Stroke and Counter-Stroke
On the surface, Mussolini’s Italy was firmly in the
ascendant in the Middle East by the second half of 1940. In the Horn of Africa,
the conquest of British Somaliland by the Duke of Aosta’s forces presented a
potential threat to British sea traffic accessing the southern end of the Suez
Canal, and Italian forces also occupied key locations in northern Kenya and
Sudan. To the west, the Italian forces in Libya were poised to invade Egypt; in
conjunction with their incursion into Sudan this raised the prospect of a
concerted attack seizing the Suez Canal and thus severing the most direct
British line of communication with India, the Far East and the Antipodes. In
addition, Italian air and ground forces in both locations were more numerous
than their British and Commonwealth opponents, and also better equipped in many
instances.
The reality was somewhat less positive, however. A
combination of British naval superiority and geography meant that Italian East
Africa’s isolation from reinforcement or outside assistance outweighed the
threat it presented to British Imperial communications, and the same could be
said of the Italian occupation of the Egyptian coastal border zone. The latter
appears to have been driven less by strategic vision or desire for further colonial
expansion than Mussolini’s feelings of inferiority and consequent desire to
match Hitler’s achievements and keep his place as a belligerent at future peace
tables. This explains his insistence that the Italian move into Egypt coincide
with the German invasion of Britain, to which all other considerations were
subordinate; on 10 August 1940 he explicitly made this point the paramount
concern of the senior Italian commander in Libya, Maresciallo Rodolfo Graziani,
in a letter that stated ‘The invasion of Great Britain has been decided on, its
preparations are in the course of completion and it will take place…the day on
which the first platoon of German soldiers touches British territory, you will
simultaneously attack. Once again, I repeat there are no territorial
objectives, it is not a question of aiming for Alexandria, nor even for Sollum.
I am only asking you to attack the British forces facing you. I assume full
personal responsibility for this decision of mine.’
With such poor to non-existent strategic direction from the
top Balbo and Graziani’s tardiness in embarking on an invasion of Egypt is
arguably excusable and certainly understandable, and this also goes some way to
explaining the relative incompetence and lack of push displayed by the Italian
forces in British Somaliland and subsequently in Egypt. All this ought to have
made the Italians relatively easy meat for a competent opponent, but the
British were initially unable to capitalise upon them. The key factor was
simply numbers, for the Army and RAF contingents in both locations were simply
too badly outnumbered to offer more than token resistance, as the fighting in
British Somaliland had clearly shown. This was a puzzling and serious omission
given the importance of the region to the efficient running of British Imperial
trade and communications, and it is therefore germane to establish how such a
state of affairs came about before moving on to examine the British reaction to
the attacks on their territory.
As we have seen, while the Italians saw their Libyan colony
as an extension of their domestic territory, the British presence in Egypt was
focussed primarily on safeguarding the Suez Canal as a communications link
between Britain and the Empire.
Consequently, prior to the emergence of Italy as a regional
threat, the principal role of the British ground and air forces stationed in
Egypt and across the wider Middle East was imperial policing. Operations of
this type are frequently regarded as something of a soft option, but the
reality was somewhat different. Dissident tribesmen and indigenous populations
were just as capable of inflicting death and injury as conventional military
forces, and service in the reaches of the Empire also involved coping with
extremes of geography and climate as a matter of course. Carrying out even the
most basic of military operations under such conditions thus required a high
level of operational competence and flexibility.
Troops operating in the Western Desert, for example, had to
contend with extreme heat by day and near-freezing cold by night as a matter of
course, as well as sandstorms that reduced visibility to zero and the khamsin,
a hot wind blowing from the Sahara between February and June that routinely
raised the temperature to in excess of 104 degrees Fahrenheit; according to
local lore murder was justified when the khamsin blew. Even routine tasks like
patrolling in the arid, largely featureless terrain required strict water
discipline and navigational skills of a high order. Keeping weapons and equipment
functioning amidst the ever-present sand and gritty dust required constant and
diligent cleaning, and mechanisation increased the maintenance load manifold.
The dust shortened the life of engines even when equipped with special filters,
and the rough terrain took a similarly heavy toll on suspension components,
tyres and tracks. Vehicle and aircraft maintenance was complicated yet further
by the paucity of sheltered facilities; an RAF report on air operations in the
Western Desert noted that it took up to twenty-four hours’ work to restore
aircraft on forward bases to a flyable condition after sandstorms, with
instrument intakes and constant speed propeller mechanisms being especially
troublesome.
