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As Hitler marched triumphantly
across western Europe in the early summer of 1940,
his fellow dictator in Italy, Benito Mussolini,
dreamt of a similar campaign further south.
His dream was to build a new Roman empire
that would see Italy expand
not only along the northern Mediterranean coast,
but south through North Africa.
He would turn the Mediterranean
into Mare Nostrum, our sea.
But it was a dream that would turn into a disaster.
It would lead in due course to Mussolini's death
and fatally overextend his German ally.
At the start of the war
Italy already controlled Libya
and Abyssinia, Ethiopia today.
Mussolini calculated that if he could take
British controlled Egypt and Sudan,
he would be able to create a huge swathe
of Italian-controlled territory.
It looked like an easy campaign.
Italy had ten times more troops in the region than Britain.
In September 1940, Mussolini invaded Egypt
and captured the small coastal town of Sidi Barrani.
There the Italians stopped and dug in.
Britain gathered all available forces for a counterattack.
On December the 6th, 1940,
they moved in across the desert.
Just four days later, they overran the Italian defences.
Nearly 40,000 Italians were taken prisoner.
It was the first sign that the Italian Army
was in poor fighting shape.
The remainder of the defeated Italians
retreated back across the Libyan border.
The British followed in hot pursuit.
In barely a month, the Western Desert Force,
as it was called, had advanced
almost 600 miles across Libya.
It now paused and dug in
at the Libyan coastal town of El Agheila.
Almost half of Italy's Libyan empire had been seized
and over 100,000 Italian troops taken prisoner.
Meanwhile, to the south, British forces
invaded Italian controlled Abyssinia.
The fighting lasted for nearly 12 months.
The rugged terrain made communications
and transport difficult.
But in the end, the Italians were forced to surrender.
But even as Abyssinia was being secured,
Mussolini's empire-building was causing problems
in another part of the Mediterranean.
Nearly two years earlier in April 1939,
as part of his plan for a new Roman empire,
Mussolini had occupied Albania.
The following year he demanded
Greece become an Italian colony.
When the Greeks refused, he invaded.
The Greeks were outnumbered more than two to one.
But they swiftly turned back the Italian advance.
By the beginning of March 1941,
the Italians had not only been pushed out of Greece,
but out of much of neighbouring Albania too.
Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill
promised help so the Greeks could finish the job.
But Britain's forces were already
heavily committed elsewhere.
So it was that the British units in North Africa
were told to abandon their Libyan adventure
and ship much of the force
across the Mediterranean to Albania.
As the Italian troops were now pushed back,
Mussolini's Balkan ambitions fell apart.
The Italians were in deep trouble.
It left Hitler with a problem.
Should he divert troops from elsewhere in Europe
to support his most important European ally
or should he abandon Mussolini to his fate?
He decided to help.
In April 1941, over half a million German troops
swept down into Yugoslavia and Greece.
For Germany, it would prove to be the beginning
of a fateful entanglement with Mussolini's political dreams.
But at first, all went well.
The Greeks, despite British help,
were unable to hold the Germans back.
And in late April, the Axis forces captured
the Greek capitol of Athens.
Some 30,000 men were evacuated
to the British controlled island of Crete.
Hitler decided to flush them out.
He had at his command
some 22,000 parachute and glider borne troops
backed up by 150 Stuka dive bombers.
The landings began at first light on May the 20th.
To begin with, they focused on the main airfields.
The Allied forces were overstretched.
There were incessant German air attacks.
The Germans soon captured the airfields
and began to fly in reinforcements.
The allies were pushed back across the island.
Two weeks later, it was all over.
Fifteen thousand allied troops had to be evacuated.
A further 18,000 were taken prisoner.
The Axis powers now controlled
much of the Mediterranean
and the critical supply routes to North Africa.
It looked as though Hitler's decision
to support Mussolini had paid off.
He was poised to drive Britain out of the entire region.
In February 1941, a junior German general
arrived at the Libyan port of Tripoli.
Erwin Rommel was one of the rising stars of the German Army
and had been chosen by Hitler
as the man to rescue his Italian ally
and retake North Africa for the Axis powers.
The first units of his Afrika Korps were soon landing.
Some 16,000 men and over 100 tanks
had been diverted from the European front.
The Axis forces rapidly outnumbered the British troops,
depleted by the war in Greece and Crete.
Rommel advanced towards the British positions
at El Agheila and attacked.
As the British fell back,
Rommel pursued them.
In a matter of weeks the Allied soldiers
had been pushed all the way back to the Egyptian border.
