By Stuart Crawford
The current civil war in Libya will undoubtedly have stirred old memories for many who lived through the second world war. Media reports from Tobruk, Benghazi and Tripoli are reminders of 1940–43, when Britain and her allies fought a long campaign to throw first Italy, then Germany, out of North Africa.
At the outbreak of the war, Libya was an Italian colony, and had been since 1912. To the west lay French North Africa, to the east Egypt, where Britain had a modest number of troops stationed by agreement, mainly to guard the Suez Canal.
After Italy declared war on Britain in June 1940, there were a number of raids by both sides across the Libya/Egypt border, in which the British came off best. However, in September of that year, Italy invaded Egypt and pushed back British troops there. But then they stopped, citing supply problems, and dug in.
In December 1940 the British, in the form of the 7th Armoured and 4th Indian divisions, counter-attacked and caught the Italian army completely off guard. Following a rapid advance, the Italian troops surrendered at Beda Fomm, a small coastal town between Benghazi and Ajdabiya. This swift campaign by the British captured 130,000 Italians at a cost of 2,000 casualties.
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The tables were soon turned. In early 1941, the German General Erwin Rommel arrived with the Deutsches Afrika Korps to bolster the Italians, while the British denuded their army by sending troops to Greece. The Germans were better equipped, better commanded, and more experienced. By April, the British had been forced back to the Egyptian border, with Tobruk still in their hands but besieged. Over the next year the conflict continued in a see-saw fashion, characterised by advances followed by withdrawals by both sides. Eventually, Rommel and his German and Italian forces were comprehensively defeated by Montgomery’s 8th Army at El Alamein, and the long retreat by the Axis forces began, with them eventually being expelled from Libya in early 1943. Tripoli was captured by the Allies in February 1943. Much of this sounds pretty familiar to those of us watching the news these days, and well it might. Military history doesn’t actually repeat itself much, but it often paraphrases. Many of the characteristics of the battles of 1940–43, scale aside, are being highlighted again today. Chief among these are the logistics of fighting in such a large area of operations. As troops advance, their communication lines become extended to breaking-point. Fuel, ammunition, food, water, medical supplies, replacement parts for vehicles, all have to be brought forward over increasing distances to sustain the front line. All too often, front-line troops can go no further, not because of tenacious enemy defence, but because they run out of supplies. On top of this, the extended lines of communication are vulnerable to interdiction, especially from the air. Just as Gaddafi’s armoured columns were destroyed by coalition jets when they were strung out along the coastal highway, so were Rommel’s troops harried by the Desert Air Force in 1942. And on top of this, in 1940–43 both sides had to contend with interdiction at sea, by surface and sub-surface warships. In 1942, for example, it is estimated that Rommel’s armies lost nearly 50 per cent of their fuel supplies, sunk in transit across the Mediterranean. The importance of air power is axiomatic in all of this, and the impact on the current conflict by the imposition of the no-fly zone is plain to see. Air power played a hugely important part in the previous conflict too, with Britain and her allies slowly getting the upper hand after having started off with inferior numbers of aircraft to the Italians in 1940. Just as today, he who ruled the skies controlled movement on the battlefield. Back to communications. Much of the current conflict involves advances up, and retreats back down, the coastal road – by both sides. This very much reflects what happened 70 years ago. It is the obvious route for movement, and still probably one of the better roads in the whole country. Back in the 1940s, though, military commanders quickly worked out that if the enemy was holding the coast road then a left or right hook through the desert to the south was a pretty effective way of outflanking him. Consequently, defence lines began to creep further and further into the desert to protect the open flank. Montgomery’s great advantage at Alamein in 1942 was that he didn’t have that open flank: the southern end of his defences rested on the Quattara Depression, an area of rough ground and salt marshes more or less impenetrable by vehicles. So Rommel had to try to go through the middle, and he failed. When it came to Montgomery’s turn to attack, he too had to go through the middle, but he had built up such a superiority in men and materiel by then that success was more or less assured. Today, the rebels have neither the leadership, training nor equipment to do anything more than surge up and down the coast road. Gaddafi’s forces arguably have all three, but any coordinated movement in the wide expanses of the desert would bring almost certain destruction from the air. So, much like in the 1940s until Montgomery broke the spell, we have deadlock. Neither the rebels nor the Gaddafi forces can make much progress. What the eventual outcome might be is anybody’s guess at the moment, but don’t be surprised if Libya splits in two, into something close to the historical provinces of Cyrenaica in the east and Tripolitania in the west. Gaddafi might well hang on, albeit as the emasculated leader of a relatively powerless shell state. As for the rebels – well, it looks as if they will be welcomed to the table of international respectability in Gaddafi's place. And it doesn’t half help their case that most of the oil infrastructure is in their half of the country. Meanwhile, the surviving veterans on the 8th Army and Deutsches Afrika Korps must be shaking their heads…Want to discuss other issues? Join the debate on our new Scottish Voices forum
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