Washington’s Dangerous Unseriousness
By Forrest Marion
March 24, 2023
US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Contrary to some, military history’s “cash value” is not because it provides a recipe for success in battle, but, rather, because it offers perspective on similar issues from past conflicts that bear on contemporary matters. In 2023 a little history from North Africa during World War Two is appropriate.
In the late summer of 1942, the Allies had yet to win a major land battle against the Axis powers. In the Pacific, the American fight against the Japanese at Guadalcanal was barely underway. In the Soviet Union, Hitler’s armies were soon to stall at Stalingrad but their defeat was months away. In North Africa, Rommel’s Afrika Korps threatened to drive the British out of Egypt. That was until Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery arrived on 13 August and immediately began to rectify a confused, chaotic British chain of command in the desert accompanied by defeatist plans and mentality.
Montgomery wrote in his wartime journal:
Early in August 1942 the Eighth Army was in a bad state; the troops had their tails right down and there was no confidence in the higher command. It was clear that Rommel was preparing further attacks and the troops were looking over their shoulders for rear lines to which to withdraw. The Army plan of battle was that, if Rommel attacked, a withdrawal to rear lines would take place, and orders to this effect had been issued.
The whole ‘atmosphere’ was wrong. The troops knew that they were worthy of far better things than had ever come to them; they also knew that the higher command was to blame for the reverses that had been suffered.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/03/24/washingtons_dangerous_unseriousness_889226.html
