239: Italy Attacks

Description

The third episode in the North Africa 1940 arc follows the opening clashes in the desert as reconnaissance patrols and armored car raids give way to the first major Italian effort to march on Mersa Matruh. We look at the tempo of British spoiling attacks, the logistical walls that slowed the Italian columns, and the hard lessons both sides learned about desert warfare.

We also touch on the parallel fighting in East Africa and how London and Rome weighed those commitments while deciding how aggressively to push in Egypt, setting the stage for the dramatic swings still to come in 1940.

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Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War Episode 239 - North Africa 1940 Pt. 3 - Italian Attacks. This week a big thank you goes out to Martin for supporting the podcast by becoming members. Members get access to ad-free versions of all of the podcast’s episode plus special member only episodes roughly once a month. Head on over to historyofthesecondworldwar.com/members to find out more. One of the major differences between the North African theater when compared to other areas of the war that we have discussed so far is the fact that when the war started neither side was ready to launch some kind of offensive. For the Italians and British, there immediate focus was still on France, with the collapse of French resistance being a very real concern for the British and seen as a major opportunity for the Italians to attack through southern France. This meant that for the first months of the war neither side was going to launch any kind of large attack in the desert, and any major effort would take months of preparations for either side. There would be some fighting in the early weeks and months, but these were limited to smaller raids and were mostly designed to be a nuisance to the enemy rather than to decisively change the overall situation in Africa. This episode will cover these smaller efforts before discussing the first major Italian attack of the war, which would go well, but was limited in its ability to advance across the desert. The fighting in Africa was also not limited just to the relatively small area of North Africa along the Egypt-Libya border and there would also be fighting that would occur in the areas broadly classified as East Africa, where Italian and British forces would face off in a war that would be very different to what was happening in other areas of the world during 1940.

The first actions along the Egyptian-Libyan border after the Italian declaration of war would be smaller attacks executed by the British against Italian positions. These often started out as small efforts completed by groups like B Squadron of the 11th Hussars which attacked a group of Italian forces with just 2 armored cars. The British unit was led by Second Lieutenant Warren Gape and he moved into attack the Italians near Nezuet Ghirba on June 16th. All that the armored cars had to attack with were machine guns, but that was more than enough to deal with the infantry and their unarmored trucks that they were being transported in. Even when some Italian tankettes moved up to support the stranded infantry the armored cars were able to disable several with their machine guns. More British armored cars would arrive, and then also six A-9 cruiser tanks along with some supporting vehicles would also be called in. What had started as a tiny effort with just a few men involved was rapidly spiraling out into a minor confrontation involving hundreds. Both sides began to deploy their forces for an attack, with the British tanks taking the lead. In later battles such brash action by tanks would at times result in disaster due to the presence of anti-tank weapons or artillery, but in this case the British tanks were mostly unmolested. The Italian tankettes that were present were armed only with machine guns that could almost nothing against the A-9s. There were some Italian artillery pieces present, but they were hampered by the fact that they only had High explosive rounds which were not designed for action against Tanks. They would also have issues with traversing the guns fast enough to hit the moving tanks, a problem that became much more acute as the British tanks advanced. The challenges of aiming and repositioning fast enough to hit moving vehicles was one of the primary challenges when trying to utilize artillery in an anti-tank role during the Second World War, and the Italians would learn that very quickly. Without any real threat to the cruiser tanks, they circled the Italian positions multiple times firing at anything that looked dangerous with their machine guns and canons. In what would be recorded as the Battle of Ghirba the Italians would lose 16 tankettes, 4 field guns, 13 trucks, and would 50 dead and 101 captured. The British are not recorded as having suffered any casualties at all. It was a splendid victory, and a real high note for the start of hostilities for the British, even if it was small in scale.

While there would be specific successes for the British forces, the overall trend of the fighting for the British was slightly less encouraging. The biggest issue during these early weeks and month was simply that the British did not have enough forces available to really shift the course of the fighting. This resulted in a situation where the British could capture some specific targets, but would often lose them to Italian counter attacks shortly thereafter. This was often due to the fact that the Italians had a larger number of artillery guns and infantry, which would often overwhelm the superior British armor and force them to pull back. The Italians realized that they had the advantage in these areas, and that it made it very difficult for the British to attack any kind of fortified position. This would cause the Italians to begin building a series of fortified camps, generally protected by mines and artillery, which were almost impossible for the tank heavy British units to deal with. While these fortified camps played into British weaknesses, it also helped to minimize the impact of Italian issues. They were quick to learn that their tankettes were no match for British armor and anti-tank units, and that their artillery could not engage British tanks on the move. Trying to force the fighting into more a static type of conflict nicely hid these issues. The end result of these changes is that the British units like the 11th Hussars were slowly whittled down, both from Italian actions and from general wear and tear on their vehicles. As would always happen in this region, it was only a matter of time before the first sandstorm, and it would happen on June 19th. For the 11th Hussars, who were already behind Italian lines on an operation, the experience of the sandstorm was misery. To quote from the official regimental history: “Looking back upon it in after years, many of the Regiment maintained that fortnight was the hardest to endure of any they experienced throughout the whole course of the war … it is difficult to realize from afar the intensity of the physical strain which it imposed. It was not uncommon for men to collapse unconscious on the floors of their cars.”. The delays caused by such weather events were problematic for the British, because more and more Italian forces were pouring into North Africa quite quickly, and it would be much more difficult for the British to similarly move more forces into Egypt.

