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The Ariete was composed of 6,949 men, 163 tanks, 36 field guns, 61 anti-tank guns. The Italian Army Ariete Armoured Division and Brescia and Trento Motorized Infantry Divisions arrived in North Africa in February 1941 along with Rommel's Afrika Korps (DAK). The Italian Stukas made their debut in North Africa on 11 January 1941 in conjunction with German dive-bombers from X Fliegerkorps, Italian pilots crippling the British aircraft-carrier HMS Illustrious with 1,000 pound bombs, destroying the rear-lift and forcing the carrier to limp back to Malta for repairs, allowing the safe arrival of the Afrika Korps in February.Īlthough Rommel’s example and German military doctrine certainly helped the Italian Supreme Command regain much of Libya, the Italian fighters and bombers also played a significant role in forcing the Royal Navy to abandon the port of Benghazi, the Allied forward supply base in Libya. He assumed command of the Deutsches Afrika Korps ( Afrika Korps or DAK) and with only 20 Bf 110s and 60 Ju 87s, he received much needed help from the Regia Aeronautica in Libya to force back the exhausted British Commonwealth forces. In February 1941, German General Erwin Rommel arrived in Tripoli, Libya, and over the next month assembled a mixed German division with panzers and crack motorized infantry, to give the Italians the firepower and experience needed to defeat the British. In late January 1941, the British Commonwealth forces attacked General Ferdinando Cona's 20th Corps and captured Derna, a town of 10,000 Italian nationals, but only after much fierce fighting. The Italians suffered 100,000 POWs and were pushed back more than 800km (500 miles). The invasion was halted, and by December of that year the Italian forces in Egypt were on the defensive.Īlthough outnumbered, General Archibald Wavell, with much support from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force operating from Malta, ordered a British counter-offensive on 9 December 1940, Operation Compass. Graziani led his numerically superior Italian force across the border in September 1940 against a smaller but highly mobile British rearguard and supporting Egyptian Frontier Guards Division. When it became apparent to Mussolini that Sealion was postponed indefinitely, he ordered Marshal Rodolfo Graziani to launch his 10th Army, into Egypt from Italian Libya. The Italian invasion of British Egypt was initially to coincide with Operation Sealion, the aborted German invasion of Great Britain in 1940. Attempts by the Italian Army to invade Greece ended in stalemate. In October 1940, Benito Mussolini declared war on Greece.

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