideshow. As the war continued, however, he nevertheless became increasingly involved in this area as complications not of his making embroiled him in new commitments.
Hitler initially focused on capturing the British naval base of Gibraltar, which dominated the western entrance to the Mediterranean. This would require the approval of Franco, the Spanish dictator, for the passage of German troops through Spain. Hitler also wanted to entice Franco into joining the Axis. But Franco demanded compensation in North Africa at the expense of France. This demand would obviously anger the Vichy French government, whose willing collaboration Hitler hoped to retain. Franco's ambitions also conflicted with those of Mussolini, who had designs on much of the same area, and clearly Hitler did not want to antagonize his new Italian ally. All of this led to confusion and ultimately disillusionment for Hitler.
Mussolini also dreamed of conquering both Egypt and Greece, and in the fall of 1940, he sent troops into both, anticipating easy victories. Instead, both turned into disasters and he became a laughingstock. Hitler had no choice but to come to his ally's rescue. Mussolini's blunders threatened Hitler's timetable for the invasion of the Soviet Union, scheduled for May 1941, and also jeopardized his hopes for bringing the Balkan countries under his control through diplomatic pressure alone.
THE QUESTION OF GIBRALTAR
Hitler's interest in Gibraltar focused primarily on taking it away from Britain rather than acquiring it for Germany. In fact, in negotiating with Franco in the fall of 1940, he used it as bait for securing Spain's agreement to join the Axis and allow passage of German troops through the country. The Spaniards had long dreamed of regaining Gibraltar, which the British had taken from them in 1704. But Franco wanted far more - the French North African colonies of Morocco and Algeria as well as a slice of French West Africa. Hitler was dismayed by the extent of these ambitions, especially because they would be opposed by the Vichy French. In addition, Mussolini coveted part of Algeria and a port on the Moroccan coast. Mussolini also hoped to acquire other French possessions - the island of Corsica, the city of Nice on France's Mediterranean coast, the Alpine province of Savoy, and another North African colony, Tunisia. Because Hitler wanted to remain on good terms with all three countries, he favored deferring these claims until after the war. Hitler actually met with Franco at Hendaye on the French Pyrenees Mountains on October 23, 1940, but he gained neither Spain's adherence to the Axis nor permission for passage of German troops. Franco was by no means convinced that the Germans were going to win the war, especially in view of the failure of their air offensive against Britain. Hitler later told Mussolini that, rather than meet with Franco again, he would prefer to have three or four teeth pulled.
Although Hitler was clearly in a position to overrun the unoccupied portion of France, if necessary, he preferred the cooperation of Vichy, at least for the present. He even hoped to entice Petain's government into an alliance with Germany. This seemed a real possibility in the fall of 1940 because of strained relations between the French and their former ally, Britain. Vichy leaders were outraged when elements of the Royal Navy actually attacked French ships in Algerian ports on July 3.
Churchill had become anxious that the French fleet might fall into German hands and ordered an operation against the large French naval force at Oran and the neighboring base of Mers-el-Kebir. He made this decision over the heated objections of British naval leaders, who warned that such action would have a disastrous impact on Anglo-French relations. Churchill instructed Admiral James Somerville to offer the French commander, Admiral Marcel Gensoul, the opportunity to join the British or take refuge in a distant colony. If he refused, Somerville's naval force was to attack. Gensoul chose to resist, and the British reluctantly opened fire, sinking one battleship, disabling three other capital ships, and killing over 1,000 French sailors. This incident triggered discussion in the French government of a possible declaration of war against Britain, but cooler heads prevailed, and France limited action to breaking diplomatic relations. The French also avoided an alliance with Germany, although they did follow a policy of collaboration on many issues.
NORTH AFRICA: THE DESERT WAR
Instead of attacking Gibraltar, Hitler ultimately embarked on operations in the eastern Mediterranean, where he had not originally planned to become involved. This entanglement was due to Italy's attempts to conquer Egypt and Greece in the fall of 1940 and the disastrous failure of both. Mussolini was eager to move out of Hitler's shadow and demonstrate the prowess of his armed forces. He first struck in Africa, where prospects looked bright. Italian troops in Libya greatly outnumbered the British in neighboring Egypt, while Mussolini's East African army in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Italian Somaliland dwarfed Britain's forces in British Somaliland, Kenya, and the Sudan. Although Egypt had been officially independent since 1922, Britain had retained a strong influence in this desert country as well as military, naval, and air bases.
