El Alamein: The end of the beginning

World War Two remains a significant story within Britain’s history. To this day, the war is imbued in our political ideologue, our history curriculum, as well the many statues and monuments commemorating the fallen.

Yet, within the patriotism and remembrance, the story of significant battles is often lost. The Battle of Britain and D-Day are far more prominent and visceral in our imagination because they represent what we see on our screens on bank holidays and at Christmas. No one ever remembers the Eastern campaign in India and Burma. No one ever remembers El-Alamein.

Yet history dictates that among Agincourt, Blenheim and Waterloo, a battle that took place in the parched and desolate desert of Egypt remains one of Britain’s finest military moments. So what makes it so important and does it occurrence really deserve to be elevated among Britain’s most celebrated military victories?

November 1942, like any month since September 1939, had not been a particularly good for the allies. For Britain, the hurried retreat from the beaches of Dunkirk, as well as the capture of Singapore by the Japanese meant morale was deflated. Despite the American entry into the war in December 1941, the burden on British and Commonwealth troops was immense. In the East, the German army was advancing towards the oil fields of the Caucasus’s and Rommel’s Fifth Panzer division was heading towards Cairo and more lucratively, the oil fields of the Middle East.

It was by no means certain, but for Hitler to obtain a constant supply of fuel for the Wehrmacht then the war in Europe was consequentially over. The fate of British India would almost certainly be decided too. At the time, it was not only the British command in Cairo’s biggest concern, it was Churchill’s.

Only a couple years before, British troops based in Africa were successful in maintaining their ground and in fact conquering further. In 1941 they had driven a weak Italian army out of Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia) as well as driving Mussolini’s forces back from Italian-occupied Libya. Yet, just as the Germans had conquered most of Europe, Hitler sent one of his most trusted and celebrated Field Marshals to resolve the problem, The Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel.

The introduction of Rommel made a huge difference to the Axis’s fortunes and gave a huge awakening to the British troops. Rommel drove the German army through British lines and within 150 miles of Cairo. Churchill saw how his commanders were being easily out-manoeuvred and losing ground quickly and at a heavy cost to the imperious Germans. The fall and subsequent retreat from the important port of Tobruk saw Churchill place Cairo, the Middle East and consequently Britain’s future war in the hands of one Bernard ‘Monty’ Montgomery.

Monty is now often recited for his tactical marvel in Egypt as well as his miscalculation at Operation Market Garden and the so-called bridge too far at Arnhem. Yet, his military career had begun as a humble junior officer in the trenches of World War One. He had seen the devastation to life and the ill-thought out planning of generals to gain or lose needless ground. Perceived as arrogant as well as a maverick, his clubbability found himself fans within the troops, yet unpopularity among fellow officers. Yet, for his dislike, Monty was an astute and forward thinking battlefield commander.

His plans at El-Alamein were by no means revolutionary, but he prepared well, he knew the lie of the land and more importantly he was able to convey this message to the troops. The subsequent victory as Churchill exquisitely told the House of Commons went down as history as the start of the fight back:

“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”.

However, for all its significance, El-Alamein is presented as one of Britain’s greatest military battles because it was probably the last time British victory when British commanders were fully in control (this includes the Falklands’ War). Military historians correctly point out that Montgomery’s fortune was to some extent secured because German lines had become too extended. The British Eighth Army had been preparing for the advance for almost three weeks. Not only were they well dug-in but had the higher ground. Even taking into consideration the events of the previous few months, this battle was not as significant as it was made out to be. The importance was not the battle, but the fact that the British had shown the Germans could be beaten.

Monty’s success should be recognised, but certainly not in Egypt and certainly not more than the British and Commonwealth troops that collectively became known as the Desert Rats. Monty’s significance as a commander must be for recognising that Britain’s role had been surpassed by the Americans. He recognised that Britain could no longer take the lead and as consequence must take some of the pain when leading British troops after the D-Day landings. The loss of almost 4,000 men at Caen during Operation Goodwood, though painful, reflected Montgomery’s foresight. It is to some extent unfortunate that the failure of Market Garden saw his reputation somewhat malaise. For others, his forthright and somewhat arrogant memoirs saw him try inflating his own significance to Britain’s war victory.

