User:Badmintonred/sandbox
History of British Influence[edit]
The British occupation of Egypt lasts from 1882, when it was occupied by British forces during the Anglo-Egyptian War, until 1956, when the last British forces withdrew in accordance with the Anglo-Egyptian agreement of 1954 after the Suez Crisis. The first period of British rule (1882–1914) is often called the "veiled protectorate". During this time the Khedivate of Egypt remained an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire, and the British occupation had no legal basis but constituted a de facto protectorate over the country. This state of affairs lasted until the Ottoman Empire joined the First World War on the side of the Central Powers in November 1914 and Britain unilaterally declared a protectorate over Egypt. The ruling khedive was deposed and his successor, Hussein Kamel, compelled to declare himself Sultan of Egypt independent of the Ottomans in December 1914.
The formal protectorate over Egypt did not long outlast the war. It was brought to an end by the Unilateral Declaration of Egyptian Independence on 28 February 1922. Shortly afterwards, Sultan Fuad I declared himself King of Egypt, but the British occupation continued, in accordance with several reserve clauses in the declaration of independence. The situation was normalised in the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936, which granted Britain the right to station troops in Egypt for the defence of the Suez Canal, its link with the Indian Empire. Britain also continued to control the training of the Egyptian Army. During the Second World War (1939–45), Egypt came under attack from Italian Libya on account of the British presence there, although Egypt itself remained neutral until late in the war. After the war Egypt sought to modify the treaty, but it was abrogated in its entirety by an anti-British government in October 1951. After the 1952 coup d'état, the British agreed to withdraw their troops, and by June 1956 had done so. Britain went to war against Egypt over the Suez Canal in late 1956, but with insufficient international support was forced to back down.
Italian Invasion[edit]
The Italians begain their offensive against British, Commonwealth and Free French forces in Egypt on September 9th, 1940. The invasion by the Italian 10th Army ended border skirmishing on the frontier and began the Western Desert Campaign proper. The goal of the Italian forces in Libya was to seize the Suez Canal by advancing along the Egyptian coast. After numerous delays, the scope of the offensive was reduced to an advance as far as Sidi Barrani, with attacks on British forces in the area.
The 10th Army advanced about 65 mi (105 km) into Egypt but made contact only with British screening forces of the 7th Support Group (7th Armoured Division) not the main force around Mersa Matruh. On 16 September 1940, the 10th Army 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 (Victory Road) along the coast, an extension of the Libyan Via Balbia. The Italians began to accumulate supplies for an advance on Mersa Matruh, which was about 80 mi (129 km) further east and the base of the 7th Armoured Division and the 4th Indian Division.
Italian Defeat[edit]
On 8 December, before the 10th Army 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 10th Army in Egypt that were not destroyed were forced into a hurried retreat. The British pursued the remnants of the 10th Army along the coast to Sollum, Bardia, Tobruk, Derna, Mechili, Beda Fomm and El Agheila on the Gulf of Sirte. The British lost 1,900 men killed and wounded during Compass and took 133,298 Italian and Libyan prisoners, 420 tanks, over 845 guns and many aircraft.
German Intervention[edit]
The dispatch of German troops to North Africa began in February 1941. The Italian 10th Army had been destroyed by the British and Allied Western Desert Force attacks during Operation Compass (9 December 1940 – 9 February 1941). The first units of the new Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK, Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel) departed Naples for Africa and arrived on 11 February 1941. (In the English-speaking world, the term Afrika Korps became a generic title for German forces in North Africa.) On 14 February, advanced units of the 5th Light Afrika Division (later renamed the 21st Panzer Division), Aufklärungsbataillon 3 (Reconnaissance Battalion 3) and Panzerjägerabteilung 39 (Tank Hunter Detachment 39) arrived in Tripoli, Libya and were sent immediately to the front line at Sirte.
Rommel arrived in Libya on 12 February, with orders to defend Tripoli and Tripolitania, albeit using aggressive tactics. General Italo Gariboldi replaced Marshal of Italy Maresciallo d'Italia (Marshal of Italy) Rodolfo Graziani as the Governor-General of Libya on 25 March and Generale d'Armata Mario Roatta, Commander in Chief of the Royal Italian Army Regio Esercito, ordered Graziani to place Italian motorised units in Libya under German command. The first German troops reached Sirte on 15 February and advanced to Nofilia on 18 February. On 24 February, a German raiding party ambushed a British patrol near El Agheila, on 24 March, the Axis captured El Agheila and on 31 March attacked Mersa Brega. The understrength 3rd Armoured Brigade failed to counter-attack and began to retreat towards Benghazi the next day.
Once the 3rd Armoured Brigade moved, its worn-out tanks began to break down as had been predicted and the brigade failed to prevent Axis flanking moves in the desert, south of the Cyrenaican bulge, which left Australian infantry in Benghazi no option but to retreat up the Via Balbia. Rommel split his forces into small columns to harry the British retreat, as far as the Axis fuel and water shortage permitted. A considerable British force was captured at Mechili, which led to the British retreat continuing to Tobruk and then to the Libyan–Egyptian frontier. Axis forces failed to capture Tobruk before the defenders had time to prepare its defence and Rommel then had to divide the Axis forces between Tobruk and the frontier.
Sonnenblume succeeded because the ability of the Germans to mount an offensive was underestimated by General Archbald Wavell, the Commander in Chief Middle East, the War Office and by Winston Churchill. Rommel transformed the situation by his audacity, which was unexpected, despite copious intelligence reports from Ultra and MI 14 (British Military Intelligence). Many British units had been transferred to Greece and others to Egypt to refit. Some commanders appointed by Wavell to Cyrenaica Command (CYRCOM) proved incompetent and Wavell relied on maps, found to be inaccurate, when he later arrived to see for himself. In 1949, Wavell wrote "I had certainly not budgeted for Rommel after my experience of the Italians. I should have been more prudent...".