NO SHORT CUT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 106, 31 October 1942, Page 6

NO SHORT CUT

The strategy of "indirect approach," by which victories are often won in war at comparatively small cost, is not always possible. Circumstances alter cases, and circumstances are apt to determine the character of military operations. Obstacles may sometimes be by-passed, as the Germans both in this war and in the last got round the barrier of French fortifications by an attack through Belgium in 1914 and through Holland and Belgium in 1940. Sometimes there is ample room for manoeuvre in the fighting zone, and then a resourceful commander, disposing sufficient forces, may "encircle" his opponent and bring about a withdrawal or a surrender. No such strategy seems possible for j either side in the terrain over which the second battle of El Alamein is now being fought at the gateway to the Nile Valley. It is, literally, a gateway, or, rather, a causeway, with the Mediterranean on one side and the Qattara Depression on the other,

both impassable for armies, Confining the battlefield to a long, narrow neck, narrow enough to be fortified with deep defence lines from flank to flank. It showed military genius of a high order for General Auchinleck in his retreat after the disaster of Tobruk to pick this particular spot, close though it was to the Nile Delta, to make a stand with his reduced Eighth Army. He succeeded, saved Egypt, and set a barrier which Rommel was unable to surmount.

It is now the turn of the Eighth Army, under a new commander,1 to try to dislodge the Axis armies from their entrenched positions in the bottle-neck. They have had ample time to "dig in" and prepare defences. There is no short cut fcr General Montgomery in his offensive which has now lasted a week. In the last war it might have been possible to land a force from the sea in the enemy's rear and so cut his communications and Jine of retreat. Such operations today in the face of shore batteries, submarines, and aircraft, are infinitely more difficult than ever —and they have always been recognised as the most difficult of all military operations. Beyond the Qattara Depression lies the Libyan Desert with its oceans of sands studded by rare oases. At this stage no turning move on a sufficiently decisive scale, under air observation, could commend itself to a prudent commander. Thus, at present, .there is nothing for it but a direct onslaught on the entrenched enemy designed to dislodge him from his positions, step by step, until either a gap is forced or wider ground is reached for the armoured mobile forces, the tanks, the cavalry of today, to penetrate through and deploy for decisive action. That phase of the battle has not yet come, but the Eighth Army has made-good progress in its determined drive. The latest official news speaks of gains "consolidated and enlarged" and of prisoners "still coming in." The attackers are "holding on to every inch of captured ground." The Allied air forces maintain their mastery and are giving the troops the utmost support in the battle area and behind the enemy's lines. At sea our submarines and aircraft are destroying enemy shipping carrying supplies to the Axis armies. All this is bound to1 tell in the long run, as the enemy is entirely dependent on a very vulnerable line of communications. Thus the outlook is encouraging to the Eighth Army. No spectacular development may be expected just yet, but the battle is going well.