Relations between the Air Ministry and War Office in the
inter-war period and Second World War were frequently acrimonious at best, not
least because the RAF had justified its existence after 1918 by cutting into
the Army’s traditional function to create an imperial policing role for itself
by ‘…substituting air power for land power in the more inaccessible corners of
the British Empire.’ After contributing an eight-aircraft strong detachment
codenamed Z Squadron to suppressing the ‘Mad Mullah’ in Somaliland in 1919–20,
the Air Ministry was given responsibility for Iraq on 1 October 1922. However
the practical limitations of Air Control, as the policy was labelled, rapidly
became apparent when the RAF were obliged to form a ground support unit
equipped with Rolls Royce armoured cars. In fact, Air Control had always been
something of a fiction, given that there had been a substantial Army
involvement alongside Z Squadron and that the then Secretary of State for War
and Air, Churchill, who had played a major role in the implementation of Air
Control, nonetheless considered that policing Iraq would also require at least
14,000 Army troops. Despite this, the inter-service hostility diminished with
distance from London, if only for reasons of pragmatism and operational
necessity; hence the comment from Sir Gifford Martel, one of the British Army’s
armour pioneers, while serving in India in the 1930s: ‘the Air Force is a good
show out here; I wish the Army was as progressive.’
The result was an extremely high level of co-operation
between the Army and RAF at the operational level in the Empire. The evacuation
of casualties by air began with Z Squadron, which deployed the world’s first
custom-built air ambulance, and rapidly became a staple feature of British
imperial policing operations. Over 200 men were airlifted from Kurdistan for
treatment in Baghdad following a serious outbreak of dysentery in 1923, and by
the mid-1930s an average of 120 patients per year were being airlifted to
hospitals in Egypt, Palestine and Iraq. There was also a regular medical shuttle
to Port Said and Jaffa for cases requiring repatriation to Britain by sea.
Aircraft were also pressed into service for more routine military transport
tasks. In September 1920 two Handley Page 0/400s lifted a dismantled mountain
gun complete with crew and ammunition from Heliopolis to Almaza in Egypt, and a
complete company of infantry was lifted from Baghdad to Kirkuk in May 1924 in
response to an outbreak of civil disorder. A similar operation from Palestine
to Cyprus in October 1931 was the world’s first troop airlift over the open
sea, and the following year the RAF mounted its largest airlift in the interwar
period, using twenty-five Vickers Victoria aircraft to move a complete infantry
battalion the 800 miles from Egypt to Iraq in the period 22–27 June 1932. By
the late 1930s such large-scale operations were routine; during the Waziristan
campaign a total of 5,750 troops and 400 tons of supplies were lifted in the
period between November 1936 and May 1938.
However, operational co-operation and flexibility were of
little use against a threat arguably more insidious than desert dust or
inter-service rivalry. Government fiscal parsimony toward the British Armed
Forces was and remains something of a perennial, as demonstrated by the debate
about overstretch and equipment shortages in Afghanistan and Iraq at the time
of writing. The root of the problem at the beginning of the Second World War
dated back to the military drawdown immediately after the First World War. In
August 1919, within a month of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, a
Government memo declared that ‘non productive employment of manpower and
expenditure, such as is involved by naval, military and air effort, must be
reduced within the narrow limits consistent with national safety.’ This policy
resulted in a series of military budgets that were barely sufficient to cover
the Service’s existing commitments. The Army had its budget reduced every year
between 1919 and 1932 despite a parallel raise in its commitments, for example,
and pay cuts prompted by a £5 million cut in the Royal Navy’s budget in 1931
sparked a mutiny in the Atlantic Fleet at Invergordon. The situation continued
until the mid-1930s, when a Government statement in Parliament admitted that
the situation was ‘approaching a point when we are not possessed of the
necessary means of defending ourselves against an aggressor.’ As events in 1939
and more especially 1940 were to show, subsequent measures to reverse the
situation came barely in the nick of time. That was of little immediate solace
to those charged with safeguarding the Empire, for Home defence requirements
were the first priority and the former were thus obliged to accept whatever of
modern equipment or obsolescent hand-me-downs could be spared.
This was not initially seen as a matter for concern because
Italy was not considered a threat to British interests in the Middle East, and
this remained the case even when Mussolini embarked on an extensive re-armament
programme in 1933 and invaded Abyssinia two years later. Although the British
Mediterranean Fleet was substantially reinforced in September 1935 in
anticipation of enforcing League of Nations sanctions against Italy for her
aggression, Italian vessels carrying supplies and munitions for their forces in
Abyssinia were still permitted to transit the Suez Canal, in line with the 1888
Treaty of Constantinople that guaranteed access to the Canal for all and
prohibited warlike activity within three miles of the Canal’s entry points.
