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March 11, 2025 62 mins
On today’s episode, we travel to 1943, and one of the earliest battles American soldiers fought with Nazi Germany, in the mountainous regions of Tunisia. There, the fortuitous arrival of artillery stemmed the tide after German forces broke through American defenses at Kasserine pass. But what might have happened if it all went differently?
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to The History Guy podcast Counterfactuals. What is a
counterfactual in the context of studying history. It is a
kind of analysis where we examined what might have happened
had historical events gone differently as a thought experiment. The
goal is to learn and understand history as it is
by talking about what it could have been as a

(00:27):
twist on the historical stories that we tell on the
History Guy YouTube channel. This is a series of podcasts
that dwell on that eternal question what if. I'm Josh,
a writer for the YouTube channel and son of the
History Guy. If you're a fan of the channel, you
already know Lance the History Guy himself. To liven up
our discussions on what might have happened, we have invited

(00:48):
Brad Wagman, history officionado and a longtime friend of The
History Guy, to join us.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Remember that if.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
You'd like to support us, you can find us on Patreon,
YouTube andlocals dot com. Join us as we discuss what
deserves to be remembered and what might have been. On
today's episode, we traveled to nineteen forty three and one
of the earliest battles American soldiers fought with Nazi Germany
and the mountainous regions of Tunisia. There the fortuitous arrival

(01:16):
of artillery stemmed the tide after German forces broke through
American defenses at Casserine Pass. But what might have happened
if it all went differently? Without further ado, let me
introduce the history.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Guy Following their defeat at the Battle of Casserine passed
in Tunisia in North Africa on February twentieth, nineteen forty three,

(01:52):
the American Army was in headlong.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
Disorganized retreat. The battle represented the first major engagement between
American troops and Axis troops in the Second World War,
and it was a significant defeat for the Americans. Now,
historians have tended to talk about the significance of the
Battle of Castriine Pass in terms of the important reforms
that were forced upon the US Army as a result

(02:16):
of the defeat, But that perspective ignores a frightening fact,
and that is the battles around Casteringe Pass also offered
the possibility of a war changing setback for the Allies.
But immediately following the defeat at Casteringe Pass, there was
an astounding stand in front of the Tunisian town of Thala.

(02:38):
And while the Battle of Thala is usually seen as
not much more than an afterthought in terms of the
larger battles around Castine Pass, in fact it was a
valiant and unlikely defense that prevented a disaster for the Allies.
And so today I'd like to take some time to
appreciate the unlikely and underappreciated defense of Thala. On February

(03:03):
twenty first and twenty second, nineteen forty three, the American
Army had landed in French Morocco in November of nineteen
forty two during Operation Torch, and had meant only light resistance.
By January of nineteen forty three, they were pushing through Tunisia,
intent on cutting off the German supply at the port

(03:24):
city of Tuni. The German commander Field Marshall Irwin Rommel
decided that he would attack the massing Allied American, French,
and British troops. His goal was not just to blunt
their expected attack on Tuni, however, Rommel thought that he
had the opportunity to take advantage of the Green American
forces and force a breakthrough that would give him access

(03:47):
to the Allied supply depots in Algeria, which would have
been an event that could have changed the course of
the war in North Africa. Initial attacks by the Africa
Corps and the fifth Panzer arm We threw back the
Allied lines more than fifty miles and made them defend
just a few passes between Tunisia and Algeria, and on

(04:08):
February nineteenth and twentieth, Rommel's forces shattered the Americans who
were defending a place called Casserine Pass. The Axis victories
to that point had a lot to do with an
untested American army that made significant operational and coordination errors
in the face of veteran German and Italian troops. Casteringe
Pass was seen as a significant defeat for the Americans

(04:31):
that highlighted the need to make significant organizational changes. But
Castriinge Pass itself did not open the road to the
Allied supply depots in Algeria. But Rommel recognized the opportunity
and immediately made a dash with the powerful tenth Panzer
Division for the Tunisian town of Thala and its critical crossroads.

(04:55):
You have to understand the importance of the Tunian town
of Thala. While it's just a small Mountain Town. It
controlled crossroads that go both north into the rest of
Tunisia and west into Algeria. Had Rommel taken those crossroads,
he would have been able to cut off thousands of
American troops that were trying to regroup to the north,
cut off from supply. That would have forced a surrender

(05:16):
of significant Allied forces. But even more, that would have
left open the Western Road, which could have allowed Romel
to take the supply depots in Algeria and use those
as a base to drive the Americans out of their
bridgehead in North Africa. Simply put, Thala was critical. But

(05:37):
Thala was only defended by remnants of shattered American forces
that had been defeated at Casting Pass and some detached
elements of the British sixth Army. As the American tanks
had all been destroyed or abandoned at the Battle of Casserine.
The only armor that the Allies had to defend the
pass against the powerful tanks of the tenth Panzer Division

(05:58):
were a few units of British Valentine tanks which were outdated,
and there was nothing else. There were no Allied reserves
to reinforce Thala. That's all that faced down Rommel and
the tenth Panzer Division. Thala was surrounded by a group
of defensible ridge lines, and the troops of the British

(06:19):
twenty sixth Armor Brigade, regiments of the seventeen and twenty
first Lancers and the Derbysshire Yeomanry defended each ridge line valiantly,
but their Valentine tanks were outgunned and they could only
defeat the German tanks at point blank range and slowly.
They were pushed back ridgeline by ridgeline, losing evermore of

(06:40):
their dwindling supply of Valentine tanks. They barely held on
through the day of the twenty first, and then were
attacked again at night. The Germans decided upon a night
attack and a ruse. They led their attack with a
captured British Valentine tank that fooled the screening infantry and
allowed the German army to get very close to the
British tanks before they even knew they were under attack.

(07:03):
They were given no choice but a desperate counter attack that,
while it pushed back the German assault left the British
with only a dozen operable tanks. They knew that they
could not possibly survive another attack. The Battle of Thala
seemed to have been lost. At the end of their rope,
the beleaguered defenders of Thala expected to be brushed aside

(07:24):
in the morning, when, almost as if by miracle, a
large column came up the road from Algeria. It was
the divisional artillery for the American ninth Infantry Division, which
was regrouping to the north and had called for their
artillery train. The artillery had made an eight hundred mile
forced march trying to rejoin.

