Word: bardia
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...help the R. A. F, block the Italian line of retreat to Tobruch, the Australians started pushing again, this time from the north. That afternoon 15,000 of the Italians were in British hands, the rest "confined to a restricted area." The Rome radio warned the Italian people that Bardia was about to fall. The Italians no longer stood by their positions. Three thousand were taken out of one cave. Neither side's casualties were heavy...
...sunset the Italian flag was hauled down from the Bardia Government House; at 1130 the next afternoon Bardia officially surrendered. The British raised their estimate of prisoners taken to over 25,000, including General Annibale Bergonzoli, leader of Fascist volunteers in Spain, and four other generals.* Forty-five light tanks and five medium tanks were captured or destroyed. Australians were already carrying supplies in Italian trucks, dispatches on Italian motorcycles. They were ensconced in Italian quarters, eating Italian food...
What Next? Although Bardia fell it had given the British their first real check in their four-week campaign. After the storming by surprise of the positions around Sidi Barrani, the British had romped ahead to Libya over the road which the Italian invaders had conveniently built. When Bardia proved too tough a problem for motorized troops with air and naval aid to solve, the British had to spend a fortnight strengthening their land forces and hauling up heavy artillery, while Graziani gained precious time for reorganization at Tobruch...
...British pressure intensified and a heavy pall of battle smoke obscured Bardia, General Mario Berti, commanding the beleaguered Blackshirts, withdrew his guns and massed them on the west side of the town, to cover the evacuation of such men as could be spared and saved. General Berti, who commanded the Italian volunteers in Spain, has a reputation for last-ditch fighting and added to it considerably last week...
...reviewing what led to the siege of Bardia, the Libyan commander passed the buck neatly to Rome, laying blame for his defeat on lack of motor transport and of armored power. "For the purpose of economizing transportation some units covered hundreds of kilometres afoot. . . . We lacked only a complement of motor vehicles which, as you know, were pouring in from the mainland." "Pouring in" was probably a gross exaggeration, considering the work of the British Fleet, which periodically prowled across the Italian sea lane to Libya...