Italian invasion of Egypt

Italian invasion of Egypt
Part of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War
Western Desert 1940
Date 9–16 September 1940 Location Egypt 26°N 30°E / 26°N 30°E / 26; 30Coordinates: 26°N 30°E / 26°N 30°E / 26; 30 Result Inconclusive
Belligerents
United Kingdom  Free French	Italy
Commanders and leaders
Archibald Wavell William Gott John Campbell	Rodolfo Graziani Mario Berti Italo Gariboldi Pietro Maletti Annibale Bergonzoli
Strength
1 reinforced brigade 205 aircraft Naval support	Roughly 4 divisions 300 aircraft
Casualties and losses
40 killed	120 killed 410 wounded

The Italian invasion of Egypt (Operazione E) was an Italian offensive against British, Commonwealth and Free French forces during the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) of the Second World War. The goal of the offensive was to seize the Suez Canal; to accomplish this, Italian forces from Libya would have to advance across northern Egypt to the canal. After numerous delays, the aim of the offensive was reduced to an advance into Egypt, as far as Sidi Barrani and attacks on any British forces in the area.

The 10th Army advanced about 65 miles (105 km) into Egypt but only made contact with the British screening force of the 7th Support Group (7th Armoured Division) and did not engage the main force around Mersa Matruh. On 16 September 1940, the 10th Army halted and took up defensive positions around the port of Sidi Barrani, intending to build fortified camps, while waiting for engineers to extend the Via Balbia with the Via della Vittoria, to accumulate supplies for an advance on Mersa Matruh, about 80 miles (130 km) further east, where the remainder of the 7th Armoured Division and the 4th Indian Division were based.

Cyrenaica, the eastern province of Libya, had been an Italian colony since the Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912). With Tunisia, a part of French North Africa to the west and Egypt to the east, the Italians prepared to defend both frontiers, through a North Africa Supreme Headquarters, under the command of the Governor-General of Italian Libya, Marshal of the Air Force, Italo Balbo. Supreme Headquarters had the 5th Army (General Italo Gariboldi) in the west and the 10th Army (General Mario Berti) in the east, which in mid-1940 had nine metropolitan divisions of about 13,000 men each, three Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (Blackshirt) divisions and two Italian Libyan Colonial divisions with 8,000 men each. Reservists had been recalled in 1939, along with the usual call-up of conscripts.

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