Word: libyan
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Dates: during 1940-1940
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...defenders-perhaps 70,000 Britons, Australians, New Zealanders, Rhodesians, Indians-had been braced for the attack for some time. They were reported to have captured confidential plans for such a drive from the First Libyan Army many weeks ago, and were amazed to find the plans nevertheless followed to a T last week. Against the plans the British defense was apparently: to fall back, harassing the invaders, to well-watered Mersa Matrûh, the terminus of a narrow-gauge railroad from Alexandria, thus avoiding serious action until the British were in an area with good supply lines...
Last week the strength of Italian forces massed under Marshal Rodolfo Graziani in Libya for a drive eastward at Alexandria were estimated at two divisions (30,000 men). British authorities prepared the public for a "strategic retreat" of their forces from El Sollum, near the Libyan border, to the stronger and better-watered fortress of Mersa Matruh, where Cleopatra used to bathe. Meantime British aircraft, mobile artillery and mechanized patrols sorely harassed the Italians' preparations and out posts in Libya. This week Rome claimed ten British planes downed while bombing an Italian column in eastern Libya...
Britain's harassing, guerrilla tactics along the Libyan border with light tanks and armored trucks stung the Italians, just after Balbo's death, into attempting a Blitzkrieg drive with a mechanized column of more than 1,000 men on the fortified British coastal base of Sollum, 75 miles east of Tobruch. The British broke up this effort with a flanking attack, and the survivors took refuge in the deserted adobe Fort Capuzzo. There they still were after a thirsty week, sucking stones to eke out their water supply, which the British cut off by removing many sections...
Mussolini had gained: 1) demilitarization of a 30-mile strip along the Franco-Italian frontier; 2) demilitarization of a strip 125 miles wide along the Libyan frontier; 3) demilitarization of the French Somaliland coast and full rights to the harbor of Djibouti and the Djibouti-Addis Ababa Railway; 4) demilitarization for the duration of the war of the French naval bases at Toulon, Bizerte, Oran and Ajaccio. Regarding the surrender and demobilization of the French Army, the Italian Armistice conformed to the German. No mention was made of Nice, Savoy or Corsica, for which Italians have long clamored. So humiliating...
...Middle East concentrated last week on Italy's Libyan and Eritrean bases, while South African bombers attacked in southern Ethiopia and Jubaland. Patrols of Lieut. General Henry Maitland Wilson's Egyptian command (40,000 strong) took two Italian forts and 200 askari prisoners on the Libyan border...