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.