19 January 1941 A.D. British Attack Italians in Africa
Editors. “British attack Italians in Africa.” History.com. N.d. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/british-attack-italians-in-africa. Accessed
17 Jan 2015.
British attack Italians in Africa
On this day, British forces in
East Africa, acting on information obtained by breaking the Italians' coded
messages, invade Italian-occupied Eritrea-a solid step towards victory in
Africa.
British Intelligence had
been privy to secret Italian communiques from Africa for the past five months;
every instruction sent from one Italian military unit to another was analyzed
by the Brits. The Italian viceroy in Ethiopia was unwittingly receiving and
transmitting every Italian military secret-and weakness. Consequently, British
forces were able to organize a strategy to advance on Italian-occupied
territory, with Italian troop movements in mind.
On January 19, news of an
Italian withdrawal from the town of Kassala, in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, which the
Italians had occupied since July 1940, reached British ears. The British
garrison there had been slow to react initially to the Italian invasion of
Sudan, preferring to wait to get a clearer picture of the Italian invasion
strategy for East Africa. The British bided their time by beefing up their forces,
especially tank forces, to something closer to parity with the Italians'. The
Italian withdrawal from Kassala, a proactive defensive movement, provided the
perfect opportunity for Gen. William Platt and the Indian divisions to launch
an assault on Eritrea, which bordered Sudan and Ethiopia. It was not long
before Italian-occupied Ethiopia and Somaliland fell.
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