Chapter 809: Egypt besieged and divided
The situation of Egypt in the Second Great War was a delicate one, as the Axis Central Powers had taken Alexandria and headed towards Cairo. Despite this King Farouk I resisted British pressure to declare war on the German Empire and it's Allies until of the Second Great War was over, harboring sympathies for the Axis Central Powers, much like large parts of the Egyptian population. Because of this the British overthrew him in favor of his son Fuad II. Since his sister, Princess Fawzia Fuad was the wife of the Shah of Ppersia/ Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Farouk represented a strong influence in the Middle East and would later be part of the Mohammedan States opposing the Second Ottoman Empire/ Ottoman Caliphate's influence in the area after the Second Great War. Egypt had long been viewed by the British as strategic link to India. Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 badly destabilized the local Mameluke dynasty and the Ottoman Turks invited the British to play a more direct role in Egypt. In 1875, the British government purchased the local Egyptian government's remaining shares of the Suez Canal. In 1882 Ahmed Urabi led a revolt of Egyptian military officers and commoners against European and Ottoman domination of Egypt. A British expeditionary force crushed this revolt. While this was meant to be a temporary intervention, British troops stayed in Egypt, marking the beginning of British occupation and the inclusion of Egypt within the British Empire, nominally as a kingdom ruled by the Muhammad Ali dynasty. In deference to growing nationalism after World War I, the UK unilaterally declared Egypt independent in 1922. British influence, however, continued to dominate Egypt's political life and fostered fiscal, administrative, military and governmental reforms. The British therefore would however still station troops in Egypt to protect the Suez Canal Zone, so that full Egyptian self-rule was not yet realized.
During the hardships of the war, criticism was leveled at Farouk for his lavish lifestyle. His decision to keep all the lights burning at his palace in Alexandria, during a time when the city was under blackout in fear of an Axis Central Power bombing, particularly angered some. The royal Italian servants of Farouk were not interned and there is an unconfirmed story that Farouk had told British Ambassador, Sir Miles Lampson, "I'll get rid of my Italians, when you get rid of yours." This remark was a reference to the ambassador's Italian wife. Egypt had severed relations with the Axis Central Powers soon after the outbreak of the war but remained technically neutral until near the war's end. Following a ministerial crisis in February 1942, the British government, through its Ambassador, Sir Miles Lampson, pressed Farouk to have a Wafd or Wafd-coalition government replace Hussein Serry Pasha's partly pro-Axis Central Power government. On the night of 4 February 1942, British troops and tanks surrounded Abdeen Palace in Cairo and Lampson presented Farouk with an ultimatum. Farouk capitulated, and Mostafa El-Nahas formed a government shortly thereafter. After the war, King Farouk brought large numbers of German former military and intelligence personnel and high ranking ex-Nazis as well as German Imperials to Egypt as "advisors". This move infuriated the British, who had been training and assisting the Egyptian Army since the creation of the Kingdom of Egypt in 1922. The Italian invasion of Egypt, began as a limited tactical operation towards Mersa Matruh, rather than for the strategic objectives sketched in Rome, due to the chronic lack of transport, fuel and wireless equipment, even with transfers from the 5th Army. Musaid was subjected to a "spectacular" artillery bombardment at dawn and occupied. The British withdrew past Buq Buq but continued to harass the Italian advance. The British continued to fall back, going to Alam Hamid and Alam el Dab. An Italian force of fifty tanks attempted a flanking move, which led the British rearguard to retire east of Sidi Barrani, Graziani halted the advance. Despite prodding from Mussolini, the Italians dug in around Sidi Barrani and Sofafi, about 80 mi (130 km) west of the British defenses at Mersa Matruh. The British anticipated that the Italian advance would stop at Sidi Barrani and Sofafi and began to observe the positions. British naval and air operations continued to harass the Italian army as the 7th Armored Division prepared to confront an advance on Matruh.
