Word: graziani
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Encirclement. They knew just about what to expect, for geography canalizes desert warfare. Some of the enemy's drives were already either under way or poised to strike. Month ago Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, Italy's expert in African warfare, led the spearhead of a drive from Libya into Egypt. After his first crushing spurt, he had pegged in at Sidi Barrani (see map), and his forces had been consolidating themselves there ever since. The British were 80 miles east at Mersa Matruh, the outpost to which they had decided to retire, with tip & run tactics, whenever the drive...
...warriors. How long she and Mark Antony lingered in Paraetonium (now Mersa Matruh) history has forgotten. The city crackled in the sun, crumbled into decay, remained virtually forgotten some 2,000 years until last week another Roman warrior sought to enter its now squalid streets. He was Marshal Rodolfo Graziani...
...Graziani, by week's end, had pushed the vanguard of his 260,000 desert troops 50 miles along the coast of northwestern Egypt to Sidi Barráni. There he stopped, or was stopped. Ahead of him, along a salt-scarred road-a three-hour run in a fast tank-lay Mersa Matruh, first major objective in Italy's drive to conquer Egypt, a prize the Fascist press at home could shout through the streets as noisily as the populace once roared at slaves in clanking chains. But Graziani waited...
...fight would the British relinquish their airport, their desert training post and railhead of their vital line curling back 165 miles along the coast of Africa's eastern horn to Alexandria. Middle East Commander Lieut. General Sir Archibald Percival Wavell was handicapped by having far fewer troops than Graziani. Even so, they were not spear-hurling Ethiopians nor rock-rolling Albanians but a hotchpotch of crack British units, Punjabis and South African volunteers, tough New Zealanders and wild Australians. Against them Graziani appeared to be committed to a frontal assault, while exposing his lengthening columns to attack from desert...
...Libyan naval base of Tobruch, where Graziani's main supplies were concentrated, the British claimed their bombers smashed barracks, wharves and massed trucks. British planes cracked at Sálum, others attacked Sidi Barráni. On the alert for planes, forced to keep up a desert "guerrilla-artillery" battle, Sidi Barráni also awoke last week to find the British Fleet off shore. As the sun nosed over the desert mesas, warships nosed out of a shroud of morning haze. A moment later their guns belched salvos pointblank into the heart of the city. Observers...