Western Desert Campaign - Rommel's First Offensive

Rommel's First Offensive

In early 1941, after the decisive British and Commonwealth victory in Cyrenaica, the military position was soon reversed. Wavell ordered a significant portion of O'Connor's XIII Corps to support Greece as part of Operation Lustre. While Wavell was reducing his forces in North Africa, German dictator Adolf Hitler responded to the Italian disaster by ordering Operation Sonnenblume ("Sunflower"). This was the deployment of the newly formed German "Afrika Korps" (Deutsches Afrikakorps) as reinforcements to the Italians to prevent total collapse. The German corps included fresh troops with better equipment and a charismatic commander, General Erwin Rommel.

When Rommel arrived in North Africa, along with six Italian divisions which included the Trento and Ariete, his orders were to assume a defensive posture and hold the front line. Finding that the British defences were thin, he quickly defeated the Allied forces at El Agheila on 24 March. He then launched an offensive which, by 15 April, had pushed the British back to the border at Sollum, recapturing all of Libya except for Tobruk, then under the command of the Australian Leslie Morshead which was encircled and besieged. During this drive, the new field commander for HQ Cyrenaica Command (the new designation of XIII Corps)—Lieutenant General Philip Neame—and O'Connor himself—who had been recalled to assist—were captured as was Major-General Michael Gambier-Parry, commander of the newly arrived British 2nd Armoured Division. With Neame and O'Connor gone, British and Commonwealth forces were once more brought under the reactivated Western Desert Force HQ. In command was Lieutenant-General Noel Beresford-Peirse, who had returned to Cairo from commanding the Indian 4th Infantry Division in the East African Campaign.

Rommel's first offensive was generally successful and his forces destroyed the 2nd Armoured Division. Several attempts to seize the isolated positions at Tobruk failed and the front lines stabilised at the Egyptian border.