Things started out well enough as Italian troops overran British and French Somaliland in August. Mussolini planned to follow this success by sending his Libyan army into Egypt with Marshal Rodolfo Graziani in command. Graziani had led one of the armies that overran Ethiopia in 1935-36 and served as a viceroy of Italian East Africa for two years before taking over the Libyan command in the summer of 1940. But Graziani was pessimistic about the proposed offensive. He recognized that his troops were deficient in armor as well as other motorized equipment. Lack of mobility was a serious shortcoming in the desert.
Graziani was painfully aware that Italy was not prepared for war. The nation's industrial base was the smallest of any of the industrialized powers, and it had to import most raw materials. The Italians received no material aid from Germany, which, of course, also relied heavily on imports. In fact, the two allies actually competed for such commodities as Rumanian oil. Mussolini had hoped that the war would soon end in victory for the Axis. Instead, he found himself in a struggle that gave every indication of being a long one. As it persisted, the weakness of the Italian economy became ever more apparent.
General Archibald Wavell led Britain's forces in Egypt as well as East Africa and Palestine. Wavell had lost an eye on the western front during World War I. The general won great popularity with his troops, who appreciated his frequent visits to front-line positions. In 1939, Wavell had undertaken the thankless task of organizing a Middle East command with limited resources but had managed to gain some reinforcements from India, New Zealand, and Australia.
Wavell tried to compensate for his numerical inferiority by dispersing his forces in packets along the Egyptian-Libyan border to give the impression that he was strong enough to cover the entire frontier. His troops also resorted to hit-and-run raids against the Italian positions. The bluff worked, and Graziani did not move across the border until September 13. But even then his heart was not in the enterprise, and he halted after reaching Sidi Barrani, 50 miles into Egypt. He established a series of fortified camps at this point and proceeded to build up a huge supply base for the next phase of the operation, an offensive toward Alexandria, Cairo, and the Suez Canal. But the Italian attack never came.
Instead, Wavell went over to the offensive himself on December 9. The British commander originally planned only a large-scale raid because he estimated that the Italians outnumbered his forces 80,000 to 36,000. He did enjoy an advantage in tanks, however, with 275 to only 120 for the Italians. The British tanks included 50 heavily armed Matildas, which proved impervious to the Italians' inferior antitank weapons and played an especially important role. After one battle the British counted 38 dents in the armor of a single Matilda, but none of the Italian shells had penetrated the tank's heavy skin. Italian tanks, by contrast, were death traps equipped with armor barely worthy of the name. British shells riddled them with holes. Wavell's forces were also much stronger in motorized transport.
Wavell was fortunate to have General Richard O'Connor as his field commander. O'Connor enjoyed the complete confidence of his men, and with good reason. He enjoyed a reputation for bold, imaginative tactics and soon proved to be a master at handling mobile forces in the desert.
O'Connor used his tanks to exploit a gap between two of the Italian fortified camps. He then attacked each camp from the rear, catching Graziani's forces completely by surprise and capturing 40,000 men. Those Italians, who managed to escape, fled back into Libya, where they took refuge in the coastal fortress of Bardia. But O'Connor's troops seized this stronghold early in January 1941 and took another 45,000 Italians prisoner. Anthony Eden, who had succeeded Halifax as British foreign secretary, greeted the fall of Bardia with a new version of Churchill's famous tribute to the RAF: "Never has so much been surrendered by so many to so few." The British moved on to encircle the port of Tobruk, which they captured on January 22 along with 30,000 more prisoners.
Despite these disasters, Graziani still had 20,000 men in eastern Libya, and they now fell back along the coast. In an effort to prevent their escape, O'Connor split his forces. One column pursued the retreating Italians, while a second spearhead of tanks and motorized infantry attempted to outflank them by cutting the coastal road at Beda Fomm. It did so by striking boldly across a 170-mile expanse of largely uncharted and extremely rugged desert. The soldiers who made this trek encountered terrible hardships, including sandstorms and freezing rain, but they reached Beda Fomm before the enemy. When the Italians arrived, the British attacked them from concealed positions and, after a desperately fought battle, captured another 20,000 prisoners. The British then moved on to El Agheila, about a third of the way across Libya. But on February 12, Churchill ordered Wavell to cease his offensive and divert part of his forces to Greece, where a new situation had developed as a result of Italy's invasion of that country.
