Italian invasion of Egypt


The Italian invasion of Egypt was an offensive in the Second World War, against British, Commonwealth and Free French forces in Egypt. The invasion by the Italian 10th Army ended border skirmishing on the frontier and began the Western Desert Campaign proper. The Italian strategy was to advance from Libya along the Egyptian coast to seize the Suez Canal. After numerous delays, the scope of the offensive was reduced to an advance as far as Sidi Barrani and the engagement of any British forces in the area.
The 10ª Armata advanced about into Egypt against British screening forces of the 7th Support Group the main force remaining in the vicinity of Mersa Matruh. On 16 September 1940, the 10ª Armata halted and took up defensive positions around the port of Sidi Barrani, intending to build fortified camps, while waiting for engineers to build the Via della Vittoria along the coast, an extension of the Libyan Litoranea Balbo. The Italians began to accumulate supplies for an advance on the base of the 7th Armoured Division and the 4th Indian Division at Mersa Matruh, about further on.
On 8 December, before the 10ª Armata was ready to resume its advance on Mersa Matruh, the British began Operation Compass, a five-day raid against the fortified Italian camps outside Sidi Barrani. The raid succeeded and the few units of the 10ª Armata in Egypt that were not destroyed were forced into a hurried retreat. The British pursued the remnants of the 10ª Armata along the coast to Sollum, Bardia, Tobruk, Derna, Mechili, Beda Fomm and El Agheila on the Gulf of Sirte. The British lost killed and wounded during Compass and took and Libyan prisoners, over and many aircraft.

Background

Libya

, the eastern province of Libya, had been an Italian colony since the Italo-Turkish War, although resistance continued until 1932. With Tunisia, a part of French North Africa to the west and Egypt to the east, the Italians had to defend both frontiers and established a North Africa Supreme Headquarters, under the command of the Governor-General of Italian Libya, Marshal of Italy, Italo Balbo. Supreme Headquarters had the 5th Army in the west and the 10th Army Tenente Generale in the east, which in mid-1940 had nine metropolitan divisions with an establishment of about each, three Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale divisions and two Italian Libyan Colonial divisions with a lower establishment of each. Reservists had been recalled in 1939, along with the usual call-up of new conscripts.

Egypt

The British had based military forces in Egypt since 1882 but these were greatly reduced by the terms of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. The small British and Commonwealth force garrisoned the Suez Canal and the Red Sea route, which was vital to British communications with its Far Eastern and Indian Ocean territories. In mid-1939, Lieutenant-General Archibald Wavell was appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the new Middle East Command, over the Mediterranean and Middle East theatres. Until the Franco-Axis armistice, French divisions in Tunisia faced the Italians on the western Libyan border forcing the garrison to divide and face both ways.
In Libya, the Italian Royal Army had about and in Egypt the British had about with another training in Palestine. British forces included the Mobile Division commanded by Major-General Percy Hobart, one of two British armoured training formations, which in mid-1939 was renamed the Armoured Division and on 16 February 1940, it became the 7th Armoured Division. The Egyptian–Libyan border was defended by the Egyptian Frontier Force and in June 1940, the headquarters of the 6th Infantry Division took over command in the Western Desert, with instructions to drive back the Italians from their frontier posts and dominate the hinterland, if war began. The 7th Armoured Division, less the 7th Armoured Brigade, assembled at Mersa Matruh and sent the 7th Support Group forward towards the frontier as a covering force.
The RAF also moved most of its bombers closer to the frontier and Malta was reinforced to threaten the Italian supply route to Libya. The HQ of the 6th Infantry Division, which lacked complete and fully trained units, was renamed the Western Desert Force on 17 June. In Tunisia, the French had eight divisions, capable only of limited operations and in Syria were three poorly armed and trained divisions, with about and border guards, were on occupation duties against the civilian population. Italian land and air forces in Libya greatly outnumbered the British in Egypt but suffered from poor morale and were handicapped by some inferior equipment. In Italian East Africa were another and East African troops with tanks and Italy declared war from 11 June 1940.