Selby Force guarded the eastern approaches to Sidi Barrani, as the rest of the WDF attacked the fortified camps further inland. The 4th Armoured Brigade, which had been screening the attackers from a possible Italian counter-attack from the west, advanced northwards, cut the coast road between Sidi Barrani and Buq Buq and sent armoured car patrols westwards. The 7th Armored Brigade remained in reserve and the 7th Support Group blocked an approach from Rabia and Sofafi to the south. The 16th Brigade, supported by a squadron of Matilda II tanks, RAF aircraft, Royal Navy ships and artillery fire, started its advance at 9:00 a.m.. The fighting continued for many hours, without substantial gains, until 1:30 p.m, when the Blackshirts holding two strongholds on the western side suddenly surrendered. The brigade continued advancing with the last of the Infantry tanks, an extra infantry battalion and support from the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment. The second attack began just after 4:00 p.m.. Italian artillery opened fire on the infantry as they were dismounting. The last ten Matildas drove into the western face of the Sidi Barrani defences, and although they were met by Italian artillery, it was ineffective. At 6 p.m., approximately 2,000 Blackshirts surrendered. In two hours the first objectives had been captured, only a sector 2 mi (4 km) east of the harbor, held by a Blackshirt legion and the remains of the 1st Libyan Division, was still resisting. The British continued advancing until they reached Mersa Brega by January, 1941. Because of this German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and the German Emperor Wilhelm II sent their army to North Africa starting in January 1941. Germany's General Erwin Rommel's Deutsches Afrikakorps coming from victories at Tobruk in Libya, and in a classic blitzkrieg, comprehensively outfought British forces. Within weeks the British had been pushed back into Egypt, while additional Italian and Austria-Hungarian Forces slowly arrived as well. Rommel's offensive was for a while stopped at the small railway halt of El Alamein, just 150 miles from Cairo. In July 1942 the First Battle of El Alamein was lost by Rommel because he was suffering from the eternal curse of the desert war, and long supply lines. The British, with their backs against the wall, were very close to their supplies and had fresh troops on hand. In early September 1942 Rommel tried again to break through the British lines during the Battle of Alam el Halfa. He was decisively stopped by the newly arrived British commander, Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery. With British forces cut off after the Axis Central Powers conquest of Gibralta and Malta and the Axis Central Powers interdicting the Allies supplies at sea, the massive distances to Egypt began to shift in favor of the Axis Central Powers.
Because of this Rommel initiated the Second Battle of El Alamein, to defeat the Alliec and forcing them to retreat eastwards towards Alexandria and Cairo. The loss of the United Kingdom's General Bernard Montgomery at the Second Battle of El Alamein, or the Battle of Alamein, marked a significant turning point of Second Great War in Northern Africa and while no major victory by the Axis Central Powers against a British Commonwealth Army still was significant. The Eighth Army from Claude Auchinleck had retreated to Alexandria, but much like El Alemain now feared to be surrounded by Rommel there who bypassed them in the South once again. With the Axis Central Powers now controlling nearly all of the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean Sea heavily contested thanks to Axis Central Power air-forces and ships, the Allied retreated further wast. Although Egypt was part of the British Military Operations zone and British forces were stationed there, many Egyptian Army units also fought alongside them. Some units like 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th Infantry Regiments, 16th and 12th Cavalry Regiments, 17th Horse Artillery Regiment and 22nd King's Own Artillery Regiment, besides a few others. Beside these units, the Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiments all over Egypt played a vital role in destroying Axis Central Powers air attacks on Alexandria, Cairo, Suez and the Northern Delta. In their occupied regions of Egypt, the Axis Central Powers began to recruit Egyptian volunteers and promised them the liberation of Egypt and all other Mohammedan lands by their combined anti-Allied forces. Despite his victories meanwhile, Rommel knew the British still had strong reserves in Egypt, a situation that only worsened for the Axis Central Powers, as more and more American forces rushed into Africa and the Middle East.
