The see-saw war in North Africa went back and forth after Mussolini ordered an initial incursion from Italian Libya over the border into Egypt in September 1940. The next round went to the British under General Richard O’Connor, whose troops advanced 500 miles in two months and captured 130,000 prisoners, 400 tanks, and 845 guns. At home, cinema audiences cheered the newsreels showing long lines of Italian prisoners winding off into the distance.
Then Hitler appointed his most daring general, Erwin Rommel, to come to the aid of his Italian ally. With just two German divisions at first, he pushed the British back towards Egypt. But behind his advance, he left the Libyan port of Tobruk in Allied hands. Here, Australian, British, and other troops, reinforced and supplied by the Royal Navy at night, held on grimly from April 1941.
Rommel tried repeatedly to capture Tobruk, as he could not advance into Egypt without using the port to supply his army. But the defenders fought fiercely and maintained the siege despite the odds. In a period of the war that did not bring many British successes, it was a lone story of courage and grit.
Seasons and the city