‘Stop Altogether Talking of Rommel': Auchinleck’s Order, German Propaganda and the BBC

Reviewed by: Eighth Army: The Triumphant Desert Army That Held the Axis at Bay from North Africa to the Alps, 1939–1945 Mike Bechthold Eighth Army: The Triumphant Desert Army That Held the Axis at Bay from North Africa to the Alps, 1939–1945. By Robin Neillands. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2004. ISBN 1-58567-537-7. Maps. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xxviii, 388. $32.50. "When this war is over, it will be enough for a man to say, 'I marched and fought with the Desert Army.'" Churchill thus ensured the immortality of Eighth Army when he spoke to its men following the victory at El Alamein. Neillands sets out to tell the story of "Eighth Army as a whole and . . . put it in the context of the campaigns in which it was engaged" (p. xxvii). In this task he succeeds. Much has been written about Eighth Army, but Robin Neillands provides us with a very readable account which takes us from the start of the Western Desert Campaign in 1940 through to the ultimate victory over Hitler's Germany in May 1945. Experts will not find much that is new, but Neillands is an accomplished writer whose treatment of the topic is masterful. Neillands is at his best early on when the story of Eighth Army is the focus of operations in North Africa. The book contains a strong narrative voice which chronicles the creation, training, and early battles of Eighth Army and its predecessors. Interspersed with the text are frequent personal accounts of the battles which thoroughly enrich the story. Neillands has interviewed and corresponded with dozens of veterans and their words are frequently used to carry the narrative. The book begins to lose some of its focus when operations commence against Sicily and Italy. The story of Eighth Army is still ably told, but the detail and focus of the earlier chapters is lost as the campaign in which the army is involved grows larger. This first become apparent in the chapter on Sicily. For the invasion, Bernard Montgomery's Eighth Army was partnered with George Patton's Seventh Army. Neillands begins to concentrate more on the conduct of the war at a higher level and loses the strong focus on the battlefield which characterized his earlier chapters. When Eighth Army's XIII Corps becomes bogged down while trying to force a passage between Mount Etna and the coast, the focus of operations shifts to XXX Corps and 1st Canadian Infantry Division which are sent to flank Etna to the west. This shift is given cursory attention by Neillands. His only comment is that "the Canadians do not appear to have been well handled in these battles" (p. 232). This completely ignores the role played by the Canadians in breaking the strong German defensive lines west of Etna. In particular, the failure to tell the story of the night assault by the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment up the sheer cliff at Assoro, one of the most heroic in the entire campaign, is particularly odd. The complexity of the Italian Campaign interferes with the clear narrative Neillands establishes early in the book. It is impossible to tell the story of Eighth Army without reference to the overall context of the events in Italy. The chapters on Cassino and Rome give as much space to discussing the wrangling of Harold Alexander and Mark Clark as is devoted to the battles being fought by the units of Eighth Army. This is unfortunate as Neillands [End Page 864] has little that is new to say about the higher conduct of the war, while his accounts of the individual soldiers are most enlightening. Neillands has written a highly readable account of Eighth Army. His book is at its best when Eighth Army is fighting alone in the desert. This allows the narrative to focus on the battles fought by Eighth Army and the men who took part. The story in the second half of the book becomes more complex as Eighth Army becomes part of a coalition. There is no doubt that the higher conduct of the war is an important part of the story, but Neillands's...

High rates of desertion and surrender during the battles in North Africa in the summer of 1942 were a major factor in Eighth Army’s poor combat performance. At the time, some suggested that these problems were symptomatic of a lack of courage or even of cowardice. There are two broad strands to the conceptualization of courage and cowardice. One focuses on the willingness of the person to fight; the other puts emphasis on how actions express an individual’s ability to cope with fear. Whichever conceptualization is used, high morale motivates the soldier to fight and shields the ordinary recruit from his fear, preventing it from overcoming him in battle. Where morale fails, the soldier is left demotivated and burdened with his terror and, therefore, and is therefore prone to desertion or surrender. Because it is extremely difficult to maintain morale at a continuously high level in an environment governed by chance and managed by humans, all soldiers can find themselves in situations where their actions may be judged as cowardly. Alternatively, if they are properly motivated to fight and prepared by the state and military to deal with the unavoidable fear of combat, all soldiers can be labelled courageous. Accordingly, emotive terms should be avoided when attempting to describe rationally explainable outcomes. The undoubtedly negative connotations attached to cowardice in battle and the positive ones attached to courage are, therefore, arguably unhelpful in understanding Eighth Army’s performance in the summer of 1942 and the human dimension in warfare more generally.

