Sudan Defence Force - Inter-war Years

Inter-war Years

The main duties of the SDF were internal security: assisting the police in the event of unrest or natural disaster. In such a vast country, companies could be detached on garrison duties far from the actual Corps headquarters.

In the mid to late 1930s, the SDF was used to counter the aggressive actions of Italian military forces under Marshal Italo Balbo based in Italian North Africa (Africa Settentrionale Italiana, or ASI) Libya. In December 1933, the Italians probed various positions in the Jebel Uweinat area along the poorly defined border between the Kingdom of Egypt, the Sudan, and ASI. Responding to the Italian probes in the area, the SDF was ordered to occupy the Merga oasis and then the area around the Karkur Marr spring. The Italian conquest of Ethiopia led to a reorganisation and an increase in scope of the force. By June 1940 the SDF comprised twenty-one companies — including five (later six) Motor Machine Gun Companies — totalling 4,500 men.