The North African Campaign was a campaign in Egypt and Libya which lasted for 2 years. It had started off with upon the fall of France and Italian invasion of Egypt which was driven back during Operation Compass. The major differences to OTL start in early April.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rommel upon his own and his troops arrival launches Operation Sonnenblume in April which turns into a violent battle for the Australian defences at Marsa al Brega. While they are flanked after the 1st Armoured Brigade and 2nd Armoured Division fails to stop the Axis flanking movement the Australians refuse to disengage from their positions and the direct attack is called back. The 2nd New Zealand and 9th Australian division counterattack on the 7th April and relieve the desperate 6th Australians at Marsa al Brega.
While the British wait for both reinforcements and their units being equipped to arrive, the 7th Australian division relieve the 6th Australian division at Marsa al Brega. The Germans launch another flank attack to take Marsa al Brega on the 15th April and they fall back from the town and along with the rest of the force try and move back with the 9th Australians sent back to dig in to Benghazi while the rest of the forces conduct a fighting retreat which inflicts great losses on them. Benghazi is encircled on the 20th April while the rest of Cyrcom falls back to Tobruk. The siege of Benghazi starts off with a massive attack by the Italian and German army on the 21st April but in house to house fighting the Axis are held back by the Australians. So while continuing to launch continuous attacks as well as bombard their positions they launch no large scale assaults.
While in Egypt and Tobruk, Cyrom reforms and rebuilds itself while launching small unit raids against the enemy force. On the 11th may they finally launch an attack to push the Axis back to Acroma. The assault goes well and they manage to gain ground. In 3 more attacks like this the British eventually link up with Benghazi and the badly mauled 9th Australian division.
At this point they halt all offensives until they can prepare for a greater one in late August. The Axis having to move supplies from Tripoli struggle while the British only have to move them from Tobruk which the engineers managed to get working. On the 28th August after lots of preparation and arrival of reinforcements the Allies launched a major offensive against the Axis with a swing by armoured units to the south and a march down the coastal road. The Axis had not been aware of the plan and while Rommel's forces escape the encirclement they are pushed back to Marsa al Brega where the Allies halt their offensive and dig in.
Rommel launched his own massed offensive the next day not wishing to give them time to prepare. The fierce counter- attack again dislodged the allies but this time heavy losses were suffered by the Axis in tanks which they could ill afford. They retreated to Benghazi where Rommel launched another attack on the 4th September driving them off with less casualties but on his arrival at Tobruk on the 12th September he found the city already occupied and encircled the city but could not progress with his stretched supply lines.
The British are resupplied and re- equipped in preparation for a counter- offensive in Egypt. On the 17th September after having left the city of Tobruk to be besieged for a week. The British counterattacked hard throwing the Axis out of Tobruk and more critically destroying a large amount of Axis tanks due to having stretched the wear and tear of their vehicles and not having received sufficient re-supply they found themselves losing a lot of equipment.
The allies on the 27th September found themselves back in Marsa al Brega where they were forced to halt due to the rate of advance. While Rommel argued for a counter- attack much of the Italian high command were against another offensive.
Re- supply for the allies forced them to halt their offensives there and wait for supplies to be stockpiled and built up before an attack. While both sides built up and prepared for the next attack the British planned on attacking in late November.
The Axis take the initiative though on the 7th October after reorganizing and attempt to flank the Allies but they were blocked by an allied tank force which destroyed much of the Axis tanks while the Axis infantry were forced back.
The Allies didn’t go after them and the Axis decided that they would need to halt offensive operations and to go on the defence. It was in the 29th November after over 6 weeks of preparation and moving supplies across the desert. They launched an offensive to push for Sirte they threw the Axis back all the way to Sirte without wasting large amounts of supplies but they halted and kept on moving supplies across the desert.
At this point Rommel became convinced that he could not win the battle with his troops available and started to prepare for an evacuation when the Allies next attack.pushed them back. The final allied shove came on the 2nd January and while they originally planned to only push for Misrata they created a greater plan to push finally for Tripoli. The initial push broke through the Axis lines and the Afrikorp finally decided to accept their loss and retreated to Tripoli.
They took Misrata on the 7th January and finding no opposition risked to keep pushing on and take Tripoli. On the 14th January they reached the outskirts of Tripoli where they surrounded it and prepared to take it. The German force evacuated Tripoli but one convoy got caught by the British destroying much of it. The British on the 16th January attacked Tripoli itself and on the 28th January all Italian forces in Tripoli surrender.
The British forces go on to occupy all of Libya and it is placed under temporary British rule until all except Cyrenaica is returned to Italy at the treaty of Alexandria.