Fully illustrated, this absorbing study assesses the Commonwealth and Italian infantrymen pitted against one another during the First and Second battles of El Alamein in 1942. By July 1942, the Allied troops fighting in North Africa, the multinational Eighth Army, had withdrawn to the El Alamein line, the last position stopping their German and Italian opponents from reaching the Suez Canal. Featuring full-colour artwork, carefully chosen archive photographs and incisive analysis, this book casts light on the Commonwealth and Italian infantrymen who participated in the seesaw battle for control of the North African coastline as it entered its decisive phase, played out over two bloody engagements during July–October 1942. Although Allied and Axis commanders saw armour as the decisive weapon in the Desert War, the infantry fielded by both sides would be key to the outcomes of the two El Alamein battles. While the majority of the 96,000 Axis troops at the first battle were Italian, mostly infantry, Commonwealth forces provided the greater part of Eighth Army’s fighting strength. During the First Battle of El Alamein in July 1942, Italian infantry units clashed with Indian troops at Ruweisat Ridge and Australian forces at Makh Khad Ridge; both battles are assessed in this book, along with the defence mounted by New Zealand troops at Miteiriya Ridge during the Second Battle of El Alamein that October.

The role of radio as one of the parts of the Nazi information space, formed in Europe before and at the beginning of the Second World War, is revealed. Radio propaganda is presented as an integral element of Nazi Germany's military tactics and strategy, which became important in the psychological treatment of the population before the hostilities. Spreading radio broadcasting to foreign countries by Nazi authorities, ambitions to gain popularity that would allow it to compete with the media of England, France, the United States of America and the USSR, and radio broadcasts from foreign countries, were considered. Almost all Nazi propaganda programs were targeted primarily at the occupied territories. Significant role was played by the programs that promoted Germany's great mission. Having secured a European radio space, Hitler's propaganda headquarters began a true radio war in the East Europe. The purpose of the article is to expose radio propaganda as one of the parts of the information space that Hitler's authority sought to form in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe. The article analyzes the state of scientific development of the problem in domestic and foreign historiography. The basic approaches to the research of the problem and the methods of research of the content of radio transmissions, their influence on the population of Germany in the 1930s of the XX century are determined. The scientific novelty of the presented research is the demonstration of radio propaganda as an integral element of Nazi Germany's military tactics and strategy. The outlined research period is 1933-1941, which explained by the fact that the Nazi authority, spreading radio broadcasting to foreign countries, sought to gain popularity that would allow it to compete with the media of England, France, the United States of America, Austria and the USSR. Almost all Nazi propaganda programs focused primarily on the consolidation of ethnic Germans abroad. Research confirmed that already during the German-Soviet War, technological advances in radio broadcasting were used not only by the Nazi authority, but also by the authorities of England, the United States and the USSR. German radio propaganda was carried out using specially developed techniques and methods. Among them are: official announcements in which good news were reported in detail, unprofitable - superficial; the repetition of the enemy's official announcements between information news which had a certain propaganda purpose - to undermine the belief in the success of the enemy's action; sensational broadcasts that focused on one important propaganda topic or event; the broadcasting of completely falsified material, that is, fictitious, that the listeners could not immediately understand truth; official radio programs forged with reference to fictitious sources were broadcast, as well as broadcasts based on a source of information secretly controlled by Germany.

One of the most famous units in all of military history is the British Eighth Army-the men who defeated the German Afrika Korps-and whose full story appears for the first time in this exceptional book. Their initial combats in World War II were during Operation Crusader in North Africa, after which they adopted the crusader's cross as their symbol. They faced Rommel, the dreaded Desert Fox, in swirling battles of fire and maneuver until forced back into Egypt, fighting the Afrika Korps to a standstill along the El Alemain Line. But not for long! Under the leadership of General Bernard Montgomery, the men of Eighth Army were soon on the march, earning one of the first decisive Allied victories of the war. After forcing the wily Rommel to withdraw from Africa, the Eighth went on to participate in the invasion of Sicily, and then in the long and bloody Italian campaign. Through it all, the men of the Eighth, drawn from every corner of the British Empire, stood tall, and when the war was over, their 32 Victoria Crosses, half of them posthumous, were ample testimony to the gallantry and daring they had shown in every phase of the war. Richard Doherty is a Londonderry-based military historian, writer and broadcaster whose father served in the Eighth Army in North Africa. A Noble Crusade is his eighth book.The full story of Britain's desert army from beginning to end has never before been told. Color cover features the 38th Irish Brigade at Monte Cassino

​FormerFormer general practitioner Cromer (b 1915; q Cambridge/St Bartholomew's Hospital 1941; MC, DA), died from prostate cancer on 11 May 2006. Figure 1 Paul joined the Seaforth Highlanders and served...

