Beda Fomm

Italy joined Germany's war on June 11, 1940 when Mussolini opportunistically declared war on the seemingly defeated British and shattered French states. Mussolini hoped to share in German victory over France; he did, but in the process made several monumental errors that squandered what should have been a powerful addition to Germany's war effort.

Mussolini's greatest error, beyond siding with Germany, was his overambitious foreign policy. Mussolini consistently overextended his military establishment and failed to address the inconsistencies in development within the Italian military and economy that left in particular the Italian army plagued with obsolete equipment and saddled with a poorly trained and largely unmotivated officer corps.

One particularly poor decision Mussolini made came prior to the Second World War's onset when he insisted on supporting Franco's Nationalists by sending to Spain the Corpo Truppe Volontarie (CTV); an expeditionary force that numbered 40,000 men at its December 1937 peak including four full army divisions. Maintaining this force in Spain cost the Italian economy dearly and severely overstretched the Italian military at a time when its efforts would have been better spent modernizing for fighting the enormous conventional armies arming and mobilizing across the European continent. For instance, the CTV, in addition to incurring 12,000 casualties, cost two-thirds the entire Italian military budget during the critical years between 1935 and 1940. Thus, at a time when Germany, Britain, and the Soviet Union were developing and fielding the weapons systems that dominated combat in Europe during the majority of the Second World War the Italian military stagnated and went to war in 1940 with woefully obsolete equipment.

As if the drain caused by the CTV was not enough, the Italian military establishment was further burdened by its need to maintain a massive occupation army in East Africa. In addition, in 1939 and again in 1940 Italy invaded the Balkans - taking on significant occupation duties in the process. In 1940 Italy also attacked France, invaded Egypt, and sent an aerial contingent to France to participate in the air war against England.

All these military commitments worked to spread the Italian economy and military far beyond the otherwise considerable industrial means available for the Italian military to draw from and which could have provided the primary muscle for a coordinated Italian-German plan of action in the Mediterranean. Demographically, Italy was a nation of 42 million people in 1936, among the most populous in Europe. Economically, although lacking adequate raw materials, especially in coal, steel, and oil the Italians had managed to build up automobile and shipbuilding industries that competed well with any in Europe in terms of quality, although ranking significantly smaller and more inefficient than European class leaders.
Nevertheless, Italian production capacities were more than adequate for to greatly threatening British interests in the Mediterranean. The real problem confronting Italy during the war was not her economy or access to resources; it was the mismanagement of the Axis war effort, and overall poor mobilization and inefficiency of the Italian industrial base.

Militarily, Italy's poorly directed economy produced predictable results. For instance, in 1940 the Italian Tenth Army in Libya, numbered 236,000 men organized into 14 divisions and should have been a powerful fighting force. In reality, the Italian Tenth Army employed woefully deficient equipment including only 300 obsolete tankettes and a few Fiat M11/39 tanks. Though the Italians designated the M11/39 tanks as medium tanks in reality, at only 11 tons in weight, they were comparable to light tanks of the era. In addition, the Tenth Army was equipped with 1,500 First World War vintage guns, and 8,000 trucks.

In comparison, the British 7th Armored Division alone deployed several hundred medium tanks, light tanks, and armored cars. In particular, the British Cruiser and Matilda tanks were far superior to the Italian armor and the 7th Armored Division could bring greater mobile firepower to the battlefield than could the entire Italian Tenth Army. Moreover, the British army enjoyed more able leadership than the Italian army. This stemmed from a number of reasons not least of which was Mussolini's horrible relationship with a significant portion of his officer corps over matters involving the army's traditional focus on preserving the Italian monarchy and Mussolini's indifference to the Italian army's culture. Regardless of the poor state of the Tenth Army Mussolini ordered it to invade British controlled Egypt in August of 1940. This order came in spite of the fact Mussolini had also ordered hundreds of thousands
of men and enormous amounts of war material to prepare to contemporaneously invade Greece.

Italian Commander-In-Chief North Africa, Rodolfo Graziani, reluctantly complied with this order, believing the Tenth Army could not seize Egypt without far more assistance than was being provided. Thrusting east, the Tenth Army faced only light resistance from British motorized infantry and supporting units, but the Italians halted within Egypt short of British General Archibald Wavell's main defenses. The British forces were primarily comprised of the 7th Armored Division and the undermanned 4th Indian Infantry Division. Graziani dug in and began constructing the infrastructure he argued was necessary to support the Tenth Army's lines of communication.

Following a brief artillery barrage on December 9, 1940 British forces struck back at the Italian lines. It did not take the British long to exploit weak points in the Italian defenses and penetrate deep behind the Italian lines. Graziani's forces teetered and then gave way - the retreat was on. Although much fighting would remain, on February 9, 1941 retreat turned into a disastrous rout. The 7th Armored Division had cut across the Cyrenaican Peninsula, severed the Italian lines of communication, and isolated the Italian army at Beda Fomm. In just two months of fighting, a combined British, Indian and Australian army had won a staggering victory. The British Commonwealth forces had advanced over 500 miles and captured approximately 130,000 Italians, 380 tanks, and 845 guns for the loss of only 1,928 killed and wounded.


Map Courtesy of Department of History at the United States Military Academy



by Steven Douglas Mercatante