Italian occupation of Egypt
Dec. 19th, 2008 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
demonicgerbilThe Italian campaign in North Africa was full of starts and half-efforts from the entrance of Italy in the war until January of 1942 when the campaign effectively ended. The initial Italian advanced pressed up to Alexandria. Several days of intense fighting in the city ended in an Italian victory and the Allied forces withdrew east and south of the city. Italian attacks over the next several months were unable to hold any ground, but the British counter-attacks couldn't push the Italian army out of Alexandria. These early successes were due largely to the efforts of Abyssinian and Somali troops raised by the Italian protectorates in East Africa. The British expended a lot of effort and used nearly half of all Allied troops in Africa to subdue the horn.
The Italian invasion of the Suez, led by the Corpo d'Marine failed at first, but with reinforcements from the Corpo d'Alpin the canal-zone fell quickly. Italian tank and cavalry divisions moved north and east from the canal, taking the Levant and Syria from the British. Officially Italy liberated those regions, setting up independent states that were recognized by other Axis powers. In truth the governments were little more than puppets of the Italian government.
With a dozen divisions of reinforcements trickling into Alexandria over the course of the latter half of 1941, the Italians kept up their attacks under the leadership of General Graziani. Sending the Italian armor and cavalry on and encirclement, the British and Allied forces in Egypt, totaling 42 division, became pocketed against the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez canal. Desperate Allied commanders kept the flow of supplies moving through the Mediterranean sea.
By December of 1941, when Japan entered the war as a co-belligerent of the Axis, the Allied presence in Egypt was reduced to the area around Port Said. Encircled by 40 Italian divisions, the poorly supplied Allied troops held on until January when a massed Italian attack broke their spirit and they surrendered.
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The rest of Africa lay open to Italian advances, with only five motley divisions of Allied forces (South African infantry in the Kenyan hinterlands, Free French in the Congo, and Belgians in South Africa) sparsely spread across the continent.
The Italian invasion of the Suez, led by the Corpo d'Marine failed at first, but with reinforcements from the Corpo d'Alpin the canal-zone fell quickly. Italian tank and cavalry divisions moved north and east from the canal, taking the Levant and Syria from the British. Officially Italy liberated those regions, setting up independent states that were recognized by other Axis powers. In truth the governments were little more than puppets of the Italian government.
With a dozen divisions of reinforcements trickling into Alexandria over the course of the latter half of 1941, the Italians kept up their attacks under the leadership of General Graziani. Sending the Italian armor and cavalry on and encirclement, the British and Allied forces in Egypt, totaling 42 division, became pocketed against the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez canal. Desperate Allied commanders kept the flow of supplies moving through the Mediterranean sea.
By December of 1941, when Japan entered the war as a co-belligerent of the Axis, the Allied presence in Egypt was reduced to the area around Port Said. Encircled by 40 Italian divisions, the poorly supplied Allied troops held on until January when a massed Italian attack broke their spirit and they surrendered.
Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!The rest of Africa lay open to Italian advances, with only five motley divisions of Allied forces (South African infantry in the Kenyan hinterlands, Free French in the Congo, and Belgians in South Africa) sparsely spread across the continent.