Speaker 5 (07:42):
Their unit, but when they arrived in Thala, their commander,
Brigadier General s Leroy Irwin, appreciated how important the defense
of Thala was and so ignored his orders to go
north and join the defense of Thala.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
In the morning, Rammel expected to brush aside dispirited forces,
and instead was met by a massive artillery barrage from
the combined British and American artillery. Concluding that the Allies
must have received substantial reinforcements in the night, Rommel decided
that he could not win the fight and withdrew not
just from Thala, but short on fuel, he decided to

(08:18):
push all the way back to southern Tunisia. Miraculously, the
defenders of Thala, right at the point of their defeat,
had emerged victorious. By the end of February, the Allies
had retaken all of the ground that Rommel had gained
in his offensive, and while Casterine Pass was seen as
a great defeat for the Americans, in the end, the

(08:39):
Allies had prevented that great breakthrough so close to Rommel's
grasp that could have changed the course of the war
in North Africa. The defeats in the Tunisian campaign forced
the Americans to make significant organizational and leadership changes, and
even Rommel was impressed with how quickly the Americans learned
their lessons. But that all would have been irrelevant if
Romel had taken the crossroads at Thala and pushed the

(09:02):
Americans out of North Africa before they could even regroup.
And yet, surprisingly, the defense of Thala is usually not
much more than a footnote in any discussion of the
Tunisian campaign, and that's too bad, because the valiant defenders
of Thala, who fought an unequal battle with inferior equipment,
deserve to be remembered.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Now for the fun part, where I the history guy
himself and good friend of the history guy Brad Wagnan
discussed what might have happened if it had all gone differently.
So this is a really this is such a great story.
It's a lot different I think in terms of the
counterfactuals we've done compared to say, potatoes, this is a
much more focused.

Speaker 5 (09:46):
Okay it is, Yeah, even for military counterfactual terms of
this is you know some of those like the whole
war turns on it or something like this. This is
just the turning point in a specific spot that would
have tactically affected things. So it really it gives you
a chance to I mean, this isn't like Cana or
something like that, I mean, or I mean others that
we've talked about, and it really kind of gets you

(10:08):
into the into the kind of the gritty details of
a part of the battle. It's interesting to me because
to me, when you look at Casterine Pass, Thala is
really the most interesting part of Castriinge Pass. But if
you if you look at almost anything that's talking about
Casterine Pass, they barely mentioned Thala. I mean, you wouldn't
even find you can't even find if you look at
a battle of Thala, they don't they don't even see

(10:29):
it as a battle. It's just it's just a little
piece of because of course Casterine Pass wasn't actually the
Battle of Castering Pass was actually offensive with a number
of battles.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
But I mean, if there.

Speaker 5 (10:37):
Was a place where Casserine Pass could have turned to
true disaster, it was thala Uh. And I you know,
I think it deserves to be to be remembered. I
think we've got a better ability to sort of just
really kind of dig into a gritty detail about what
this would have meant than you can in a lot
of the other ones. And it's a little bit harder
because there's no forests there at all. I mean, there's

(10:59):
no trees in that part of Tunisian. So I think
it would be highly unlikely the Bigfoot would have been
involved in any way. That's that's true, unless he was
with you know, unless he showed up with an oregon
you know, infantry detachment.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah. You know, you look at some of these pictures
of this terrain, and it is it is extremely rocky.
It is it does not look like the most fun
to try.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
To drive a tank over.

Speaker 5 (11:22):
Quite honestly, it's hard to imagine trying to fight across that.
But it turned out to be very good defensive terrain
because it was a series of ridge lines. A good
part of war is terrain is ground, and the ground,
I mean, especially for when you're overwhelmed and you're and
you're just having to do a defense in depth and
slow retreat and stuff like this is good for it.

(11:43):
But you could also get inside these ridge lines. You
could come up and then you'd be firing down the
ridge line, so you could you know which you broke
through you essentially they had to abandon its almost like
a trench line.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Well, the famous part of Castering Pass, of course, is
that it was a disaster. That's the whole, the whole,
the thing they want to talk about whenever you look
it up. The things they really talk about are that
the Americans totally fell apart and it was all due
to essentially an experience that the generals were in experience.
They didn't choose the right grounds, they didn't put the
defensive then prepare the defensive correctly. And I think what's

(12:15):
interesting about Thala is that this it kind of shows
where it honestly some of the strengths. First of all
of the Allied units that were there and how they
were able to kind of claw their way out of
what had been a fairly significant defeats up until that point.

Speaker 5 (12:33):
Because the other complaint about Casterine Pass was that it
was poorly coordinated between the Allies, which is the real question.
Could the Allies act together? And Thala it was an
example where the you know, the Allies managed to act
together in extraordinary way. So in a ways it's different
than the rest of the battle. I think I could
say that's that's an unfair way to look at Cassine
because Casserine, really what it was was it was an

(12:54):
offensive Birommel.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
The offensive never achieved any of its.

Speaker 5 (12:57):
Goals, and within you know, of just what a couple
of weeks after the battles, they had retaken all that ground.
So really it was a victory. It was an Allied victory.
I mean, you know, there was a major attack, and
you know, it not a surprise that in the major
attack it took prisoners and it did damage, but it

(13:18):
never achieved its goals and then it ended up having
to retreat. So I don't know if it's fair to
say it was a huge defeat, but it's usually talked
about as oh, the Americans learned how to, you know,
get better command, and they did take a lot of
people out of command and shift things around. And I
think it's more interesting than that. I think it's more
interesting than just the story that the Americans got beat
and then they learned. I think that really kind of

(13:39):
ignores a lot of what was going on in the battle.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (13:43):
I am constantly surprised by, especially early in the war,
how how much of an old boy's network the US
Army was, because we had such a small army coming
into World War Two. Essentially, Eisenhower, Patent, Bradley, they were

(14:05):
all rubbing shoulders long before they even had the rank
of general. So these were these were men knew each other.
And then friend All is really kind of an outsider.
He is not a graduate of West Point, but apparently
he was competent enough at one point or another that
someone decided that he needed a general stars that person

(14:29):
actually was drawing a blank Chief of US Armed Forces,
Oh Marshall, Yeah, yeah, Georsey Marshall. Apparently, yeah, friend Hall,
Farandahl came into his attention. So that was kind of
where he got his start.

Speaker 5 (14:45):
So, yeah, that's interesting to the US military. Grew so quickly,
uh and so, and so you did have you had
people who hadn't been getting promotions for years because the
army had been kept small and there weren't a lot
of opportunities. And so you had you had people that
were you know, colonels that were in their fifties. And
then you also had you know this you know, massive
growth where you had you know, people who had you know,

(15:06):
ninety day wonders. People had no real experience and that
you know, you have to have captains and majors and
lieutenant colonels of whole new regiments. And it's not a
surprise you know too, that there was just not a
lot of experience operating between the Allies too, coordinating an
air and all.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
That sort of thing.

Speaker 5 (15:22):
So, I mean, it wouldn't be a surprise coming into
it that you would have some of the things that
they talk about as being problems at Casserine well.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
And it's I mean, I think you would call them teething.

Speaker 5 (15:30):
Well, virtually every officer there was untested, and so you know,
some of them are going to perform well in combat
and some of them aren't. And and you know the Germans,
on the other hand, you know, have been fighting that
war for five six years. They are rattle hardened. The
Italians too.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, pretty much, pretty much all the Access forces there
had been significantly involved in campaign.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
And the British forces too.

