This week, seventy years ago, the Regio Escercito Italia, crossed the border between Libya and Egypt.
     After Air Marshal Italo Balbo’s plane was accidently shot down by Italian anti-aircraft gunners over Tobruk, in June of 1940, Marshal Rodolfo Graziani was named Commander of the troops in Libya and Governor-General of the Colony. He had been named a Marshal of Italy in recognition of his contribution to the Italian conquest of Ethiopia, after which he was appointed Viceroy and Governor-General of that new addition to the Italian Empire. Prior to the Ethiopian campaign, Graziani had been tasked with pacifying the Libyan Moslems, led by Omar Muhktar, in the early ‘30s and, because of his ruthless tactics, had earned the sobriquet, “Beast of Benghazi.” In 1981, the Libyan government produced a movie about this struggle, “Lion in the Desert,” starring Anthony Quinn as Muktar, Oliver Reed as Graziani, John Gielgud as Sherif El Gariani and Rod Steiger as Mussolini. Until last year, it was banned in Italy.
    Approximately a quarter million soldiers were divided between the Fifth Italian Army posted on the border with French Tunisia, and the Tenth Italian Army posted on the border with British Egypt.  They far outnumbered their British enemies in Egypt.  However, corresponding to Mussolini’s boast that he was backed by eight million bayonets, the 250,000 soldiers in Libya were a hollow threat, and Marshal Graziani knew it. The soldiers were, for the most part, poorly trained, poorly equipped, and poorly led. Most, when properly led, trained and equipped, fought very bravely.  
    The Regio Escercito’s armored cars dated to 1909. Its light L-3 tank had an armament of two machine guns.  Its medium tank, the M-11, was so thinly armored that machine gun bullets could pierce its armor. The 37mm gun it mounted could not traverse (turn). The Italian army’s heaviest tank, the M-13, sported a 47mm gun, but only had a speed of 9 miles per hour. None of the Italian tanks could match the British Matilda. In addition, Italian troops were short of antitank guns, anti-aircraft guns, ammunition, and radio sets.  Although during the inter-war years Italy had boasted of some of the premiere aviation pioneers (such as Air Marshal Balbo), the Regia Aeronautica had nothing in the class of the British Hurricane, and the Italians never learned how to keep their aircraft functioning in desert conditions.
    Marshal Balbo had understood the limitations of Italian arms, as well. Before Il Duce had brought Italy into the war, the Marshal had warned him, “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 antitank and anti-aircraft weapons...it is useless to send more thousands of men if we cannot supply them with the indispensable requirements to move and fight.” Before he would authorize any large-scale offensive, Marshal Balbo demanded 1,000 trucks, 100 water tankers and more medium tanks and antitank guns. All of this was beyond his nation’s capability to supply.
    To defend Egypt from the Italian forces in Libya and Italian East Africa, British General Sir Archibald Wavell’s Middle East Command numbered 36,000. Facing the Italian forces in Libya was the Western Desert Command under Lt.-General Sir Richard O’Connor. Although vastly outnumbered by its Italian enemies, it consisted of some of the best soldiers in the world, such as the Cold Stream Guards,  the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, the Seventh Armored Division, commanded by Major-General Sir Michael O’Moore Creagh, which soon earned the sobriquet “The Desert Rats,” and the Fourth Indian Division under the command of Major General Noel Beresford-Peirse. Most importantly, the British were mobile and the Italian Army was not. So wherever the Italian army went, it walked. This was a problem that would plague the Regio Escercito in every theater throughout the war. And, there was the Matilda, which was impervious to just about anything the Italians could throw at it.
    But all this meant nothing to the boastful Mussolini. He had been cajoling Marshal Graziani to attack since his appointment, telling him that, “Time is working against us. The loss of Egypt will be the coup de grâce for Great Britain!”  Originally, Marshal Balbo had planned an attack to capture Sollum, on the Egyptian side of the border, on July 15, to coincide with the German invasion of England. When the German operation was postponed, so was the Italian. Il Duce ordered the invasion of Egypt to commence on August 8. This would be the first of several deadlines which the new Governor-General would miss, explaining that his troops were not properly equipped for such a venture and that it could not possibly succeed. Marshal Graziani then planed a strike across the border, against Sollum, on August 22. But for some reason, this had to be postponed as well.
    Il Duce implored of the Marshal, “It is not a question of aiming for Alexandria or even Sollum. I am only asking you to attack the British forces facing you.” So Marshal Graziani prepared plans to launch an attack into neighboring Egypt, from Libya, on the 27th of August 1940. It was to be a two-prong attack, with one prong seated on the northern coast road - the Via Balbia - toward Sollum, and a motorized group to proceed on the south side of the escarpment that ran parallel to the Mediterranean.
     After finalizing the plans, Marshal Graziani sent them to Commando Supremo, in Rome, hoping that the plans themselves, without more, would assuage Il Duce’s desire for action.  He then notified Commando Supremo that the offensive would have to be postponed because he did not have the transport for the southern arm of his offensive.  However, Il Duce ordered an attack by September 9, 1940, or Graziani would be dismissed. On September 8, Italian Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano, noted in his diary that, “Never has a military operation been undertaken so much against the will of the commanders.” Marshal Graziani then changed the plans by abandoning the southern portion of the assault.  
