During the
Second World War, the
North African Campaign took place in
North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 16 May 1943.
It
included campaigns fought in the Libyan
and Egyptian
deserts
(Western Desert Campaign
also known as the Desert War) and in Morocco
and Algeria
(Operation Torch
) and Tunisia
(Tunisia Campaign).
The campaign was fought between the
Allies and
Axis powers. The Allied war
effort was dominated by the
British Commonwealth and exiles from
German–occupied
Europe. The United States entered the war in 1941 and began
direct military assistance in North Africa, on 11 May 1942.
Fighting in North Africa started with the
Italian declaration of
war on 10 June 1940.
On 14 June, the British Army's 11th
Hussars (assisted by elements of the 1st Royal Tank Regiment) crossed the
border into Libya and captured
the Italian Fort
Capuzzo
. This was followed by an Italian offensive
into Egypt and then in December 1940 by a Commonwealth
counteroffensive,
Operation
Compass. During Operation Compass, the Italian
Tenth Army was destroyed and the
German Afrika
Korps, commanded by
Field
Marshal Erwin Rommel, was
dispatched to North Africa, during
Operation Sonnenblume, to bolster the
Italian forces and prevent a complete Axis defeat.
A
back-and-forth series of battles for control of Libya and parts of
Egypt followed, climaxing in the Second Battle of
El Alamein
when British
Commonwealth forces under the command of Lieutenant-General
Bernard Montgomery, delivered a
decisive defeat to the Axis forces and pushed the Axis forces back
to Tunisia.
Following
the Allied landings in North West Africa, Operation Torch, in late 1942 under the command of General Dwight Eisenhower, and after Allied
battles against Vichy France forces
(which subsequently joined the Allies), the combined Allied forces
encircled the Axis forces in northern Tunisia and forced their
surrender.
By making
the Axis powers fight on a second front in North Africa, the
Western Allies provided some relief to the Soviet Union
fighting the Axis on the Eastern Front.
Information learned from the British
Ultra
codebreaking operation was a major contributor to Allied success in
the North African campaign.
Western Desert Campaign
The Northern African Campaign was strategically important for both
the Allies and the Axis powers. The Allies used the campaign as a
step towards a second front against the Axis powers in "Fortress
Europe", and it helped to ease Axis pressure on the
Eastern Front.
The Axis powers had
planned to dominate the Mediterranean through control of Gibraltar
and the Suez Canal
and planned to follow a successful campaign in
North Africa with a strike north to the rich oil fields of the
Middle East. This would have cut off nearby oil supplies to
the Allies, and would have tremendously increased the oil supplies
available for the Axis war machine.
On 13
September 1940 Italy launched the Tenth Army stationed in Libya in
a 200,000 troop invasion into the British protectorate of Egypt and
set up defensive forts at Sidi Barrani
. But Italian Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, Governor-General of
Libya, with little intelligence on the state of Allied forces
there, chose not to continue further towards Cairo
.
The Allied forces were outnumbered, 36,000 men compared to a total
of 200,000. Nevertheless at the end of 1940 they launched a
counter-attack,
Operation Compass.
It was
more successful than expected and resulted in the destruction of
most of the Italian Tenth Army, and the advance of the Allied
forces to El
Agheila
. The stunning defeat did not go unnoticed
and fresh Italian troops under Uldo Capzoni together with German
troops, the
Deutsches
Afrikakorps under
Erwin Rommel were
sent in to reinforce the Italian forces in western Libya. At the
same time the forces who had just routed the Italians were
withdrawn from the Western Desert. An Australian infantry division
was sent to reinforce the Greek armies fighting the
Axis invasion of Greece while the 7th
Armoured Division was sent to the Nile Delta to refit. They were
replaced by two inexperienced and weakened divisions.
Although
Rommel had been ordered to simply hold the line, an armoured
reconnaissance soon became a fully fledged offensive from El
Agheila in March 1941 which, with the exception of Tobruk, managed to press the Allies beyond
Sallum
back into
Egypt, effectively putting both sides back at their approximate
pre-war positions.
The
Allied forces launched a small attack, Operation Brevity
, in an attempt to push the Axis forces back over
the border, but this failed. This was followed up by a
larger scale offensive,
Operation
Battleaxe, intended to relieve the siege at Tobruk, which also
failed.
px200
During the ensuing stalemate, the Allied forces reorganised.
Archibald Wavell was succeeded as commander in chief
Middle East Command by
Claude Auchinleck and the Western Desert
Force was reinforced with a second Corps to form the new
Eighth Army, which was at this time made
up of units from the British Army,
Australian Army, the
British Indian Army, the
New Zealand Army and the
South African Army. There was also a
brigade of
Free French under
Marie-Pierre Koenig. The new formation
launched a new offensive,
Operation
Crusader, in November 1941 and by January 1942 recaptured all
of the territory recently acquired by the Germans and Italians.
Once again, the
front line was at El
Agheila.