With 186,000 Allied forces, 500-700 tanks, 780 to 800 artillery guns and 600 to 650 aircraft the British still had a force to be reckoned with in Egypt. Especially if considered that Marshal of Italy (Maresciallo d'Italia) Ettore Bastico and General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Axis Central Power leading military members in Egypt had only 85,000 soldiers, 314 tanks, 192 armored cars, 298 artillery guns, 657 anti-tank guns and 686 to 816 aircraft. Rommel however had a plan and a certain advantage on his hands, himself. The Allies by now knew how much Rommel loved to bypass them trough the desert to surround and annihilate them in smaller forces, meaning to prevent such things from happening in Egypt again, as they had in Libya, while Rommel at the same time could keep his invading forces much more concentrated and together, compared to his Allied opponents. He could threaten the Egyptian Delta in the North, including Port Said, Cairo in the East and Al Fayyum in the South all at once, while the British and Allied had the superiority of controlling the main Egyptian railways and supply routes, but that had never stopped Rommel before. Montgomery knew this as well fearing that Rommel could chose the northern route to cut of the Suez Canal, the eastern route to threaten Cairo, or chose the southern route to bypass the main Allied forces, maybe even surround some of them and then turn eastwards or push deeper into Sudan, towards former Italian East Africa that was now under Allied occupation. The Allies tried to deceive the Germans into believing they still had a massive superiority in ground and air forces, hoping to stall Rommel long enough until the fake number of this forces would become reality and crush the Axis Central Powers invading forces. Rommel tried to do the same, trick the Allies into believing he had more forces send from mainland by making a huge fuss by sending forces up and down the frontlines to cause a huge commotion and to make the Allies believe he had received much more reinforcements and additional reserves then he truly had. Both the Axis Central Powers entrenched themselves, while also hoping to continue their mobile warfare as quick as possible and not fall into French Trench Warfare like in the First Great War.
Skirmishes and artillery barrages probed each other defensive lines, but only a few kilometers/ miles could be won by both sides for now, partly also because none of the two sides wished to repeat the horrors of trench warfare, but none of them had any intentions to get their main forces and spearheads encircled by a skilled enemy tactician and strategist either. A major problem for the Axis Central Powers arose when Rommel was on sick leave to Bavaria leaving General Stumme under command, who would die from a heart-attack while under direct enemy artillery fire, leaving the Axis Central Powers in Africa under command of the Marshal of Italy Bastico. After a period of confusion while Stumme's body was missing, General Ritter von Thoma took command of the German forces, but Bastico would remain the supreme commander of all Axis Central Power forces. The German Emperor Wilhelm III instructed Rommel to remain at home and continue his convalescence but then became alarmed at the deteriorating situation and rising Allied attacks in Egypt, leading to him to ask Rommel to return to Africa if he felt able. Rommel left at once and arrived on as fast as he could. The Allies quickly abandoned their attacks and Rommel began counter-attacks, but with limited success. The Allies had lost 6,200 men against Axis Central Power losses of 2,500, but while Rommel had with fresh reinforces only 410 tanks fit for action Montgomery with some reinforces as well, now still had over 700. Montgomery however knew that the offensive was losing momentum and decided to regroup. There were a number of small actions but the Axis Central Powers defensive line was still intact. Montgomery was still confident and prepared his forces for Operation Desert Sun. The endless small operations and the attrition by the Allied air force had by then reduced Rommel's effective tank strength to only 502, leading to him requesting further reinforces from Europe's Axis Central Powers, when he suddenly was ordered away from Egypt. Now he was ordered to take command of the German tank, motorized and mechanized forces in Syria and Iraq to repeat his initial success in Libya and Egypt by bypassing, surrounding and kicking the Allies out of the Middle East. Doing so would free Axis Central Powers for Russia and to cut of the last supply line to the Soviet Union in Persia/ Iran. Further more German and Ottoman forces in Syria could rush to Jerusalem and push towards Sinau to cut of the Suez Canal from the other side and threaten all of northern Egypt, as well as Saudi Arabia, cutting of nearly all Allied oil supplies in Africa and Asia still left till now. At the same time the Americans landed forces in Morocco and West Africa under Operation Torch, pressuring the Axis Central Powers, leading to some reinforcements meant for the Egyptian Front or Rommel to be redirected Westwards. Beside some harbors bombed by Axis Central Powers air forces and the attempt to sink further British Navy ships before they all could retread trough the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, German, Spanish, Fascist French, Italian, Austrian-Hungarian, as well as some Hellenic and Turkish/ Ottoman naval ships and submarines managed to sink 28 Egyptian ships, damaging a Allied battleship, four Allied cruisers, three Allied Destroyers and some smaller escort ships like coastal patrols. Egyptians pressed into militia brigades and regiments by both sides now began to fill in the armies of both the Allies and the Axis Central Powers, similar to how they did in the nearby Middle East, leading to brothers and causing shooting each other and increasing resistance and opposition to both factions in this Arab and Mohammedan lands.