Seven Reasons

Like a wave running up a beach, the sweeping force of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's thrust toward Tobruk had by last week slowed, thinned, sunk into the sand. What worried the British was how far the next wave might go.

In Cyrenaica sunburned, sand-scoured soldiers of the Afrika Korps and the British Imperial forces did no more than skirmish on a line some 60 miles southwest of Tobruk. Both sides were busy getting a toe hold, bringing up supplies and reinforcements. Both air forces pounded away at each other's supply lines.

In the comparative quiet, a warning voice was heard from Cairo. Able War Correspondent Alan Moorhead cabled to the London Express six cogent reasons why the Axis counterattack had succeeded, why the previous British thrust had stalled. They were:

1) Failure of the British to supply their forward lines after the last advance.

2) Failure to hold Bengasi long enough to fortify it.

3) "The weight and vigor of the German Panzer divisions, which at vital moments took possession of the battlefields so that they could repair their damaged tanks--and ours."

4) Rommel's seizure of British fuel dumps to supply himself as he went along.

5) The surprise tactics of the advance: a feint across the desert, then an attack in force along the coastal road.

6) "Sheer exhaustion" on the part of the British.

Not mentioned by Correspondent Moorhead, but quite as important as any of these, was the fact that British seapower no longer controls the Mediterranean.

To Allied observers, certain that Rommel would make another push, it seemed that much the same reasons might account for further Axis successes. From the tempo of British air and sea attacks on Tripoli and the Mediterranean convoy route, it was obvious that Rommel was taking good care to supply himself well before he advanced again.

Most important, Rommel and his Army were not yet exhausted. "Sooner or later," said Correspondent Moorhead, "Rommel is going to get tired, really tired. But not, I think, before the end of this year."

By the end of this year Rommel might have reached Suez.

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