Speaker 5 (15:53):
But yeah, but this is you know, that's why they
hit to the American sector. But I mean, this is
a case where the British, you know, the British role
because they where they hit a caster in the British
role ends up being quite important and their experiences have
been quite important.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Definitely.

Speaker 6 (16:09):
Another thing is I like to look at some of
the background at this point Rommel is no longer the
undefeated desert fox, because at this point he has suffered
the defeat of that all the lame and he's his
his his star is definitely losing some of its luster

(16:31):
in German high command, and I think that that actually
ends up causing him problems with von Armand because von
Armond perhaps is looking at Rommel with not quite the
same level of respect that he would have if Romo
still had that mantle and vulnerability that he had, and.

Speaker 5 (16:53):
That was they did have command problems, coordination problems, disagreement
among command there and so one of the one of
the arguments about that Rammel was not able to follow
up as he might have because he didn't have that support.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
So it's a fair point.

Speaker 5 (17:06):
But another thing really to mention from the start too,
This is February of nineteen forty three, is late February
of nineteen forty three. Early February of nineteen forty three
was the end of another battle on the Eastern Front, Stalingrad.
And there are a lot plenty of people who argue
that the German cause was lost after Stalingrad, which means
the German cause was essentially lost about two weeks before

(17:27):
this battle began. So when you talk about what are
the effects that there are plenty of people would argue,
and I guess I would get into it here that
the whole Tunisia campaign, which is the side, show that
it was a minuscule number of troops compared to the
Eastern Front, that it was really an irrelevant fight after
the loss at Stalingrad. And so I guess we get
there's that, doesn't I mean did this battle even matter?

(17:48):
I mean, in terms of a counterfactual, if this battle
had gone any which way, would it have made a
difference in the wider war.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
It's interesting because how I mean, you know, the Africa
campaign was not was not at the time totally insignificant.
But when you know, as as history has looked at it,
I mean, we don't talk a lot about the Africa campaign,
especially the post Torch Africa campaign, because of that. One

(18:15):
of the things it definitely impacts though is in terms
of the reach of this battle. Uh, there wasn't more
people that Germany could have sent to to There was
no matter what Rammel was able to do with this
at this point. If he was able to break you know,
break at Thala and push the Americans back, that was
not there. They're just there weren't resources for him, and

(18:38):
that was I mean, that was a problem for Ramel
throughout the whole wars that the Africa he never had
the supplies and the troops that he wanted because there
was always a bigger front that the German high command
wanted to to focus on. But this, this does it
kind of shows you know, how you know, what was
going on with the war effort, and you know, was
it was it meaningless that that we were still fighting

(19:00):
in Africa. I think it's hard to say that ultimately,
the the whole Underbelly campaign doesn't do what we wanted.
But this was still I mean, at this point when
we're still you know, fighting in Tunisia, we still advance
on that plan. We invade Sicily and we've made Italy.
So it's not like we were. You know that there
was no point because the Italian campaign, certainly, I mean

(19:22):
it held up some Vesterian German units that could have
made a difference somewhere. I don't know that they would
have you know, you could argue about with her that
would have changed the tide.

Speaker 5 (19:30):
Can be a difficult campaign too, but yeah, I mean
Tunisia was key to the Italian campaign, the soft underbelly.
And so to people who I mean, I've had lots
of people trying to say, oh, the Russians really won
the war. Nine tenths every Germans that were killed, nine
were killed on the Russian front. But to me, if
Stalin could have won the war without the Allies, he

(19:52):
had every reason too. I mean, he knew the competition
was coming already, and yet this whole period Stalin is
very desperately demanding a second front.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
So yeah, and so I don't think so.

Speaker 5 (20:06):
I think Stalin knew that he was on the brink
enough that the Soviet Union was on the brink enough
that these other battles, even if they seemed to be
secondary fronts compared, I think Stalin knew that these were
critical and important. I don't think that Stalin would have
argued that Tunisia was irrelevant or that the Italian campaign
was irrelevant, because he was demanding the whole time that

(20:28):
for that to occur. So I think maybe that's a
sign that the Soviet Union was closer to collapse than
we seem to even admit the fact that Stalin was
willing to engage in the alliance that otherwise was not
to his advantage even at this point in the war.
So I don't think it's irrelevant. Certainly, Tunisia was key

(20:51):
to Italy, and which I guess gets to another point
here and say, what's the worst that could have happened
at Thala? What's what's the worst case scenario for the
Allies in terms of a counterfactual.

Speaker 6 (21:03):
Yeah, I think that looking at the situation in North Africa,
especially when we're getting into February forty three and doing
some research on this topic, it looks as if approximately
a third of the supplies that were destined for North
Africa were taken out the anti shipping activity via aircraft

(21:24):
or naval and so at no point was Rommel truly
flush with fuel, unlimited fuel and unlimited munitions. He was
always at the mercy of how much was getting through.
So even if there is a huge turnaround, and I

(21:47):
think that one of the counterfactuals that we will probably
look into is what if Rammel had not divided his
forces to go after Tala and to Besa, but had
just on Tabsa as the headquarters of the second core
and by all descriptions a huge supply.

Speaker 5 (22:10):
Depot, and you know he could have I mean that
part of the idea was that, I mean, the whole
idea of the bullege was that would be capturing out
at supply depots. Capturing these supply depots could have made
a difference. It's important because sometimes the story is that
Rommeel ran out of gas, and.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
It's not true.

Speaker 5 (22:27):
He actually had enough fuel supply for a couple one
hundred kilometers more fighting. What he ran out of was
the thought that he was going to accomplish anything. But
it's a fair points. If he's on top of these
fuel depots, does that give him a much greater capacity
to continue, you know, moving in a way. So they
also had ammunition supply problems as well.

Speaker 6 (22:48):
Yeah, and you also have to realize that at this
point Rommel is very nervous about the fact that the
Eighth Army is coming across North Africa through Libya and
will be coming up from the south within a couple
of weeks. Yeah, so he knows that this offensive has
to be very quick and he has to grab something

(23:10):
and do enough damage to make it worthwhile.

Speaker 5 (23:13):
So that's another of the of the sort of assumptions
about this battle that people will do is that it
really didn't make a difference too, because the Allies had
enough force in it that it wasn't going to change
the Tunisian campaign. So in terms of a counterfactual, you know,
the first question is did Thala really make a difference?
Would it have made Maybe the whole thing, Maybe the
whole North African campaign was irrelevant because of Stalingrad, Maybe

(23:37):
Casserine Pass was irrelevant because the Allies had already won
in Tunisia. And I think that, given you know, how
desperate the situation was at Thala, it's hard to say
because at very least if he takes Thala, he cops,
he cuts off the entire US ninth Infantry Division, he
cuts off the first Armored Divisions Combat Team bccb UH

(24:00):
and those are significant losses.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
So for this to.

