Gazala, battle of

Gazala, battle of, fought from 26 May to 17 June 1942 when Rommel attacked the British and Commonwealth Eighth Army's Gazala Line west of his immediate objective, Tobruk. By doing so he pre-empted a British offensive to drive him out of Libya before the planned start of the North African campaign that November.

Though technically excellent, the line was based on the concept of static defence. The Eighth Army, then commanded by Lt-General Neil Ritchie, was grouped in defensive strong-points, or ‘boxes’, with its armour committed piecemeal to their defence. ULTRA intelligence revealed Rommel's intentions to attack, and when, but gave no indication of his plan to outflank the line by a hook round the most southerly strong-point, Bir Hakeim. This movement, combined with a frontal assault by Rommel's Italian troops in the north, achieved surprise and at first worked well. But Rommel's intelligence had underestimated British strength and Axis forces, troubled by the length of their supply lines and by the new Allied Grant tank, were brought to a halt on 29 May after some of the fiercest armoured battles of the Western Desert campaigns. Rommel then withdrew to an area which became known as the ‘Cauldron’ and Ritchie, thinking he was disengaging, failed to mount an effective counter-attack immediately. This allowed Rommel to reorganize his forces, re-establish his supply line, and send his 90th Light Division to overrun Bir Hakeim. Its fall on 10 June, after Rommel had defeated another attack on him in the Cauldron, turned encirclement into a strong salient deep in the British defences, and on the night of 12/13 June he forced the retreat from a defensive box (KNIGHTSBRIDGE) which made the Gazala Line no longer tenable and opened the way to Tobruk. Auchinleck vainly ordered Ritchie to form a new defensive line; by 16 June there were no Allied formations west of Tobruk, which fell on 21 June. Huge quantities of supplies and two battalions of retreating infantry were captured; and a few days later Rommel inflicted another defeat on the Eighth Army at Mersa Matruh.

Gazala was the nadir of British fortunes in the Western Desert and revealed the inadequacy of those in command; it cost Ritchie, and eventually Auchinleck, their jobs. See also land power.