The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power

by Daniel Yergin

While the Soviets held on in the Caucasus, the Allies had succeeded, despite ferocious German attacks, in retaining the Mediterranean island of Malta, off the coast of Libya, which gave them a base from which to attack the Axis shipping that supplied Rommel’s forces in North Africa. The Allies were further aided by their intercepts of the German and Italian codes. Moreover, the supply aircraft of the Luftwaffe were themselves beginning to run short of fuel. The Italian supply ships were no longer getting through to North Africa. And Rommel’s very success—the incredible distance that the Afrika Korps had traveled—created a dangerous vulnerability. His own supply lines were very long, and the fuel trucks traveling from Tripoli used more gasoline to get to the front and back than they were able to carry. By driving so far and so incessantly fast, Rommel had not only called up the quartermaster’s nightmare, but had also put the Panzer Army in a position of considerable risk. Still, he thought victory was shortly to be his. On June 28, 1942, he wrote his wife to plan on a July vacation together in Italy. “Get passports!” he said.