“Then what are you proposing?”
“That should be obvious—move west! Listen Kesselring, it is all of 400 kilometers to the Buerat Line where I have stockpiled fuel.”
“Why there? Why did you not bring it forward to El Agheila?”
“You know damn well why I left it there. Because I expected to find myself retreating to that place in due course. Now, however, the situation here has changed dramatically. I would have used 30% of that fuel just to move it here, but there was no way I had any need for it, except to fuel my retreat. I cannot attack here, not on this ground. On the other hand, I have enough fuel now to get where I need to go—not forward, back into that wasteland of Cyrenaica, but back to Buerat. The plan now is to give all that useless ground between here and Buerat to O’Connor. Let him be the one who must haul his fuel forward from Benghazi.”
“You want to withdraw? Again? In spite of the fact that you are promised this new division? In spite of the Führer’s order?”
“Of course! The Führer’s order aside for the moment, the reinforcement is the precise reason why withdrawal is called for now. I assume 7th Panzer Division will land in Tripoli. Perfect! Then I fall back to Buerat—fall back on strength as 7th Panzer comes down from Tripoli to meet me. O’Connor will think he’s won another battle, and he will huff and puff after me like a bad desert storm. I’ll throw him a few bones as I leave, and when I get to Buerat, 300 tons of gasoline will be waiting for me to top off my tanks. Not only that. A move to that line brings me 60% closer to my main supply source at Tripoli, while O’Connor burns fuel chasing me, and extends his supply lines by the same amount.”
Now Kesselring saw what Rommel was saying. The genius of his mind could see the opportunity he had with such a move. His enemy would be tired, flushed with his perceived victory, but advancing farther and farther from Benghazi. “So there you will be at Buerat,” he said, “with three Panzer Divisions and the fuel to use them.”
“Precisely! I will counterattack—but surely not here. They have enough infantry to plug that defile at Mersa Brega indefinitely, and I would simply be advancing away from my supply source again, even if I could get around that flank. What I need now is to lure O’Connor into Tripolitania. That’s where he wants to go, yes? So I’ll open the door and invite him in, but not to dinner. When he gets to Buerat and thinks to sit down at my table, he will get some very bad news.”
“What about that heavy brigade?”
“What about it? It is at Tobruk—too far away to intervene. Don’t you see? The ground means nothing. Beating the British 8th Army in the field means everything. Once I do that, I can take all this useless sand back again if I want, and make more pictures for the news reels. But that isn’t how we win here, not by holding at Mersa Brega and watching the British slowly wear down this army. No. We win by out-thinking the British, and out maneuvering them. I can do that at Buerat, but not here. You must persuade Hitler to allow me to withdraw.”
“You know that will not be easy,” said Kesselring. “He is still steaming over the fact that I gave up Morocco.”
“Of course he is, but you knew damn well that you could not hold there, or in the Canary Islands, with what little you had. You would have lost both those air mobile divisions, as well as Morocco. Every minute counted, and you knew what you had to do. You simply had to fall back on Algeria, and so now you can see the wisdom in what I now propose.”
“I do see it, but I do not think I am the man to persuade Hitler in this.”
“Then I will go myself! I’ll leave tonight.”
“What? In the middle of a battle?”
“General, my troops will know what to do when I order the withdrawal. In fact, that is what I am inclined to do—order it this moment, and present Hitler with a Fate Acompli. Then I will go to OKW and tell him why it had to be done. He will get angry, fail to understand, but if I promise him a new offensive, perhaps he will settle down again. This is strategic withdrawal, not retreat. I will find a way to get through to him.”
Kesselring shrugged. Every military bone in his body told him Rommel was correct here. This is what had to be done, just as it had been necessary for him to withdraw from Morocco. But somewhere, a line had to be held, and a battle had to be won. Could Rommel deliver on his promises? Nine months ago he was crowing about going to Alexandria. He thought, and thought again. Then smiled.
“General Rommel,” he said slipping the Führer’s order into his coat pocket. “My plane was delayed. I was never here, and you never saw the order I have just put into my pocket. But by God, Rommel. If you do this, you simply must beat O’Connor. Fail again, and things will go very bad here.”
Part V
Fish in a Barrel
Chapter 13
It was a strange echo of the real history, for in the waning days of September, 1942, Rommel would return to Germany to meet with Hitler after the Battle of Alma Halfa Ridge at El Alamein. There he had forced his way through unexpected enemy mine fields in his attempt to swing around Montgomery’s defenses, only to abandon his plan for a wide envelopment around the ridge that ran west to east. Instead he had turned early, right for the ridge itself, and found that Monty had sprung a deadly trap on him. AT guns, mortars, artillery and enemy bombs rained down on his tanks and vehicles when they got stalled in soft sand. He lost his nerve and ordered a withdrawal, back through the hard won corridors through the minefields.
Kesselring remarked that the old Rommel would have never done such a thing, and as he left Rommel in the alternate history we are exploring, a warning voice told him that Rommel seemed all too ready to give the British this gateway into Tripolitania. The Italians would scream in protest, seeing another big bite taken out of their last colonial holding in Africa. Mussolini would go to Hitler and demand that Rommel stop his withdrawal and stand his ground. Neither man would grasp the concept of strategic withdrawal, consolidation, the laws of overstretch that would soon constrain the British advance.
In the old history, Rommel had been warmly greeted by Hitler, and given his Field Marshal’s baton. The cameras had been running, news reels proclaiming his achievements, taking the Afrika Korps right to the doorstep of Egypt. On this day in the old history, the cameras would film his hand on the doorknob of the international press room where Goebbels had arranged a press conference. He had used the moment to proclaim that: “we have the door to all Egypt in our hands.”
Then he had gone to tell Hitler he would not give back an inch of the hard won ground he had claimed, now, he would go to tell him he wanted to hand the British half of Tripolitania, and not because he lacked adequate reinforcements, fuel, weapons and supplies, but instead because he had those things in abundance, and now he simply wanted to look for a bigger hunting ground.