Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II

• 1. Introduction

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  The Mediterranean and Middle East theatre lasted longer than any other in the Second World War. Combat opened on the 10th of June 1940, when Italy declared war on the United Kingdom and France. It did not end until the 2nd of May 1945, when all Axis forces in Italy surrendered. Across those years the fighting stretched over the Mediterranean Sea, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and Southern Europe. Land, naval, and air campaigns ran together as one vast, contiguous theatre rather than separate wars. How did a conflict begun by Italian ambition come to draw in Germans, Free French, Australians, New Zealanders, Brazilians, and forces raised in Mandatory Palestine? Why did it spread as far east as Iraq and Iran, and as far south as Ethiopia? And how did its ending seed fresh wars, from Greece to Palestine, that outlasted the war itself? The answers begin with one man's vision of a new Roman empire.

• 2. A Prisoner Of The Sea

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  During the late 1920s, Benito Mussolini argued that Italy needed an outlet for its surplus population. The Fascist regime wanted hegemony in the Mediterranean-Danubian-Balkan region and an empire stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Strait of Hormuz. On the 30th of November 1938, Mussolini told the Fascist Grand Council he aimed to capture Albania, Tunisia, Corsica, the Ticino canton of Switzerland, and French territory east of the River Var. He framed Italy as a prisoner in the Mediterranean, bound by British and French control. To break the chains, he said Corsica, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Malta, Suez, and Tunisia would have to be taken. The empire-building had already begun. On the 2nd of October 1935, Italian forces invaded Abyssinia in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Mussolini praised the conquest as a new source of raw materials and a place for emigration. Almost as soon as that campaign ended, Italy intervened in the Spanish Civil War. On the 7th of April 1939, Italy invaded Albania and occupied it within two days. In May 1939, Italy formally allied with Nazi Germany in the Pact of Steel. Historians mark a turn in Mussolini's foreign policy around 1934-35: a modest and responsible course gave way to ceaseless activity and aggression. The Ethiopian War, one account holds, exposed vulnerabilities and created opportunities that Mussolini seized to realise his imperial vision.

• 3. The Western Bastion

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  At the Nyon Conference of 1937, Italy and the United Kingdom disclaimed any desire to modify the national sovereignty of any country in the Mediterranean area. Italian diplomatic and military moves did not reflect that pledge. By July 1937 the British had decided that Italy could not now be regarded as a reliable friend. In 1938, a weak armoured division was established in Egypt, and reinforcements were sent from Britain. In June 1939, the United Kingdom set up Middle East Command in Cairo to centralise control of British army units across the region. Its authority reached Aden, British Somaliland, Cyprus, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Greece, Libya, Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Tanganyika, Transjordan, Uganda, and the shores of the Persian Gulf. If needed, command could extend as far as the Caucasus and the Indian Ocean. The command's purpose was to be the western bastion of defence of India, to keep supply lines open, and to keep the Middle Eastern oilfields out of Axis hands. On the 19th of October 1939, the United Kingdom, France, and Turkey signed a Treaty of Mutual Assistance, and British officers began talks with the Turkish general staff. With Poland defeated, planners in late 1939 prepared attacks to capture Bardia and Jaghbub in Libya, assuming war with Italy was near.

• 4. The First Year

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  On the 10th of June 1940, Italy declared war, and the next day the British Commonwealth declared war on Italy. The siege of Malta soon began, with the first Italian air attack on the 11th of June. On the same day the Western Desert Campaign opened, and on the 17th of June, Fort Capuzzo was captured. On the 20th of June, Mussolini began the Italian invasion of France. After France signed its armistice with Germany on the 22nd of June, the Franco-Italian Armistice followed on the 24th of June. Italian occupation forces took over an 832 square kilometre area of France, including 28,500 people and the town of Menton. On the 3rd of July 1940, the Royal Navy attacked the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir to keep it from German or Italian hands. In September, Italian forces invaded Egypt as far as Sidi Barrani, digging in 80 miles west of the British position at Mersa Matruh. On the 28th of October, Italy began the Greco-Italian War by invading Greece, but the Greek army repulsed the attack and counter-attacked on the 14th of November, pushing the Italians back into Albania. On the night of the 12th and the 13th of November, the Royal Navy struck a major blow at Taranto. Operation Compass then drove the Italians out of Egypt and destroyed the Italian 10th Army in February 1941. In March, the Battle of Kufra cost Italy the desert oasis of Kufra, a vital link between its east and north African holdings.

• 5. The Tide Turns Axis

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  Germany dispatched the Afrika Korps in Operation Sonnenblume to block further Allied advances in North Africa. Its commander, General Erwin Rommel, was subordinated to the Italian command, yet he seized on his opponents' weakness and went on the offensive before his forces had fully assembled. In March and April 1941, German and Italian forces drove the British and Commonwealth troops into retreat. The Australian 9th Infantry Division fell back to the fortress port of Tobruk, while the rest withdrew 100 miles east to Sollum on the Libyan-Egyptian border. The Axis began the Siege of Tobruk, and by the end of April, Sollum had fallen and the Halfaya Pass was captured. In East Africa the story ran the other way. British forces struck from Kenya Colony and Sudan through Somaliland, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. The Italian Viceroy, Duke Amedeo d'Aosta, was forced to surrender by the 18th of May, and the Empire of Ethiopia was re-established under Haile Selassie. The last Italian garrison, at Gondar, held out until November. In the Balkans, Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941 and captured it in 11 days, partitioning it among themselves and new client states including the Independent State of Croatia. A communist-led Partisan uprising under Josip Broz Tito soon broke out, opposed by the royalist Chetniks who both fought and collaborated. When the German Operation Marita struck Greece on the 6th of April, most of the Greek army was in Albania fighting the Italians. The Metaxas Line was overrun, the Commonwealth force retreated to Crete, and from the 20th of May, German paratroops took the island, securing the southern flank before turning toward the Soviet Union. Hitler later blamed his failure in the Soviet Union on Mussolini's failed conquest of Greece, a claim the historian Andreas Hillgruber called an attempt to shift blame to his ally.

