Italian invasion of Egypt
The Italian invasion of Egypt began on the 13th of September 1940, when an army of tens of thousands crossed from Libya into British-held territory with one prize in mind: the Suez Canal. The operation had a name, Operazione E, and a commander, Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, who privately believed it could not succeed. His political superior, Benito Mussolini, ordered him to attack anyway.
What followed was a campaign of missed opportunities, logistical blunders, and a halt so prolonged that Mussolini himself wrote in exasperation, asking whether the long pause had benefited Italy or its enemy, answering his own question with uncomfortable candor. Within three months, the British Western Desert Force would tear through the Italian 10th Army in a counter-offensive that captured over 133,000 prisoners. This documentary examines how Italy arrived at that catastrophe: the strategic gamble, the army's hidden weaknesses, a desert that punished the unprepared, and the strange, halting advance that stopped short of its target and handed the initiative to a far smaller British force.
In mid-1940, Italy had roughly 215,000 men in Libya against a British force in Egypt of about 36,000 troops, with another 27,500 training in Palestine. On paper, the imbalance was enormous. In practice, the two forces faced a landscape that made raw numbers almost beside the point.
The Western Desert stretched about 240 miles from Mersa Matruh in Egypt westward to Gazala on the Libyan coast, along a single paved road, the Via Balbia. Inland, a raised stony plain rose to roughly 500 feet above sea level, running 200 to 300 kilometres deep before giving way to the Sand Sea. The Sirocco, a hot desert wind known locally as the Ghibli, reduced visibility to a few yards and coated machinery, lungs, food and equipment with fine sand. Motor vehicles required special oil and air filters. Water, food, and every military store had to be hauled in from outside the region.
Navigation across this terrain depended on sun, stars, a compass and what desert veterans called "desert sense," an accumulated feel for the ground built through experience. When the Maletti Group, a powerful armoured formation, moved to its assembly points before the invasion, it lacked that experience entirely. It got lost leaving Sidi Omar, disappeared into the desert, and had to be located by reconnaissance aircraft before the advance had even begun.
In 1936, General Alberto Pariani became Chief of Staff of the Italian Army and launched a sweeping reorganisation. The plan was to replace traditional three-regiment divisions with leaner two-regiment binary divisions, part of a ten-year programme aimed at creating an army built for speed and mobile warfare.
The results were the opposite of what Pariani intended. The change increased administrative overhead without a matching rise in fighting power. New technology, including tanks, motor vehicles and wireless communications, arrived slowly and proved inferior to what potential enemies could field. Worse, the army needed extra officer staffs for the new structure, which diluted the quality of the officer class. The Blackshirt Militia was folded in alongside professional soldiers, adding a political layer to an institution already struggling with the shift.
By September 1939, only sixteen of the Italian Army's sixty-seven divisions (excluding the Ethiopian garrison) had actually completed conversion and received their allotted arms. The rest carried obsolete equipment with no replacement stocks, and lacked artillery, tanks, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns and transport. The reforms had also pushed frontal assault as the dominant tactical doctrine, squeezing out the flexible, mobile approaches that the desert would demand.
Before the invasion was launched, the North Africa Supreme Commander, Marshal Italo Balbo, warned Mussolini directly: "It is not the number of men which causes me anxiety but their weapons... equipped with limited and very old pieces of artillery, almost lacking anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons." Balbo asked for 1,000 trucks, 100 water tankers, more medium tanks and anti-tank guns. The Italian economy could not supply them. The chief-of-staff in Rome, Badoglio, brushed him off with the promise: "When you have the seventy medium tanks you will dominate the situation."
The Italian advance into Egypt was postponed three times before it finally moved. Each delay exposed a deeper problem with the army's readiness.
The first plan was timed to coincide with an expected German invasion of England on the 15th of July 1940. When that invasion was cancelled, so was Italy's. The second plan, for the 22nd of August, called for a limited advance to Sollum and beyond, using three columns on three lines. The brutal summer heat in August, which would hit the non-motorised infantry hardest, forced another postponement.
