Word: tripoli
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...patrols. Civilian-clad Italian officers on parole amicably elbowed British and Anzac soldiers on the streets of Bengasi. In the strange calm General Sir Archibald Percival Wavell was obviously collecting his forces for a new drive, but in complete secrecy. Best guesses:1) that they might press on to Tripoli or 2) cut over to Greece as the Balkans threatened to explode...
...meeting little resistance other than a sandstorm which choked carburetors as well as throats, headed for a spot about 50 miles south of Bengasi-just below Soluch, the southern terminus of a short railway spur which runs down the coast from Bengasi. The British force straddled the highway to Tripoli and waited...
Beyond Bengasi the only remaining British goal was Tripoli. At first it looked doubtful whether the British would go on to take it. The way was long: 600 miles. The first 300 to Sirte were across blank desert, broken only by occasional airfields marked with white stones very much like gravestones. After Sirte the land was more hospitable, goat and camel country where the determined Italians had planted 3,500,000 date palms and 2,000,000 olive trees, and arable fields which yield a hard wheat suitable for macaroni. But even this more fruitful country seemed hardly worth taking...
...British could take Tripoli, they would be within 300 miles of Sicily and the new Stuka bases there. At Tripoli they would have another naval operating base, besides Malta, near the Sicilian channel. To throw Italy entirely and finally out of Africa was a goal not to be sneered at. Perhaps British proximity might prove to be a beneficial persuasion on General Maxime Weygand. The Vichy censors decided it was about time to let French newspapers pay a little attention to the Italian situation in Africa. The paper Montague of Clermont-Ferrand went so far as to say: "The word...
Whether or not the British take Tripoli, General Sir Archibald Wavell had accomplished a brilliant tactical triumph. He had rolled up his enemy and then kept him rolling. Failure to do just that is an occupational disease among generals, who often have a fatal weakness for consolidation after partial victory-e.g., Meade after Gettysburg, Lee after Manassas I and II. For the first time in this war the Axis had run up against someone who could hit hard and follow through...