Wavell's offensive had been amazingly successful. At the cost of fewer than 2,000 British casualties, it had accounted for a total of 130,000 prisoners. Britain's victory and Italy's disaster had been due in large part to differing approaches to the campaign. The British had recognized that the desert was similar to the ocean with its vast expanse of desolation. In such an environment, there really was no such thing as a continuous front. The key to victory was mobility, with tanks operating much as ships at sea. The far less mobile Italians had to rely on static defense in the form of fortified camps, such as those near Sidi Barrani, or fortress towns such as Bardia and Tobruk. They tied down their forces in these strongholds, which proved vulnerable to the encircling maneuvers of the more mobile British.
As the full scope of the Italian defeat became apparent, Hitler decided to intervene to save what was left of Libya. But with plans already under way for the invasion of the Soviet Union, he had few troops to spare - only one light and one panzer division, both understrength. He chose General Erwin Rommel to lead this meager force.
Born in southern Germany to middle-class parents, Rommel had won acclaim during World War I for his personal heroism as a young officer who specialized in tactics of infiltration behind enemy lines. Hitler's willingness to adopt new and unorthodox military ideas quickly won Rommel's admiration, and Rommel's relatively humble origins endeared him to the Fuhrer, who often felt uncomfortable in the company of aristocratic generals. Until 1939, Rommel had always been an infantry officer, but the success of the Blitzkrieg in Poland made him a true believer in armored warfare. Soon afterward, Hitler helped him obtain command of a panzer division. Despite his lack of previous experience with tanks, Rommel mastered armored operations in a remarkably brief time. Indeed, his division performed with conspicuous success during the 1940 campaign in Western Europe. Like Guderian, he believed in the swiftest possible exploitation of a breakthrough.
Rommel possessed exceptional ability to assess battlefield situations quickly and act decisively. At times he flew over the front in a reconnaissance plane to obtain a better overall picture. His favorite command position was at the head of his troops, often exposing him to enemy fire. Although usually outnumbered in manpower and equipment, he consistently outmaneuvered his opponents. He came to be greatly respected by the British. In fact, Churchill once paid tribute to him in Parliament as "a very daring and skillful opponent." Many of his fellow German officers, however, criticized him as reckless. Nevertheless, the risks he took frequently caught the enemy by surprise and, given his numeric inferiority, were probably essential to his success.
Ultra reports alerted Wavell of Rommel's arrival and the strength of his forces. But Wavell was convinced that the Axis would not be able to launch an attack until at least May. In fact, the OKH ordered Rommel not to attack the British under any circumstances and to remain on the defensive. But Rommel was not one to play a passive role, and he decided to attack in late March, even before his full force had arrived. He recognized that the British were also weak. To give the impression of greater German strength, Rommel used dummy tanks mounted on Volkswagen chassis. He also retained five Italian divisions and enjoyed superiority in the air. His attack caught the British by surprise, and his troops defeated them in a series of brief encounters, forcing them to fall back in confusion all the way to the Egyptian frontier. The British suffered a severe blow when the Germans captured General O'Connor during the retreat. But Rommel was not able to pursue the British into Egypt because his forces were now in a vulnerable position at the end of a precarious supply line. The British also succeeded in holding Tobruk, which the Axis forces had bypassed in their drive to the Egyptian border. Tobruk posed a threat to Rommel's flank and deprived him of port facilities close to the front. It was now clear that the desert war had become a deadlock.
Meanwhile, the British enjoyed much greater success in East Africa, where they took the offensive against the Italians in January. One force pushed into Eritrea and Ethiopia from the Sudan, while a second invaded Italian Somaliland from Kenya. Although the Italians outnumbered Wavell's forces, they lacked modern equipment and were cut off from any hope of supply from Italy or Libya. The Allied forces moved with remarkable speed against weak resistance in Italian Somaliland and southern Ethiopia. In the north, the Italians put up a much tougher fight, but relentless British pressure forced them to retreat. By the end of May, Wavell's troops controlled virtually all of Italian East Africa and had also reconquered British and French Somaliland.
THE BALKAN CAMPAIGNS
Although Hitler could do nothing to save Mussolini's East African Empire because of its remote location, he did come to his fellow dictator's aid in the Balkans, where Italy had undertaken another ill-advised invasion in October 1940. This time Greece was the victim, but once again the operation turned into an Italian fiasco, one that jeopardized Hitler's own encroachment on the Balkans. During the previous summer, the Fuhrer had resorted to diplomatic pressure to safeguard his Balkan flank and protect German access to Rumania's oil fields prior to the invasion of the USSR. Hitler was also concerned about Soviet expansion into the Balkans, which followed Germany's victory over France. With the French defeated, Stalin realized that his country was more vulnerable to a German attack. The Soviet dictator moved to extend the buffer zone between Russia and Germany by annexing Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and seizing the Rumanian provinces of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. The occupation of Bessarabia brought Red Army troops within 100 miles of the Rumanian oil fields at Ploesti, an important source of oil for the German war machine.
