Operation Brevity - Background

Background

In early September 1940, Italian forces based in Libya invaded Egypt, and three months later the British and Commonwealth troops of the Western Desert Force began a counter-offensive, codenamed Operation Compass. In two months, the Allies advanced 500 mi (800 km), occupying the Italian province of Cyrenaica and destroying the Italian 10th Army, but the operation was halted in February 1941 to give priority to the Battle of Greece. Renamed XIII Corps and reorganised under HQ Cyrenaica Command, the troops of the former Western Desert Force adopted a defensive posture. Over the next few months, HQ Cyrenaica lost its commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, and the New Zealand 2nd and Australian 6th infantry divisions when they were redeployed to Greece. The British 7th Armoured Division, with virtually no serviceable tanks left after Compass, was also withdrawn and sent to the Nile Delta for rest and refitting. In recompense, Wilson was replaced by Lieutenant-General Philip Neame and the British 2nd Armoured and Australian 9th Infantry Divisions were deployed to Cyrenaica, but both formations were inexperienced, ill-equipped, and in the case of the 2nd Armoured, under strength.

The Italians responded by despatching their Ariete and Trento Divisions to North Africa, and beginning in February 1941 and continuing until early May, Operation Sonnenblume saw the German Afrika Korps arrive in Tripoli to reinforce their Italian allies. Commanded by General Erwin Rommel and consisting of the 5th Light and 15. Panzerdivisions, the Afrika Korps' mission was to block Allied attempts to drive the Italians out of the region. However, Rommel seized on the weakness of his opponents and, without waiting for his forces to fully assemble, rapidly went on the offensive. In March–April, he destroyed the 2nd Armoured Division and forced the British and Commonwealth forces into retreat. Adding to the Allied discomfiture, Neame and the General Officer Commanding British Troops Egypt—Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor—were captured, and the British and Commonwealth command structure had to be reorganised. HQ Cyrenaica was dissolved on 14 April, and its command functions taken over by the reactivated HQ Western Desert Force under Lieutenant-General Noel Beresford-Peirse. 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 Sollum on the Libyan–Egyptian border. With Tobruk under siege from the main German-Italian force, a small battlegroup (Kampfgruppe) commanded by Maximilian von Herff continued to press eastward. 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. By maintaining possession of Tobruk, the Allies had regained the initiative.