22. Logistics Meant That North Africa Was Destined to be a Peripheral Theater for Germany in WWII
The most dramatic part about the myth of the Middle East’s importance concerns Hitler’s war plans. Grand designs about seizing the rest of the Middle East, or bigger ones such as using the region as a base to attack the USSR from the south were nonstarters. The Germans lacked the shipping capacity to supply a force large enough for such goals. Throughout the North African Campaign, the Axis had struggled to keep the Italians and the Afrika Korps minimally supplied, and often fell short.
This, with a force close to the shortest supply routes from Italy. The Axis lacked the shipping capacity to adequately supply a force as negligible as the four German divisions of the Afrika Korps positioned nearby and close to the sea. It is inconceivable that they could have supplied a much larger force that could have overrun the Middle East. Let alone supply a force big enough to impact the gargantuan war against the USSR, where the Germans and Soviets pitted hundreds of divisions against each other.