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(8)The Nile

When Benito Mussolini took Italy into the war, the Italian forces in North and East Africa were overwhelmingly superior in numbers to the scanty British forces opposing them. Commanding the British was Gen. Archibald Wavell, who had been appointed to the newly created post of commander in chief for the Middle East in July 1939, when the first steps were taken to strengthen the forces guarding the Suez Canal. Barely 50,000 British troops faced a total of 500,000 Italian and Italian colonial troops. On the southerly fronts, the Italian forces in Eritrea and Ethiopia mustered more than 200,000 men. On the North African front a still larger force in Cyrenaica under Marshal Rodolfo Graziani faced the 36,000 British, New Zealand, and Indian troops guarding Egypt. The Western Desert, inside the Egyptian frontier, separated the two sides on that front. The foremost British position was at Mersa Matruh (Marsā Maṭrūḥ), roughly 120 miles (190 km) inside the frontier and about 200 miles (320 km) west of the Nile River delta. Instead of remaining passive, Wavell used part of his one incomplete armored division as an offensive covering force, keeping up a continual series of raids over the frontier to harass the Italian posts.