While Italian forces were being delivered to North Africa, they would also find themselves under a new commander when General Graziani arrived at the end of June 1940. Graziani had previously been the Army Chief of Staff in Rome, and during the preceding weeks had been a strong supporter of the idea that the Italians should attack as quickly as possible after declaring war. This was a view that he shared with Mussolini, who had come to the conclusion that the Germans were going to launch Operation Sea Lion in July, and therefore the Italian forces should attack at the same time. While Graziani had supported this proposal when he was in Rome, as soon as he arrived in North Africa he realized why it was simply impossible. After he arrived, and after inspecting his troops in Libya he understood that the Italian forces were no where close to being able to launch an attack. This did not prevent another order from arriving from Rome that reiterated the July 15th date, and recommended that Graziani take forces from the Tunisia border in the west and move them east to join in the attack against Egypt. On July 5th Graziani and his senior commanders got together and forwarded the information that they have available to them to Rome, with a plan that called for a delay in the attack. The key problem was the same problem everybody would have in the desert, logisitics, and Graziani believed that an attack was only possible after time had been spent to build up the lines of communications and logistics between Italian bases in Libya and the Egyptian border. During that time the Italian forces would also work on training and overall equipment readiness, as well as getting the newly arriving Ariete armored division ready to participate.

The delays forced upon the Italian plans were not welcomed back in Rome, with Mussolini and other Italian leaders being quite disappointed, and it being just another in a series of Italian misfortunes that had plagued all of their efforts since the start of the war. After his arrival the plans that had been made had shrunk in goals and expected outcomes, the actual extent of Graziani’s plans, which he had made with the commander of the Tenth Army, were driven by what they believed was possible, not what previous plans had wanted. Gariboldi’s forces would be the forces that would actually attack in Egypt and he believed that the only way for it to be successful would be to maintain a limited series of advances. It would certainly not be a hard charge to the Nile, and instead the plan was to just try and reach Sidi Barrani, which was only around 100 kilometers into Egypt, and less than a 1/4 of the way to Alexandria. Once Gariboldi’s forces reached this objective their goal was to then stop, and prepare defenses in the area to hold back any British counterattacks while also preparing for the next leap forward. Most of July and August would be spent on preparing for this move, with one of the key components being a major convoy that arrived in Tripoli on July 27th. It took time for this convoy to unload due to the port constraints that would plague the Italian and later German war efforts in this theater. One of the topics that is rarely discussed in warfare is the throughput of port facilities, and for the Italians in North Africa the throughput of Tripoli and Benghazi were critical. It took time to unload large cargo vessels, and so often the most important question was how many could be unloaded simultaneously and in parallel. For Tripoli that number was 5, for Benghazi that number was 3, meaning that between both of them they could only unload about 70,000 tons of supplies per month. That is hard to put into perspective, but in general an Italian division required somewhere around 4,000 tons per month which meant that at absolute maximum assuming no other constraints they could support 17 Italian divisions, but there would already be 14 divisions in the theater by late 1940. And there were many other constraints on supplies, first of all, troop transports also took some available port space as more units and replacement manpower was brought in. But the biggest problem was that the ports were both over 1,500 kilometers from the Egyptian border, with Tripoli being over 2,500 kilometers away. That meant that all of those supplies that were unloaded had to begin the slow trip to the front, the vast majority of which had to be done by road transport, and near the front there was precisely one road. This slowed delivery, and made it very difficult to build up the required stores near the front for the attack. By the second week of August Mussolini’s impatience was growing, and he would send a message to Graziani on August 10th emphasizing the importance of the Italian attack not so much because of what it could achieve in Egypt but by what it could gain Italy in the war: “The invasion of Great Britain has been decided on, its preparations are in the course of completion and it will take place. Concerning the date, it could be within a week or within a month. Well, the day on which the first platoon of German soldiers touches British territory, you will simultaneously attack. Once again, I repeat that there are no territorial objectives, it is not a question of aiming for Alexandria, nor even for Solium. I am only asking you to attack the British forces facing you. I assume full personal responsibility for this decision of mine.”. This letter would not convince Graziani to move the attack forward, which he believed could not happen during August. And so the days ticked by, with more supplies arriving from Italy, and Mussolini becoming more and more frustrated. On September 7th, simply tied of delays, Mussolini wrote to Graziani and simply told him that he either had to attack or he would be relieved of his command. This would finally push Graziani to order the attack, which would begin less than a week later. It would be codenamed Operazione E, and it would be primarily executed by Italian infantry, not armored units, which would be held behind in reserve.