Terrain

The Western Desert is about long, from Mersa Matruh in Egypt, west to Gazala on the Libyan coast, along Via Balbia, the only paved road. The Sand Sea, inland, marks the southern limit of the desert at its widest at Giarabub and Siwa; in British parlance, Western Desert came to include eastern Cyrenaica in Libya. From the coast, extending into the hinterland lies a raised, flat plain of stony desert about above sea level, that runs in depth until the Sand Sea. The region is inhabited by a small number of Bedouin nomads and local wildlife consists of scorpions, vipers and flies.
Bedouin tracks link wells and the easier traversed ground; desert navigation is by sun, star, compass and "desert sense", good perception of the environment gained by experience. In spring and summer, days are miserably hot and nights very cold. The Sirocco, a hot desert wind, blows clouds of fine sand, reducing visibility to a few yards and coating eyes, lungs, machinery, food and equipment. Motor vehicles and aircraft need special oil and air filters and the barren ground means that water and food as well as military stores, have to be transported from outside.

Italian Army

In 1936, General Alberto Pariani had been appointed Chief of Staff of the Italian Army and begun a reorganisation of divisions to fight wars of rapid decision, according to thinking that speed, mobility and new technology could revolutionise military operations. In 1937, traditional three-regiment divisions began to change to two-regiment binary divisions, as part of a ten-year plan to reorganise the standing army into twelve mountain, three motorised and three armoured divisions. The effect of the change was to increase the administrative overhead of the army, with no corresponding increase in effectiveness; new technology such as tanks, motor vehicles and wireless communications were slow to arrive and were inferior to those of potential enemies. The dilution of the officer class to find extra unit staffs was made worse by the politicisation of the army and the addition of Blackshirt Militia. The reforms also promoted the tactics of frontal assault to the exclusion of other theories of war, dropping the emphasis on fast mobile warfare backed by artillery. By September 1939, sixteen divisions of the 67 in the Italian Army had been converted to divisione binaria and had received their establishment of arms and equipment. The remaining divisions had obsolete equipment, no stock of replacements and lacked artillery, tanks, anti-tank, anti-aircraft guns and transport.
Morale was considered to be high and the army had recent experience of military operations. The Italian navy had prospered under the Fascist regime, which had paid for fast, well-built and well-armed ships and a large submarine fleet but the navy lacked experience and training. The air force had been ready for war in 1936 but had stagnated and was not considered by the British to be capable of maintaining a high rate of operations. The 5th Army in Tripolitania, the western half of Libya opposite Tunisia, had eight divisions; the 10th Army with six infantry divisions garrisoned the province Cyrenaica in the east. At the end of June, after the Fall of France, four divisions were transferred from the 5th Army to the 10th Army. When Italy declared war on 11 June, the 10th Army deployed the 1st Libyan Division Sibelle on the frontier from Giarabub to Sidi Omar and XXI Corps from Sidi Omar to the coast, Bardia and Tobruk. The XXII Corps was moved south-west of Tobruk, to act as a counter-attack force. Before war was declared, Balbo expressed his doubts to Mussolini
and demanding more equipment including tankers, more medium tanks and anti-tank guns, which the Italian economy could not produce or the army transfer from elsewhere. In Rome the chief-of-staff, Marshal of Italy Pietro Badoglio, fobbed him off with promises instead, "When you have the seventy medium tanks you will dominate the situation", as Balbo prepared to invade Egypt on 15 July. After Balbo was killed in an accident, Benito Mussolini replaced him with Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, with orders to attack Egypt by 8 August. Graziani replied that the 10th Army was not properly equipped and that an attack could not possibly succeed; Mussolini ordered him to attack anyway.

Prelude

10th Army

The ten divisions of the 10th Army, XXI Corps, XXII Corps XXIII Corps and the new . The army comprised metropolitan infantry divisions, Blackshirt infantry divisions and Libyan Colonial divisions. The XXIII Corps with the metropolitan divisions Cirene and Marmarica, the Blackshirt Division 23 Marzo, the 1st and 2nd Libyan divisions and the Maletti Group was to conduct the invasion. Bergonzoli had about first to move the Cirene and Marmarica divisions, followed by 23 Marzo. The Libyan divisions had enough to move equipment, weapons and supplies but the infantry would have to walk and the Maletti Group had enough to move its troops. The Maletti Group comprised three battalions of Libyan infantry, additional artillery, much of the Italian armoured vehicle element in Libya and almost all of the Fiat M11/39 medium tanks. XXI Corps, with the Sirte and 28 Ottobre divisions formed a reserve and XXII Corps with the Catanzaro and 3 Gennaio divisions were left at Tobruk because of the transport shortage.

