North African Campaign

I

Introduction

North African Campaign, name given to the series of battles and actions between the Axis and Allied forces in Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia from 1940 to 1943 during World War II (1939-1945). Benito Mussolini, Italy’s fascist dictator, had long harbored ambitions upon the colonial possessions of France and the British Empire in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Mussolini wanted to extend Italian control from Libya and Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) to include French North Africa (Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco) and the British protectorate of Egypt. Meanwhile, British defense planning in the 1930s emphasized the need to defend Egypt to ensure control of the Suez Canal and maintain British influence throughout the wider Middle East.

When Britain and France declared war upon Nazi Germany in September 1939, Mussolini hesitated to join forces with his fascist ally. It was only when France was clearly on the verge of collapse, on June 10, 1940, that Mussolini declared war, believing that this moment provided the best opportunity to realize his goal of bringing the Mediterranean region under Italian control.

II

Course of the Campaign

Mussolini’s ambitions were soon frustrated. French North Africa remained in the hands of the Vichy French regime after the armistice with Germany, while British defense of Egypt proved tougher than expected. Italian Army Marshal Rodolfo Graziani invaded Egypt from Libya in September 1940 with 150,000 men, but his advance halted at Sidi Barrani, just 100 km (60 mi) inside the frontier. The British reaction was long delayed, but when its Operation Compass was launched in December 1940, it soon resulted in the destruction of the Italian forces in Egypt. The Western Desert Force, under Britain’s Lieutenant-General Richard O’Connor, followed up the success, seizing Bardiyah and Tobruk and finally destroying the Italian Tenth Army at Beda Fomm in February 1941.

It appeared that the British might go on to capture Tripoli and eject the Italians from North Africa. German dictator Adolf Hitler had, up until this point, seen North Africa, and indeed the entire Mediterranean theater, as a distraction from his much larger ambition to defeat the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Indeed, this remained his view of the conflict throughout the following two years of fighting. Nonetheless, he decided to send the already-famous Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel to command a small German mechanized force to shore up the Italian position in Libya. These troops became known as the Afrika Korps (Panzerarmee Afrika), and Rommel soon earned a reputation as a master of desert warfare.

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III

The Afrika Korps and Allied Reverses

Rommel’s first offensive from El Agheila in Libya in April 1941 took the British completely by surprise. Not only had the veterans of the Western Desert Force been removed for the unsuccessful campaign to defend Greece, but also British intelligence had calculated that the Germans could not mount an offensive for a number of months. Rommel’s German and Italian forces soon drove the British out of Cyrenaica, the western province of Libya, but failed to overcome the defenses of Tobruk, a vital Libyan port, which were held tenaciously by the 9th Australian Division.

Two hastily mounted offensives in May and June 1941, codenamed Brevity and Battleaxe, failed to relieve Tobruk and led to the replacement of General Archibald Wavell as Commander-in-Chief Middle East by General Claude Auchinleck. However, the nine-month siege of Tobruk enabled the British to recover and build up their strength to mount a properly resourced offensive, named Operation Crusader, in November 1941. Crusader saw some of the fiercest and most confused fighting of the North African campaign. With his supply lines crippled by the actions of British naval and air forces based on the island of Malta (on the sea route between Italy and Libya), Rommel was forced to retreat back to El Agheila.

The fighting in North Africa was intimately linked to air and naval battles in the Mediterranean. When the pressure on Rommel’s sea lines of communication was relaxed, the Axis forces were quickly reinforced and able to take the offensive once again in January 1942. Against weakened opposition, Rommel quickly pushed the British back to the Gazala line, which had been constructed in front of Tobruk. After a sustained “battle of supply” in which both sides attempted to build up their forces, Rommel finally struck against the Gazala line on May 26, 1942.

The Afrika Korps used all their skill in mobile warfare and desert fighting to outmaneuver the British Eighth Army, which was fixed in a series of static and unsupported positions. Nevertheless, Rommel and his desert veterans became pinned into an area known as the “Cauldron” and came within hours of defeat. Slow British reactions enabled Rommel to seize the initiative again and inflict a comprehensive defeat upon the Eighth Army. This left the port of Tobruk vulnerable to assault and, in just two days of fighting, Rommel managed to capture the fortress on June 21, 1942, after it had held out for more than nine months the year before. More than 25,000 troops and vast quantities of supplies were captured by the Axis forces.

IV

The Battles of El ‘Alamein

Rommel disobeyed his orders to halt on the Egyptian frontier and wait until the island of Malta had been captured before continuing his offensive. Instead, he pursued the defeated Eighth Army deep into Egypt. An attempted stand by the British at Marsá Maţrūḩ ended in fiasco, and on July 1, 1942, the Eighth Army was forced to make its final attempt to halt the Axis forces at El ‘Alamein, just 100 km (60 mi) from the Egyptian city of Alexandria. This was the decisive moment of the entire campaign for the British.

After three days of fighting, Rommel was forced to admit that his attempt to reach Alexandria had failed. However, the fighting continued throughout July as both armies struggled to destroy one another. Eventually both were exhausted and a lull developed that lasted until the end of August 1942. British prime minister Winston Churchill visited Egypt that month and decided to replace General Auchinleck with General Harold Alexander as the Commander-in-Chief Middle East and appoint General Bernard Law Montgomery as the new commander of the Eighth Army after his original choice, General William Gott, was killed in an air attack.

This new command team reenergized the British Eighth Army at the same moment as Rommel’s abilities as a commander were fading due to illness and the loss of important intelligence sources. Rommel’s last attempt to reach the cities of Egypt foundered at the end of August 1942 against the firm defense of the Eighth Army and a critical lack of fuel due to the renewed British air and naval effort in the Mediterranean.

Rommel left Egypt for Germany to recover his health while the British built up their forces and trained intensively to mount their own offensive. It was not until October 23, 1942, that Montgomery finally opened the attack on the Afrika Korps in the second Battle of El ‘Alamein. Rommel was forced to return to Egypt after the death of his replacement but soon found that his army was being overwhelmed by the superior firepower and resources of the reinvigorated Eighth Army. After 12 days and nights of intense combat, Rommel was forced to order a withdrawal that soon turned into a full retreat, even in the face of a “stand fast” order from Hitler. While most of the rear elements of the Axis forces escaped the subsequent pursuit, the combat elements of the Afrika Korps were virtually destroyed during and after the battle. This hard-won victory cost the British 13,000 casualties while the Axis suffered an estimated 20,000 casualties with another 28,000 being taken prisoner.

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