Word: libyan
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...hope would be realized. The Germans had already counterattacked across Libya and developed a threat to the Suez Canal (see p. 23). They accomplished this, in spite of the British Fleet, by flying some troops to Tripoli. The British suspected that the French had helped the Germans supply their Libyan Army...
When the ships left, Alexandrians heard soon enough where they had gone. The Navy announced its greatest success since the Battle of Cape Matapan: in the narrow channel between Sicily and Cape Bon, across which the Axis had run its forces and supplies for the Libyan attack, a cruiser squadron caught a convoy consisting of two ships laden with motor transport, one ammunition ship, and two ships thought to be carrying troops, all protected by three Italian destroyers. The British swept in, slapped aside the flimsy protection, and sank the whole convoy forthwith. The British lost one destroyer...
...rush into adventures, a policy which eliminates to the greatest degree humanly possible any chance of failure." The plan was perhaps to wait until British troops were evacuating Greece, then try to greet them in Alexandria. But plan or no plan, the week's developments pointed up the Libyan campaign as definitely more important to Britain now than the outcome in the Balkans...
...Eden-Dill-Cripps visit to Ankara was apparently quite successful. Earlier in the week German Ambassador to Turkey Franz von Papen had practiced the standard Hitlerian strategy of showing Turkish officials a cinema of Germany's western conquests. Anthony Eden countered by exhibiting films of Britain's Libyan victories. Final upshot was that the Anglo-Turkish alliance was strongly reaffirmed. Turkey rushed additional troops to the Bulgarian border, and closed the Dardanelles to all but ships with special permits and Turkish naval pilots. Turkey "nullified" her two-week old non-aggression pact with Bulgaria, and many observers thought...
Benito Mussolini's optimism in the face of this continuing difficulty in Albania, and even after the Libyan tragedy, arose from one thing alone-Adolf Hitler's help. About this help II Duce made one very significant statement. He referred to "German air and armored detachments now in the Mediterranean." Every one had known about the air assistance, but the presence of German armored units in the area was news. These units could not very well have been transferred across the Mediterranean, which is Britain's lake, to Libya. They were doubtless in the Mediterranean area...