Destiny in the Desert

The book outlines two important World War II battles fought in the area:

The First Battle of El Alamein (1–27 July 1942): This saw the advance of Axis troops on Alexandria. The Allies blunted this, stopping the German Panzers that were trying to outflank their position.

The Second Battle of El Alamein (23 October – 4 November 1942): Here the Allied forces broke the Axis line. They then forced them back to Tunisia. Winston Churchill, said of this victory: “Now this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” After the war, he wrote: “Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein, we never had a defeat.”

Dimbleby describes the political and strategic realities that lay behind the battle. He charts the months that led to the victory. Drawing on official records and the personal insights of those involved, he sketches a vivid portrait of this struggle, placing it in the context of global grand strategy

Dimbleby appears to acknowledge that these battles were strategically irrelevant to the loftier purpose of defeating Nazi Germany. But on the other seems reluctant to debunk Churchill. Therefore, he devises some (ultimately unconvincing) counterfactual reasons why it should be celebrated.

The book could have done with some more editing to reign in Dimbleby's highly adjectival style. This grates after a while and steers him too often into the swamp of cliché.