North Africa was a main theatre of war. This chapter shows that in the first year of the war, two key events made North Africa, particularly Libya and Egypt, the location for major battles, including one that proved to be a major turning point of the war. Outlining the nature of the North African campaign as waged by the British and Dominion forces, the Italians, and the Germans, the chapter argues that the decisive Second Battle of El Alamein in October–November 1942 marked a major change in how the British Empire thought and felt about its warfighting capabilities. It signified, as many noted at the time and after, a crucial shift. The spell was broken, and the Germans could be beaten. The victory transformed the British forces; instead of doubt, bewilderment, confusion, and a feeling of inferiority, there was now the strong belief that they could fight hard and win, as the Eighth Army then pursued a crippled and defeated Axis force.

The role of the First South African Infantry Division in the first Battle of El Alamein, 1-30 July 1942. The First Battle of EI Alamein (1-30 July 1942) was the turning-point in the course of the Second World War in North Africa. Under the command of Gen. C.J.E. Auchinleck, the British Eigth Army finally succeeded in halting the advance of Erwin Rommel, the able German general, to the Suez Canal. Through drastically changing the British battle strategy, Auchinleck prepared the way for Gen. B.L. (Monty) Montgomery's later triumph at the Second Battle of EI Alamein in October 1942. Auchinleck's July success was due in no small manner to the stubborn resistance of the Fifth Indian Division, the First South African Division and the Ninth Australian Division. This prevented Rommel from breaking through the Eighth Army's positions between Ruweisat Ridge and the Mediterranean Sea. These battles also emphasized the leadership quality of Gen. Dan Pienaar and his fellow South African officers.

The question of why Nazi radio urged Arab violence against both the Jews and Allies during World War Two has been central to debate over genocidal invective in Nazi Arabic propaganda. Certain authors have suggested that it provides evidence of a Nazi effort to extend the Holocaust into the Middle East and North Africa, while others have posited significant post-war consequences. This article explores the intentions behind Nazi propaganda within the context of the war by examining American transcripts of Nazi Arabic radio. It will focus on the construction and the discernible intentions within the broadcasts, with the aim of illuminating Nazi perceptions of the nascent Arab nationalist movements, and the potential benefits of Arab violence for the German war effort. In so doing, this article will contribute to our understanding of how Arab allies potentially fit into broader Nazi strategy, along with providing greater insight into the formulae employed for constructing foreign-oriented propaganda in service of an expansionist war.

This article argues that the objectives pursued by Nazi propaganda in Spain went far beyond merely securing Spanish participation in the Second World War. Through the examination of under-utilized materials from Spanish and German archives, including the previously inaccessible archive of José Luis de Arrese, general secretary of the Falange, this article shows that propaganda campaigns varied in means, content and dissemination, depending on the evolution of the conflict. The aims of these campaigns reflect in turn Nazi interests in Spain, from protecting economic assets in the Peninsula, to ensuring the supply of raw materials to the war effort, and turning Spain into a bridgehead for German interests in North Africa and Latin America. The article shows how a combination of ideology and opportunism, conveniently balanced by the ambassadors’ realpolitik, allowed for fruitful collaboration with the Falange. This was central to the development of the propaganda campaigns. I contend that by looking more closely at the ramifications of Spanish neutrality, we can further analyse how Spain fitted into the Nazis’ overarching foreign policy and evaluate whether this was the product of opportunism or historical continuities with pre-war policies, including German propaganda aims in Spain during the First World War.