At about the same time, Hungary demanded the return of the province of Transylvania, lost to Rumania in the 1919 peace settlement. Bulgaria also insisted that the hard-pressed Rumanians cede the province of Southern Dobruja to them. Hitler feared that these disputes would lead to war between the Balkan states and the Soviets might take advantage of this instability to extend their influence still more. To prevent this, he assumed the role of mediator in these disputes while pressing all three Balkan powers to join the Axis. He awarded Hungary a large part of Transylvania and granted Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria. In return, he guaranteed Rumania's remaining territory and received the right to station German troops on Rumanian soil.
Hitler had accomplished all this without firing a shot, but the failure of Italy's invasion of Greece posed a new threat to the stability of the Balkans. The Fuhrer had warned the Duce not to take action against Greece, and the Italian supreme command, which recognized the army's weakness in modern equipment, was equally opposed. But Mussolini was determined to strike and launched his attack from Italian-occupied Albania on October 28, despite the approach of winter and ominous weather forecasts. The Italians made good progress at first but were headed for trouble. Torrential rain fell as they penetrated down the mountain valleys of northwestern Greece. The small, poorly equipped but tough Greek army waited until the opportune time and then counterattacked. The Italians found themselves in an overextended position and exposed to murderous fire from artillery in the mountains above them. They also ran short of supplies due largely to the primitive Albanian infrastructure. Before long there was a complete logistic collapse. Meanwhile, Greek counterattacks cut the Italian columns to pieces and forced the survivors back into Albania. By the end of the year, the Greeks were in control of almost one-quarter of Albania, but their offensive bogged down in January and the struggle degenerated into a stalemate. Mussolini had suffered another humiliation, and the Greeks had won the admiration of much of the world, just as the Finns had done the previous winter.
Hitler feared that Mussolini's "regrettable blunder" would lead to the diversion of British forces from Egypt to help Greece. But when his attack on Sidi Barrani approaching, Wavell could not spare any troops, although he did send a small military mission and some aircraft in November. It was not until after the British had smashed the Italians at Beda Fomm that they considered it possible to send an expeditionary force. Churchill was dubious about the chances for success, but Eden, who had undertaken a fact-finding trip to Greece, favored intervention, as did Wavell. The prime minister took their advice and dispatched 58,000 British, Australian, and New Zealand troops to Greece. The force was much too small for the task and desperately weak in both tanks and aircraft.
Even before Britain's intervention, Hitler decided to invade Greece to rescue his Italian ally and protect his Balkan flank. To facilitate this operation, he persuaded Bulgarian leaders to join the Axis and allow German troops to enter their country on March 1, 1941. With Rumania, Hungary, and Bulgaria all safely in the Axis camp and the invasion of Greece looming in the near future, the position of Yugoslavia became crucial. Hitler had been pressuring the Yugoslavs to join the Axis ever since the start of Italy's invasion of Greece, and the Belgrade regime finally agreed on March 25. But certain Yugoslav officers staged a coup that ousted the pro-German government. This heroic but rash act enraged Hitler, who now expanded his forthcoming operation against Greece to include Yugoslavia as well.
Germany unleashed Blitzkrieg against both countries on April 6. They proved remarkably effective, especially the attack on Yugoslavia, which the OKH improvised on short notice. Hitler ordered it to begin with a massive bombing attack on Belgrade as a special act of vengeance. After two days of repeated raids, the capital lay in ruins. The Germans sent 650,000 troops against the Yugoslavs, including the 2nd Army, which pounced from Austria and Hungary, and the 12th Army, which struck from Rumania and Bulgaria. Seven panzer divisions played a crucial role in the operation despite the rugged mountain terrain. On paper, Yugoslavia could assemble an army of more than a million men, but the rapid German onslaught prevented full mobilization. The Yugoslavs were also woefully lacking in modern equipment, including tanks and aircraft. German columns quickly sliced through the stricken country. The invasion also glaringly revealed the fundamental law in the Yugoslav state: the inability of the two main national groups, the Serbs and the Croats, to get along. They had squabbled since the founding of Yugoslavia. Now many Croats refused to join in what they considered to be a Serbian fight, and some cooperated with the Germans. Belgrade fell on April 12, and five days later the Yugoslavian army surrendered.
