Axis intelligence sources produced a shower of guesses to cover nearly every contingency. Admiral Canaris, the head of the military Abwehr, was roundly accused by Kesselring, with justice, of promoting the war of nerves against the Germans! Canaris's most reliable agents spoke of landings that would come in the eastern Mediterranean. In fact, the only certain eventuality in the German book, though without knowledge of its timing, was the impending British attack at El Alamein. It was a personal calculation by Kesselring, based on the evolving programme of air bombardment, which led him to estimate with plausible accuracy that the blow would fall about the middle of October. But do what he could to prevent it, the well-proven gambits of earlier years no longer prevailed. Malta defended itself brilliantly and Axis convoys for North Africa went on being sunk at a crippling rate. Stumme's army at El Alamein, ensconced in a 'devil's garden' of minefields, realised that its next battle would be the most desperate of all. As for the expected landings elsewhere, a study by Kesselring of the reports supplied by Canaris failed, according to Deichmann, to form any picture. Indeed he concluded (correctly) they were so misleading as to constitute a deliberate plot by the enemy. At last, however, it began to look as if the landing might come in the western Mediterranean since activity at Gibraltar was sharply increased; but still there was no indication as to time and place. Hitler guessed now that the south of France was threatened, as did Kesselring, though the latter also gave serious thought to Corsica as a target while, in practice, tending to let events reveal themselves. It was Mussolini who got it right when, with political intuition, he said it would be French North Africa, but this happy insight everybody else rejected for military reasons. The guessing game reached its zenith early in November, simultaneous with the climax at El Alamein where, since 23 October, a gruelling battle had taken place among the minefields, to the accompaniment of an air and artillery bombardment.

Kesselring had flown to the battle front on the 24th to find tension already at an unusual height. It was not only that the British had made significant penetrations among defences which Rommel, with Kesseiring's approval, had laid out, and which Stumme had further strengthened. Sturnme himself was missing from a visit to the front and it was Westphal who was conducting the battle. Who would replace Stumme? The obvious choice was Rommel, but Rommel had yet to recover his health and was still recuperating in Germany. Kesselring makes it quite plain in the 'Commentaries' that he was reluctant to recall Rommel but that he had very little choice other than to do so. For Rommel, the propaganda figure, to be absent would have aroused unacceptable comment on all sides. Arriving via Rome on the evening of the 25th, where he was briefed on the catastrophic supply situation, he once more entered the battle, convinced that 'there were no more laurels to be earned in Africa'.

Braced by Kesselring who, as usual, was trying might and main to inject fresh fuel supplies, only to have them lost at sea, Rommel held on. But by 2 November he knew that the time for withdrawal had come and he began to 'thin out' at the front. Already Montgomery was pushing massed armour through a gap in the defences and Afrika Korps had but thirty tanks left to hold them, supported by less than fifty aircraft which were hopelessly outnumbered by immense British formations. The air factor alone was enough to persuade Kesselring that Rommel was right to retreat, but Hitler took the opposite view. On 3 November the Führer ordered Rommel to stand fast, signalling, 'It will not be the first time in history that a strong will has triumphed over the bigger battalions.' Under different circumstances Kesselring might have agreed with the Führer's philosophy, but just then he was at the front, Hitler was not and philosophy had to give way to practicalities. Nevertheless Rommel obeyed and, with indignation, cancelled the retreat, thus stretching the front line to breaking point. It was still holding on the morning of the 4th when Kesselring arrived. Westphal recalls the scene as the C-in-C appeared 'as the rescuing angel'. On the false assumption that it had been Kesselring's reports which had encouraged Hitler's pernicious order (he had yet to be sceptical of Hitler), Rommel pointed at Kesselring and in high emotion cried, 'He has done us all an ill-turn . . .'. Calmly, in his most self-assured manner, Kesselring placated them and, as Westphal says, 'without humming and harring' assumed full responsibility for recommencing the retreat since Hitler's order had been overtaken by events. Kesselring also signalled his decision to Hitler asking for a change of directive. Due to this, adds Westphal, 'we escaped destruction in the nick of time'. The incident, of course, made a deeply unfavourable impression on Kesselring who was constantly monitoring Rommel's performance and had correctly diagnosed the prevailing mood of defeatism at Rommel's HQ. Later Westphal was to hear that Kesselring had sent a signal to Germany stating, quite correctly, 'Rommel and Westphal both overstrained to the highest degree and troublesome (sauer). Both require a strong boost.'

The precipitate retreat by the beaten Panzerarmee Afrika is usually portrayed in British histories, notably those which eulogise Rommel, as a chapter of opportunities missed by Montgomery in completing the destruction of his opponent. The fact is that very little of the Axis army was left to escape and that which did amounted to about one dozen tanks and a few thousand men out of the 700 tanks and 104,000 men who began the battle in October. The survivors bolted so fast that only the swiftest of runners could have caught them and even the best soldiers in the world will hesitate when an opponent shadow-boxes from behind positions of strong defensive potential. Shadow-box was all Rommel did at first but not for long. Soon, to Kesselring's undisguised disgust, he virtually ceased all opposition. For when he reached Sollum on the 8 November it was to hear that a large Anglo-American amphibious force had landed in French North Africa. This, to Rommel, spelt the end of the Army in Africa. From that moment, until his army reached Mersa Brega, 300 miles to the west on 19 November, he hardly paused. His mission, as he saw it, was to prevent the liquidation of his army. His own officers describe the retreat as "more or less a route march under slight enemy pressure ... while reinforcements flowed in from the back area'.

The bitterness expressed in Kesselring's 'Memoirs' at Rommel's independent behaviour (contrary to Kesselring's demands that he try to delay Montgomery's advance in order to win time to establish a bridge-head in Tunisia and prevent the British from occupying forward airfields) is the culmination of six months' frustration. While the withdrawal went on they bickered about almost everything, in particular over the role of the Luftwaffe units, the inability of the air crews to support the army and the behaviour of the Ramcke parachutists who, according to Rommel, 'had never been very popular with us because, following normal Luftwaffe practice, they had always been demanding special treatment'. When Kesselring wished to decorate Ramcke with the Knight's Cross in recognition of a magnificent desert march which saved 600 men from capture, Rommel refused. But Rommel had abandoned Ramcke just as he left the Italians in the lurch. On the other hand Kesselring failed immediately to inform Rommel of the landings in French North Africa or the Axis counter-measures because, according to Westphal, 'he did not want to worry us. As if we did not listen to the wireless'. ...

Kesselring: Table of Content

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