About Wavell.. He was good against the Italians, but way in over his head against Rommel, who possessed fewer resources than the British. Also, the British force structure was incompatible to fighting a fluid battle in the desert. British tactics originally considered tanks to be infantry support vehicles, and not as the major unit of maneuver, which the infantry should be tasked to support, as the Germans and Americans operated. Wholly different ways of fighting a war, and only through massive superiority against a weakened and unsupplied Afrika Korps, was Montgomery able to achieve his victory at El Alemain. And even then, had it not been for the Quatara Depression, which prevented German flanking maneuvers to the south, Montgomery probably would have been defeated as well.
Btw, Wavell went on to further infamy by being responsible for the fall of Singapore to Yamashita. And as I recall, this was considered quite an embarrassment given the relative lack of resistance offered to the Japanese:
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