One of the Duke of Aosta’s great hopes was that, through his own actions, he could bring about a favorable end to the war – in hindsight, the impossibility of such an outcome is obvious, but, at the time, he saw things differently. Following his entry in Karthoum, he had been sending out feelers to the British through his contacts in the Vatican, but to no avail. Desperate to achieve something, he decided a goodwill gesture towards his enemies might be sufficient, and, as fate would have it, such an opportunity lay right at his feet. More exactly, it took the form of a rag-tag British force formed around a few companies of the Worchestershire regiment and assorted units, withdrawing up the coast after having taken out the Italian force they were sent to destroy (only to find out it was actually a diversion meant to get them out of Port Sudan in time for the landing). Their only means of escape lay in reaching the small port of Suakin, just south of Port Sudan, and then (unlike Lord Kitchener who survived a siege in the port city back when the previous Mahdi had risen up against the British) being evacuated north to Egypt.
Suakin Island, at the center of the small gulf protecting the ancient harbour
Despite Italian forces being far nearer to their destination then they were, the British reached Suakin just ahead of the Italian column and had time to load everyone abourd the Royal Navy ships which came in to support. At the time viewed as a sign of Italian incompetence, only later did they find out it was actually deliberate.
Even so, the Duke of Aosta was no nearer to achieving his peace then he was before the Suakin evacuation. Rebuffed by the British, he came to the conclusion that the only way to end the war was through enough battlefield victories. Unfortunately for him, in order to defeat the British, he first had to reach them, something which, given the stalling of Italo Balbo’s advance into Egypt and his own chronic shortages of fuel, spare parts, rubber tires and vechicles (a situation which the mad dash across the Sudanese grasslands only worsened, dramatically in fact) now seemed all but impossible.
Unable to advance further on land, the Italian commander decided it was time to confront the British at sea. To this end, he decided to make full use of the loot caputed in French Djibouti and employ them in a creative fashion. The supply of naval mines the French left behind began to trickle in from its storage warehouse and into the narrow waters of the Bab el Mandeb strait, as every night, small fishing boats made their way as close to the British positions as possbile before dropping their deadly cargo into the water. When a convoy finally struck one of the the mines, the British dispatched a couple of minesweepers, only to have them come under fire from artillery on the shore, none other than the French coastal guns, which the Italians had painstakingly dismounted and dragged into position in great secrecy.
To deal with the problem, the Royal Navy sent in a squadron from Alexandria, including a battleship, only to have them spotted by a lurking submarine just south of the Suez – by the time the fleet reached the Bab El-Mandeb, the Italian guns had already been moved inland. As soon as they returned to Alexandria, the guns were brought back and the mines started being planted once more. A frustrated Cunningham pressured the crew of the French battleship Lorraine to join the Free French forces. Some accepted, some refused and were replaced by British sailors or Frenchmen from other ships. Thus, with a mixed crew and a couple of escorts, the Lorraine was sent to guard the straits. The hodge-podge nature of the operation predictably led to disaster, as the Lorraine struck a mine, was torpedoed once by an Italian submarine and once by a destroyer and also received two bomb hits, forcing the Royal Navy to tow the crippled ship back to Egypt.
French Battleship Lorraine before setting out into the Red Sea
With mines, coastal artillery, hit-and-run attacks by the Italian Red Sea flottila and bomber strikes regularly attacking the convoys supplying Wavell’s forces, 8th Army risked having its supply lines cut off, a fact not lost on Churchill. However, he had a plan…