Although the Greek campaign took a little longer, the outcome was never in doubt. Greece was in a hopeless position, with the bulk of its army engaged in Albania. The Greeks also insisted on keeping most of their remaining forces along the Metaxas line, a defensive system opposite the Bulgarian border. The Metaxas line was vulnerable to a flanking attack by German troops penetrating into Greece from southern Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, the Greeks held fast to the Metaxas line and Albania, and when the Germans struck, they quickly penetrated both positions and cut off the Greek defenders. The remaining Allied forces were badly outnumbered and had to retreat southward toward Athens and beyond. The British had no choice but to carry out a Dunkirk-type evacuation. Again it was successful, and 43,000 troops escaped during the period April 23-May 1.
THE CONQUEST OF CRETE
The Germans followed their conquest of Greece with an invasion of the Greek island of Crete, which lay 100 miles southeast of the mainland, on May 20. Originally, Hitler had not seriously considered an operation against Crete. But Goering convinced him of the need to undertake an airborne assault to prevent Britain from maintaining a base on the island. The Allies had over 30,000 men on Crete, including 20,000 who had been evacuated from the mainland. But they were critically deficient in equipment and totally lacking in air support.
Germany's conquest of Crete was one of the most remarkable campaigns of the war because it employed only airborne troops. This was not the original intention, however. The Germans planned to carry out a seaborne landing at the same time as the assault from the sky. But British naval units intercepted two flotillas of small Greek ships that carried 7,000 German troops. They sank 14 of the ships and forced the remainder to flee back to their ports in Greece. The airborne operation might have failed, too, because the Allied commander on Crete, General Bernard Freyberg, commander of the New Zealand division, received detailed information from Ultra of the impending seaborne and airborne landings. He also obtained a copy of the actual operational order for the invasion, which was recovered from a German plane that had crashed the day before the attack. This document clearly indicated that the airborne assault would be the main one. Unfortunately, Freyberg, a man of incredible courage who had won the Victoria Cross in World War I, drew the wrong conclusions. He remained primarily concerned about the amphibious operation, which of course, never took place. As a result, he failed to defend adequately the all-important airfields that the Germans needed to capture if they were to reinforce their original airborne landing force.
Even so, it was a close call for the Germans. Goering and the other German planners had underestimated the size of the Allied garrison and deployed only 22,000 men to take the island. The first wave of parachutists and gliderborne troops numbered a mere 3,000, and the Allied defenders inflicted heavy casualties on them. But they pressed on relentlessly, with the help of complete air supremacy, and by the second day had captured the airfields that were their primary objectives. Once they had accomplished this, transport planes quickly flew in reinforcements. The British had to resort to another evacuation, the fourth in slightly more than a year. Again they were successful - 16,000 men were saved. But the Germans paid a heavy price for Crete: 3,674 killed and over 2,000 wounded. Their casualties in this campaign were greater than those suffered in Yugoslavia and Greece combined. Indeed, Hitler considered the casualties so severe that he never again tried an airborne mission of such magnitude.
THE GERMANS IN CONTROL
As a result of his various Balkan operations, both diplomatic and military, Hitler had gained complete control of southeastern Europe and had secured his flank for the invasion of the Soviet Union. As for the British, their intervention had been reminiscent of the Norwegian campaign and represented another forlorn chapter in the continuing saga of "too little, too late." The decision to divert troops from North Africa to Greece had been a mistake. The forces involved had been too weak to prevent the German conquest and were sorely needed in Libya when Rommel appeared on the scene.
The spring of 1941 also witnessed dramatic events in the Middle East. In Iraq, the pro-German politician Rashid Ali and a group of army officers carried out a successful coup in April. Hitler promptly dispatched arms shipments to the new regime and received approval from Vichy France for German planes to land in neighboring Syria to refuel before moving on to Iraq. But Britain reacted to the coup by sending troops to Iraq from India and Palestine, forcing Rashid Ali to flee to Iran. The British proceeded to restore a friendly government to power in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, Britain had become concerned that the Germans might send troops into Syria. Actually, Hitler had no intention of doing so and quickly withdrew his aircraft. This really eliminated the need for Allied intervention, but Churchill was insistent. On June 8, British and Free French troops moved into Syria from Palestine and Iraq, and the Vichy government ordered its troops to resist. Fighting lasted for five weeks before the Vichy forces capitulated on July 14. Britain now controlled the entire eastern end of the Mediterranean with the exception of neutral Turkey. But after holding the world spotlight for several months, the Mediterranean now lapsed back into its true shadow status. The war's main event had already begun on the plains of Russia.