Today, tourist trips to the battlefield at El-Alamein are not overly subscribed to. The area remains just as isolated as it was 70 years before. Yet it should not undermine the importance of what occurred in those late months of 1942. Blenheim and Waterloo were more significant for Britain’s political standing and strength in the decades to come. El-Alamein lacked the grace and military nous of these victories, but certainly, this was a great moment and it was significant to how the war was won.

Debt and football: writing off the Greeks

Good news stories are something of a premium in Greece at the moment. Last night’s victory over Russia in Warsaw at the European Championships made it hard for any football supporter not to be delighted for the tournament’s rank outsiders. The energy and celebrations at the end of the game sent the thousands of Greeks fans in the stadium into ecstasy, whilst much of the country greeted the news in the same way back home.

Yet, this is far removed from the shock and optimism after the country’s victory in Euro 2004. Greece was a founding member of the Euro zone economy, its people were becoming wealthier and EU money was investing in capital projects that would help improve the way of life. That Greece is now a distant and rose-tinted memory. As the financial crisis began to bite in Europe, European delegates began to understand how desperate the situation in Greece had become. Several countries including France and Germany had broken the rules of the European Central Bank’s growth and stability pact. The pact stated that a country’s budget deficit should not exceed 3% of its GDP and its national debt should not exceed 60 per cent of GDP. Little did they know how Greece managed to stay in between the lines.

Captain Karagounis

Even when the Euro finally became an economic reality, many officials believed that Greece simply wasn’t ready to join. The underlying currency and economic conditions would have made convergence for the whole of the Euro zone difficult. When the Greek government collapsed and its successors opened the books, the whole of the world was shocked. Previous administrations had managed to ‘cook the books’ on an enormous scale, using accounting methods that had placed huge chunks of the Greek national debt off the official records. Overnight officials discovered that Greece was running annual deficits of 12% with a national debt of 129% of GDP.

The downward spiral has continued from there since. As successive Greek governments have implemented severe austerity measures in return for EU bailouts, the social contract for ordinary citizens has begun to dissipate. Cuts to the public sector, higher taxes as well the inability to feed their families has seen Greeks take the streets on a daily basis. News footage no longer depicts Athens as the birthplace of democracy, but a city defiled with graffiti and polluted with tear gas. The language that invented the words crisis, chaos and catastrophe has brought them to life.

Panic on the streets of Athens.

The Greeks inability to trust any politician or economist makes its long term future even more indecisive. Since the crisis unfolded, over 10 per cent of the population has emigrated in search of work and most likely a settled life. With them, they have taken their money. Over a third of Greek bank deposits have left the country since the crisis began, €9 billion has left since the beginning of the year.

It is unsurprising then that many have turned to alternative parties in the recent elections. Not only has the far-right party Golden Dawn managed to generate great support, but the radical left party Syriza has taken votes away from the tradition socialist party Pasok. Syriza, led by its charismatic and young leader Alexis Tsipras has vowed that Greece will remain in the Euro but stop the austerity measures by reneging on its outstanding debt. A victory for Syriza in the re-run of last month’s general election is more than likely to be the first step of Greece leaving the Euro zone.

Yet how rational can the Greeks be at a time like this? Many have been unemployed for over two years, whereas those in work have not been paid for months. They are seeing all around them that a country in Western Europe has become destitute and suffering affliction that you would only associate with a war-torn nation. Suicide and food kitchens are part of the daily routine. Any political party that gives them a glimmer of hope is bound to cajole them to vote that way. Yet it is an entire fantasy. Greeks long to remain in the Euro because it once gave them everything they wanted, yet remaining in it would entirely undermine their recovery. The Syriza party may be acting out of goodwill, with a hue of opportunism, yet even they wouldn’t be able to remain in the EU without paying their debts. It would only lead to other debt-ridden countries in the Euro zone to doing the same, pushing the overall picture in the wrong direction.

The problem beyond both inside and outside of Greece is the fact no one is certain of what will happen next. The recent bail out of Spanish banks pushed Spanish and Italian bond yields to historical highs. The EU Troika may have finally laid down contingency plans for future crises, but inevitably they have acted too little and too late. If Greece falls then the economically uncompetitive Italy and Spain are bound to fall next, bringing down the already bailed out Irish and Portuguese. Capital flight may have created a safe haven in the non-Euro member UK, but its banks are heavily indebted to Spanish and Italian banks, who’s not to say that the UK could fall into another deep financial crisis as well?