Bílá růže is a name of group of people who had the courage, only few people had, to oppose Hitler and National Socialism ideology of the Third Reich. In many respects, their resistance is singular and extraordinary, which should be – when judging their deeds – taken into account, unconditionally. The first actions of Bílá růže date back to summer of 1942. It was a period when Germany was at the height of its glory. Almost the entire Europe was under its dominance and the German Army celebrated unprecedented successes also in northern Africa and in the Atlantic Ocean. Of course, the population was informed about it and only few resisted enthusiasm and optimistic expectations about the future. During that period, majority of the German nation still infinitely believed in Hitler’s victory of the war and wished for it. Activities of Bílá růže took place primarily in Munich, i.e. in a city where NSDAP was founded in 1920, where the unsuccessful Hitler’s putsch took place three years later, and where the Party and its leader later had their official seat. Munich was the cradle of National Socialism, the fact crowned by Hitler in 1935 by awarding the city title of the “Capital City of the Movement”. Moreover, this resistance originated in the university environment, despite the fact that since 1934 the university was under administration of the Reich ministry and as an institution represented the Nazi state, faithfully. Close and wider circle of Bílá růže was composed of young people, almost exclusively. People whom Hitler and the Party trusted the most and expected the most from. Significant part of their life was spent under the Nazi propaganda, impacting their education. To escape its influence was a very difficult task. Moreover, these people were not directly under threat; people whose resistance did stem primarily from their conscience and thus bearing, most of all, moral legacy. Their resistance can not be categorized as purely political, military or religious one. Their principal motive was their demand for freedom and to establish such living conditions where one is not forced to act in contradiction with one’s own conscience.

This article addresses the importance of institutionalized practices when social media are introduced as collective platforms for the workplace and why the great engagement envisioned for these tools has yet to be realized in organizational settings. Innovation, in this article, points to practices that individuals perceive as new. Innovation thus also concerns social changes: the introduction of new practices to be employed by individuals within social structures. The dynamics in the workplace and in distributed networks (e.g. Wikipedia) are compared and found to operate with different social structures, with different practices at play, yet collective and engaging actions are expected from employees with the introduction of social platforms. The nature of our notion of work in the workplace is colored by organization and measurement in time and money derived from a capitalistic paradigm, yet drivers at play in distributed networks are not measured in quantitative terms (time and money), but on quality (good work, strong reputation, high social status, and so forth). The article points to findings from a comprehensive qualitative case study of knowledge workers employed in a knowledge-intensive organization in twenty-three countries in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Twenty-seven in-depth interviews and field studies of professional knowledge-workers in Norway, Denmark, UK and Morocco was conducted during 2011, with follow-up interviews of eight of the participants from Morocco and Norway after one year. Many of the employees in our study explain that the company’s social platform becomes just another thing to track amidst in an already hectic workday where individual drivers triumph over collective priorities.

Chapter 8 notes that, since the beginning of decolonisation to the end of the Cold War, Italy had not shown much interest in sub-Saharan Africa. Italy’s presence in the region decreased considerably, especially when compared with its presence in other African countries, relegating it to a secondary role in terms of the country’s economic footprint on the continent. Italy’s influence in Africa has been more strongly felt in North Africa than in sub-Saharan Africa. Italian interaction with North Africa has been based on mutual respect in politics, intercultural communication, and mutual economic benefit. But the main game changers in African-Italian relations in the post-Cold War era have been those who took over the Italian leadership from 2013.

General Sir Leslie Morshead trained his battalion under the eye of Major-General John Monash, one of the most meticulous and imaginative trainers the Australian Army has produced. March 1941 was dominated for Morshead by two parallel struggles, the equipment of his division and its concentration on sound tactical principles. Connell Wavell, who had also decided that Maughan Tobruk must be held came up, at Harding’s request, on 8 April, bringing Major-General J.D. Lavarack, commander of the 7th Australian Division, but now to take charge of Cyrenaica Command. The Eighth Army had already passed the nadir of its fortunes when Morshead led the last fresh division in the Middle East into battle at El Alamein. To Morshead and the 9th Division this was a godsend after their long experience in Tobruk, shared by no other division in the Eighth Army. Morshead, like other Australian generals, never handled large forces as an independent commander.

This chapter examines how the Nazi authorities used the Deutsche Tauchnitz series—which consisted of “special editions of modern German novels, to be disseminated for propaganda purposes only in countries outside Germany that Hitler occupies”—in an attempt to make German culture accessible to continental readers. In the early part of World War II, the German book trade had plenty of books to sell. The problem was how to make foreign readers want to read them. To address this issue, Nazi propaganda officials launched what scholars have since called “an international soft power campaign.” Deutsche Tauchnitz was formed based on the model used by Albatross Press and Bernhard Tauchnitz for producing Anglo-American books. This chapter considers how German literature for export became a major agenda at both the Reich Literary Chamber and Foreign Office and the role played by Wolfgang Krause-Brandstetter in this initiative.