First Victory: 1941

1941. Before Montgomery''s victory at El Alamein and the American entry into the war, Britain and her Empire stood alone and on the brink of defeat. As Hitler launched Barbarossa, a triple threat emerged from the Middle East - nationalists in Iraq sought an alliance with Germany, the Vichy regime in Syria was ready to welcome Nazi troops and Iran''s neutrality threatened supply and communication channels to the Empire and the ailing Soviet Union.

Further, control of the Middle East meant control of oil, the essential lubricant of modern warfare. For the British war effort, the cost of defeat in the region was unthinkable.

Churchill was wrong when he famously pronounced ''Before El Alamein Britain never had a victory; after El Alamein she never suffered a defeat''. In First Victory, the acclaimed historian Robert Lyman tells a
gripping narrative of a series of vital victories that heralded the real turning point in Britain''s fortunes. Until now, these extraor