{"id":233297,"date":"2025-10-22T20:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T20:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/233297\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T20:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T20:21:13","slug":"today-in-history-october-23-nazi-general-thought-hed-spotted-a-huge-army-but-the-truth-left-him-fuming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/233297\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – October 23: Nazi general thought he’d spotted a huge army, but the truth left him fuming"},"content":{"rendered":"

A\ufeff pivotal battle during World War II began on October 23, 1942, with Australian troops playing a key role.<\/p>\n

The Battle of El Alamein in North Africa opened with a thunderous artillery barrage by 800 heavy guns.<\/p>\n

Soldiers from the Australian 9th Division, under the command of British General Bernard Montgomery, were among the first to advance on the lines of their German and Italian enemies.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Australian soldiers fought bravely but suffered heavy casualties during the Battle of El Alamein in 1942. (UK Imperial War Museums)<\/p>\n

But nearly all were unaware of an elaborate deception ordered by Montgomery to fool his adversary, Nazi General Erwin Rommel, commander of the German Afrika Corps.<\/p>\n

Rommel had proved a masterful military commander who had recorded victory after victory over his British-led adversaries.<\/p>\n

Montgomery, even though he had amassed a powerful army far outnumbering Rommel’s forces, realised \ufeffguns and manpower were not enough to defeat his foe.<\/p>\n

He devised Operation Bertram – a plan aimed at fooling German commanders \ufeffthat the Allies would launch an attack to the south of El Alamein, instead of the north where a valuable highway was located.<\/p>\n

By early October 1942, an entire “ghost army” had been created of wooden tanks, artillery guns and trucks, with the help of filmmakers, illusionists and intelligence experts recruited by Montgomery’s staff.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/German World War II General Erwin Rommel in North Africa. (public domain)<\/p>\n

German spies and reconnaissance planes convinced Rommel they’d spotted a force of up to 15,000 soldiers, when in reality there was none.<\/p>\n

Rommel, who was in Germany receiving dental treatment \ufeffwhen the Battle of El Alamein started, was taken by total surprise and rushed back to take control of his stunned armies.<\/p>\n

But despite their dogged resistance, the German and Italian troops were steadily pushed back.\ufeff<\/p>\n

The initial Australian attack tied up all of Rommel’s best troops, enabling the British, New Zealanders, Indians, South Africans, French and Poles to make a major breakthrough.<\/p>\n

A week of fierce fighting followed, with the Australians grinding their way forward over well-defended enemy positions, taking key positions such as Thompson’s Post, the Fig Orchard, the Blockhouse and the Saucer.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/A fake tank built by British army engineers for the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942. (public domain)<\/p>\n

The Battle of El Alamein succeeded in maintaining Allied control of Egypt and the all-important Suez Canal.\ufeff<\/p>\n

But it came at a high cost; more than 1000 Australian troops were killed and some 3600 injured during the fighting.<\/p>\n

Although there was more than two years of hard fighting to go until Nazi Germany was defeated\ufeff, the seeds of Allied success were sown in the North African battle. \ufeff<\/p>\n

British wartime leader and prime minister, Winston Churchill, described El Alamein and the North Africa campaign as the “end of the beginning” in World War II.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\ufeff pivotal battle during World War II began on October 23, 1942, with Australian troops playing a key…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-233297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}