But in the retreat a division of Australian troops
had been cut off by the Germans
in the Libyan port of Tobruk.
The British Commander, Sir Archibald Wavell,
now launched two successive attempts to relieve them.
Both were fought off by Rommel's now well-encamped troops.
The Germans massively out gunned the British.
Their 88 millimetre anti-aircraft guns,
when used against tanks,
far outranged the British.
Moreover, Rommel took advantage
of the wide open landscape
to drive his tanks around the British forces,
outflanking them time and time again.
It would become his trademark tactic.
The British press half grudgingly, half admiringly,
nicknamed Rommel the Desert Fox.
For Wavell, it was too much.
Now exhausted, he was replaced by General Claude Auchinleck.
Auchinleck came under immediate pressure
to try and again to relieve the allied troops in Tobruk.
But he refused until his forces had been reinforced.
Then on November the 18th, 1941,
he launched a major assault.
Operation Crusader, as it was called,
started with a lengthy armoured dogfight.
Again, the British tanks suffered heavy casualties.
But the infantry slowly moved forward.
Finally, after a month of confused fighting,
Rommel retreated.
Tobruk had been relieved.
The Axis units fell back along the coast
all the way to their starting point at El Agheila.
Auchinleck's military command now assumed Rommel
was a spent force, at least for the time being.
Its units were dispersed to bases along the coast
for a badly needed refit.
It was a mistake.
Two months later in January 1942,
Rommel's Afrika Korps was back on the attack.
It quickly brushed aside the forward units
of a now unprepared British Army.
The chase along the coast of Africa
began all over again.
The allies fell back towards a new defensive line
just west of Tobruk.
Here a series of defensive positions,
known as the Gazala Line, were constructed.
Rommel attacked it at the end of May 1942.
Once again, he swung his armour around the British forces
in a great outflanking movement
and came in behind the British positions.
But this time the British were prepared for it
and tried, in turn, to outflank Rommel.
The fighting lasted for three weeks,
as each side tried to outmanoeuvre the other.
Eventually, the British were forced to retreat.
Three days later the Germans overran the Allied positions.
Rommel pressed home his advantage.
The British withdrawal threatened to become a rout.
Finally, Auchinleck turned to face his enemy
at the Egyptian village of El Alamein.
His southern flank rested on the Qattara Depression,
an area impassable to tanks.
On July the 1st, 1942,
Rommel attacked again.
But this time the British defences held.
Rommel, with his supply line stretched
and now seriously short of fuel
was forced to give up.
Now Auchinleck attempted a counterattack.
For the rest of July the two sides pushed at each other
like exhausted boxers.
Churchill was furious at the lack of British progress
and now visited Egypt.
It was time for yet another change of leadership.
Auchinleck was replaced by not one but two generals.
General Harold Alexander as Commander in Chief, Near East,
and General Bernard Montgomery as commander of 8th Army.
The British and Axis forces
had fought each other to a standstill.
There was no clear winner.
And the fate of North Africa still hung in the balance.
Everything would now depend on whether the British
could throttle the Axis supply routes
across the Mediterranean.
For the first months of World War II
the allies had enjoyed unchallenged control
of the Mediterranean Sea.
Britain's own supplies from the Middle East
passed through it undisturbed.
And communications with the empire
in India and the Far East were secured.
Italy's entry into the war changed all that.
Its naval fleet was modern and well equipped.
The Italians now concentrated their fire
on the strategically crucial
British controlled island of Malta.
The island was an important refuelling base
for British submarines and aircraft
in the eastern Mediterranean.
It had become the centre for Royal Navy attacks
on Italian and German supply convoys to North Africa.
In summer 1940, Italy bombed it.
It was the beginning of a two-year assault
which would inflict terrible suffering
on the island's population.
Yet for all Malta's strategic significance,
Britain was caught on the hop.
There were no fighter aircraft on the island
to beat off the attacks.
Then almost by accident four gladiator fighter biplanes
were found in crates on the island.
They were hastily assembled.
The aircraft put up a fierce resistance.
For three weeks the fate of Malta remained uncertain.
Then finally, British fighter reinforcements arrived.
And the Italian bombers were temporarily beaten off.
But it was now obvious to the British
that they had to do something
if they were to keep a toehold in the region.
That winter Britain launched what it hoped
would be a knockout blow against the Italian Navy.
On the evening of November the 11th,
twenty-one Swordfish torpedo bombers
lifted off an aircraft carrier.
They swept in on the Italian fleet,
anchored in its base at Taranto.
The Italians hadn't expected it.