Indeed, the possibility of conflict with Egypt itself was a more pressing
concern, as relations had been ambiguous between the abolition of the British
Protectorate over Egypt in 1922 and the signature of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty
in August 1936. The Treaty bound the British to withdraw from Cairo within four
years, to restrict its military presence in the country to the area immediately
adjacent to the Suez Canal and the RAF airfield at Abu Sueir, seventy miles
from Cairo, and to train and equip the Egyptian Army and Air Force. In return
the Egyptian government was to improve and/or increase road and rail links,
permit British military training in designated areas and provide unlimited
access to all Egyptian facilities in time of war. In return the British
sponsored Egypt’s election as an independent member of the League of Nations in
May 1937.
In the meantime relations with Italy had deteriorated, and
the British initially tried to address the situation with diplomacy, leading to
the Anglo-Italian Joint Declaration signed in Rome on 2 January 1937. Popularly
dubbed the ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’, the Treaty debarred both parties from
interfering with the sovereignty of states in the Mediterranean area and
guaranteed mutual free movement in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, the
Declaration quickly failed to live up to expectations, and the British
government was obliged to extend its policy of military renovation to the
Middle East from July 1937, beginning with a modernisation programme for port
defences in the Mediterranean and Red Sea. Limited measures to counter possible
Italian attacks were also authorised, with the caveat that they should be
discrete and unprovocative.
British concerns initially centred on naval matters, and
specifically secure basing for the Mediterranean Fleet. Traditionally this had
been provided from Gibraltar and Malta, but the former was too distant from the
likely seat of future operations in the Eastern Mediterranean, and Malta was
too close to the Italian mainland. Alexandria was selected as the best option
in April 1937, not least because it had undergone modernisation during the
Abyssinian Crisis in 1935, and permission was obtained from the Egyptian
government to extend docking and repair facilities. The situation was more
serious with regard to air and land defence, for most of the army units were
based away from the Libyan border and were significantly under their official
War Establishment strength, while there were no RAF fighters or army
anti-aircraft units based in Egypt at all. Nonetheless, the British were able
to mount some semblance of defence during the Sudeten Crisis in September 1938
with the army occupying defensive positions at Mersa Matruh, two thirds of the
way between Alexandria and the Libyan border, and the RAF deploying to forward
airfields in support. By that time some of the more glaring deficiencies had
been addressed, at least to an extent. An anti-aircraft brigade equipped with
twenty-four 3-inch guns and the same number of searchlights had been despatched
from Britain in December 1937 along with a battalion of light tanks. This was
followed by a twenty-one strong squadron of Gloster Gladiators and twelve
Bristol Blenheims in February 1938. More reinforcements followed. The 11th
Indian Infantry Brigade arrived in Egypt in July 1939, followed by a New
Zealand brigade in February 1940, and the Indian presence was expanded to form
the 4th Indian Division by the arrival of a second brigade eight months later.
By the outbreak of war with Italy in June 1940 the British
were thus in a better, if not comfortable position to defend Egypt. At the top,
the clumsy and arguably unworkable triumvirate system created in June 1939,
which relied on the local Commander in Chiefs of the three Services to
co-operate voluntarily whilst beholden to their individual Chiefs of Staff and
Ministries in Whitehall, had been modified with the appointment of a
Commander-in-Chief Middle East on 15 February 1940. The officer selected to
fill the new post was Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Wavell, who had been
commanding the army’s Middle East Command from July 1939. Wavell was a highly
experienced and competent soldier who had seen service in the Boer War, India
and as an observer with the Russian Army before 1914; during the First World
War he served initially in a Staff position, was wounded and lost an eye at
Ypres in 1915, was seconded to the Russian Army in Turkey as a liaison officer
the following year, and ended the war on General Allenby’s staff in Palestine.
The RAF contribution to defending the Libyan frontier was No. 202 Group,
commanded by then Air Commodore Raymond Collishaw DSO and Bar, DSC, DFC. A
Canadian by birth and also a First World War veteran, Collishaw had begun his
career flying fighters with the Royal Naval Air Service and was the third
highest scoring British ace at the end conflict, with sixty victories. No. 202
Group consisted of six squadrons, the Gladiator equipped No.33 Squadron, Nos.
45, 53, 113 and 211 Squadrons equipped with Blenheims, and No. 208 Army
Co-Operation Squadron equipped with Westland Lysanders. The army contingent in
Egypt numbered 36,000 men, but not all were organised into complete formations,
and the formations that did exist were understrength in addition to overall
shortages of artillery, transport and ammunition. The Western Desert Force
tasked with defending the border with Libya was commanded by Major-General
Richard O’Connor, who arrived from Palestine to take over on 8 June 1940.
