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those responsible had to roll. Heads other than his own. In mid-June Wavell received the axe he had failed to administer to the Germans. He was ordered to exchange posts with the Commander-in- Chief India, General Auchinleck.
    The day alter Churchill had dispatched the relevant telegrams Hitler’s armies had rolled across the Soviet frontier and created a new long-term threat to the British position in the Middle East. The military seers in London had little faith in the Red Army’s capabilities; rather they saw the German progress through Russia as a long approach-march aimed on the oilfields of the Caucasus, Iran and Iraq. The distances involved promised a few months grace, but not much more. The newly-named Eighth Army would have to defeat Rommel in the Western Desert, secure North Africa, and be available for redeployment in northern Iraq before the first panzers came rumbling across the Caucasus mountains. Churchill made this very clear to the newly-appointed Auchinleck in a telegram of 19 July:
    “If we do not use the lull accorded to us by the German entanglement in Russia to restore the situation in Cyrenaica the opportunity may never recur. A month has passed since the failure at Sollum (‘Battleaxe’), and presumably another month may have to pass before a renewed effort is possible. This interval should certainly give plenty of time for training. It would seem justifiable to fight a hard and decisive battle in the Western Desert before the situation changes to our detriment, and to run those major risks without which victory has rarely been gained.”
    But, much to the Prime Minister’s dismay, it soon became apparent that Auchinleck had some ideas of his own. If both wished for a swift victory over Rommel, Auchinleck doubted whether the swiftness Churchill had in mind would produce victory at all. When the Prime Minister pointed to the unprecedented level of forces now flowing into Egypt, his resident C-in-C stressed the need for more, and the time it would take to absorb and condition the ones already arriving. This Churchill saw as excessive caution. He also criticised, on political grounds - there were not enough British troops fighting in the ‘British’ desert army - Auchinleck’s deployment of British troops in Cyprus. This Auchinleck saw as excessive meddling, ‘I hope you will leave me complete discretion concerning dispositions of this kind,’ he tartly replied, presumably more in hope than expectation.
    Auchinleck was called to London at the end of July, and subjected to the military grilling of the Chiefs of Staff and the personal magnetism of Britain’s War Lord. He came out of both intact, though firmly resolved not to go through the latter again if it could possibly be avoided. He also secured sanction for delaying the long-awaited offensive against Rommel until November 1. Churchill had reluctantly concurred in the face of united military opposition.
    Once back in Egypt Auchinleck got down to the more agreeable business of preparing ‘Crusader’, the offensive his superiors expected would drive Rommel out of Cyrenaica and perhaps Africa as a whole. They were living in a dream. Certainly Eighth Army’s strength in men and arms was growing, but men and arms do not an army make. It is the relationship between them which wins or loses battles, and in Eighth Army it was a far from satisfactory one.
    Tanks were being hoisted out of ships’ hulls in Suez harbour, but the savoir faire necessary for their effective use was harder to come by. Few British generals had grasped the principles of tank warfare, most of those that had were either dead or in POW camps. Auchinleck ignored the few that were still available. To command Eighth Army, against the wishes of Whitehall, he chose General Cunningham, recent victor in the Abyssinian campaign, who knew as much about tanks as Rommel knew about prudence.
    Some of Cunningham’s corps and divisional commanders thought they understood tank warfare,