As previously mentioned, Compass had seen British and Commonwealth troops secure large swathes of Libya, with Italy being forced to send all its remaining forces in the region to Sirte to recover. Upon the end of Compass, British officers had the Allies’ newly-won gains fortified, while planning was made for a renewed offensive to completely evict the Italians from Libya. This was code-named Operation Hammerhead, and required significant reinforcements, for it would result in a large push into the remaining portion of Libya by British and Commonwealth forces. By the time Hammerhead was established, the Balkan Campaign was at an end, and thus many of the divisions removed from Libya to successfully defend Crete were returned to the Western Desert Campaign, yet this would not be enough for Hammerhead to be the decisive engagement it needed to be - indeed, this led to a greater number of troops being required, as Italy was also able to re-deploy its available troops in Libya now that fighting in the Balkans had ceased. So, Wavell sent a message to Churchill, requesting further forces to assist the drive into Western Libya. Fortunately for Wavell, Britain still had enough divisions to spare, given that (as previously mentioned) the threat of a German invasion of the British Isles remained non-existent. In the end, an additional five British divisions, numbering roughly 75,000 men, were granted to Wavell for Hammerhead, along with new vehicles and equipment to replace those lost in Compass, and so, throughout mid-1941, preparations were made to launch the plan.
Hammerhead was launched on September the 4th 1941, and saw two British corps advance towards Sirte - the XIV Corps, led by Bernard Montgomery (who had rose in prominence within the British Army following his successful defence of Hythe during the Battle of Britain), and XV Corps, led by Richard O’Connor [1]. The objective of the two corps was to encircle Sirte (thereby trapping the majority of the nearby Italian forces), which would subsequently be besieged, while the rest of the British and Commonwealth armies would proceed to advance further into Libya, eventually reaching Tripoli, where the bulk of Italian resistance was expected to lie. Rodolfo Graziani, the head of the Italian Army in Libya (and also one of the most senior fascists in the Italian Government), had three Italian divisions advance from outside Sirte and confront one of the two corps, with the hope that it would delay their advance and allow many of the Italian troops in Sirte to escape. In the end, the Italian divisions sent by Graziani chose to confront XIV Corps, leading to the Battle of Sirte, which took place over several hours on the 4th. Although the three Italian divisions were superior in numbers to the single British corps, ultimately Montgomery’s forces had superior firepower, while many elements of the Italian Army remained un-mechanised. So, the Battle ended in a British victory, with the British and Commonwealth advance only slightly slowed down by the Italian assault.
This led to the Second Battle of Sirte, as both the XIV Corps and the XV Corps reached their respective positions, and began to besiege the city, while Royal Navy ships arrived outside the city and began to blockade it from the sea, thereby preventing the Italian forces inside from securing reinforcements or supplies from Italy. The battle, which lasted from the 5th to the 12th of September, eventually resulted in the Italian forces, with little hope of being able to break the siege, surrendering, allowing Montgomery and O’Connor to enter Sirte, while Italians defending the city were left as prisoners of war.
While the engagements around Sirte occurred, the remaining British and Commonwealth forces focused on advancing further into Libya. On the 6th, Australian and British forces under the command of Leslie Morhead reached the city of Misurata, and were sent to capture the city. The two divisions, numbering roughly 30,000 men, under Morhead’s command, engaged the two Italian divisions of a similar size defending the city, and so the Battle of Misurata began. However, as with most other battles during the Western Desert Campaign, the Allies came out triumphant, as a result of superior equipment, and so the Italians retreated from Misurata on the 8th, allowing Morhead’s troops to enter the city. From this point onwards, British and Commonwealth troops began to advance towards their final target – Tripoli. As the Allies advanced from Misurata towards Tripoli, resistance from the remaining Italian forces became fiercer, as Graziani was under strict command from Mussolini to prevent the capture of Tripoli at all costs. Between the Battle of Misurata and the imminent Battle of Tripoli, the Battle of Al-Khums took place on the 12th, and lasted for several days, yet eventually, on the 15th, the Allies were able to capture the city.
At this point, Montgomery and O’Connor had returned to the front-line with their two corps, thereby giving the British and Commonwealth troops set to assault Tripoli an additional boost in men. On the 17th, the Allies reached the outskirts of Tripoli, and it is estimated at this point that the total number of British and Commonwealth troops present was around 154,500, whereas the Italian troops inside Tripoli numbered roughly 96,500 men. When the Allies reached the outskirts of Tripoli, the Battle subsequently began, as four separate corps (Montgomery’s XIV Corps, O’Connor’s XV Corps, Alan Cunningham’s XVI Corps, and Claude Auchinleck’s XVII Corps [1]), encircled the city from separate points – Montgomery from the east, O’Connor from the southeast, Cunningham from the southwest, and Auchinleck from the west. Meanwhile, further Royal Navy forces arrived at Tripoli and began bombarding the city’s defences from sea, so as to weaken its defences.
The battle lasted from the 17th to the 29th of September, during which British forces consistently bombarded Italian defences within Tripoli, while the Italian defenders continually fired back, hoping to make the task of besieging the city difficult enough that the Allies would, at least temporarily, withdraw. Yet no such event occurred, and by the 29th, the Italian troops’ morale had completely sunk, while the defences of Tripoli had been damaged to the extent that the Allies could easily force their way into the city within a day or two. And so, Graziani reluctantly gave the order to wave a white flag over Tripoli. The Battle of Tripoli was over, in a decisive Allied victory.
The British and Commonwealth commanders present subsequently entered the city to accept the Italian surrender, and thus Tripoli came under Allied control. By capturing Tripoli, the Allies gained numerous advantages – the remaining 95,000 men inside the city, including Graziani, surrendered to the British/Commonwealth forces, while some equipment and vehicles present inside the city were secured by the Allies – while many of these were behind Allied weaponry and equipment technologically, some proved to be rather useful, such as the remaining Italian motor vehicles, which was one field in which Italian forces held an advantage, and thus British and Commonwealth troops were able to utilise them upon putting them in Allied service (indeed, at one point, Montgomery used a former Italian motor vehicle captured in Tripoli). Yet the largest gift granted to the Allies by the capture of Tripoli was the collapse of Italian resistance in the remaining parts of Libya. Tripoli was not far from the border with Vichy French colonies, and so the remaining Italian forces still stationed in Libya were ordered to either evacuate from Libya and return to Italy, or move west into friendly Vichy French territory. And so, Britain and the Commonwealth had completely secured Libya – Operation Hammerhead, and by extension the Western Desert Campaign, was over in a significant Allied victory. Capturing Libya provided numerous advantages for Britain – as well as providing a morale boost (although not as significant as the boost to morale caused by the Battle of Britain), the former Italian colony had significant oil reserves which would be utilised by the Allies for the war effort.
From Rome, however, a very different view was taken – Mussolini was terrified at what the ramifications of losing Libya would be for his rule. Italy’s grip on its colonies was quickly unravelling [2], while the only Italian gains in Europe had come about as a result of German intervention, and, as a result, many Italians felt humiliated by their poor performance in the war effort. The Duce now feared internal unrest against his rule – for while Mussolini felt obliged to carry on the war on the side of the Axis, many Italians did not, and soon enough Mussolini would discover that the foundations of his power were in fact softer than he had previously believed.
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[1] Fictional corps created between Compass and Hammerhead.
[2] The East African Campaign goes the same as our timeline, and thus the Allies are able to secure control of Italian East Africa by November 1941.