Italian 元/33 tankettes in North Africa, April 1941. Italian reinforcements were rushed to Libya to defend Tripoli, assisted by the Deutsches Afrikakorps and Luftwaffe. The WDF was unable to continue beyond El Agheila, due to worn out vehicles and the diversion in March 1941 of the best-equipped units in Operation Lustre for the Battle of Greece. The British took over 138,000 Italian and Libyan prisoners, hundreds of tanks, and more than 1,000 guns and many aircraft, against WDF losses of 1,900 men killed and wounded, about 10 per cent of the infantry. The 10th Army was cut off as it retreated towards Tripolitania and defeated at the Battle of Beda Fomm, the remnants being pursued to El Agheila on the Gulf of Sirte. The WDF swiftly defeated the Italians in their fortified posts and at Sidi Barrani and then exploited the success, forcing the rest of the 10th Army out of Egypt and capturing the ports along the Libyan coast. The Western Desert Force (WDF) ( Lieutenant-General Richard O'Connor) with about 36,000 men, advanced from Mersa Matruh in Egypt on a five-day raid against the Italian positions of the 10th Army, which had about 150,000 men in fortified posts around Sidi Barrani in Egypt and in Cyrenaica. British, Empire and Commonwealth forces attacked Italian forces of the 10th Army (Marshal Rodolfo Graziani) in western Egypt and Cyrenaica, the eastern province of Libya, from December 1940 to February 1941. Operation Compass (also Italian: Battaglia della Marmarica) was the first large British military operation of the Western Desert Campaign (1940–1943) during the Second World War.
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