Niall Barr's Pendulum of War is on the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa in World War II. In modern British history this is the battle that swung the momentum of World War II to the allies. Along with Stalingrad and Guadalcanal it is seen as a turning point.

In British political terms it was probably necessary as the industrial and military might of the United States was starting to turn its attention to North Africa and Churchill needed some victory to lay a claim to British military competency.

Barr divides the battle into three phases. Rommel's initial advance against the British, Auchinleck's counter attack offensive and finally Montgomery's successful offensive which is what the battle is known for in British military history.

Rommel's initial success on the advance to Cairo was due to the high quality of his armoured and mechanized troops. Their tanks were superior to the British tanks and the anti-tank guns the British, Australian, New Zealand, South African and Indian forces had.

The anti-tank guns that they British had were only good at very short range and usually required the British to setup traps so that German tanks would literally go past the guns before they fired into the weakly armoured sides and rear of the tanks. With better guns and tanks starting to arrive during the second and third battles it gave the British better chances against the German armour.

One of Rommels tactics was to ruthlessly counter-attack after any Allied advance against his position. One of the problems the British had was that they would advance at night with infantry after clearing a path through the minefields. The infantry would get established, but the tanks and anti-tank guns would not get into place before morning.

When Rommel's tanks and mechanized infantry inevitably counter-attacked the next morning the British infantry would be isolated without armour and anti-tank gun support and either be annihilated or be forced to surrender. The infantry did not like this and often blamed the British tanks for being to slow and not coming forward to support them.

Under Montgomery this was overcome by increased training for the next offensive and by centralized artillery support. Both of these started under Auchinleck but Montgomery did manage to hold off Churchill's impatience until the forces were fully trained as integrated units. When the advances were made in the third battle of El Alamein the infantry was well supported by tank and anti-tank guns as well as a powerful centralized artillery that rained shells down on any counter attack attempts.

Rommel had his own difficulties. He was highly aggressive and advanced multiple times when he should not have but by the Battle of El Alamein he was running out of tanks, German infantry and worse petrol and ammunition.

After the advance from Tobruk he managed to replenish from the British ammunition and supply dumps that he captured along the way which provided him with shells and petrol. After the defeat at the first battle of El Alamein this essentially ran out. During the third battle he was unable to counter attack due to lack of fuel. There was not even enough for his German and Italian armies to retreat as a mechanized force.

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