Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Italian invasion of Egypt, codenamed Operazione E, was an offensive launched on the 13th of September 1940 by the Italian 10th Army from Libya into British-held Egypt. The strategic goal was to advance along the coast and seize the Suez Canal. The advance halted at Sidi Barrani after covering roughly 65 miles, and the 10th Army was later destroyed by the British Operation Compass counter-offensive beginning on the 8th of December 1940.
Marshal Rodolfo Graziani commanded the Italian 10th Army during the invasion, serving as Supreme Commander of Italian Forces in North Africa. He replaced Marshal Italo Balbo, who had been killed in an accident before the invasion began. Graziani himself believed the attack could not succeed and told Mussolini so, but Mussolini ordered him to proceed regardless.
The 10th Army halted at Sidi Barrani on the 16th of September 1940 to wait for engineers to complete the Via della Vittoria coastal road and a water pipeline, neither of which was expected to be ready before mid-December. The army also needed to accumulate supplies before advancing the remaining 80 miles to Mersa Matruh. Graziani had chosen a mass advance down the coast road because the non-motorised infantry could not operate effectively off that road.
The British Western Desert Force captured 133,298 Italian and Libyan prisoners during Operation Compass, along with 420 tanks and over 845 guns. British casualties during Compass were about 1,900 men killed and wounded. The operation began on the 8th of December 1940 as a planned five-day raid but expanded into a full counter-offensive that drove the Italians back to El Agheila on the Gulf of Sirte.
The Italian 10th Army lacked adequate transport, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft weapons and modern artillery. General Pariani's army reforms since 1936 had increased administrative overhead without improving fighting power, and by September 1939 most divisions still carried obsolete equipment with no replacement stocks. Marshal Balbo wrote to Mussolini before the campaign warning that the weapons situation, not the number of men, was the core problem.
The Maletti Group, a powerful armoured formation comprising Libyan infantry battalions and most of Italy's M11/39 medium tanks in Libya, got lost twice: first during assembly near Sidi Omar before the invasion, and again on the 9th of September when moving to its start positions. On both occasions the group had to be located and guided by reconnaissance aircraft because its staff lacked adequate maps and navigation equipment. Its poor performance was later cited as evidence of insufficient preparation and training for desert operations.