The dash to the wire: Rommel's gamble on the frontier

By late November 1941, Cyrenaica has become a cauldron. Since the 18th, the British have been waging Operation Crusader, a vast offensive by General Cunningham's 8th Army aimed at breaking the siege of Tobruk and annihilating your armour. The opening days have turned to your advantage: around Sidi Rezegh, your panzers have inflicted heavy losses on the 7th Armoured Division and blunted the enemy's momentum. But the advantage is fragile: your tanks are wearing out, fuel struggles to cross the Mediterranean, and enemy reinforcements keep pouring in from Egypt.

On 24 November, an intoxicating piece of intelligence reaches you: the British rear, near the frontier, seems stripped bare, the depots poorly guarded, the staffs in a flutter. You sense the chance to turn a tactical success into a strategic rout. But caution whispers the opposite: your formations are dispersed, exhausted, low on ammunition, the New Zealand division is advancing dangerously towards Tobruk, and a poorly calibrated stroke of audacity could cut you off from your own bases.

Before the map, at Sidi Omar, on that ribbon of barbed wire separating Libya from Egypt, you weigh the moment when everything could tip. Three roads open before you, and each one stakes the fate of the Afrikakorps.