    After Radio Rome announced the impending offensive, to all the world, the XXIII, XXI and Libyan Corps of the Italian Tenth Army finally moved forward on September 10th. Tenth Army was commanded by General Mario Berti, who had been the commander of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie during the Aragón Offensive, in the Spanish Civil War.  
    The XXIII Corps, which would lead the offensive, was commanded by Lt. General Annibale Bergonzoli, who was also a veteran of the Spanish Civil War.  He had commanded the Littorio Division during the Battles of Guadalajara, Santander and the Aragón Offensive, and was known as “Barba Elettrica” - Electric Whiskers.
    The XXIII Corps consisted of the 23 Marzo & 28 Ottobre Camice Nere (Blackshirt), and Marmarica Infantry Divisions. The 23 Marzo was so named to honor the date of the founding of the Fascist Party on March 23, 1919, while October 28, 1922, was the date of the Fascist march on Rome that brought them to power. Camice Nere  were Fascist militia and were supposed to compensate for their lack of military training with Fascist enthusiasm and elán.
    General Lorenzo Dalmazzo commanded the XXI Corps, which consisted of the Cirene and Catanzaro Infantry Divisions and three battalions of the mostly worthless Italian tanks.
    The Libyan Corps consisted of the First and Second Libyan Divisions and 3 Gennaio  Camice Nere Divisions and some tanks and was commanded by Lt. Gen. Sebastiano Gallina.
    The Italian press trumpeted this as a, “...war for Egyptian independence,” and the liberation of, “...Egypt from the oppressive domination of the English.” Tellingly, Egypt did not declare war on Italy. Former Egyptian Prime Minister, Isma’il Sidqi, explained that, “The Italian offensive is not an aggression against Egypt, but against another belligerent on the territory of a third and occupied power.” Writing for one of the Fascist papers, Giornale d’Italia, Virginio Gayda crowed, “Nothing can save Britain now!”
    Up to that time, the British had inflicted 3500 casualties on the Italians, at a cost of 150 to themselves, in various raids conducted by the Long Range Desert Group under the command of Captain Ralph A. Bagnold, and the capture of some border strongholds, such as Forts Capuzzo and Maddalena, by the 7th and 11th Hussars, respectively in the first days of the war.  The 7th was a light tank regiment, while the 11th was an armored car regiment.
    The two forts were retaken by the Camice Nere on September 13, and Italian forces finally crossed the Egyptian border, as the First Libyan Division, under the command of Maj.-General Luigi Sibille, began an assault on Sollum, five miles on the Egyptian side of the border. Today Sollum has a population of less than fifteen thousand. When the Italians arrived on the outskirts, they discovered it was defended by tanks and artillery. In actuality, it was defended by a Platoon of Coldstream Guards, and the guns and tanks were wood! Vastly outnumbered, the Guards planted mines and departed.  
    By the 16th of September the Camice Nere had taken the town of Sidi Barrani, sixty miles east of the Libyan/Egyptian border. It was a seaport village of about 6,000, located about 80 miles west of the British headquarters in Mersa Matrûh. Mersa Matrûh was connected to Alexandria by a rail line and to Sidi Barrani by a paved road.
    After reaching Sidi Barrani, the First Libyan Division pushed on 10 miles further, to Maktila, and stopped to rest and await supplies. By now, the Italians were hundreds of miles from their supply port of Tripoli. Casualties were one hundred twenty dead and four hundred ten wounded, to forty for the British.  Marshal Graziani, safe in his headquarters in Tripoli, Libya, announced that the Commonwealth forces had retired in disorder, while losing half of their armor! He ordered the Tenth Army to dig in and create fortified strong points from the Mediterranean south. Unfortunately the strong points which General Berti created were too far from each other to give mutual support. What armor he did have was scattered among the strong points, thereby eliminating a mobile reserve. He also stationed a division, each, at the villages of Buq Buq and Sidi Omar, and at Halfaya Pass near Sollum. All were on the route between the Libyan border and Sidi Barrani.
    Marshal Graziani then launched a torrent of telegrams to Commando Supremo demanding more equipment and supplies. Finally, on the 26th of October, an exasperated Mussolini cabled, “Forty days after the capture of Sidi Barrani, I asked myself the question, ‘To whom has this long delay been any use - to us or to the enemy?’ I do not hesitate to answer, it has been of use indeed, more to the enemy! It is time to ask whether you feel you wish to continue in command?”                 
    Marshal Graziani replied that he would resume the offensive on December 15th, but Il Duce had already decided to “occupy” Greece, and the supplies, reinforcements, armor and transportation, which Marshal Graziani needed to continue the “offensive,” and which had been promised, were diverted to that theater.  Before Marshal Graziani’s magic date arrived, the British struck. On November 8th they launched Operation Compass, which before it ended, would find them occupying almost all of Cyrenaica and threatening all of Libya, before British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, like the Italian Duce, decided to divert supplies and reinforcements, needed to continue the offensive in North Africa, to Greece, where it was immediately squandered.
    
Mr. Wimbrow writes from Ocean City, Maryland, where he practices law representing those persons accused of criminal and traffic offenses, and those persons who have suffered a personal injury through no fault of their own.
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