• 6. Wars In The East

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  In Baghdad the Italian Legation became a centre for Axis propaganda, aided by Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who had fled Palestine and found asylum in Iraq. On the 1st of April 1941, Rashid Ali and four officers known as the Golden Square seized power by coup, proclaiming a National Defence Government. On the 17th of April, Rashid Ali asked Germany for military assistance. On the 30th of April, the Iraqi army besieged RAF Habbaniya, a base with no operational aircraft, where the RAF converted trainers to carry weapons. German and Italian aircraft, staging through Vichy-controlled Syria, supported the Iraqis, but the larger, poorly trained Iraqi force was defeated and Baghdad and Mosul were taken. That defeat fed into the Syria-Lebanon Campaign. In Operation Exporter, Australian, Free French, British, and Indian units invaded Syria and Lebanon from Palestine on the 8th of June 1941. Negotiations for an armistice began on the 11th of July, and surrender terms were signed on the 14th of July. Then came Iran. The Allies wanted a supply route to the Soviet Union, but the Shah, widely viewed as pro-German, refused to open the country. In August 1941, the Allies invaded and occupied Iran, deposed the Shah, and placed his young son on the throne. The Iranian oil fields were secured and the line of supply to Russia held for the rest of the war. Smaller German efforts failed outright. Operation Atlas, a Waffen SS commando mission of five men in October 1944, collapsed with arrests by the Transjordan Frontier Force. Operation Mammoth, a 1943 parachute drop into Iraqi Kurdistan, ended within days after the agents landed 300 kilometres off target and lost their weapons. One of them, Gottfried Müller, later wrote a book about Kurdistan called Im brennenden Orient, published in Germany in 1959.

• 7. The Island Fortresses

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  Gibraltar had been a British fortress since the early 18th century, commanding the entrance to the Mediterranean. Force H, under Vice-Admiral James Somerville, operated from its harbour, escorting convoys to Malta. Malta itself lay 60 miles from Sicily, and its air defence began with just six obsolescent Gloster Gladiator biplanes. After the first Italian raids made clear the island could be defended, the Gladiators were reinforced in early July by twelve Hawker Hurricane fighters. The Kriegsmarine joined the fight by establishing the 23rd U-boat Flotilla on Salamis Island in Greece in September 1941, with bases later added at Pola and La Spezia. Bombing and blockade forced rationing on Malta's inhabitants. During a lull in early 1942-61 Supermarine Spitfires arrived and sharply improved the island's defence, though food, ammunition, and fuel stayed short. As the garrison recovered, its aircraft, submarines, and surface ships resumed attacks on Axis supply convoys, starving the Axis forces in Libya of fuel. Meanwhile the Western Desert swung back and forth. Operation Brevity and Operation Battleaxe failed in 1941, but Operation Crusader pushed the Axis back through Libya. A counter-attack drove the Allies to Gazala, and after the Battle of Gazala they retreated to El Alamein. The Second Battle of El Alamein in October turned the tide, ending the Axis threat to Egypt and the Suez Canal. On the 8th of November, Operation Torch landed Allied forces across French North Africa, and in December 1942, after a 101-day blockade, French Somaliland fell.

• 8. Italy And After

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  On the 10th of July 1943, the Allies invaded Sicily in Operation Husky with amphibious and airborne landings. Before they entered Messina on the 17th of August, German and Italian forces evacuated most of their troops to the mainland. On the 25th of July, the Italian government deposed and arrested Mussolini. The Allied invasion of the mainland began on the 3rd of September 1943 with Operation Baytown, and the Armistice of Cassibile was announced on the 8th of September. The next day, the US Fifth Army landed at Salerno in Operation Avalanche, while British airborne troops landed at Taranto. The battleship Roma was sunk by the Luftwaffe on the 9th of September as the Italian fleet sailed to Malta. On the 16th of September, a German airborne force led by Otto Skorzeny rescued Mussolini from the Gran Sasso, and the Italian Social Republic was set up in the north with him as head of state. This split Italy against itself in what became known as the Italian Civil War, with the Italian Co-Belligerent Army and resistance on one side and the National Republican Army on the other. The historian Claudio Pavone's 1991 book, Una guerra civile, helped spread the term among historians. The terrain favoured defence. The Winter Line, including the Gustav Line, halted the Allies at the end of 1943, and Operation Shingle at Anzio failed to break it. The Fourth Battle of Monte Cassino broke the line in spring 1944, and Rome fell in June. The Gothic Line held until the Spring offensive of 1945. On the 25th of April, the National Liberation Committee launched a general insurrection. On the 28th of April, Mussolini was captured trying to escape to Switzerland and executed by Italian partisans. After the Surrender at Caserta, Marshal Rodolfo Graziani surrendered, and on the 2nd of May, SS General Karl Wolff and General Heinrich von Vietinghoff ordered the unconditional surrender of German forces in Italy. The theatre's end did not bring peace everywhere. Allied troops sent to Greece in October 1944 were attacked by the EAM-ELAS movement, sparking the Greek Civil War in December. In Syria, British forces under General Bernard Paget moved on Damascus in 1945 to force a French ceasefire. And in Palestine, inter-ethnic violence gave way after the war to a civil war that ran until the British withdrawal in May 1948 and the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.