Speaker 5 (24:04):
Have been, you know, a disaster that really changed the war,
it would have had to have been. It would have
been that it so demoralized America this early in the war,
or so caused a lack of faith between the British
and the Americans that it, you know, long term affected
our confidence to be able to continue the campaign.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
And I don't think that's out of the question.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
But I don't think it was going to be that
He's going to drive his tanks through and then make
it all the way back to Tunisia.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
But I.

Speaker 5 (24:36):
Had impossible that early in the war though, Or is
it possible that early in the war, that he could
have inflicted a defeat so severe, you know, tens of
thousands of POW's whole army groups having to surrender, splitting
the commands between the British and the Americans, et centa,
that he could have that he could have caused a
lack of faith, a retreat from Tunisia, And he.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
Did would do significant damage. You know that the British,
especially like Montgomery, I lost a lot of respect in
the Americans because of this battle. And I mean he
Montgomery essentially had you know, a I thought the Americans
were were bad soldiers for the rest of the war
because of what happened here, which again I don't think
is probably all that fair given given how the situation

(25:22):
turned out.

Speaker 5 (25:23):
He also thought he won the Battle of the Bulge too,
So that's it's Montgomery, Yeah, Montgomery.

Speaker 6 (25:30):
Now here's here's an interesting counterfactual. What if the Americans
are defeated so badly that ultimately commander of Schaife ends
up being British and possibly even Monty himself as opposed
to Eisenhower.

Speaker 5 (25:47):
And I think it certainly would have made I mean
Eisenhower was the more policy. It would have made coordination difficult. Yeah, yeah,
that's a fair point. That's an interesting factual there. Yeah,
it's if what if it changed caused it? Because it
did cause change in command and Catherine pasted it, But
what have caused a change in command all the way

(26:08):
up to that level? Because if the British had lost faith, I.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
Mean, that's that's a sign some significant damage it is.
I mean, maybe we're you know, I don't think we're
necessarily a big Montgomery fans as a group, but it
does seem like it would alter what you know, what
it was who was in command was significant, and that
that might happen if we lose at Thala. I think that,
you know, they they choose to push back to or

(26:34):
to pull out a Thala partially because they knew that
the artillery that that came with an infantry division. They
did not know that that artillery had arrived without their
infantry division.

Speaker 5 (26:46):
I mean, you can see why in the morning he's thought, Wow,
they had to have been significantly reinforced for this much
noise to be gone on. So and that's so they
weren't as reinforced as it Stafford Irwin, who's a name
that you don't know, but I think particularly remembers out
of the war. So he if he followed orders, then
he wouldn't have been there. And Stafford Irwin appreciated the

(27:08):
situation without any order from anybody above him and said, no,
we're going to park here because this is more important.
And that's I mean, I think that deserves to be
remembered too. And it does say that, you know, again
you don't want to do a great man theory, but
one person who just thought a little bit differently who
was in command, you know, and again like we were
talking about nobody, you know, the way the commands structed

(27:29):
Noe was tested that he made a very good decision
and that certainly made a difference at least on the
last day of the battle at Dala. That had to
be pretty scary with that amount of artillery rain and
down on you after the day. But they came very
close in the night attack, which was which is before
the artillery could have been place. I think they might

(27:52):
have been starting to arrive by then. But had they
broken through with that night attack and gotten in behind lines,
you know, they might have been catching this artillery train,
you know, unprepared.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
So I mean there's yeah, you.

Speaker 5 (28:03):
Know, they'll say, I think Wikipedia, I think in the
entire Castine Pass, I think Wikipedia has about one paragraph
on Thala and it's just barely yeah, and they'll say
the British, the British bent, but they didn't break.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
And I don't think they mentioned how how bent it
was right there.

Speaker 5 (28:19):
Uh, And you know, just just some you know, some
American units that were you know, in retreat and and
and and a fairly small British force compared to what
they were run into.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, it was remarkable because it was totally a battle
put together force. This this nick force that they put together.
I mean it was it was just whatever they could
throw at them. And so I mean it was incredible
that they that they held. Uh it is but they.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
Aparely, Yeah they did. Yeah, their armor was so so outmatched.

Speaker 5 (28:44):
And yeah, yes, you know they talk about I mean
the first of all, the gap on on Montgomery. We
know exactly how wide the gap is. So you have
to just measure the Atlantic Ocean and how that measures
whether you lover or I don't love Monty, you know,
by at large. But I mean early in the war,

(29:04):
the you know, the British will tell you that the
two pounder was the best anti tank or the best
tank I ever made by nineteen forty three. Uh, you know,
the two pounder is not that much. Valentine's an interesting tank,
but it had a fairly small turret ring and so
it could never it never really managed to mount a
bigger gun.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Was it was its problem.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
But I mean those Valentine infantry tanks were by nineteen
forty three were outmatched, uh and and the and and
it was this, it was the seventeenth twenty fourth would
have so much history too that that's interesting to me
because these are the guys that fought at Omdurman and
the twenty fourth Lancers and the yeah, and so this

(29:43):
is these are storied regiments that are fighting there. But
they really were, you know, fighting against odds. They had
to be you know, very close range for their two pounders.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
To be effective, and they did it. They you know,
they went and.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Fought at terrible cost. They yeah, well they couldn't have
held in the morning after without yeah.

Speaker 5 (30:03):
Yeah, I mean they knew they were going to be overrun.
I mean they were all figuring they'd be dead or prisoners.
But by the end of the next day.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (30:11):
And that just goes back to British tanks in World
War Two were they were very hit or miss and
that's part of their operational strategy was that, you know,
they had specific design goals in mind for the tank
and having the tank hunt other tanks, and some of
the assumptions they made about how that hunting would go

(30:33):
definitely did hamstring them in the long run up until
the Comet and of course the Sherman firefly. You know,
British tanks are typically they're they're under armored and undergunn
even the six pounders essentially a fifty seven millimeter and
that's just not where your main gun on the on

(30:55):
the tanks that your opposition is carrying, And what you
really want are seventy five millimeter eighty eight millimeter guns
that can penetrate armor at a good distance.

Speaker 5 (31:07):
I mean, Valentine's an interesting tank and they're still using it.
I mean, Valentine's for a D Day, right, but from reason.
But I mean in this case, this is not the
ideal armored force that you would want to be countering
an attack by the whole you know, tenth panzer.

Speaker 6 (31:21):
Yeah, yeah, especially in such small numbers. I believe the
number of Valentines was at thirteen. Well they were.

Speaker 5 (31:29):
Reduced to that at one point, but it wasn't it
was it wasn't a large number of vehicles.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah, they were always out numbered, and then they were
always you know, gunn to Rummel's goal.

