soc.history.war.world-war-ii

"Die Whigphilosophie der Geschichte im Hefeweizen"
wrote:

> Were Tunisia or Sicily examples of pure military genius? Of course
> not. But that's not what I'm asserting. They remain allied
> victories, and as such I think denial of credit to the army/army group
> commander involved demands a substantive factual explanation rather
> than just assertions about superficial character impressions.

Just to strike a further blow for Alexander the viveur, it is perhaps
expedient to recall his apparently decisive role (maybe a little overdone in
his North African memories, but we all are humans after all) in waking up
tardy Anderson and the other subordinates of his to the parlous situation
Rommel's Kasserine offensive had put the Allies in. And in spurring them to
do something to straighten freaky Fredendall's operational chaos out.

The important Allied conference of February 21st, 1943 seems to have been
the direct consequence of Alexander's intervention. Which can be summarized
as "Hang On In There". A simple, and the only battle-winning concept to be
driven into minds verging on panic.

So I think we can credit Alexander, on that occasion, with a good deal of
decisive professionalism, sense and savvy. (Like Auchinleck during Crusader
and after Gazala). In any case he proved better than both Anderson and
Fredendall, whose command action was altogether faulty though in different
ways.

Haydn

PS. On February 18th, Rommel reportedly uncorked a bottle of champagne to
celebrate the successful attack. Too bad Alex could not taste it and share
his opinion...