Three of Italy's six battleships were crippled.
Four months later, Britain struck again.
The Italian fleet was again caught off guard
off the coast of Greece.
A fourth Italian battleship was damaged.
Mussolini's challenge to the British Navy was finished.
It was a turning point for Hitler too.
It was now clear that Italy could no longer
be depended on to maintain control of the Mediterranean.
It meant his supply lines to North Africa
were at risk of being cut off.
Germany decided to take a direct hand.
In early 1941, the Luftwaffe bombed Malta.
The island took another severe battery.
The attacks continued month after month.
Yet the British garrison hung on.
During an interlude in the German bombardment
in autumn 1941, it even managed to step up its attacks
on the Axis supply convoys to North Africa.
Then the Luftwaffe resumed the assault.
But despite the battering,
the people of Malta held on.
The following spring in April 1942,
they received a unique honour for the heroism
they had shown on the four months
of devastating Axis bombardment.
The island was awarded the George Cross,
Britain's highest award for civilian courage.
But by the summer of 1942,
Malta was running short of supplies and ammunition.
In mid-June the British Navy sent convoys
from Gibraltar and Egypt to relieve it.
But the Germans were waiting.
Just two of the 17 ships got through.
The situation on the island was getting desperate.
It was time for some decisive action.
In August, Britain launched Operation Pedestal,
the biggest convoy ever sent to Malta.
Fourteen merchant ships entered the Mediterranean
through the Straits of Gibraltar.
They were accompanied by a large naval escort.
Almost immediately they ran into German opposition.
For three days there was a ferocious sea battle
as Axis submarines and aircraft
attempted to stop and sink the convoy.
Finally, on the fourth day,
five of the British merchant ships
made it into port.
They brought with them just enough supplies
to keep the island going.
Malta had been rescued.
It meant the allies could continue to harass
the Axis supply lines to North Africa.
It was a strategic advantage that would prove crucial
to future events in the region.
In North Africa, Churchill's orders to his new team,
Generals Alexander and Montgomery, were simple.
Destroy the army commanded by Field Marshall Rommel.
Almost immediately they were informed
by the team that had broken Germany's enigma code
that Rommel was preparing to attack them.
Montgomery assumed the Desert Fox
would try another of his outflanking moves
and fortified the ridge of Alam Halfa,
just to the southeast of El Alamein.
It was, he hoped, the rock on which
the Axis forces would be broken.
When it came, the fighting lasted for three days.
This time Allied ground forces were helped by air power.
The RAF played havoc with the advancing German tanks.
Rommel was forced to give up.
And short of fuel again, he pulled back.
It was now Rommel's turn to dig in.
He chose a line between the impassable
sand sea of the Qattara Depression
and the Mediterranean coast.
Great belts of minefields were covered by artillery.
Rommel's Panzer divisions
were held back as a mobile reserve
to destroy any Allied breakthroughs.
Montgomery was well aware it was a formidable barrier.
He also knew it was impossible to outflank it.
His only option is to punch his way
directly through the middle of the Axis defences.
He was helped by a flood of new equipment
from the United States,
which included the new American Lee and Sherman tanks
with 75 millimetre guns.
At last, the Allies had a weapon
which could match the Germans.
Finally, on the evening of October the 23rd, 1942,
the British opened up an artillery bombardment
on Rommel's positions.
The Battle of El Alamein had begun.
Under cover of the bombardment,
Allied engineers moved forward to clear paths
through the Axis minefields.
The British, Australian, New Zealand,
and South African divisions
fought to drive a hole through Rommel's defences.
Rommel's artillery took a terrible toll.
Casualties mounted on both sides.
The Axis forces were harried by Allied air power.
Finally, after ten days of fighting,
the Allied forces broke through.
The following day Rommel retreated.
It was Germany's first major defeat
at the hands of the western allies.
Churchill was triumphant.
No, this is not the end.
This is not even the beginning of the end.
Though what it is perhaps the end of the beginning.
For two and a half months
Montgomery chased Rommel west
along the North African coast towards Tunisia.
Meanwhile, an Anglo American force
had landed a thousand miles to his rear
in French North Africa, Morocco and Algeria today.
It was code named Operation Torch.
The Allied 1st Army was soon
moving eastwards towards Tunisia.
Rommel was in danger of being attacked from behind.
Over the next few days the Germans flew in
tens of thousands of troops from Europe
to save Rommel and shore up
the German position in North Africa.
Finally, in late February 1943,
Rommel, reinforced, set up a new defensive line
a hundred miles inside Tunisia
and turned to attack Montgomery's advancing forces.