Speaker 5 (31:39):
I mean his goal in the in the whole offensive
was to destroy the British five Corps and destroy America
two corps and then to essentially drive the British from Tunisia.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
That was very you know, those are stretch goals.

Speaker 5 (31:56):
But I mean had he done that, I mean, haddod
he you know, driven the Allies from Tunisia, captured a
large part of their supply, cut off large groups of
troops from their supply, managed to a large you know,
take you know, a large number of prisoners, and I
guess in the farthest extreme gotten all the way back
to taking ports up in you know, North Africa. If

(32:16):
he if he'd essentially removed the Allies from Tunisia, then
I mean it probably.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Delays I mean, it certainly delays.

Speaker 5 (32:24):
The Italian campaign, but I mean it's a good chance
it ends up delaying D Day by at least a.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Year, which and that's that's significant.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
I mean, in those weeks and months, if you wonder
how much Russia could take, I mean that how desperate
he was for a second front. I mean, they had
spent years every summer just losing millions, and something like
twenty million Russians are captured, and how many whole Russian
army groups can get, you know, completely cut off and

(32:54):
captured before before your morale just totally collapses.

Speaker 5 (32:59):
Yeah, even after Stalingrad they were still taking massive losses.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, you know, Kursk was after Stalingrad and you and
Kirsk was Kursk was not a you know, the Soviets held,
but there was a moment that Kirsk where the Germans
were not you know, it was not outside the realm
of possibility that the Germans could make a difference there.
And if they, you know, if there was a little
bit of pressure removed from from another front. I mean,

(33:23):
maybe that's all they would have needed. It was it
was kris was not like super super close, but it was,
you know, it was close. And the Germans. You know,
if the Germans had captured, had had defeated the Russian
Army at Kirsk, you wonder what would have gone on.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Elsewhere.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
I don't know, could they have taken that big of
a loss.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
Again, if you had the actually Corps at Kursk, it
certainly could have shifted the balance. The question is, could
could the Africa Corps had shifted the balance in Africa?

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (33:51):
If if, if, if the Germans won the whole North
Africa campaign, how does that change the war?

Speaker 2 (33:59):
I mean, it's it's kind.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
Of because it's imagining. I mean what because what you
lose with that is you lose control of the Mediterranean,
which which was important, which mattered.

Speaker 5 (34:08):
And you largely lose the connection between the UK and
India and Australia would have been.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Extremely even that late in the war.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
You know, if it had, if it had gone on.
But I mean part of you wonder if if he
defeated the Americans and the British in the west, could
could Rommel have turned around and beaten the Eighth Army
or or even held the Eighth Army off?

Speaker 2 (34:30):
And I don't know that.

Speaker 6 (34:32):
I will say that to the points that you've previously made.
If you want an example of just out despert things
were in the Soviet Union, you have to remember that
Operation Uranus failed. The Germans were able to cut off
an entire Soviet Army group in southern Russia even after Stalingrad.
So they're still an effective fighting force on the Eastern Front.

(34:54):
And with leadership and enough supplies, you know, the Germans
will continue to be tenacious and they will make the
Russians pay for every inch of territory that they're trying
to take back. Secondly, I think that this does this
does bode well to another nameless individual who came up

(35:14):
with the idea that assassinating Hitler was actually a really
bad idea because the operational decisions he was making were
directly hurting the Germans. So the entire concept of not
one step back, yeah, first practice so effectively by Stalin
during the early part of the Eastern from campaign, which

(35:36):
ended in disaster. For some reason, Hitler decided that, well,
I'll just do it the right way and tell my
not to retreat.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Now.

Speaker 6 (35:46):
Would Hitler have ever thought possibly that after a victory
at Tala, the Americans are reeling, the British are having
second thoughts about this erstwhile ally the United States, and
they begin to take the two hundred and fifty thousand
Ish troops from North Africa, pull them onto the continent

(36:12):
and really losing.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
He wouldn't let them retreat.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Yeah, losing the Africa Corps was was not insignificant because
you're right, compared to the compared to the Eastern Front,
it was a small number of guys, but they were
I mean, they were battle hardened, they were veteran. If
if even if it just buys them enough time to
pull enough of the Africa Corps out. You know that
there's there's some significant parts of some of those divisions
involved elsewhere. I mean that could have made a difference.

(36:37):
It's hard to.

Speaker 5 (36:38):
See we're ignoring the Italians too, and the Italians that's true,
essentially removes Italy from the from the combat or from
the yeah from the war or makes a big difference.

Speaker 6 (36:49):
So there's another counterfactual here, and that is that the
defeat of rammel Well only enough, the defeat of Rombel,
but the stalemating of rammel Uh who is not able
to follow up on casting pass that definitely does make
the Italian exit from the war much easier. Whereas if

(37:11):
the Axis had been more successful, would Italy have held on.

Speaker 5 (37:17):
This would have it would have meant a lot more
loss of life in North Africa for the outfice, if.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
It had extended the war.

Speaker 5 (37:23):
I mean, let's I mean, I think that that the
farthest you could possibly argue is that a very significant
victory here might have made the Italian campaign impossible or
at least impossible for like another two years.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
So if it weren't for the.

Speaker 5 (37:39):
Italian campaign, is Germany able to finally break Russia in
that time. Uh, you know what is you know, how
important was the Italian campaign?

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Again?

Speaker 5 (37:51):
You know, some people argue it was irrelevant, you know,
Staling Guy was already over and you know, really ended
up being a meat grinder in the Italian campaign. But
if you think the Italian campaign was relevant to the war,
then you could say that Thala and casterine Pass were
possibly quite relevant to the Italian campaign and the ability
to prosecute that campaign when we did.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
It is because if you think, if you try to
think back and you're like, okay, without the Italian campaign,
does the war? You know, do the Allies lose the war?
And I think that's that's that's a difficult argument. I
think you there'd be a lot of there'd be a
lot of arguing there debate around that. But you know,
the Italians exiting the campaign and the number of again

(38:32):
veteran German units that end up having to move south
and and and defend Italy. What the question there ends
up being who who lost more from our commitment of
forces there? Did the Germans lose more committing their forces
or do the Allies lose more committing you know those
and it feels like the Germans lost more there. Yeah,

(38:54):
that the more precious to the.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Other thing that's that's important.

Speaker 5 (38:57):
There's the fifteenth Air Force having with Basis in Italy
allowed attacks on on you know, things like the czecklist
and pocket oil fields and et cetera. So I mean,
if if anything, the Italian campaign is important because it
gives us that well, we're flying that was you know
where we're flying, you know, massive amounts of airplanes out
of Italy that we wouldn't have been able to do
if we had lost Tunisia.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
I kind of feel like the Italian campaign because we
didn't it was not the knockout punch that we wanted
it to be, and it was compared to what our
what our hopes for it were, it was extremely disappointing.
And I feel like that's kind of impact how it
was not soft. Yeah, yeah, I think it's impacted, you know,
our kind of view of the whole, the whole strategy,
and it's it's I don't think totally fairly because I

(39:40):
think that's still there were important things that we gained
from the Italian campaign, and it's it does get harder
to say, you know, could we have beaten the Axis,
if we just ignored that campaign, if we ignored that
entire theater altogether, and you know, there were important pieces
of that theater. It was important that they held some
part of Africa and control control of the Mediterranean, which

(40:02):
really shifted once North Africa was in the hands of
the Allies, was not insignificant.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
It was not insignificant.

