Why was the desert war in North Africa important?

Answer 1

The war in the deserts of Egypt & Libya were important for two reasons.

Firstly, Britain stood alone and desparately needed to safeguard the Suez Canal which was her short-cut to the East.

Secondly, as far as Britain was concerned, it was the only game in town. France had fallen, Britain had narrowly avoided invasion from the Germans. Britain was not strong enough to take the fight back to Europe and all she had left was (still) the most powerful navy in the world and a foothold in North Africa.

To begin with Britain was fighting the Italians who were trying to expand their Empire. They made short work of them and soon pushed them back deep into Libya. Hitler then agreed to help Mussolini and sent Rommel with his Afrika Korps. This was a shock to the British who were thrown all the way back to a small railway halt called El Alamein where the 'impassable' Qattara Depression came close to the sea. There they held the Germans while both sides struggled to build up enough strength to break the impasse.

Eventually, General Montgomery leading the 8th Army, launched a devastating blow on Rommel which forced him back. Montgomery kept up his advantage and never allowed Rommel to re-group or counter-attack.

Soon afterwards the Americans landed in Vichy-French controlled Algeria in West Africa and between Montgomery in the East and Patton in the West slowly squeezed Rommel out of Africa altogether. From there combined British/American forces launched an invasion of Sicily and then Italy while the D-Day landings were being planned in England. The success of D-Day and the German troops held down in Southern Europe hastened the end of the Nazi regime.

Of major importance too was to block German attack routes to India and in particular the oil in the Caucasus

The African campaign was also important because I believe it was the first time that Germany had proven to be beatable. Rommel had an impeccable reputation and there was a myth about him that he was unbeatable. It is nteresting to note that Rommel was executed by Hitler for wanting to overthrow Hitler. Romel was given a state funeral so he could be honoured by the German people. The question comes to my mind as to whether the defeat was orchestrated in terms of wanting to make Hitler look bad so that people would turn against him and Romel could take over.