Germany’s Decisive Defeat In the Field

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 109, 10 May 1945, Page 6

Germany’s Decisive Defeat In the Field

NAZI SOLDIERS’ CONSISTENT INFERIORITY (By Major E. W. Sheppard, Military Correspondent of the Daily Herald, London.) After World War I the German people were told so often and so emphatically that their armies had never really been defeated in battle, and that only a stab in the back by weak and treacherous elements at homo had compelled the German High Command to ask an armistice, in the end they firmly believed it. No doubt, some legend of this sort will be put forward again as an excuse for Germany’s defeat in World War II; the German High Command will once more be proclaimed as infallible, the German Army as a super army, and the German soidiers as an embodiment of all the military virtues. Nothing could be further from the truth. No one can deny that the German makes an accomplished, brave, skilful and stubborn soldier, or that the German Army is a line instrument of war. To do so would be a poor compliment to the British, United States and Russian troops who have proved themselves better by defeating the German armies in Italy, North Africa, in France and in Russia. But the fact remains that though the German Army won many victories in the early stages of the war, when all the conditions favoured them none of these victories were really decisive when opposed by British, American or Russian troops. In the 1940 campaign in France the British Expeditionary Force came very near complete disaster but it escaped to light again, because the enemy was unable to finish it off with an annihilating blow despite the great odds in his favour. Exactly the same thing happened in the operations in Greece and Crete; the British forces, though hopelessly inferior in numbers and armament to the Germans, were compelled to retreat, but they were not destroyed and were withdrawn to fight again. Complete Defeat at Alamein. In North Africa on the other hand where conditions were more equal, though still favourable to the Germans the British Eighth Army gained a victory in November, 1941, which drove Rommel’s army out of Cyrenaica and compelled him to leave to their fate the garrisons ho had left behind in the defences on the Egyptian frontier. In this battle of Gazala the British scored a victory against odds which proved their fighting qualities to be superior to those of the Germans. They were unable to repeat this victory at the Knightsbridge battles of 1942 but once again the enemy scored only an ephemeral success. He was stopped on the outskirts of the Nile Valley, and there the British Eighth Army, having at last built up a smajl superiority in arms and numbers over the Germans and completely defeated them in the Alamein battle that Rommel was not again able to make a stand till he had lost all Italian North Africa, and when he at last did so in Southern Tunisia he was once more defeated. In the early stages of tho operations in French North Africa,, too, the Germans who had all the advantages on their side, failed to defeat the British and Americans who were able to occupy and hold important tactical positions overlooking the plains of Tunis and Bizerta despite all the enemy’s efforts to drive them back. Finally the two German armies in North Africa were forced back into this coastal plain. Both had previously made desperate efforts to strike the Allied armies while these were still separated and force them further apart; but though these attacks were made in superior numbers, they failed. In the final battle the two German armies of Rommel and Arnim were completely defeated and there followed a mass surrender unparalleled in military history. The German generals had been outgeneralled and the German soldiers outfought, but though they had ample munitions and supplies to have prolonged the struggle for some time, their morale gave way and collapse followed. The super-soldiers of German legend showed themselves inferior in stoutheartedness and fighting quality to those of the democracies. Failed to Prevent Sicily Landing. In Sicily and North Italy, too, the Germans failed to repel the Allied invading forces, though in the initial stages of the landings they had all the advantages for battle on their side. Subsequently they were expelled from the Gustav Line and from the Gothic Line not by any such great superiority of numbers and armament on the Allied side as would compensate for the strength of the German positions and fortifications but by the superior staying power and fighting qualities of the Allied soldiers. Similarly in the invasion of France the enemy had his chances to drive the Allies back into the sea before they could establish themselves ashore, but failed to do so. None of the defences of his Atlantic Wall which he boasted to be the strongest in the world could resist the Allied attack. None of his counter-strokes made any headway against the Allied beachhead positions. In a battle lasting many days, on most of which bad weather prevented the Allies from using their superior air power to full advantage the German armies were gradually worn down until the collapse suddenly came and their defeat cost them half a million casualties and the loss of all France, Belgium and part of Holland and was one of the most decisive defeats in history. Lost Eastern Gains. On the Eastern front the story was much the same—a series of showy but indecisive German victories followed by a succession of disastrous and annihilating defeats and with the loss of all the ground conquered—the fruits of the earlier successes. It is true that in this second stage of the war the Allies have enjoyed superiority over tho Germans in 'many respects, but so did the enemy in the earlier stages. But the greater fighting powers of the Allied armies as compared with those of the enemy is shown by the better and more effective use they made of their superiority. When tho enemy had it he could only win half-victories; when the Allies had it they won complete and decisive ones. And never even with the odds heavilv against them did the Allies in the early days suffer such wholesale disasters as those they have since inflicted on the enemy.