North African campaigns

North African campaigns (World War II) (June 1940–May 1943) In June 1940, Italy entered World War II on the side of Nazi Germany, with the primary aim of fulfilling Mussolini's dream of establishing Italy's predominance around the Mediterranean, regarded as the Mare Nostrum (‘Our Sea’). In September 1940, Italian troops crossed from the Italian colony of Libya to Egypt, which was defended by some 36,000 Commonwealth troops under Wavell. The Italians advanced to Sidi Barrani, but were repelled in December, when Wavell counter-attacked with a reinforced army of tanks. He reclaimed Sidi Barrani, capturing some 120,000 prisoners, and went on to take Tobruk, Benghazi, and all of Cyrenaica. Meanwhile, by January 1941, all of Italian East Africa had surrendered to British troops. As well as revealing the ineffectiveness of the Italian army, it also opened the way for Allied supplies and reinforcements to reach the Army of the Nile.

In response to the Italians' desperate position, the Germans formed an Afrika Korps under Rommel, which arrived in March 1941. It was at first relatively ineffective because of Hitler's refusal to send the necessary reinforcements and supplies, owing to his focus on the Barbarossa campaign. In January 1942, Rommel was finally in a position to advance, leading his forces towards Egypt. He was unable to reach Alexandria in the face of Auchinleck's determined resistance at El Alamein, as well as renewed German difficulties in ensuring vital supplies across great distances in the desert.

In October, the reinforced 8th Army of 230,000 men and 1,230 tanks, now under Montgomery, launched its attack. Rommel's vastly inferior forces were forced to withdraw towards Tunisia. His position was made virtually hopeless by the success of ‘Operation Torch’, an amphibious landing on 8 November 1942 of US and British troops under Eisenhower near Casablanca on the Atlantic and Oran and Algiers in the Mediterranean. The Vichy French troops were defeated within days, so that Rommel's Axis forces were squeezed by advancing Allies to the east and west. Rommel was recalled in March 1943, and elite units of the Afrika Korps were evacuated from Tunis to Sicily. North Africa was liberated from the Germans and Italians with the fall of Tunis on 7 May 1943, when some 250,000 prisoners were taken.