The Press SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1942. El Agheila to Tripoli

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23819, 12 December 1942, Page 4

The Press SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1942. El Agheila to Tripoli

For the last fortnight British land operations in Libya have been confined to patrol activity in the Mersa Brega-El Agheila area, where it appears that the Axis forces have at last taken a stand in fairly good natural defensive positions. The temporary lull is being taken advantage of by the British to complete the organisation of supplies and to bring up reinforcements of men and material in readiness for the next stage, and by the Germans to organise a system of defence in depth, together also with possible offensive preparations. Memory of the way in which two previous British offensives came to a halt in the same area is prompted. This time, however, the enemy is faced in North Africa with far more than the need to reinforce and regroup his divisions at El Agheila. He has to meet in Tunisia a threat to his Mediterranean position which is much more urgent than the British advance in Libya. The main Axis effort is undoubtedly directed towards preventing the Allied occupation of Tunisia, for if this were achieved by the British and American forces it would not only enable them to complete at leisure the destruction of Marshal Rommel’s troops in Libya, but would end Axis domination of the Mediterranean and open up the whole southern coastline of Axis-dominated Europe. Marshal Rommel’s chances of obtaining the new forces which alone would enable him to take the offensive from El Agheila, as he did last year, are consequently not considerable. In these circumstances he must do what he can to hold the Bth Army as far from Tripoli as possible, and the Mersa Brega-El Agheila position offers him the best chance of doing so with the forces at his disposal. Talk of the possibility of German abandonment of the whole area east of Tripoli can be discounted, for to hold Tripoli is essential to the Axis for the defence of Tunisia. If the Bth Army were permitted to advance beyond the Gulf of Sirte and to consolidate within easy land and air striking distance of Tripoli, the defence of that port—the best between Tunis and Alexandria—would not be easy. And once in occupation of Tripoli the British forces would be in an excellent position to push on again with a thrust against the Axis flank and to close the pincers on Tunisia. General Alexander and General Montgomery are as certainly aware of this as Marshal Rommel is, and their eagerness to go on to the conquest of Tripolitania must be no less than Marshal Rommel’s to prevent them. But to continue the British offensive with a drive along the Gulf of Sirte to Tripoli can be attempted only after the most careful planning and the most elaborate organisation of supply and massing of forces. Such an operation involves an advance over a distance as great as that which the British forces have already covered from Alamein to Mersa Brega, the first 400 miles of it along a coastal strip of desert which is almost entirely without natural water supply and which has only one road, the Italian military highway along the coast. It might be possible without considerable loss to drive Marshal Rommel’s forces back to the settled areas within 50 or 100 miles of Tripoli, but to achieve so much, and then be held—or pushed back—while supply over the long desert stretches was still incompletely organised might easily result in a major defeat of British arms. Tripoli is the main Axis base in Libya, and the reserves of men and material massed there must be considerable. An advance upon Tripoli cannot be attempted until it is possible to contemplate a continuing offensive, such as gave the Germans no halting place between Alamein and El Agheila. An offensive which drove the Germans only from the desert, even as far as Sirte or Misurata, back upon the hard core of their reserves, would be a barren and dangerous achievement, unless it were organised on such a scale that it could be carried on without delays to the conquest of Tripoli itself. The present lull at El Agheila should by no means be interpreted as implying that the British offensive has outrun its strength. Before any more can be attempted the wastage inevitable in the long advance from Egypt must be made good and lines of supply developed, adequate first of all to maintain the Bth Army where it is, and then to send it on for the next stage of the offensive. It is even possible, in the co-ordination of Allied strategy in North Africa as a whole, and considering the undoubted obstacles in the way of a successful attack on Tripoli from El Agheila, that it has been decided not to pursue any such attack, but to stand firmly in this area while the main assault upon the last Axis strongholds in Africa develops from the west, first of all in Tunisia, and then in Tripolitania.