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Western Desert Campaign
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Western Desert Campaign |
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| Compass – Sonnenblume – Tobruk – Brevity – Battleaxe – Crusader – Gazala – Bir Hakeim – 1st Alamein – Alam Halfa – Agreement – 2nd Alamein |
The Western Desert Campaign, also known as the Desert War was the initial stage of the North African Campaign of The Second World War.
It was continuous back-and-forth struggle with the first major move initiated in late 1940 by Italian forces in Libya against Commonwealth forces stationed in Egypt. This attack was quickly halted and countered though, resulting in massive casualties (primarily POWs) against Italian forces. To prevent total collapse, the Italian's fellow Axis member, Germany, provided a contingent of forces which soon became the dominant partner. Axis forces would twice more launch large-scale assaults against their Allied counterparts, each time pushing Allied forces back to Egypt; both times though, the Allies retaliated and regained lost ground. On the last such assault, in early 1943, the Allies managed to drive Axis forces west out of Libya and into Tunisia, setting up the following Tunisia Campaign.
After entering World War II, the United States supplied a small air force contingent in support of the campaign, referring to it as the Egypt-Libya Campaign.
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The United Kingdom had had forces in Egypt since 1884, but much reduced as a result of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. The relatively modest forces were primarily to protect the Suez Canal, which was vital to Britain's communications with her Far Eastern territories.
However, since 1938, they included Mobile Force (Egypt), one of the two British armoured training formations, under Major General Percy Hobart. On the outbreak of war this was renamed Armoured Division (Egypt) and then 7th Armoured Division and served as the principal force defending the Egypt-Libya border at the start of the war.
Libya had been an Italian colony since its conquest from the Ottoman Empire in 1911-1912. The principal force on the border there was Tenth Army at the outbreak of war.
On 11 June 1940, the day after Italy declared war on the Allies, Italian and Commonwealth forces stationed in Egypt began a series of raids on each other. Among the more notable achievements of this were the capture of Fort Capuzzo by the British Army's 11th Hussars and the death of Libyan Governor-General, Marshal Italo Balbo, in a friendly fire incident. 63 Italians were taken prisoner on 12 June.
Benito Mussolini, anxious to link Libya with Italian East Africa and to capture the Suez Canal and the Arabian oilfields, ordered the invasion of Egypt on August 8th. On 13 September 1940, Italian forces under the command of General Rodolfo Graziani, numbering seven Italian divisions and 300 tanks invaded Egypt from their Libyan base in Cyrenaica. Sollum was taken but after 4 days, Graziani halted the attack due to supply problems and the Italians started entrenching in and around Sidi Barrani. Graziani was now 80 miles west of the British defenses in Mersa Matruh. Graziani was planning to continue the offensive after his troops had been resupplied. Benito Mussolini was urging Graziani to continue the advance, but Graziani ordered his troops to dig in. On September 17, aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious bombed Sidi Barrani and Benghazi
The Italians and their Libyan allies (two infantry divisions and two motorized regiments) organized into a number of camps (represented on the supplied map as small red circles). The Italians were not expecting this bold counterstroke.
The Allied Western Desert Force, under General Sir Archibald Wavell, numbering around 30,000 men — including portions of the Indian 4th Division and the British 7th Armoured Division — launched the counter-attack Operation Compass on 9 December. The Italians were caught off-guard, and by 10 December the Allies had taken more than 20,000 prisoners. The following day, the Allies then struck against Sollum, shelling it with ships of the Mediterranean Fleet; Sidi Barrani fell on the same day. Pausing at the border, Wavell replaced the 4th Indian (who were immediately rushed to Port Sudan - see East African Campaign) with the Australian 6th Division, they then pressed on to capture Bardia and Tobruk. By February the Italians fell back to Beda Fomm where the Allies successfully encircled them, capturing around 25,000 men, 200 artillery guns, 100 tanks and 1500 vehicles after hard fighting. The remainder of the Italian force retreated to El Agheila by 9 February 1941. During the course of this battle, the Western Desert Force was renamed as XIII Corps.
After this disastrous defeat, Hitler ordered German reinforcements to prevent total Italian collapse and sent in the newly formed Deutsches Afrikakorps, commanded by Erwin Rommel.
When Rommel arrived in North Africa, his orders were to assume a defensive posture and hold the frontline. Finding that the British defenses were thin, he quickly defeated the Allied forces at El Agheila on March 24. He then launched an offensive which, by 15 April, had pushed the British back to the border at Sollum, recapturing all of Libya except for Tobruk which was encircled and besieged. During this drive, he also managed to capture British generals Richard O'Connor and Sir Philip Neame.
Several attempts to seize Tobruk failed and the front lines stabilised at the border.
XIII Corps made two attempts to relieve Tobruk, in Operations Brevity and Battleaxe. After both of these operations failed, Wavell was replaced by Claude Auchinleck as Commander in Chief, Middle East and XXX Corps reinforced the British forces.
The overall Allied field command now became British Eighth Army, formed from units from many countries, including another two divisions from the Australian Army and the Indian Army, but also including divisions of South Africans, New Zealanders, a brigade of Free French under Marie-Pierre Koenig and the Polish Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade.
Eighth Army, under the command of General Alan Cunningham launched Operation Crusader on November 18, 1941. In spite of several tactical defeats, the Afrika Korps was forced to retreat and all the territory gained by Rommel was recaptured, with the exception of garrisons at Bardia and Sollum. Most significantly the Axis siege of Tobruk was relieved. The front line was again set at El Agheila.
After the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, much of the Indian and Australian forces were withdrawn from the Western Desert to their respective homelands, while the 7th Armoured Division was withdrawn and British 7th Armoured Brigade participated in the defense of Burma.
The relatively inexperienced British 1st Armoured Division formed the principal defense around El Agheila, and Rommel's Afrika Korps was easily able to force it back across the Cyrenaican bulge once replacements and resupply had arrived in January 1942.
From February to May 1942, the front line settled down at the Gazala line, just west of Tobruk, with both armies preparing an offensive.
Rommel managed to get his offensive off first in June 1942. After a lengthy armoured battle, known as "the Cauldron", he defeated the Allies in the Battle of Gazala and captured Tobruk. Auchinleck fired Ritchie and took personal command of Eighth Army, halting Rommel at the Alamein Line only a handful of miles from Alexandria in the First Battle of El Alamein.
General Harold Alexander took over as Commander in Chief Near East and General Bernard Montgomery became commander of the Eighth Army.
Montgomery won a comprehensive defensive victory at the Battle of Alam Halfa in August 1942 and then built up the Allied forces before returning to the offensive in the Second Battle of El Alamein in October-November. Second Alamein proved a decisive victory. In spite of a brilliant rearguard action by Rommel, the Allies retook Egypt and then advanced across Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, eventually capturing Tripoli in February 1943.
With the Axis forces driven out of Libya, they would soon find themselves pincered in the following Tunisia Campaign by Anglo-American forces to the west.
- von Mellenthin, Major General F. W. [1956] (1971). Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War, First Edition, New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-24440-0.