Key battles in WW1/WW2

2nd battle of El Alamein

The 2nd battle for El Alamein was the most important battle in the North African campaign for both the Axis and the Allies and was met with also one of the largest tank battles in history aswell. And was met by Italian and German forces against the British and its commonwealth forces and also alongside the free French forces. And the battle would result in Allied victory. And would force retreat from Egypt after the allied invasion from the east. But let's see how this battle unfolded...

Autumn 1942, the German 15th Panzer division led by one of Hitler's most decorated and closely tied generals Erwin Rommel. Also known as the Desert fox as his famous invasion of Egypt. The British and commonwealth forces were forced to constantly retreat until they had enough armoured vehicles to fend off the German invasion. The Allies finally had enough men and tanks to finally halt the invasion. And because of Rommels feul shortages they could no longer keep advancing for longer distances so it would be now or never. The British had nearly over 1000 tanks but the Axis had barely even had 250 left. And as the Panzer division advanced eastwards. The first smaller lines of defences fell to the lacking armoured British troops. Eventually they reached the toughest residence they could fight on and despite with the heavily armoured Tiger 1 tanks the Churchills and Cruiser tanks were superior to the German armour. And the battle wasnt even close as even Rommel and his armies were also under supplied and lacking reinforcements plus feul shortages. And they forced them to retreat as the British, Commonwealth and French resistance troops all chased down the fleeing German and Italian troops. However after the failure of the Battle they were forced to retreat further as the Allies launched operation Torch taking in the Vichy French men and they all defected to the Allies except for the troops under heavy influence of German command in the Western Sahara. (See operation Torch in next chapter) and with this the Axis were trapped and would them force them to be kicked out of Africa and Sicily. This would also be the first weakness in the Axis lines in early 1943.

What made this battle so significant was that Erwin Rommel was not able to defeat the British and the larger Commonwealth forces because of the lake of feul and supplies to sustain their invasion. This therefore caused the Acis downfall and the first major defeat in the Africa and showing a sign of weakness after the invasion of Egypt.