Welcome to the Mediterranean! In these 3 part video series we will cover the
military operations on the coasts of the Mediterranean sea in the Second World War.
The main character of this video is Italy. This is Italy's territory. And Italy has a dream.
It is not to be limited by its borders. Italy wants to own its present lands,
but also all these lands and in addition indirectly rule over all of this territory.
But there are two major powers that prevent Italy from achieving its dream.
These are Great Britain and France, who have captured a lot of land on the coasts of the
Mediterranean and have made alliances with smaller nations in the region.
The military potential of Britain and France is much greater than that of Italy and this prevents
Italy from realizing its dream of expansion. As a result during the runup to the Second World
War Italy was only able to conquer distant Ethiopia, which was not in the Mediterranean
region and occupy a small nation of Albania. Its imperial ambitions remained unfulfilled.
Now enter Germany. Germany is a country in Central Europe, which really did not like Britain and
France. In the prelude of the Second World War Germany expanded its military and territory
until it became powerful enough to challenge the alliance of Britain and France. In May of 1940 it
attacked France and defeated the French military, putting France on the brink of surrendering.
With the French military defeated, Italy was opposed only by Britain and saw this as an
opportunity to conquer the lands it wanted. The first goal was to make use of the weakening of
France to take some of its territories in the Western Mediterranean. With this, land warfare
around the Mediterranean began. The French forces were distracted by the German invasion and they
did not have much troops to defend the border against a very large Italian force. The problem
with the Italian plan was that the border between the two countries went through high mountains and
where the passes through the mountains existed, the French had built strong fortifications.
The Italians attempted to storm the French fortifications, but due to the difficult terrain,
failed to achieve success, until some days later Germany and France ended the fighting,
after which Italy had also to end its hostilities with France. Italy had failed to break through
the French defenses and occupy large parts of France. This meant that Italy could not
exchange it for the French territory it wanted. So it postponed its expansion in
the Western part of the Mediterranean and set out to assert its dominance in the Eastern part
of the sea. One Italian offensive was to occupy Greece and secure the northern coast of the Sea
and an offensive into British controlled Egypt would secure the Southern coast.
First we will look into an offensive against Greece. Italians invaded Greece in October of
1940 with the goal of occupying the country. For this they needed 20 divisions, but then,
due to the incompetence of the Italian authoritarian government there was some
miscalculation and shenanigans and Italy ended up invading Greece with only 4 divisions.
Things didn't go well. The Italian forces were expected to capture the Western part of Greece,
but near the sea they were stopped by the Greek forces on the first
river line and in the mountains their offensive completely failed.
After this failure the Italians rushed their remaining divisions in Albania to the Greek
border, but they were still not stronger than the Greek army, which Greece now mobilized. Greece
wanted to capture the Albanian port of Valona, so that Italy could not bring in more divisions.
The first offensive was launched in the north, where the Greek forces occupied the area that was
relatively flat. The Italians retreated into the mountains and stopped the Greeks on the highest
part of a mountain range. In the south the Greeks attempted to move towards Valona. They were able
to advance along the valleys through the high mountains and were about to break out of the
defensible high mountain terrain. The Italians brought in major reinforcements and made a stand
on the last major heights. The Greeks continued their offensive, but could only make small
advances and the Italian line held. The Italians then attempted to launch a major attack to push
the Greeks out of Albania. The Greeks were dug in and with some British help they repelled the
Italian offensive. Italy realized that it would be difficult to defeat Greece alone and it asked
Germany for help. Germany did not want to see its enemy Britain gain a foothold in Greece and agreed
to send forces to help Italy out. The German troops began concentrating in Bulgaria to attack
Greece from the East. This is where the first stage of the Italian invasion of Greece ended.
Meanwhile in Rome. Assistant: Mr Mussolini,
the plan to conquer Greece has failed. We sent too few divisions and now they have been pushed back.
Mussolini: How is this possible? From the newspapers I read that the Greeks
will not fight back, the Italian army is invincible and its leader the greatest genius.
Assistant: But our Italian news is set up to glorify Italy and you as the leader.
They are biased in that respect. Mussolini: If only there was a way
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Now back to the Mediterranean.
Parallel with the invasion of Greece, the Italian forces attempted to invade Egypt.
Here the fighting was much different than in Albania.
The terrain was open desert without a continuous front line and it was easily traversed by
vehicles, such as tanks and trucks, which gave great advantage to the side that had more of them.
Italy had few vehicles in the region, but a lot of soldiers. The Italians invaded Egypt with a
large force, but due to the lack of trucks had to then halt and wait until enough supplies would be
brought up for them to continue the offensive. The British on the other had few soldiers,
but these were well equipped with vehicles. While the Italians were waiting for the supplies,
the British sent their forces on a raid against the Italian positions. They deployed one motorized
and one armored division against 6 Italian divisions. These forces outflanked the Italian
positions and bypassed them. They then turned around and attacked the Italian forces from
behind. The Italians were caught unprepared and their forces disintegrated. Most of the Italians
were taken prisoner. The remaining Italian forces retreated into the fortress of Bardia.