The 10th Army was supported by the 5° Squadra of the Regia Aeronautica, with The command had four bomber wings, a fighter wing, three fighter groups, two reconnaissance groups and two squadrons of colonial reconnaissance aircraft, with 110 Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 bombers, fifty Breda Ba.65 ground attack aircraft, 170 Fiat CR.42 fighters and six IMAM Ro.37, Caproni Ca.309 and Caproni Ca.310bis long-range reconnaissance aircraft. On 9 September, another sixty-four bombers, seventy-five ground-attack aircraft and fifteen reconnaissance aircraft arrived from Italy. The 5° Squadra was organised to follow and support the army in the field as a self-contained unit but Berti could expect little support from the Regia Marina, because ten submarines had been lost since Italy declared war, the fleet was too important to risk and was short of fuel.

Italian plans

Three times, deadlines were set for an Italian invasion and cancelled; the first plan was intended to coincide with an expected German invasion of England on 15 July 1940. Balbo took all the trucks from the 5th Army and the Fiat M11/39 medium tanks being delivered from Italy, to reinforce the 10th Army for a crossing of the frontier wire and an occupation of Sollum as soon as war was declared. After a British counter-attack was repulsed and the Italian armies were replenished, the advance would continue. Although this plan was based on a realistic appreciation of what the Italian armies in Libya could achieve, it fell through when the invasion of England was cancelled. The second plan, for 22 August, was for a limited advance to Sollum and Shawni el Aujerin to the east, with three columns moving on three lines of advance. Once Sollum had been occupied, an advance on Sidi Barrani would be considered, an example of advance-in-mass, used on the northern front in the Ethiopian War. The Italian non-motorized infantry divisions were to use the only road but the summer heat in August, which would have affected them most, led to another postponement.
The third plan was for an invasion on 9 September with Sidi Barrani as the objective, which Graziani disclosed to his staff six days before Mussolini ordered the invasion. The non-motorised, metropolitan divisions would advance along the coast and attack through Halfaya Pass, occupy Sollum and continue to Sidi Barrani. A southern column of the Libyan divisions and the Maletti Group was to advance along the Dayr al Hamra–Bir ar Rabiyah–Bir Enba track, to outflank the British on the escarpment. The Maletti Group was to drive south and east through the desert but the Italian staff failed to provide proper maps and navigation equipment; when moving to its assembly and jumping-off points, the group got lost and XXIII Corps Headquarters had to send aircraft to help lead the group into position; the Libyan divisions arriving late at the rendezvous near Fort Capuzzo.
The embarrassment of the Maletti Group added to doubts about the lack of lorries, transport aircraft and British domination of the terrain, which led to another change of plan. The fourth plan was set for 13 September, with Sidi Barrani and the area to the south as the objective. The 10th Army, with only five divisions, due to the shortage of transport and the tanks of the Maletti Group, would advance in mass down the coast road, occupy Sollum and advance through Buq Buq to Sidi Barrani. The 10th Army was to consolidate at Sidi Barrani and bring up supplies, destroy a British counter-attack and resume the advance to Matruh. The non-motorized infantry divisions were to use the coast road because they would be ineffective anywhere else. A similar operation had been conducted on the northern front in Ethiopia but went against mobile warfare theory, for which there were ample forces to execute. Graziani believed the only way to defeat the British was by mass, having overestimated their strength.

