Explorations in Strategy - Italy at War

loki100: Yep!

Avatar018: Aye, we'll see.

The Balbinater: That means Italy should have been better.

Gladiator: Barbarossa is still eight months away. That's plenty of time.

Sokraates: Hopefully, the prelude to global warfare.

loki100:

billy bob: Victory, whoo!

Sokraates: Indeed! I should know, living here.

Judas Maccabeus: Hehe, my plans are pretty simple. "There's the objective, here's our army. Go." Still, the simplest plans are best.

Stuyvesant: Yep, should be fun.

womble: I hope so!

KimSand: Awesome, welcome aboard!

quetzilla: That sounds like carnage.

Beppo: Hehe, Gibraltar isn't the most impregnable place in the world. Rome is!

loki100: That's exactly it.

Pier: Not at the moment. If my plan works, Malta will fall like a ripe pear.

Vann the Red: Thanks! And yes, it hopefully is.

I'll try to have an update for tomorrow evening!

quetzilla: Your games certainly have bloody long battles.

I'll try for that update tonight, guys!

The Year Italy Joined the World War
Part 11: Operations Hercules and Caesar Augustus, October 3 – October 16, 1940

The period of the first two weeks of October coincided with the beginning of the world war for Italy. As had been previously explained, Italy had been prepared for war with Britain and when hostilities began Italy launched two operations: Hercules, to take Gibraltar, and Caesar Augustus, to take Egypt. It is during these first two weeks that Hercules meets its fate, and Caesar Augustus reveals whether it was likely to succeed or fail.

Gibraltar could only be taken by a land attack. Throughout all the wars of the grand siècle between France, usually with Spain arrayed beside it, and Britain, never had Gibraltar fallen to a naval attack. During the War of American Independence, the Rock had been besieged for years, but had held defiant in the face of the French and Spanish. This was something Mussolini wanted to avoid. Thus the intervention in Spain three years previously, which had established for Italy a hold on southeastern Spain sufficient enough to allow for operations against Gibraltar. Mussolini knew full well that the minor western beachhead would not take many troops; this is why he limited it to only two divisions, four brigades. This was, however, believed to be sufficient: given that the British defenses were manned by only a single brigade, this gave the Italians a four-to-one superiority, better than the three-to-one superiority required to push through a successful attack, an old rule of thumb.


The battle for Gibraltar in its opening stages.

And so the attack began, with Spanish units nearby watching, perhaps the more historically-minded men watching with jealousy. The attack began only slowly, with the Italians making little progress. They fought persistently, however and were eventually rewarded for their efforts. They fought across fortifications and through tunnels for ten whole days before finally emerging through onto the other side and seeing the Straits from the vantage point of controllers. The British had failed to defend the Rock. The western entrance to the Mediterranean had been shut to the British, and to the Allies as a whole. The first step in securing the Middle Sea for Italy had been accomplished. Hercules had met with success.


Gibraltar, Italy’s first significant victory against the British.

In the North African deserts, meanwhile, Operation Caesar Augustus had begun. At Ad Diffah, three Italian divisions faced two British divisions and defeated them after ten days of bloodshed that left nearly two thousand British and fourteen hundred Italians dead. To the north, at Sollum, seven Italian divisions faced a single British division. The British were routed in four days with over twelve hundred casualties, Italian losses being slightly higher than a third of that number. With these first desert victories, the chase had begun. The British were trounced again at Sidi Barrani on the 9th. The Italians were pushing ahead rapidly. Along the coast, they actually overtook certain of the fleeing British units. By the 16th, El Dab’a and Ra’s Abu Lahw had fallen. Italian units were pushing on toward Qara and Marsa Matruh, temporarily with not a single British soldier in front of them. The gates to Alexandria had been kicked in and thrown open wide. The desert had become a race course, between the advancing Italians and the retreating British.


Italian units pushing eastward toward Alexandria.

Two weeks into the war, Italy was doing very well for itself. Its two primary defensive objectives were Gibraltar and Suez. They were defensive for they would secure Italy from any hostile strike as long as they were held. Furthermore, they were necessary first steps before the true campaigns of conquest began. The first of these defensive objectives, Gibraltar, had fallen with relatively few casualties. Italy’s western flank had been secured, any British reinforcements that wished to reach the theater of operations were required to sail all the way around Africa before arriving. In the east, the British were on the run and their navy largely impotent to halt the Italian tide eastward. If Italy could keep up its momentum in Egypt, it would quickly crash over the Suez Canal and into the Middle East, securing the other entrance into the Mediterranean and threatening the oil rich regions of Iraq. Thus far, Italy was winning.