The British soon encircled the fortress. The Italians could not make use of the fortifications
and after only some days of the assault by the British they surrendered. The British
then moved against the port town of Tobruk, where another Italian division had fortified itself.
After a brief assault the town was taken. The Italians had only two remaining formations in the
Eastern part of Libya. The British bypassed them by moving through the desert and cut them off from
their path of retreat, which forced these units to surrender. With this the British had cleared the
Eastern Libya from Italian forces and eliminated the threat to Egypt. Now the freed up forces were
sent to Greece to aid it against a possible German invasion. But even with the British reinforcements
the Greek army was too small to withstand an attack by Italy and Germany together. Meanwhile
there was a pro-Allied coup in Yugoslavia, which made that country friendly to Britain and Greece.
So the British outlined a plan. The Yugoslav forces would attack the Italians in Albania from
behind and cut them off from supply by capturing the ports, which would force the Italian forces
in Albania to surrender. Then the Greeks could use these forces to repel the German invasion.
The Germans learned of the British plan and prepared to attack both Greece and Yugoslavia.
Part of the Yugoslav army was deployed along its borders, while the other part was still
mobilizing. On 6th April the Germans attacked. The Germans first struck at the Yugoslavian
forces in the south. The Yugoslavian division facing the German armored division was overrun.
Another division moved out against the Germans and suffered the same fate. The
Germans quickly dispersed the Yugoslavian forces on the border with their infantry
and armored divisions and also dispersed the Yugoslavian forces deeper behind their lines.
Then the German forces moved South into Greece to join the Greek campaign. Some days later 4
German divisions overran a Yugoslavian division guarding the border. The German armored division
now moved behind the Yugoslav defenses and headed for Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital.
In the North of Yugoslavia the things were equally bleak for the defenders. These lands
were populated by Croats and Slovenians, who did not want to be ruled from Belgrade and wanted
independence. As a result the soldiers of these nationalities began deserting the Yugoslavian
formations, which fatally weakened them. When the main German attack started, a German armored
division easily overran the weakened Yugoslavian forces and quickly occupied Zagreb, the political
center of Croatia. This resulted in the collapse of the remaining resistance against the Germans
in Croatia. This allowed another German armored division to drive behind the Yugoslavian lines
practically unopposed towards Belgrade. Having encountered great setbacks the Yugoslavians now
attempted to retreat and resist the Germans in the bad tank country in the mountains, but these
units could not reach the mountains in force. As a result the Yugoslavians could not create
a solid defensive line and could not prevent the Germans from advancing into the mountains.
The Germans occupied the center of the remaining Yugoslavian resistance in the city of Sarajevo.
The Yugoslav military was now left without a strategy to resist the Germans and surrendered.
The surrender temporarily broke the resistance and organization of the Yugoslavian forces.
But in the next few years a strong Yugoslavian resistance movement would be organized in the
mountains, which would cause many problems for the Axis. Some Yugoslavian forces had attempted
to attack the Italian forces in Albania, but due to the collapse of the rest of their army
in just two weeks they did not have time to make much progress. This left the Greek
forces bearing the brunt of both the German and Italian offensives, which they could not resist.
The Greek forces were deployed with their main force in Albania and a weaker force on
the Bulgarian border. In central Greece there was the motorized British expeditionary force and some
Greek divisions. The German forces assaulted the Greek defenses on the Bulgarian border,
while their tank division made use of the collapse of the Yugoslavian forces and outflanked the Greek
defensive line from Yugoslavian territory. After the Germans had reached the sea and cut
off the Greek defensive line, the Greek forces on the Bulgarian border surrendered. Meanwhile
other Germans had passed through the Yugoslavian territory and were now moving into Greece from
the North. The British and the Greeks fell back to suitable defensive positions in the mountains to
hold the line, while Greece attempted to withdraw its forces from Albania. But this was not enough.
The German armor soon overran the Greek divisions and moved behind the Greek forces, which were
in the process of withdrawal. Being cut off from the path of retreat by the Germans the Greek army
surrendered. The British now decided that they did not want to stay in mainland Greece any more
and withdrew and evacuated their forces by sea to the Greek island of Crete, while the rest of Greek
mainland was overrun by the Germans. But soon the Germans followed them by launching an airborne
assault on the island. The British decided to abandon the island and withdrew their forces.
With this all of Greek territory was under Axis control and the Greek campaign was over.
Meanwhile the British forces were shipped to Egypt. They were badly needed there, because
after the defeat of Greece both Germany and Italy sent more troops to Libya. These forces would now
move along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea to conquer the British colony of Egypt and full scale
war would once again flare up in the desert, with tactics that had never been seen before.
We will cover it in the next episode.