Defeat would have given the Germans access to Egypt, with its vital reserves of oil. The importance of Alamein, and of the wider Middle Eastern campaign, needs to be understood.
Erwin Rommel’s mastery of mobile warfare was of limited use there, making an outflanking manoeuvre impossible to execute. Sixty miles west of Alexandria, it was bounded on the north by the Mediterranean and to the south by the Qattara Depression, a vast, low-lying area of cliffs and quicksand that was impassable to mechanised forces. His forces halted the Germans and their Italian allies there in July 1942.
It was not Montgomery but his ill-starred predecessor as commander of the Eighth Army, General Claude Auchinleck, who chose El Alamein as the place to make a stand. What was it like to take part in this climactic confrontation, and what was its significance for the course of the Second World War? Prelude to battle British soldiers push forward through smoke and dust during the Battle of El Alamein, October 1942.
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