Speaker 5 (40:09):
Well, you know, the other question there too is that
because the choice was to attack ittaier attack Greece, I mean,
they could have also attacked it in the western.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Med and I guess it leads another.

Speaker 5 (40:18):
Interesting question in terms of another place that was kind
of important during the war. But if if, if there
had been a significant delay, if they said to put
the Allies in a position that Tunisia doesn't fall for
another year, does does Malta fall?

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Alta might have I mean maybe that was they were
hanging on. Malta was always, of course, rather a tricky position.

Speaker 5 (40:39):
If they had done the parachute attack that they planned,
they almost certainly would have won Malta, was you know, no,
it would have been outgunned fairly quickly.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
And they were always able to tell it's it's off
of it's off topic. But you know, the German paratrooper
attack at Crete and the fact that they didn't go
the way the Germans as well as the Germans hoped for,
had some significant impact on that. I mean, really they
really lost their faith in the whole concept of.

Speaker 5 (41:05):
I mean, but a battle from Alta could have been interesting.
I mean because you know, Malta essentially have been bombed
almost flat by that point. But I mean, you know,
that's part of the Mediterranean. That was part of the
reasons that was so critical that we were taking I
mean right north Africa was it was about controlling the
siu Az. It was maybe about oil fields, certainly that
could be in terms of connecting. The reason the British
sought was important is because this was their connection to

(41:27):
the Empire, the most important part of the Empire India.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (41:31):
But it really was also about the Mediterranean. And you're
right if they you know, if they continue to hold Tunisia,
then they hold the Mediterranean. And if you if you
can hold the Mediterranean, then you can supply your Africa core.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Ultimately, Africa never supplied the They were always hoping it
was going to be of raw materials and you want,
I mean, there's something to be said that even that
the Axis getting involved in North Africa to begin with, Which.

Speaker 5 (41:55):
Is which is an interesting counterfactual to say, what if
what if there was never the attack on Africa? Uh?

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Uh be?

Speaker 5 (42:01):
Could would the war have gone differently? If if those
resources have been used elsewhere?

Speaker 1 (42:05):
That's an interesting you know, it leaves you a question too.

Speaker 5 (42:08):
I mean this this is your way off topic here,
but what if I mean Operation Sea Lion always seemed
you know, kind of far petched. I mean, they simply
didn't have that amphibious capability. So what if you don't
do the Battle of Britain? What if you take those
thousand aircraft from the Luftwaffe and lose them use them

(42:29):
on Russia instead? I mean, is Britain after Dunkirk in
any position to do anything, you know, despite the fact
that you're bombing the tar out of them?

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Uh so? Uh? I mean, so what if? You know,
what if? What if? The whole what if?

Speaker 5 (42:43):
The whole difference in the campaign is to say, what
if The counterfactual is to say that Germany was never
going to keep Tunisia, and what if they'd use those
resources somewhere else?

Speaker 2 (42:53):
And could that have shifted the war? Yeah?

Speaker 6 (42:56):
I do think the Battle of Britain was a very
close was a very close thing, and then the strategic
bombing of Germany it just never really had the results,
especially early on that they were hoping that it would.
They really had to perfect that and when you had

(43:19):
significant fighter cover coming in the daylight raids were almost suicidal,
and even the night raids they were taking heinous losses.
So yeah, I can see where additional air units preventing
any sort of real development of the strategic bombing of Germany,

(43:42):
as well as additional air power on the Eastern Front
that definitely could have made the fighting there even tougher
than it already was.

Speaker 5 (43:51):
I mean, Stalin is a close thing, and so what
what if those resources had been there if you just
kind of assume that after Dunkirk the British are going
to take a while to do anything. Uh also the
Battle of the Atlantic, right, what if your entire U
boat fleet is covering the Baltic keeping you from taking
anything to Russia rather than trying to fight its way

(44:13):
all away across The.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Fighting against against England or did take a lot of
resources away from the from the Germans. And you wonder
if if the Germans had focused on, say, just defensive operations.
It's hard to imagine that after Dunkirk, England would have
been all that capable of large, you know, offensive operations,
especially if the Germans instead of you know, trying to

(44:37):
maintain superiority over the Channel and the Great Britain are
just defending mainland Europe. That's that makes it awfully difficult
to want to send your bombers when you're already in
desperate shape. And that's I mean, that's that's that's a
significant question, of course. I mean we are getting pretty
far off of that way specific.

Speaker 5 (44:57):
But I mean in terms of in terms of the
counter actual here is that what if what if Rommel
hadn't been at Thala, what if Rommel had been at
Stalingrad or a curse, you know.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Rommel had had he was especially noted for his his maneuverability,
his mobile warfare. And that's that was I mean, that
was Russia across those steps. And that's It's true that
Stalingrad was close enough that if you could have devoted
more more of those the U boat squadrons, you know,
keeping the absolutely necessary supplies. I mean, Stalingrad held on

(45:29):
because we were getting supplies into Stalingrad. If you if
you're able to cut off you know, even the significant
portion of that that starts to that starts to make
things look pretty pretty dicey.

Speaker 5 (45:40):
So if so, if Russia collapses, if at some point
the Soviet Union actually does collapse, and yeah, they were
across the vulgar I mean it's not outside you know,
if there's there's a major defeated Stalingrad, if they you know,
take Moscow, whatever they think, if they're pushed back behind
the Urals to try to build their tanks back there,
all the other things they're talking about, if you really
come to a collapse of the Soviet Union, which of
course there was Russia collapsed in the First World War,

(46:03):
If you come to a collapse in the Soviet Union
in nineteen forty three because you didn't contest Africa, because
you weren't engaging in the Battle of Britain, because you're
realizing it's going to take Americans in British a long
time before they can attack anything. So you just defend
fortress Europe and you take those resources there and you
apply them, and you cause Russia to collapse.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
I mean, what do the British and American allies.

Speaker 5 (46:25):
Do I mean, is there a point where you negotiate
peace with Hitler or are we fighting, you know, essentially
over Russia. And there are trees in Russia, so that
it is possible the Bigfoot.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
They got involved on the on the eastern front.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
That's the if we move the whole front, I'm thinking bigfoot.

Speaker 6 (46:46):
I am thinking that the Bigfoot would have been dinizens
of Karelia up near the finish finish order, so Bigfoot
might have been forced to help the defenders at Leningrad
or perhaps the attack.