The attack would begin on September 13th, with troops of Gariboldi’s 10th Army begin their advance into Egypt. The attack was not really a secret though, and in fact it had been announced on Radio Rome before it event started, in what I have to believe as one of the only cases during the war where a nation simply broadcast to the world an attack that was planned to start. At the front, it kind of turned into a bit of a debacle. Vehicle breakdowns were very common, mostly due to overheating, there were multiple instances where units that were in the attack got lost in the desert. Issues with vehicles would cause supply problems but did not greatly change the overall course of the advance, Gariboldi was already planning a very slow and methodical advance, with the infantry setting the pace. This meant that Italian forces only moved forward at roughly a walking pace, as most of the infantry did not have transport. They also ran into very little resistance. By the time that the attack started the Italians heavily outnumbered the British forces on the border, which at this time were very sparse. This meant that the Italian artillery bombardments often simply churned up sand, and due to the slow pace of advance any advanced scouting units that were in the path of the advance had plenty of time to withdraw. As they did so they were often able to activate any mines that needed to be prepared for the Italian advance, with mines being one of the primary cause of damage and casualties for the Italians during this time. The slow pace of advance also gave the British time to do things like lob a few artillery shells at Italian vehicles before they packed up their artillery guns, or to call in RAF bombers to attack the long lines of Italian trucks. Blenheims hit them with bombs and old Gladiators used their machine guns. With the roads in the area being so limited, every vehicles that was knocked out caused a traffic problem, both for the vehicles that followed along with the infantry that were moving along with them.

The first target for the Italian advance was the town of Sollum, which was only about 10 kilometers from the border. Given its position it was defended by a single platoon of the 3rd Battalion, Coldstream Guards. They had primarily been in place to watch the border for just such an Italian attack, and as soon as they saw what was happening they reported in, packed up their radio, and were on their way. After Sollum was reached the Italian advance continued towards Sidi Barrani. In the roughly 100 kilometers between Sollum and Sidi Barrani a certain rhythm of battle would take hold as the British defenders, around 3 battalions of infantry and artillery, did what they could to slow the advance of the Italian advance which was made up of around 5 full divisions. Generally the British infantry would retreat with the artillery in front of them, they would pick a good spot, the infantry would take up defensive positions while the artillery fired on the Italians. This fire would slow the Italian advance but had no hope of stopping it. Often the Italian forces would spread out in their advance, reducing the effectiveness of the British artillery while also making it more dangerous for the British to stick around. Before the danger became too great the British would then slip away to the east where they would later do the same thing all over again. This worked fine until the artillery ran out of ammunition, at which point the longer retreat began first to Sidi Barrani and then towards Mersa Matruh. On the afternoon of September 16th the leading elements of the Italian forces reached Sidi Barrani, and while there would be some advances to the north and south, Sidi Barrani was about as far east as the attack would go.

Gariboldi ordered his troops to begin setting up defensive positions while many of his men got down to solving the ever present supply problems . The most immediate problem, as ever, was water a problem that the British had partially caused by poisoning the wells in Sidi Barrani. This mean that all of the water required to support the Italian forces had to be transported in from across the border on trucks. To try and solve some of these issues the Italian forces under Gariboldi would spend the next three months building out the supply links between Libya and the forward positions while at the same time continuing to improve their forward defensive positions. On the supply side, road construction started immediately, to put the Via Balbia road further to the east, and just as importantly water pipes were extended. I cannot over emphasize how important these water pipes were, and would continue to be for any force in North Africa over the following 3 years of the war. Water was essential, and pipes were the only good way to get it forward in any meaningful volume, and so the closer those pipes were to the front lines the better. The core part of those defenses was the defensive camp. 7 Defensive camps would be created, each with their own set of tank ditches, minefields, and other fortifications. The defensive camp structure was favorable in the desert because it concentrated both the men and their supplies into an area protected all around by fortifications . This allowed supplies to be built up to support the defenders in case of enemy attack. While the supply issues were important, Gaiboldi was also convinced that the British had a substantial armored force that could attack at any moment. What he did not know is that the Italians heavily outnumbered anything available to Wavell and the British, and in fact Wavell did not plan to offer any kind of resistance against the Italian advance to Sidi Barrani. He only planned to mount a defense further to the east around Mersa Mutruh. However, he had been trying to make the Italians think that there were more British forces than there actually were, which is one of the reasons that the British forces had been so active on the border during the first weeks and months of the war. Because Gariboldi feared a major British armored attack he was able to more easily fall into the defensive posture that he already preferred.