Western Desert Force

Against an estimated troops based in Libya and about in Italian East Africa, Wavell had a ration strength of about in Egypt; fourteen non-brigaded battalions of British infantry; the 2nd New Zealand Division with one infantry brigade, an understrength cavalry regiment, a machine gun battalion and a field artillery regiment. The 4th Indian Infantry Division had two infantry brigades and some artillery, the 7th Armoured Division had two armoured brigades with two armoured regiments each instead of three. The 7th Support Group, with three motorised infantry battalions, artillery, engineers and machine-gunners, was to harass the Italians and to fight delaying actions between the border and Matruh if attacked but to retain the capacity to engage the main Italian force.
At Matruh an infantry force would await the Italian attack, while from the escarpment on the desert flank, the bulk of the 7th Armoured Division would be ready to counter-attack. The covering force was to exaggerate its size and the 7th Support Group was to use its mobility to cover the desert flank, while along the coast road, the 3rd Coldstream Guards, a company of the 1st Battalion King's Royal Rifle Corps and a company of Free French Motor Marines, with supporting artillery and machine-gunners, would fall back in stages, demolishing the road as they retired. At the end of May 1940, the Royal Air Force in the Middle East had including Bristol Bombay medium bombers and modern Blenheim light bombers, Gloster Gladiator fighters and types. In July, four Hawker Hurricane fighters arrived but only one could be spared for the Western Desert Force. By the end of July, the Mediterranean Fleet had won control of the Eastern Mediterranean and were able to bombard Italian coastal positions and transport supplies along the coast to Matruh and beyond.

Border skirmishes

On 17 June, using the headquarters of the British 6th Infantry Division, the headquarters of the WDF was formed to control all troops facing the Italians in Cyrenaica, a force of about with aircraft, tanks and guns. O'Connor was to organise aggressive patrolling along the frontier and set out to dominate no-man's land by creating "jock columns", mobile combined-arms formations based on units of 7th Armoured Division. These small, well-trained, regular forces made the first attacks on Italian convoys and fortified positions across the border. British patrols closed up to the frontier wire on 11 June, with orders to dominate the area, harass the garrisons of the frontier forts and set ambushes along the Via Balbia and inland tracks.
Some Italian troops were unaware that war had been declared and seventy were captured on the track to Sidi Omar. Patrols ranged north to the coast road between Bardia and Tobruk, west to Bir el Gubi and south to Giarabub. Within a week, the 11th Hussars had seized Fort Capuzzo and at an ambush east of Bardia, captured the 10th Army Engineer-in-Chief, Brigadier General Romolo La Strucci. Italian reinforcements arrived at the frontier, began to conduct reconnaissance patrols, improved the frontier defences and recaptured Fort Capuzzo. On 13 August, the British raids were stopped to conserve the serviceability of vehicles; the 7th Support Group took over to observe the wire for from Sollum to Fort Maddalena, ready to fight delaying actions if the Italians invaded Egypt.

9–10 September

XXIII Corps was to lead the 10th Army attack into Egypt to Sidi Barrani along the coast road with non-motorised and motorised formations. The corps had been given more lorries; the 62nd Infantry Division Marmarica and 63rd Infantry Division Cirene were part-motorised, the 1st Blackshirt Division 23 Marzo was motorised, as were the Maletti Group and the 1st Raggruppamento Carri. The part-motorised infantry divisions would move by shuttling forward and the non-motorized infantry would have to march the to Sidi Barrani. Bergonzoli wanted the 1st Raggruppamento Carri as an advanced guard, two motorised infantry divisions in line and one motorised division in reserve. The two Libyan non-motorised infantry divisions would have to move on foot, with the Maletti Group bringing up the rear. The 1st Raggruppamento Carri was held back in reserve, except for the LXII Light Tank Battalion, which was attached to the 63rd Division Marmarica and the LXIII Light Tank Battalion assigned to the 62nd Division Cirene. The 2nd Raggruppamento Carri stayed at Bardia except for the IX Light Tank Battalion attached to the 2nd Libyan Division Pescatori. The II Medium Tank Battalion was with the Maletti Group, which had three fully motorised Libyan infantry battalions.
On 9 September, the activity of the Regia Aeronautica increased and bombers from 55 Squadron, 113 Squadron and 211 Squadron RAF retaliated with attacks on airfields, transport, supply dumps and a raid on Tobruk by Later in the day, fighters made a sweep over Buq Buq and the RAF flew more sorties against Italian airfields. British air reconnaissance revealed much ground movement at Bardia, Sidi Azeiz, Gabr Saleh and towards Sidi Omar from the west, which was interpreted as the beginning of the Italian invasion. The forward move of the 10th Army showed the limitations of Italian mobility and navigation, when the Maletti Group got lost moving up to Sidi Omar, on the frontier wire. On 10 September, the armoured cars of the 11th Hussars spotted the Maletti Group and heavy mist shielded the British as they shadowed the slow Italian assembly. As the mist cleared, the hussars were attacked by Italian aircraft, tanks and artillery.

