| The Battle of Crete: Important or Insignificant? |

The Battle of Crete began May 20th, 1941. Nazi Germany launched an airborne attack called Operation Merkur or Operation Mercury on the island of Crete. This battle will be important because it will hold great influence over the course of the war in the means of power. The Greek, Allied forces and even civilians attempted to defend the island and after day one the Germans suffered heavy casualties. The next day, the Allies were confident they could gain control back but they would have miscommunications that would lead to Germany gaining Maleme Airfield and flying in reinforcements to overwhelm the defenders of the island. This research is being used to answer the question why the …show more content…

This is when the British were under terrible strain from fighting. Luckily for Britain, the Germans were equally exhausted. In the end, Crete represented a severe strategic blow to the Allies. The island would have provided Britain a base to intercept Romanian oil and a position to supply arms to resistance forces throughout Greece. For the German side of this battle, Crete was hardly a success because they faced many casualties including those in Greece and Yugoslavia. To conclude for Hitler, the Mediterranean campaign was used as a diversion yet, this still did not help the Germans with their advancement into the Soviet Union. Since the Germans were relying heavily on the Italians to take control of Crete and the Italians were unable to do this task, Hitler had to take Crete with his own troops. It seems that Germany never intended to allow the Italians to preserve a separate sphere of influence. To put it lightly, the Battle of Crete served no use to the Germans in the long run of the war. However, the Battle of Crete served to be important for the course of the rest of the war. The importance of Italy is hard-pressed to conclude because the British and Americans would have had to beat the Italians to get to the Germans, yet even though the British got rid of the Italians they did not manage to get to the Germans until the end of 1943. The failure of Italy caused for the Germans to intervene, but it was not necessarily the direct