The questions surrounding Euro bonds seem futile, they may avert short term crises, but they do not underwrite the fundamental problems that these countries face. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel is increasingly becoming isolated as world and EU leaders ask her to react, whilst her own country feels that their prudence should not be sacrificed for feckless southerners. If the Germans put forward the bulk of an EU firewall would it do anything or is it too late? Would a Greek return to the drachma see an instant return to growth or would it lead to high inflation. These are all the questions that no one seems to have the answer to.

The only thing that is certain is Greece will play Germany in the quarter-finals. Who will win? I’m not sure. We thought Greece would leave earlier, but they seem to have a knack of hanging on and causing a bit of damage. The football may be important to most, but Monday’s results will have implications for us all.

The Euro: A lot on their Plato.

As most of Britain watched Murdoch in the dock at the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, the Euro countries finally agreed to bail out Greece once again with an enormous 96 billion pound loan. Immediately markets across Europe were relieved, particularly across southern Europe where the Spanish and Italian economies were teetering from Greek contagion. However; the French president Nicolas Sarkozy has said that this bailout is purely to deal with Greece’s economy and other Euro countries will not move to assist the other ailing PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain). Yet as Britain strictly stays on the outside and European countries head towards fiscal union, where does the European project stand?

After centuries of war and bloodshed, it is remarkable to find that the European project has been so successful in turning military hostilities into economic partnerships. A continent ravaged by war became one of the world’s most important free markets. It appeared to be the correct decision to take as well. Europe, an economy of ideas and inventions would be an ideal competitor against the US and Japan. The decades after the Second World War saw great European statesman bridging differences and pushing beyond economic matrimony to a full-scale political partnership. This was a generation that had lived or emerged from two wars that had destroyed and killed millions, the plans that were unfolding before them seemed not only possible but the only option.

However, the increasing integration of the European project hit a brick wall, literally, when the Berlin Wall came down. For fifty years, Western Europe was a bulwark against the Communist East and now with democracy sweeping across Eastern boundaries, what was Europe and the EU supposed to stand for? Germany was always central to the project and unsurprisingly leaders were concerned about a reunified superpower in the middle of the continent.

European institutions, whether in Brussels, Luxembourg or Strasbourg have fundamental issues: a weak mandate, they lack transparency and accountability, further bureaucracy and perhaps most importantly to ordinary Europeans, they don’t know what it stands for. Perhaps this was the trouble with the European project; there was an original idea and as things kept on moving along, no one questioned where it was going. Monetary union was purely a facade to continue the project and did not encompass any financial instruments to ensure its success. Politicians and cultural commentators have speculated that a single currency would ultimate fail because the EU had no fiscal powers to monitor and penalise countries. As we have learnt over the past few weeks, there was no mechanism in place to leave the Euro.

The recent financial crises occurred because of a political impasse against the European project. Each country had its own interests to bear against an increasingly frustrated national electorate. It is unsurprising; billions of Euros are being spent on bailouts, particularly Greece, when its economic affairs were in a ruinous state before it joined the currency. Why should billions be spent in on the Greek economy when they should never have been allowed in from the start. This is not a victory to the little Englanders of the right-wing press who claimed it would all end in tears from the start; their grievances were aimed at bendy cucumbers and the inability for town halls to parade the flag of St George. This was a rose-tinted view that economic union would endure culminating in further political union.

So does a two-tier Europe have a chance? That is Euro countries forming a political bloc with countries such as Denmark, Sweden and the UK on the outside. It certainly retains the status-quo, France and Germany dominating the internal politics and directing its future. Tighter regulation of finances would bring control of taxation and other macroeconomic measures in house. That would be a massive repeal of sovereignty. Yet is there a political or cultural demand for such changes? Do European people seem content to move in a closer direction? The rejection of the Lisbon treaty or European constitution would suggest no and after the recent bailouts Northern European countries would demand checklists to ensure tighter controls on the PIGS, not to mention new entrants. Yet for the Euro to survive, as it stands now, this is the safest solution.

And Britain. Although it is not part of the bailout plan, it is yet to hear the last of Europe.

