North African Campaign - Western Desert Campaign

Western Desert Campaign

On 10 June 1940, the Kingdom of Italy aligned itself with Nazi Germany and declared war upon France and the United Kingdom. British forces based in Egypt were ordered to undertake defensive measures, but to act as non-provocative as possible. However, on 11 June they began a series of raids against Italian positions in Libya. Following the defeat of France on 25 June, Italian forces in Tripolitania—facing French troops based in Tunisia—redeployed to Cyrenaica to reinforce the Italian 10th Army. This, coupled with the steadily degrading equipment of the British forces led General Archibald Wavell to order an end to raiding and placed the defence of the Egyptian border to a small screening force.

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered that the 10th Army was to invade Egypt by 8 August. Two days later, no invasion having been launched, Mussolini ordered Marshal Graziani that the moment German forces launched Operation Sea Lion, he was to attack. On 8 September, the Italians—hampered by the lack of transport and enfeebled by the low level of training among officers and weakened by the state of its supporting arms— were ordered to invade Egypt the following day. The battle plan was to advance along the coastal road while limited armoured forces operated on the desert flank. To counter the Italian advance, Wavell ordered his screening forces to harass the advancing Italians, falling back towards Mersa Matruh, where the main British infantry force was based. Positioned on the desert flank was the 7th Armoured Division, which would strike into the flank of the Italian force.

By 16 September, the Italian force had advanced to Maktila, around 80 mi (130 km) west of Mersa Matruh, where they halted due to supply problems. Despite Mussolini urging for the advance to carry on, Graziani ordered his force to dig in around Sidi Barrani, and fortified camps were established in forward locations; additional troops were also positioned behind the main force. In response to the dispersed Italian camps, the British planned a limited five-day attack, Operation Compass, to strike at the fortified camps one by one. The British Commonwealth force, totalling 36,000 men, attacked the forward elements of the 10-division-strong Italian army on 9 December. Following the initial success, the forces of Operation Compass pursued the retreating Italian forces. In January, the fortified towns of Bardia and Tobruk were captured and the fleeing Italians were cut off at Beda Fomm by the 7th Armoured Division, who had crossed the western desert. At the Battle of Beda Fomm, the remnants of the Italian army surrendered. Within 10 weeks, Allied forces had reached El Agheila and destroyed the Italian Tenth Army, taking 130,000 prisoners of war.

The Italians responded by dispatching motorised and armoured reinforcements to Africa beginning in February 1941 and continuing until early May; Operation Sonnenblume saw the German Afrika Korps—under the command of Erwin Rommel—arrive in Tripoli to reinforce their Italian allies with orders to block Allied attempts to drive the Italians out of the region. The forward Allied forces—now named XIII Corps—adopted a defensive posture and over the coming months was built up before having most of its force redeployed to Greece while the 7th Armoured Division was withdrawn to the Nile Delta. In their place inexperienced, ill-equipped, and under-strength forces were deployed.

Although Rommel had been ordered to simply hold the line, an armoured reconnaissance soon became a fully fledged offensive from El Agheila in March 1941. In March–April, the Allied forces were forced back and leading general officers captured. The Australian 9th Infantry Division fell back to the fortress port of Tobruk, and the remaining British and Commonwealth forces withdrew a further 100 mi (160 km) east to the Libyan–Egyptian border. With Tobruk under siege from the main German-Italian force, a small battlegroup continued to press eastwards. Capturing Fort Capuzzo and Bardia in passing, it then advanced into Egypt, and by the end of April had taken Sollum and the tactically important Halfaya Pass. Rommel garrisoned these positions, reinforcing the battlegroup and ordering it onto the defensive.

Tobruk's garrison—although isolated by land—continued to receive supplies and support from the Royal Navy, and Rommel was unable to take the port. This failure was significant; his front line positions at Sollum were at the end of an extended supply chain that stretched back to Tripoli and was threatened by the Tobruk garrison, and the substantial commitment required to invest Tobruk prevented him from building up his forces at Sollum, making further advances into Egypt impractical. The Allies had regained the initiative by maintaining possession of Tobruk.

The inaction of both sides would, however, not last for much longer. The Allied forces soon after launched a small attack, Operation Brevity, in an attempt to push the Axis forces back over the border. Brevity was followed up by a larger scale offensive, Operation Battleaxe, intended to relieve the siege at Tobruk; this operation also failed.

The Allied forces reorganised during the stalemate. Claude Auchinleck succeeded Archibald Wavell as commander in chief Middle East Command, and the Western Desert Force was reinforced with a second Corps to form the new Eighth Army, which was at that time made up of units from the British Army, Australian Army, the British Indian Army, the New Zealand Army and the South African Army. There was also a brigade of Free French under Marie-Pierre Koenig. The new formation launched a new offensive—Operation Crusader—in November 1941. By January 1942, joint operations had resulted in the recapture of all the territory only recently captured by the Germans and Italians. As a consequence, and once again, the front line (axis of advance) would be El Agheila.

After receiving supplies and reinforcements from Tripoli, the Axis again attacked, defeating the Allies at the Gazala in June and capturing Tobruk. The Axis forces drove the Eighth Army back over the Egyptian border, where their advance was stopped in July only 90 mi (140 km) from Alexandria in the First Battle of El Alamein.

General Claude Auchinleck, who had personally assumed command of the Eighth Army following the defeat at Gazala, was sacked following the First Battle of El Alamein and was replaced by General Harold Alexander. Lieutenant-General William Gott was initially given command of the Eighth Army. He was killed en route to take up his command and replaced by Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery. Montgomery would ultimately take command of the Eighth for the remainder of the Desert War.

The Axis forces made a new attempt to break through to Cairo at the end of June at Alam Halfa but were pushed back. After a period of build-up and training, the Eighth launched a major offensive, decisively defeating the German-Italian army during the Second Battle of El Alamein, in late October 1942. The Eighth Army then pushed the Axis forces westward, capturing Tripoli in mid-January 1943. By February, Eighth Army was facing the German-Italian Panzer Army near the Mareth Line and came under command of General Harold Alexander's 18th Army Group for the concluding phase of the war in North Africa, the Tunisia Campaign.