Sacrifice of Singapore by Michael Arnold

Author:Michael Arnold [Arnold, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814435437
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

10 ROMMEL AND THE MIDDLE EAST

Of the greatest names in German military history Rommel stands as a man apart.

Charles Douglas-Home

Rommel! Rommel! Rommel! Rommel! What else matters but beating him?

Winston Churchill

Rommel indirectly produced the fall of Singapore – and as much by the personal impression he made on a personality-minded Prime Minister as by his potential threat to the Nile Valley and Suez Canal.

Sir Basil Liddell Hart

ITALY HAD GAINED a foothold in Africa in 1888 with the establishment of a Protectorate on the Horn of Africa at the southern end of the Red Sea which was called Italian Somaliland, and the country’s influence was further extended in that region a year later with the military occupation and colonisation of neighbouring Eritrea, also on the Red Sea. On the Mediterranean coast of Africa the territories ceded to Italy following the Italo-Turkish War of 1912 were the provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, which became known as Libya in 1934. Following his successful 1935 invasion and occupation of Abyssinia, Benito Mussolini proclaimed the province of Italian East Africa in 1936, which consisted of Abyssinia plus the adjoining territories of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. Italy’s presence in the region was therefore quite substantial and fearing an Italian invasion, King Farouk of Egypt signed the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty in 1936 which required the United Kingdom to withdraw all troops except those necessary to protect the Suez Canal and to provide training for Egypt’s army and assistance in its defence in the event of war. That was the overall position in the region in 1940 when in June of that year, France, Britain’s largest ally, collapsed against Nazi Germany and nearly all the French navy, the fourth largest in the world, either fell into German hands or was no longer operational.

It was at this point, just one week after the British escape from Dunkirk and with typical political opportunism, that Mussolini declared war on Britain. His grandiose plans were to expand his African territories into a neo-Roman Empire which threatened to turn the Mediterranean into an Axis lake, and Britain’s North Africa campaign was designed to thwart this scheme. Adolf Hitler does not appear to have shown much interest in Mussolini’s venture nor does the Suez Canal itself seem to have been a strategic objective of the Italians but simply the prestige of acquiring territory. Following the French surrender and feeling sure he was onto a good thing in Africa, Mussolini launched attacks into Egypt from Libya and Sudan from Italian Somaliland. Sudan had been administered by the British from Egypt and although large in area it was of no strategic or geographical importance which only emphasised the fact that as far as Mussolini was concerned, it was the glory of territorial conquest that he was seeking. Despite his army and air force equipment being largely obsolete his forces met with some initial successes, on paper at least, for he had vastly superior numbers but his tactics which had proved successful against tribesmen in other areas of Africa

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