Speaker 4 (47:02):
We don't know.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
The political stances are the big Foot, we don't know,
and maybe maybe some of them disagree. Maybe we would
have a big foot, So.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Maybe there were big foots on both sides. That is true.

Speaker 5 (47:13):
There is an African bigfoot, what was it called. It's
called a Kulu kamba, but it's most it's in the
jungle parts.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
And this was that's just not what was fought here.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yeah, I've never seen it be a desert a desert
dwelling big foot.

Speaker 5 (47:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
I think that would have been far out of place
to pop up at Dalla. Yeah. So here's here's here's a.

Speaker 6 (47:32):
Couple of thoughts. If falla falls, and again there is
political fallout to the point where American generals are not trusted.
Then we perhaps see minor roles for generals such as
Mark Bradley, George S. Patten, and Mark Clark. I'm not

(47:55):
sure that less of a role for him is necessarily
that idea.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
But.

Speaker 5 (48:02):
I mean, you're right, so the important generals, American generals
there in Western Europe, you know, made them cut their
teeth there in North Africa, and what if you know,
what if they don't get the chance to do that
because American command is just so disgraced.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Yeah, and they mattered, of course, how you look at
the history of it, those are those are the names
that come up because they were the names that were leading,
you know, in those in those fights, and we just start, I.

Speaker 5 (48:28):
Mean, we have wandered aways away, and you know, but
if they had taken Thala, which was a very close thing,
it was very much quite possible. I mean you just
have to look at and say, this is a battle
that could have gone the other way. That cuts off
the ninth Infantry Division. If the US has the entire
ninth Infantry Division, it's cut off and forced to surrender

(48:48):
in mass. How much does that impact because it's nineteen.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Forty three, you know, we're just we're barely into this war.

Speaker 5 (48:55):
How much does this, especially since we're we're not doing
too well in the Pacific at this point? Now, how
much does that affect American morale and the whole well.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
Not the whole point, but one of the points, and
you know, in attacking Africa was that they needed good
news they were they were hopeful to get. And I mean,
I can't think of a comparable loss actually for the
Americans in the war at all of you know, a
whole a whole division like that. Yeah, there were regiments,
but not a whole division. And I mean, does that

(49:25):
mean that FDR loses reelection? Does that mean that the
US shifts towards isolationism again or shifts our goal to
the Pacific instead of the instead of do we decide
that that it's just too great a cost. And that
certainly wasn't that's not outside of the Roman possibility. There
were people in the US arguing that very that very thing,

(49:45):
you know, that it wasn't that it wasn't our job,
that it was going to cost too many American lives
for things that weren't our problem. Those were not unfair
or unthought of points, and that's its potential. You know,
what we learned there was important, but you know, you
have to be able to take what you learned and
use it. And if if you've if the political fallout

(50:06):
is significantly.

Speaker 5 (50:07):
If you lose the people, you lose a war, I
mean's it totally depends. So would it have hardened our
resolve what the Battle of Britain did or would it
have or what was our resolve? You know, dicey at
that point because Castriine Pass was seen as as as
a disaster at a defeat, imagine what it would have been
because we know that the ninth Infantry Division, which was
just trying to regroup, would have been cut off from

(50:29):
its supply potentially if they caught that artillery you know
on the road, you know the loss they're all all
their equipment, roumble's taking you know, fuel supply depots that
we need to supply. You know, then potentially there's you know,
significant losses at a time.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Could the Allies have withstood a.

Speaker 5 (50:48):
Significant loss and kept going because it's it's it's it's honest,
so casual where it kind of like, yeah, it didn't
make a difference. We had the advantage then to the
point where it wouldn't have made a difference. And I'm
not sure that that's true. I'm not sure that it
wouldn't have made a difference.

Speaker 6 (51:01):
Yeah, I think that in the grand scheme of things,
probably what have happened is is that America would have
would have had to pull back and retrench a bit.
We would have seen the same or a very similar
alignment of new commanders, and Patten was kind of the
next guy in line. So Patent in North Africa I

(51:24):
think would still probably happen. However, it's very possible that
what would happen is is that the American doctrine would
be changed to more closely match the British doctrin. And
if we use Montgomery as an example, Montgomery was a
planner and was very methodic, and so instead of kind

(51:46):
of these you know, bigger than life, you know, Patent
running essentially all the way from France through Central Europe
in just a few weeks.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
You know what if.

Speaker 6 (51:59):
He's basically put on a leash and he's only allowed
to attack when the proper so eliza been put in place,
and the equipment is there and the men are lined up.

Speaker 5 (52:12):
That's American bias coming out here. If it had been Montgomery,
would we have lost?

Speaker 1 (52:16):
But I mean, you know, there are some people who
will vociferously disagree with that.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Look at him crossing the Rhine there. I don't know.

Speaker 5 (52:23):
He's revered in the UK and you know, to be fair,
and but that's a good question sake, because he was
a much more cautious commander. Uh And a matter of fact,
Alexander was making that argument to the general. Alexander was
that you need a Patent in charge instead of Montgomery
because he wanted someone that would attack.

Speaker 6 (52:40):
Yeah, Montgomery is not it. It's you know, I you know,
just despite having grown up on a steady diet of
the movie Patent Montgomery is.

Speaker 5 (52:52):
He improves the performance in North Africa almost immediately. But
it is it is true that he had episodes on
that he's kind of sort of famous for waiting until
he has overwhelming numbers and then attacking with his overwhelming numbers.
He's not what you would call daring.

Speaker 6 (53:07):
Yeah, at the same time, he is extremely successful and
he is the man who Betrawal, so you cannot take
that away from him. So the fact that the British
revereer Montgomery. I can understand because he again he was
not a bad commander. However, you know, is he the

(53:27):
type of commander that you need when you know Germany
is beginning to fall apart? MIDI material are becoming scarce
enough that you have opportunities to basically do a Hail Mary,
run around the edge and takes it in given portions
of territory.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
And pat was.