As the Italian ground offensive came to a quick halt after getting across the border, there was another fear for the British which was the possibility of an Italian bombing attack. The Italian air force of the 1930s was greatly feared due to its size and the modern nature of most of its platforms, and while it had not really transitioned into the next generation of bombers in the late 1930s, and had begun to be overtaken by other bomber forces due to rising rearmament the Regio Aeronautica still entered the war in 1940 with the third largest force of multi-engine bombers. The British feared that these bombers would be used against British positions in Egypt, including the Suez Canal, to cause major damage. But this never really came to pass during 1940. There were a few problems for the Italians and then many mistakes. The first problem was distance, because while later war bombers would have incredible endurance in the air, the bombers of the 1930s were more limited. This meant that the Italian bombers had to be pushed forward to other bases instead of being based in Italy if they wanted to hit meaningful targets in North Africa. The location that was chosen was Rhodes, which was substantially closer. But then the mistakes came into play, with the Italian simply not concentrating all of their bomber forces on a single objective over a long enough period of time to cause lasting damage. And so instead of causing that damage to something important, they dropped a few bombs on a lot of different things, which was far less useful. There were some raids on the Royal Navy base at Alexandria, but they were generally small and at night, which meant many of the bombs were dropped far off their targets. There was a raid of 40 bombers against the British defenses at Mersa Matruh on September 22, but it was not followed up in any meaningful way. There were some raids against the oil refineries and storage facilities at Haifa in modern day Israel, that did cause some real damage, particularly against the storage tanks. This damage then started fires which were always problematic in oil refineries, but the bombing of the targets did not continue and so it would eventually be repaired. There were also many raids over Malta, which would be the focal point of effort for the Italian Air Force during the Mediterranean campaign. Malta will be its own story on the podcast, but during these early phases the bombing raids were often night time raids where small groups or even single bombers would drop their bombs against large targets like the Grand Harbour in the hopes of hitting something. Sometimes they did, most of the time they didn’t. While there can be many criticisms of how the Italians handled their bombing squadrons during this time, there was also the unavoidable problem of the lack of the industrial capacity to make good on losses. This meant that any bombers lost could not be easily replaced, and in the long run this made any real success problematic, because as would be shown in other theaters there would always be major attrition during any sustained bombing effort, and as a nation and an air force to be successful meant winning that battle of attrition, and the Italians could not do that.

There will be an entire episode focused on the events in East Africa during 1940, but it is worth briefly discussing the actions during the opening months of the war in that distant theater. One of the key events of the 1930s was the Italian invasion and occupation of Abyssinia, or modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea, and it would be from these captured territories that they would stage their attacks against the British controlled territories of British Somaliland and Sudan. Early in July the first Italian forces, under the overall command of the Duke of Aosta would cross the Sudanese border and attack Kassala. The Italian forces, which included some light tanks and armored cars and artillery, easily overwhelmed the small defense force that was in Kassala, which was forced to retreat to the next village at Butana Bridge. Another Italian force also cross the border at Gallabat, and again forced the small border defense force to flee. In both cases the goal was not to launch an Italian invasion of Sudan, but instead simply to put Italian forces in position to defend that border while the real focus of the Italian efforts were made against British Somaliland. Due to their occupation of Abyssinia, the Italian forces were able to surround British Somaliland on three sides, although they would critically not be able to control the coastal regions. The greatest challenge for the British defenders was the fact that they would be massively outnumbered. The British forces were only around 5 battalions of various types, while the Italians had almost 5 times that number . When the attack started on August 5th all that the defenders could really do was mount a slow steady retreat to the coast. Various positions were fortified but they were always pushed back as soon as the Italian arrived. The result was that on the 15th, when it was clear that there was nothing more that could be done the decision was made to evacuate. The colonial units from Somaliland were given the choice of evacuating with the British or simply disbanding, which most of them chose, simply going home with their weapons . The rest of the British force and thousands of civilians would be evacuated over the following days. The Italians were victorious, achieving their objectives but at a much greater cost that they hoped. They would suffer around 2,000 casualties while the British forces only suffered aroudn 250. But it was still a positive start to the war for the Italians in eastern Africa, with the victories celebrated widely as one of the few purely Italian successes during this time. Unfortunately, the longer trends of the war in this theater would be far from ideal for the Italians, as even as they were victories in Somaliland, the power and resources of the British Empire, and particularly that of India were already being gathered and were on their way to reinforce the scant British forces in other areas around Abyssinia.