Sidi Barrani

In the fall of 1940, Italian Marshal Rudolph Graziani was given the task by the Duce to take Egypt from the British. For this task, he was assigned an army of a quarter of a million men, which lazíly rolled …

1940-12-09

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In the fall of 1940, Italian Marshal Rudolph Graziani was given the task by the Duce to take Egypt from the British. For this task, he was assigned an army of a quarter of a million men, which lazíly rolled across the frontier on 13 September 1940. Against this stood General Sir Archibald Wavell and his very capable subordinate Lt. General Sir Richard O'Connor. Under their command was the fledgling Western Desert Force: two underequipped and understrength divisions, which were to become famous as Wavell's Thirty Thousand. While the Italians settled in to roost mere miles from Alexandria, the British began plans for their first counteroffensive. On 9 December, while the Italians were eating their breakfast, the guns of the 4th Indian Division opened up en Camp Nibeiwa, quickly followed by an assault by the machines of the 7th Royal Tanks and the 11th Indian Brigade, beginning the battle that would tell the world that the British Empire still had quite a bit of fight left in it. Within a week, over 38,000 Italian prisoners had been taken; by February, over 130,000. Over 180 tanks, 200 light tanks, 845 artilery pieces of all sizes, and 91 intact aircraft were captured. Apparently the British had learned the lessons of the blitzkríeg well.

Bardia, Libya

The Battle of Bardia was fought between 3 and 5 January 1941, as part of Operation Compass, the first British military operation of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. It was the first battle of the war in which an Australian Army formation took part, the first to be commanded by an Australian general and the first to be planned by an Australian staff. The 6th Australian Division assaulted the strongly held Italian fortress of Bardia, Libya, assisted by air support and naval gunfire and under the cover of an artillery barrage. The 16th Australian Infantry Brigade attacked at dawn from the west, where the defences were known to be weak. Sappers blew gaps in the barbed wire with Bangalore torpedoes and filled in and broke down the sides of the anti-tank ditch with picks and shovels. This allowed the infantry and 23 Matilda II tanks of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment to enter the fortress and capture all their objectives, along with 8,000 prisoners.

Wikipedia: Battle of Bardia

Italian

British Commonwealth