Speaker 5 (53:46):
Certainly have a famous movie and you hear that another
actor had originally, you know, been chosen for that role,
and you wonder how different that movie would have been.
Was Eisenhower absolutely critical to the America or to the
Allied success in Europe? I mean, was there another Personnellity
could do that? If if Casserine had gone differently, might
that have impacted whether it was an American there or
whether they pulled Marshall over because Marshall wanted to go,

(54:08):
you know, the FDR was trying to stop him. So
I guess where I'm trying to put it here is
that this battle, which is I think not you know,
not considered as much as it should be, that I
think was really the most desperate point really of the
Battle of casserine, And there's just just this kind of
attitude that like, oh, you know, casserine, we had the
force there that we would have won anyway, Casserine. It

(54:30):
really wasn't a defeat because we had took it back.
Oh they were out of gas. And I think that
that's too casual. I think in terms of a counterfactual,
the fall of Falla could have had significant ramifications. It
could impact the wider war, and could have impacted the
American elections, and certainly would have been a lot more death,
both in Tunisia and possibly in Italy.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Well, and you know when I when I when we
start every one of these episodes, I've got a bit
that talks about, you know, kind of the concept of
a counterfactual, which is what can we learn about what
did happen from you know, talking about what didn't And
to some extent you can see how decisions that the
Germans had made from the beginning of the war and
other access powers as well, how that was impacting how

(55:12):
the war was going to go from then on. And
so yeah, you can see that that there was you know,
there were Allied reinforcements on the way. The Germans were
unable to dedicate significant reinforcements to Africa, but were unwilling
to pull those forces out. All of that kind of
leads to what happens ultimately, and that at least hinged

(55:34):
a little bit on what happened at Thala, and you know,
was what was there of the tenth Panzer Division. I
think there's almost no question that if they had decided
to attack and had had deliberately and really tried to
push through, the artillery would have made it a more
difficult fight. But I think they would have broken through

(55:54):
by the end of the day. They were already from
I was reading some stuff that showed they were low
on AMMO, they had used much of their AMMO, and
they were they they had I mean that we had
used everything we could against them, which I think was
the only decision, because that was what convinced them to
pull out anyway, was just the volume of fire. You
had to keep them thinking that we hadn't enough AMMO
to keep doing it, even though we didn't. And that's

(56:18):
that's how close that was.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
And that's what's.

Speaker 5 (56:21):
Cool about this isn't midway, right, I mean, this is
a battle that gets one paragraph in Wikipedia that you
can look at and say, yeah, as it doesn't even
have its own page, it gets one paragraph in the
page of another. You know that this really shows how
those that small, that granular fight really could have impacted
the wider war. I think that makes it all look
really really interesting.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
You know, this wasn't going to alter probably the condition
of the world today, but it certainly could have caused
significant impacts at the war. And I mean even if
you just you know what, at length in the war,
by even a handful of months, yeah, you might be
you might be having some.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Significant twenty thousands of lives.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Yeah, yeah, at least spenty thousands of lives, each of one,
each of which matters, and you know, makes a difference.
And I think that when we look at when we're
able to look at such small, granular things, you can
see how sometimes I think we feel like we're not
not to be too too preachy about that, but you know,
we don't feel like we do a lot, but every
little thing adds up to be a bigger Yeah.

Speaker 5 (57:19):
Yeah, for one of a nail, a shoe was lost,
Yeah that that yeah, And that it's too easy sometimes
to say, ah, you know, things are just going to
work out.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
The way things were going to work out.

Speaker 5 (57:28):
We were going to win in North Africa because we
had more, you know, we had we had overwhelming force
or whatever. And to say that there really were spots,
you know that it could have could have changed something.
I think this is one of those I think this
is a bigger hinge point than people realized because it
was so close for the strategic spots, so that they
now they just kind of say, well, you know, it
didn't break, and but there's there's not a lot of well,

(57:50):
you know how close they were. Uh you know, when
we say bent but didn't break, they were awfully bent.
And you know what could that have meant?

Speaker 1 (57:57):
Because I even you know, they they want to talk
about that even if it broke, there that there were
other allied forces and I mean, it wouldn't have meant
the necessarily meant the end of the North African campaign.
But it's I agree that it's hard to say just oh,
there were there were other reinforcements coming, and how those
reinforcements arrive and where they end up defending. I mean

(58:18):
mattered whether we held Stala or not. And you know,
may if Dala had fallen and they had pushed forward another,
you know, two hundred kilometers that might have made the difference.
We might not have retaken that ground in a couple of.

Speaker 5 (58:33):
Weeks, and you know what, look could that amend in
terms of the length of wor to just say, you know,
casually say oh that you know Tanisia was going to
work out the way it did anyway, It's just like
casually saying that after Stalingrad the war was essentially over.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
You know, awful lot of people died after Stalin.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
I'm gonna say none of those none of those sacrifices
were you know, and.

Speaker 5 (58:54):
That you could just go back and say, well, when
you look at the number of tanks that Stalin had
in the end, the Germany was going to.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Lose the war. Well, you know, it's easy to say
it's not.

Speaker 5 (59:04):
Germany could have could have not done well in the
first part of the war, and it might have been,
you know, might have been a small war. I mean,
it was really kind of a surprise how well Germany
did in the Battle of France and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
So but it didn't it worked out the way that
it worked out.

Speaker 5 (59:15):
So uh, I think it's you know, trying to just
kind of mechanistically say, ah, this doesn't matter. I think
when you really get down to where it was, it
did and probably another one hundred other places that we
never really thought of that you know, we're closer than
we than we realize, could have made a difference, and
truly in the outcomes. As I always says, the history,
I always say, history is history. You know, it did happen,

(59:38):
and that's.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
What we got. Some of the battles that we talk about.

Speaker 5 (59:41):
I mean, good golly, you know the whole world could
have changed, you know, and that's that's that's easy to say.
And this is not one of those. This is this
is one to say, well, you know, how much could
it have changed things? Well? Probably probably not the outcome
of the war, but you know, possibly some large ripple effects.
You know, maybe if if eisen how or is not
commander of SHAFE, then as Eisenhower president of the United States,

(01:00:04):
I think obviously not right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
And that I mean that certainly alters a I mean
that's whether whether you want to call you know, Eisenhower
an impactful president or not. Someone like we've said before,
just someone different. Being in that position is world altering.

Speaker 6 (01:00:20):
Yeah, definitely, And there's a very good argument that Eisenhower
was the right man at the right place at the
right time. If you look at how many of these
battles do we start with where Van Arman and Rommel
are arguing about who gets the bulk at the tenth

(01:00:41):
Panzer Division, and the Allies had much the same problem,
not just you know, not not just Monty and Patent,
even though you know the movie makes the point, but
you can make a pretty good argument that every general
at every level, whether it was regimental all the way

(01:01:03):
up to entire army groups or air corps, were fighting
for whatever resources they could get, and Eisenhower was a
master at being able to balance out those voices and
present compromises in such a way that it was palatable
to both sides. Because I can quite honestly see we

(01:01:28):
see it in every war. My favorite one to refer
back to is the American Civil War. You know, there's
a conflict that is rife with political appointees and brilliant
generals and everything in between, and they are all crying
for their piece of the pie at a particular time,
and the personality conflicts between those generals oftentimes were a

(01:01:52):
matter of victory and defeat. And I think that Eisenhower
played his hand very very well.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Thank you for listening to this episode of the History
Guy podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode of counterfactual history,
and if you did, you can find lots more history
if you follow the History Guy on YouTube. You can
also find us at the historyguid dot com, Facebook, Patreon,
and locals. If you want to hear more counterfactuals, stay tuned.
We release podcasts every two weeks
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