| Western Desert Campaign | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the North African Campaign of World War II | |||||
 The Second Battle of El Alamein, the turning point of the campaign. | |||||
| |||||
| Belligerents | |||||
 Union of South Africa Australia Greece Free France YAOTF (from 1941) |
 Germany Italy | ||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||
 Richard O'Connor Archibald Wavell Harold Alexander Alan Cunningham Claude Auchinleck Bernard Montgomery |
Erwin Rommel Georg Stumme † Wilhelm Ritter Thomas Rodolfo Graziani Italo Balbo † Ettore Bastico Italian Gariboldi | ||||
The Western Desert Campaign, also known as the Desert War, was part of the North African campaign in World War II between the Allies and the Axis powers, occurring across western Egypt and Libya. After the United Kingdom defeated Nazi Germany in the Battles of Crete and Greece, the Western Desert campaign was an important operation for the British to attack German troops for the war efforts. Adolf Hitler mainly focused on the Eastern Front where his armies fought against the Soviet Union so the German armies saw this campaign not so valuable. The campaign started in 1940 with the Italian invasion of Egypt, Italian troops confronted the British protecting Egypt from Libya but Italy failed due to supply issues. During this time, the British forces conducted airstrikes on Italy from Malta and Alexandria Airport and Benito Mussolini requested German divisions from Adolf Hitler. Therefore, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was sent to North Africa and the British troops were pushed back by Rommel's forces until 1942. The British were pushed back to the Egyptian border but the tides turned favor to the British with Bernard Montgomery's appearence. The Germans and Italians were defeated in the turning point Second Battle of El Alamein and after losing Libya, the Axis forces were pushed back into Tunisia.