A Greek tragedy via Moscow - Operation Barbarossa

As politicians from around Europe try to work out how to sort out the Greek financial crisis and the potential domino-effect across Southern European nations, the prospects for a generation of young Europeans does not look prosperous in terms of employment or financial stability. One of the main issues that economists and political commentators have pointed out was the fact that the creation of the Euro was built on a premise of political union and advancement, without the framework of a single European economic policy. However, politicians and people from across mainland Europe, despite the uncertainty, have been pursuing such a goal for the past 60 years. The rebuilding of Europe after World War 2 was both cosmetic and political. It provided a framework to pursue peace and a bulwark against Soviet Russia in the East. Even after the Berlin Wall came down twenty years ago, politicians including British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the French President Francois Mitterrand believed a reunited Germany could spell danger for the future of Europe. The whole purpose of European unity was to keep Germany down and central to its future, something it was battling against seventy years ago to this day.

If one battle is to define World War Two then it must be Operation Barbarossa. Launched with five of Hitler’s armies across the Eastern European frontier it set out to destroy Bolshevik Russia and to expand Germany into the distant East. Eventually five million German soldiers would die to fighting, the cruel Russian winter or disappear in to the work camps in the Arctic North. Russia’s gamble saw it lose over 27 million of its population, two thirds of them being civilians. Yet, despite the tremendous human loss, it is defined by historians as a battle won and lost through the eyes of Hitler and Stalin. These men were caustic and murderously driven to victory, yet they saw the battle as a chance to amend the wrongs of history and to place themselves within the annals of military legend.

Hitler’s hate and scorn for communists and the Slavic race is well documented yet during the infamous pact signed by von Ribbentrop and Molotov that sliced up the Poland and Lithuania between Russia and Germany, Stalin believed Hitler would keep his word and refrain from invasion. Yet Operation Barbarossa, named after King Frederick I of the Holy Roman Empire who set out to conquer the Holy Land in the twelfth century was deemed by Hitler to be a befitting name. On 22 June 1941 when Hitler’s tanks and troops crossed the Russian border, Stalin could not believe it. Despite intelligence from Soviet spies within Germany and on the border he chose to ignore it. Stalin was more sceptical of the British, who were relaying the same information, than his German counterparts (Britain had been Russia’s long term rival in the nineteenth century and had intervened against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War). In the first day two thirds of the Russian air force was destroyed.

Hitler’s Blitzkrieg, the lightning war that walked over Western Europe, captured Minsk, Kiev, encircled Leningrad and came within 18 miles of Moscow was flawed from the start and any essence of military history could have told Hitler this. Napoleon’s epic battles against the Russia in 1812 are best captured in Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ where the French are eventually pushed out by a disorganised Russian force. Hitler was obsessed with postcard captures rather than strategic victories. He was blinded by the fog of war and the abstractions of history that had eluded German and Prussians in the past. Like Napoleon, Hitler’s lines were stretched to the limit across a continental front. He ignored the cries from his Generals and believed he knew best. Blitzkrieg had worked but the front line still needed to be supplied.

Stalin too was also blinded by foolishness. His ignorance over intelligence and disastrous attempts to advance was an opportunity to replicate the successes of the 1812 General Kutuzov. At one stage, Stalin believed that his costly decisions would see him ousted, yet the reality as Professor Robert Service points out; he had imprisoned and killed all potential rivals – he was the only one left. He was asked to take the battle to the Nazis

While Hitler continuously gambled, Stalin used history to prevail. Like 1812, he saw this as the ‘Great Patriotic War’. He stayed in Moscow, unlike in 1812 and coordinated the battle from the Politburo in the Kremlin. He allowed generals to make decisions and employed effective propaganda to cede attempts to capture Stalingrad. Leningrad survived the Nazi siege for over 900 days. Armed by the allies, Russia was able to push back the Nazis, war weary and frozen (like Napoleon’s men) to his new prize, Berlin. After years of struggle, this was an opportunity to recapture and to take revenge, through any circumstance necessary.

During those three and half years, Eastern Europe became the blood lands of a violent and ideological war. It was rape, genocide and conflagration on an enormous scale, destroying and poisoning Europe for the following fifty years. Over 2.5 million people died in Stalingrad alone. It is easy to say that times are tough, but Europe has seen much worse.

War in Poland and Czechoslaovakia: the legacy.

Consider a statistic from history. 1938 saw the annex of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, Britain and France left its Czech allies to the perils of Hitler and the SS.

In 1939, German tanks roll into the city of Danzig, Poland: France and Britain declare war on Germany.

World War Two death toll: Czechoslovakians: around 40 000. Polish around 5.7 million deaths.

Seems crazy on the balance of things.