"North Africa was the site of some of the most volatile battles of World War II. For journalist Alan Moorehead, it was war in its purest form, "a knight's tournament in empty space."" "In Desert War, which includes the complete texts of The Mediterranean Front, A Year of Battle, and The End of Africa, Moorehead writes about what he saw. He recounts with dazzling prose and intimate detail the heroes and legends, the soldiers and prisoners, the military strategies, the strengths and weaknesses of those involved, and portraits of generals Rommel, Montgomery, and Patton. Woven throughout are observations on the landscape, the Mediterranean shores and the vast desert, which inevitably played a role in shaping the battles. For Moorehead, "desert warfare resembled war at sea. Men moved by compass. No position was static. Each truck or tank was as individual as a destroyer."" "Written by a man who lived and breathed the conflict in North Africa during World War II, Desert War is a eyewitness account and an inspired piece of writing by a master of his craft."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Alan Moorehead was a peerless war correspondent who covered the entire war in North Africa from 1940-1943. The trilogy of books he wrote on the prolonged battles between Montgomery's Eighth Army and Rommel's Afrika Corps immediately drew universal acclaim, and remains and epic account as extraordinary now as it was then. This reissue of Alan Moorehead's classic trilogy on the North Africa campaign 1940-1943 will coinide with the 75th anniversary of the Battles for El Alamein in July and October 1942.

At the height of his power in January 1941 Hitler made the fateful decision to send troops to North Africa to save the beleaguered Italian army from defeat. Martin Kitchen's masterful history of the Axis campaign provides a fundamental reassessment of the key battles of 1941-3, Rommel's generalship, and the campaign's place within the broader strategic context of the war. He shows that the British were initially helpless against the operational brilliance of Rommel's Panzer divisions. However Rommel's initial successes and refusal to follow orders committed the Axis to a campaign well beyond their means. Without the reinforcements or supplies he needed to deliver a knockout blow, Rommel was forced onto the defensive and Hitler's Mediterranean strategy began to unravel. The result was the loss of an entire army which together with defeat at Stalingrad signalled a decisive shift in the course of the war.

The most famous battles of one of World War II's most legendary commanders Told largely from Rommel's perspective, using his papers and letters In a series of battles marked by daring raids and quick-armored thrusts against a numerically superior enemy, Erwin Rommel, the notorious Desert Fox, and his Afrika Korps waged one of World War II's toughest campaigns in the North African desert in 1942. The Axis campaign climaxed in June with the recapture of Tobruk, a triumph that netted 33,000 prisoners and earned Rommel a field marshal's baton. By fall, however, after setbacks at Alam Halfa and the 2 battles of El Alamein, the Afrika Korps teetered on the brink of defeat, which would come in Tunisia 6 months later.

Chased each other back and forth across the unforgiving North African landscape. Book jacket.

In this text, Field Marshal Lord Carver has used newly available first-hand historical resources to reassess the story of the British campaign in the North African desert. History shows that several key figures in these battles were wrongly criticised.