Word: sidi
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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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...
...last," gleefully confided one British officer. But not yet was desert-wise Graziani a tortoise floundering in the shifting sands. He waited, strengthened his strung-out garrisons, brought up more water, dug new wells to replace those salted by the British in retiring. His object was to prepare Sidi Barráni as a base for his next thrust forward. As he did so, the British cracked at his vulnerable line of communication...
...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...