After
receiving supplies and reinforcements from Tripoli
, the Axis again attacked, defeating the Allies at
Gazala in June and capturing
Tobruk. The Axis forces drove the Eighth Army back
past the border of Egypt where their advance was stopped in July
only from Alexandria
in the First Battle of El Alamein
.
General
Claude Auchinleck, who had
personally assumed command of the Eighth Army following the defeat
at Gazala, was sacked following the First Battle of El Alamein and
was replaced by General
Harold
Alexander. Lieutenant-General
William
Gott was given command of the Eighth Army; however he was
killed en route to taking up his command and was replaced by
Lieutenant-General
Bernard
Montgomery.
The Axis
forces made a new attempt to break through to Cairo at the end of
June at Alam
Halfa
but were pushed back. After a period of
build up and training, the Eighth launched a major offensive,
decisively defeating the German-Italian army during the Second Battle
of El Alamein in late October 1942. The Eighth Army then
pushed the Axis forces westward, capturing Tripoli in mid January
1943. By February, Eighth Army was facing the German-Italian Panzer
Army near the
Mareth Line and came under
command of General
Harold
Alexander's
18th Army Group for
the concluding phase of the war in North Africa, the
Tunisia Campaign.
Operation Torch
American troops on board a landing
craft.
Operation Torch started on 8 November 1942, and
finished on 11 November 1942. In an attempt to pincer German and
Italian forces,
Allied forces (American and
British Commonwealth), landed in
Vichy-held
French North Africa under the assumption
that there would be little to no resistance.
Nevertheless, Vichy
French forces put up a strong and bloody resistance to Allied
forces in Oran
and Morocco.
But not
in Algiers
, where a coup
d'état by the French resistance on 8 November succeeded in
neutralizing the French XIX Corps before the landing, and arresting
the Vichy commanders. Consequently the landings met no
practical opposition in Algiers and the city was captured on the
first day along with the entire Vichy African command. After three
days of talks and threats, General
Mark
Clark, and
Eisenhower,
compelled the Vichy Admiral
François Darlan (and General
Alphonse Juin) to order the cessation of armed
resistance in Oran and Morocco by French forces on 10 November and
11 with the proviso that Darlan would be head of a Free French
administration.
The Allied landings prompted the Axis occupation of Vichy France
(
Case Anton). In addition the French
fleet was captured at Toulon by the Italians; something which did
them little good as the
main portion of the
fleet had been scuttled to prevent their use by the Axis. The
Vichy army in North Africa joined the Allies (see
Free French Forces).
Tunisian Campaign
17 November 1942-13 May 1943.
Following the Operation Torch landings, (from early November 1942),
the Germans and Italians initiated a build up of troops in Tunisia
to fill the vacuum left by Vichy troops which had withdrawn. During
this period of weakness, the Allies decided against a rapid advance
into Tunisia while they wrestled with the Vichy authorities. Many
of the Allied soldiers were tied up in garrison duties because of
the uncertain status and intentions of the Vichy forces.
By mid-November the Allies were able to advance into Tunisia but
only in single division strength. By early December the
Eastern Task Force, which had been redesignated
British First Army under
Lieutenant-General
Kenneth
Anderson, was composed of
British 78th Infantry
Division,
6th Armoured
Division, 1st Parachute Brigade, 6th Commando and elements of
U.S. 1st Armored Division.
But by this time one German and five Italian divisions had been
shipped from Europe and the remoteness of Allied airfields from the
front line gave the Axis clear air superiority over the
battlefield. The Allies were halted and pushed back having advanced
eastwards to within 30 km of Tunis.
During the winter there followed a period of stalemate during which
time both sides continued to build up their forces. By the new
year, the
British First Army had
one British, one U.S. and one French Corps (a second British Corps
headquarters was activated in April). In the second half of
February, in eastern Tunisia, Rommel and von Arnim had some
successes against the mainly inexperienced French and U.S.
Corps,
most notably in routing the US II Corps
commanded by Major-General Lloyd Fredendall at the Battle of
the Kasserine Pass
.
By the beginning of March the
Eighth Army, advancing
westwards along the North African coast, had reached the Tunisian
border. Rommel and von Arnim found themselves in an Allied "two
army" pincer. They were outflanked, outmanned and outgunned. The
British Eighth Army shattered the Axis defense on the
Mareth Line in late March and First Army in
central Tunisia launched their main offensive in mid April to
squeeze the Axis forces until their resistance in Africa collapsed.
The Axis forces surrendered on 13 May 1943 yielding over 275,000
prisoners of war. This huge loss of
experienced troops greatly reduced the military capacity of the
Axis powers, although the largest percentage of Axis troops escaped
Tunisia. This defeat in Africa led to all Italian colonies in
Africa being captured.
Aftermath
After victory by the Allies in the North African Campaign, the
stage was set for the
Italian Campaign to begin.
The
invasion of Sicily
followed two months later.
See also
Footnotes
References
- John Keegan, Oxford Companion
to World War II. Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN
0-19-280666-1
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