O’Connor’s Force consisted of the understrength 7th Armoured and 4th Indian
Divisions; the former lacked two of its constituent armoured regiments and the
latter a complete infantry brigade, although this was offset to some extent by
the presence of the 6th Infantry and 22nd Guards Brigades.
This was a fairly respectable force, but not in comparison
with the Italian 10° Armata facing them across the border in Libya. However,
there was more to the matter than bald numbers, and the British possessed a
qualitative advantage that to an extent offset Italian numerical superiority.
There were two aspects to this advantage. The first went back to 1935, when
elements of the Cairo Cavalry Brigade were formed into a Mobile Force and began
training for mechanised desert operations. This was a new concept and thus very
much a matter of trial and error. At the beginning it took a squadron from the
11th Hussars three days to reach the oasis at Baharia, 200 miles south of their
base at Cairo, thanks to navigation difficulties, vehicle suspension failures,
flat tyres and bogging in soft sand, and it took a further two days of
intensive maintenance before the return trip could begin. Within ten months the
same unit was capable of sallying forth south across the coastal plain from
Mersa Matruh to the Siwa Oasis on the rugged plateau that separated the plain
from the Great Sand Sea and back in the same time, a round trip of almost 400
miles as the crow flies. The experience garnered in the process was converted
into a formalised training programme for all British mechanised units in Egypt that
taught the importance of vehicle loading, field maintenance and repair, desert
driving techniques, how to use the terrain for movement and concealment, and
navigation by the sun and stars as well as with the magnetic compass. The end
result was a number of units capable of operating in the harsh conditions of
the Western Desert as a matter of routine. The second aspect was turning these
trained units into a cohesive mechanised force, and that was down to the
involvement of Major-General Percy Cleghorn Stanley Hobart DSO MC.
Hobart was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1904 and
after service on the Western Front and in Mesopotamia during the First World
War, transferred to the Royal Tank Corps in 1923. A disciple of Colonel J.F.C.
Fuller and an armoured theorist in his own right, he was promoted to command
the 2nd Battalion, Royal Tank Corps in 1928. In 1933 he became Inspector Royal
Tank Corps, and after promotion to Brigadier the following year formed and
commanded the 1st Tank Brigade, the first armoured formation of that size in
the British Army. A single-minded and difficult character, Hobart made more
than his fair share of enemies in the army establishment, but avoided being
edged out of the army like his fellow armour pioneers Fuller and Liddell Hart
and was appointed Director of Military Training at the War Office in 1937, on
the understanding that he would be given a command more in line with his
expertise in the event of war. That circumstance came with the Munich Crisis,
and Hobart was despatched to form an armoured division in Egypt on 25 September
1938. His appointment was not universally popular as his difficult reputation
appears to have preceded him; the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief,
Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Gordon-Finlayson, greeted him with the immortal
words ‘I don’t know what you’ve come here for, and I don’t want you anyway.’
Despite this inauspicious start, Hobart set to work
reorganising and expanding the Mobile Force into the Mobile Division at his
base at Mersa Matruh. The new formation consisted of three parts. The Light
Armoured Brigade was created by the simple expedient of renaming the Cairo
Cavalry Brigade, which was made up of the 7th Queen’s Own Hussars equipped with
a variety of Light Tanks, the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars making do with 15
cwt Ford trucks in lieu of tanks, and the 11th Hussars mounted in Rolls Royce
Armoured Cars. The Heavy Armoured Brigade consisted of the 1st and 6th
Battalions, Royal Tank Corps, the former equipped with Light Tanks and the
latter with a mixture of Light and Medium. The third part, dubbed the Pivot
Group, was intended to provide the armoured striking force with infantry and
artillery support. It consisted of 1st Battalion, The King’s Royal Rifle Corps
(KRRC), and the 3rd Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery (RHA) equipped with
3.7-inch howitzers. Hobart also managed to form a divisional HQ with personnel
located through his parallel responsibility for Garrison Troops in Cairo,
including increments from the Royal Corps of Signals and a complete company
from the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC). The latter proved invaluable in
locating supplies of ammunition and spare parts, and more modern replacement
equipment slowly became available over the winter of 1938–39; this permitted
the 6th Royal Tank Regiment to replace some of its venerable Mk. II Medium
Tanks for more modern A9 Cruisers, and the 3rd RHA to re-equip with 25-Pounder
guns. In parallel with all this Hobart instructed and drilled his command until
its disparate components were capable of operating smoothly together in
offensive and defensive manoeuvres. By the end of 1939 Hobart had largely
achieved his mission, as is clear from Major-General O’Connor’s comment that
the Mobile Division was the best trained division he had ever seen.