13–14 September

On 13 September, the 1st Blackshirt Division 23 Marzo re-took Fort Capuzzo and a bombardment fell on Musaid, just over the Egyptian side of the border, which was then occupied. Artillery-fire and bombing began on Sollum airfield and barracks, which raised a dust cloud. When the dust cleared the Italian army could be seen drawn up, ready to advance against the British covering force of the 3rd Coldstream Guards, some field artillery, an extra infantry battalion and a machine-gun company. The Italians advanced along the coast with two divisions leading, behind a screen of motorcyclists, tanks, motorised infantry and artillery. The Italian formation made an easy target for artillery and aircraft but the 1st Libyan Division "Sibelle" soon occupied Sollum barracks and began to move down the escarpment to the port. On the inland plateau, an Italian advance towards Halfaya Pass was opposed by a covering force of a 3rd Coldstream company, a Northumberland Fusilier platoon and some artillery, which began to withdraw in the afternoon, as more Italian infantry and tanks arrived.
During the evening, two columns of the 2nd Libyan Division Pescatori, the 63rd Infantry Division Cirene and the Maletti group from Musaid and the 62nd Infantry Division Marmarica from Sidi Omar, converged on the pass. Next day, the Italian units on the escarpment began to descend through the pass, towards the Italian force advancing along the road from Sollum. An 11th Hussar squadron, the 2nd Rifle Brigade and cruiser tanks of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment harassed the Italian force on the escarpment. Just after noon, the British troops on the coast retreated to Buq Buq and met reinforcements from the 11th Hussars and a motorised company of Troupes de marine, which was enough to maintain contact with the Italians. The British withdrew to Alam Hamid on 15 September and Alam el Dab on 16 September, trying to inflict maximum losses without being pinned down and destroying the coast road as they went, damage which was made worse by the amount of Italian traffic.

16 September

The uncommitted part of the 1st Raggruppamento Carri, followed the 1st Libyan Division Sibelle and the 2nd Libyan Division Pescatori towards Bir Thidan el Khadim. At Alam el Dab near Sidi Barrani, about fifty Italian tanks, motorised infantry and artillery tried an outflanking move, which forced the Coldstream Guards to retreat. The armoured group was engaged by British field artillery and made no further move but by dark the 1st Blackshirt Division 23 Marzo had occupied Sidi Barrani. Above the escarpment, the British covering forces fell back parallel to those on the coast road and the threat from the desert flank did not materialise. British aircraft flew many reconnaissance and bombing sorties and 5° Squadra made sweeps with up to and bombers on forward British airfields and defensive positions. The British anticipated that the Italian advance would stop at Sidi Barrani and Sofafi and began to observe the positions with the 11th Hussars, as the 7th Support Group withdrew to rest and the 7th Armoured Division prepared to confront an advance on Matruh. Italian radio broadcasts about the invasion suggested that the advance would continue from Sidi Barrani but it soon appeared that the Italians were digging-in on an arc to the south and south-west at Maktila, Tummar, Tummar, Nibeiwa and on top of the escarpment at Sofafi as divisions further back occupied Buq Buq, Sidi Omar and Halfaya Pass.