But Montgomery had been forewarned
by the enigma code breakers.
And his troops were waiting
as the German tanks rolled forward.
British artillery broke up the assault
and the Panzers were quickly halted.
It was Rommel's last battle in North Africa.
He now returned to Germany
to beg Hitler to abandon the North African campaign.
But Hitler refused.
It was a misjudgement.
As Montgomery's 8th Army now pushed up from the south,
the Anglo American 1st Army squeezed in from the west.
On May the 7th, US forces took the port of Bizerta.
The British 7th Armour Division,
the famous Desert Rats, drove into Tunis.
The Allies pincer closed,
and the Axis troops were trapped.
Five days later, a quarter of a million
German and Italian soldiers surrendered.
It was more than twice the number
that had surrendered at Stalingrad four months earlier.
For Germany, it was another momentous disaster.
The following day, the British regional commander in chief,
General Harold Alexander,
signalled Winston Churchill,
"Sir, it is my duty to report"
that all enemy resistance has ceased.
"We are the masters of the North African shores."
Mussolini's gamble in North Africa
had taken a terrible toll on German resources.
It was about to have even more serious consequences
for both him and Germany.
In January 1943, at a conference
in the Moroccan city of Casablanca,
Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to open a new front
on German dominated Europe.
The obvious target was Italy
seriously weakened by its North African failures.
The only question was where should the invasion begin?
Should the route go via Sardinia or Sicily?
The Allied high command chose the Sicilian route.
But to throw the Germans off the scent,
they organised a deception plan.
Operation Mincemeat was launched.
A corpse was dropped off the shores of Spain
carrying false papers.
When it was washed ashore in May 1943
and the papers passed to the Germans,
they revealed that the Allies would pretend to attack Sicily
but that their real target was Sardinia.
Enigma code breakers soon confirmed
the Germans had fallen for it.
Six weeks later, the British 8th Army under Montgomery
landed in the southeast corner of Sicily.
The Italian coastal troops presented few problems.
Further west, the US 7th Army landed in the Gulf of Gela.
The Italian resistance was again overwhelmed.
For the Italian people the invasion of Sicily
was the final humiliation.
Mussolini was overthrown in a popular uprising.
The new government now opened secret talks
with the Allies for an armistice.
For Hitler, it was another nightmare.
He was now forced to pour in yet more scarce resources
to protect his southern flank.
He told his commanders that even if Italy surrendered,
they should fight on.
Within five weeks the Germans had been pushed out of Sicily.
The Allies now crossed to the main land
and pushed up through the country.
US troops moved up the west side.
British troops moved up the east.
The Germans fought back savagely all the way.
Even so, Naples fell to the Allies
on October the 1st, 1943.
But then their progress was slowed
by autumn rains and skilful German rear guard attacks.
It was not until the end of November
that Allied forces finally reached the Gustav Line,
the first of a series of German defensive positions
cutting across Italy.
British troops managed to break through
at the eastern end of the line,
but winter was setting in.
And bad weather forced them to halt.
Nevertheless, in the west, US forces
attempted to outflank the German defences
by taking to the sea.
They landed on January the 22nd, 1944,
sixty miles to the north of the point of Anzio.
But here, amidst fierce fighting,
they were pinned down and nearly driven back into the sea.
The Americans remained trapped at Anzio
for the rest of the winter and into the spring.
Meanwhile, in the centre of Italy,
the key to breaking the Gustav Line
was the towering Monte Cassino mountain complex.
As spring came, there was a series
of attempts to capture it.
Each assault failed.
In desperation, the Allies bombed
a historic monastery on the summit.
But the Germans hung on.
Finally, in late spring 1944,
as the weather improved, the Allied forces
broke through the German lines.
Simultaneously, the Americans broke out of Anzio.
The Allied forces now moved swiftly north to Rome.
The Italian capitol was liberated
on June the 4th, 1944.
For Hitler, it was another blow.
He was now hanging on to Italy by his fingernails.
The Allies continued to push north.
The German defenders finally fell back
to the formidable Gothic Line,
just north of Florence.
Here bad weather again brought the Allied advance to a halt.
It wouldn't be until the spring of 1945
that the campaign could resume
and Italy was finally won.
By then the Italians had had enough of Mussolini.
He was captured by Italian partisan forces and shot.
His corpse was hung by its heels in Milan.
Mussolini's war had been a catastrophe
for himself and his country.
It had also left the German southern flank
dangerously exposed.
The German Army was now overcommitted,
short of troops, and retreating on all fronts.