The third plan set the 9th of September as the invasion date, targeting Sidi Barrani. Graziani told his staff six days before Mussolini issued the formal order, which suggests the marshal had little confidence the order would not change. A southern column built around the Maletti Group was meant to outflank the British along desert tracks, but the Italian staff failed to provide proper maps or navigation equipment. The group got lost on the way to its start line, and XXIII Corps headquarters had to send aircraft to shepherd it into position. The Libyan divisions also arrived late at their rendezvous near Fort Capuzzo.
These failures produced a fourth revision. The plan that was actually executed on the 13th of September relied on a simple mass advance down the coast road, with the non-motorised infantry using the single paved road because, as the Italian command acknowledged, they would be ineffective anywhere else.
On the 13th of September, Italian artillery and bombing fell on Sollum's airfield and barracks, which were already empty. When the dust settled, the Italian army could be seen drawn up along the coastal plain, ready to move. The 1st Libyan Division occupied Sollum's barracks and began descending the escarpment toward the port.
The British covering force, built around the 3rd Coldstream Guards with supporting artillery and a small company of Free French Motor Marines, fell back in stages. They demolished sections of the coast road as they went, and the damage was made worse by the volume of Italian traffic following close behind. By the 16th of September, with the 1st CC.NN. Division "23 Marzo" entering Sidi Barrani, the Italian advance stopped. The 10th Army had covered roughly 65 miles into Egypt at a pace of about 12 miles a day, a speed set by the need to keep the non-motorised infantry in step with the armoured units.
The British had anticipated a halt at Sidi Barrani, and they got one. The 10th Army dug into a defensive arc stretching from Maktila on the coast through Tummar East, Tummar West, and Nibeiwa, with positions on top of the escarpment at Sofafi. Divisions further back filled Buq Buq, Sidi Omar and Halfaya Pass. The 10th Army suffered fewer than 550 casualties during the entire advance, but the bold mechanised strokes the Italian army was theoretically designed to deliver never materialised. XXIII Corps had used its armour to guard the infantry rather than exploit weaknesses in the British line.
Engineers began building the Via della Vittoria, a paved road from Bardia intended to extend the existing coastal route and supply the next push. A water pipeline was also begun. Neither was expected to be ready before mid-December.
On the 26th of October, Mussolini wrote to Graziani with an open challenge: "Forty days after the capture of Sidi Barrani I ask myself the question, to whom has this long halt been any use, to us or to the enemy? I do not hesitate to answer, it has been of much use, indeed, more to the enemy." He ended by asking whether Graziani still wished to command.
Two days later, Italian forces invaded Greece, opening the Greco-Italian War and spreading Italian commitments further. Graziani was allowed to continue planning at a deliberate pace. An advance to Matruh was rescheduled for mid-December.
The British moved first. On the 8th of December, the Western Desert Force launched Operation Compass as a five-day raid against the Italian camps. Berti was on sick leave; Gariboldi had taken his place. By the 11th of December, the raid had turned into a counter-offensive. The 10th Army units remaining in Egypt that were not destroyed were forced into a rapid retreat, and the British pursued the remnants along the coast through Sollum, Bardia, Tobruk, Derna, Mechili, Beda Fomm and on to El Agheila on the Gulf of Sirte.
The Western Desert Force suffered about 1,900 men killed and wounded during Compass, roughly ten per cent of their infantry. In exchange, they captured 133,298 Italian and Libyan prisoners, 420 tanks and over 845 guns. The British advance ended at El Agheila, halted not by Italian resistance but by worn-out vehicles and the diversion of their best-equipped units to the Greek Campaign. Wavell singled out Brigadier William Gott and Lieutenant-Colonel John Campbell for the "cool and efficient" way in which the earlier withdrawal had been managed, and praised the troops for their endurance and tactical skill during those first weeks of Italian pressure.
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Common questions
What was the Italian invasion of Egypt in 1940?
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.
Who commanded the Italian forces during the invasion of Egypt?
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.
Why did the Italian advance stop at Sidi Barrani?
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.
How many prisoners did the British capture during Operation Compass?
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.
What were the main weaknesses of the Italian 10th Army before the invasion of Egypt?
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.
What happened to the Maletti Group during the Italian invasion of Egypt?
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.
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