Aftermath

Analysis

The 10th Army advanced about a day to enable the non-motorised units to keep up and at Sidi Barrani, built fortified camps. No bold mechanised strokes or flanking movements had been made by the armoured units, XXIII Corps had guarded the infantry instead and the 10th Army suffered less than The Raggruppamento Maletti, 1st Raggruppamento Carri and the 1st Blackshirt Division 23rd 23 Marzo had failed to operate according to Italian armoured warfare theory. Lack of preparation, training and organisation had led to blunders in assembling and directing the Raggruppamento Maletti and over-caution with the other tank battalions of 1st Raggruppamento Carri. The rushed motorisation of the 1st Blackshirt Division 23 Marzo, which had not been trained as a motorised division, disorganised the relationship between drivers and infantry.
The advance reached Sidi Barrani with modest losses but failed to do much damage to the British. On 21 September, there were sixty-eight Fiat M.11/39 tanks left of the seventy-two sent to Libya. The 1st Medium Tank Battalion had nine serviceable and twenty-three unserviceable tanks and the 2nd Medium Tank Battalion had twenty-eight operational and eight non-operational tanks. Italian medium tank strength was expected to increase when deliveries of the new Fiat M13/40, which had a powerful Cannone da 47/32 M35 gun, began. The II Medium Tank Battalion with thirty-seven M13/40 tanks arrived in Libya in early October, followed by the V Medium Tank Battalion with forty-six M13/40 tanks on 12 December. In mid-November the Italians had and light tanks in Libya and Egypt.
Wavell wrote,
Repair works began on the coast road, renamed Via della Vittoria from Bardia and construction of a water pipe begun, which were not expected to be ready before mid-December, after which the advance would be resumed as far as Matruh.
Mussolini wrote on 26 October,
and two days later, on 28 October, the Italians invaded Greece, beginning the Greco-Italian War. Graziani was allowed to continue planning at a leisurely pace and an Italian advance to Matruh was scheduled for mid-December.

Casualties

In 1971, Kenneth Macksey wrote that the 10th Army suffered and against a British loss of "but forty men...and little equipment". In 1993, Harold Raugh wrote of about casualties against less than fifty British. In 1995, the writers of Germany and the Second World War noted that equipment losses for both sides had not been accurately tabulated. In 1997, Giorgio Bocca wrote that the Western Desert Force suffered casualties of forty men killed, ten tanks, eleven armoured cars and four lorries destroyed. In his 1999 MA thesis, Howard Christie wrote that from 9 to 16 September, the 10th Army suffered killed and Several tanks and lorries broke down and six aircraft were lost, two to accidents.

Subsequent operations

On 17 September, the Mediterranean Fleet began to harass Italian communications and Benghazi harbour was mined. A destroyer and two merchant ships were sunk by torpedo and a destroyer hit a mine at Benghazi and sank. RAF Blenheims destroyed three aircraft on the ground at Benina. The road on the escarpment near Sollum was bombarded by a navy gunboat and targets near Sidi Barrani by two destroyers, from which fires and explosions were seen. Captured Italians spoke of damage, casualties and a loss of morale. An attempt to bombard Bardia by a cruiser and destroyers was thwarted by Italian torpedo bombers, which hit the stern of the cruiser and put it out of action. Bombardments continued during the lull, which led to camps and depots being moved inland. Small British columns on land were set up to work with armoured car patrols, moving close to the Italian camps, gleaning information and dominating the vicinity.

Operation Compass

On 8 December the British launched Operation Compass, a five-day raid against the fortified Italian camps set up in a defensive line outside Sidi Barrani. General Berti was on sick leave and Gariboldi had temporarily taken his place. The raid succeeded and the few units of the 10th Army in Egypt that were not destroyed were forced to withdraw. By 11 December, the British began a counter-offensive and the rest of the 10th Army was swiftly defeated. The British prolonged the operation to pursue the remnants of the 10th Army to Sollum, Bardia, Tobruk, Derna, Mechili, Beda Fomm and El Agheila on the Gulf of Sirte. The British lost killed and wounded, about ten per cent of their infantry, in capturing and Libyan prisoners, and over and aircraft. The British were unable to continue beyond El Agheila, due to broken-down and worn out vehicles and the diversion of the best-equipped units to the Greek Campaign.

Order of battle

Air Marshal Italo Balbo, Supreme Commander Italian Forces in North Africa. Details taken from Christie unless specified.
10 June 1940
5ª Armata Western Frontier
10ª Armata, Eastern Frontier,
5° Squadra, Regia Aeronautica
On 10 June 1940 there were 363 Italian aircraft in North Africa of which, 306 were operational, 57 were trainers and 179 were unserviceable.
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At Sidi Barrani with operations on the Libyan–Egyptian Border
Other Commonwealth Forces in Egypt
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13 September 1940
Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, Supreme Commander Italian Forces in North Africa.
Comando Carri Armati della Libia
Western Desert Force
Commander-in-Chief, Middle East: General Sir Archibald Wavell
Commander Western Desert Force: Lieutenant-General R. N. O'Connor