Battle of Gazala (1942): Rommel's Victory and the Fall of Tobruk

The Battle of Gazala was fought in eastern Libya between 26 May and 21 June 1942, and is often regarded as Erwin Rommel’s greatest victory in the Western Desert. His German and Italian army outmanoeuvred the British Eighth Army, broke the fortified Gazala Line and captured the port of Tobruk with more than 30,000 Allied prisoners. The defeat sent the British reeling back into Egypt.

Background

After the siege of Tobruk was lifted in late 1941, Rommel retreated, then struck back in January 1942. By February both sides faced each other along a line running south from Gazala, west of Tobruk. The British built the Gazala Line: deep minefields linked by fortified “boxes”, each held by an infantry brigade, stretching about 80 kilometres into the desert to Bir Hakeim.

Both sides planned to attack. The Eighth Army, under Lieutenant General Neil Ritchie and his superior General Claude Auchinleck, had more tanks, including new American M3 Grants with 75 mm guns. Rommel struck first.

The battle

On the night of 26–27 May Rommel sent his mobile forces, the Afrika Korps and the Italian Ariete and Trieste divisions, in a wide sweep round the southern end of the line at Bir Hakeim. The move surprised the British, but the Grant tanks and stubborn resistance inflicted heavy losses, and Rommel’s armour was soon short of fuel and water behind the British lines.

Rommel withdrew into a defensive position against the minefields, known as “the Cauldron”, and opened a supply route through them. On 1 June his forces destroyed the isolated box of the British 150th Brigade. A British counter-attack against the Cauldron on 5 June, Operation Aberdeen, was poorly coordinated and failed with heavy losses.

Bir Hakeim

At the southern end, the 1st Free French Brigade under General Marie-Pierre Koenig, some 3,700 men including Foreign Legion and colonial troops, held Bir Hakeim against Italian and German attacks and heavy bombing from 26 May. On the night of 10–11 June, with the position untenable, most of the garrison broke out through Axis lines. The defence delayed Rommel and became a lasting symbol for Free France; a Paris bridge and Métro station are named after it.

The fall of Tobruk

With Bir Hakeim gone, Rommel turned north. In heavy tank fighting around the Knightsbridge box on 12–13 June the British armour was badly mauled, and on 14 June Ritchie ordered a retreat from the Gazala Line towards Egypt. Tobruk, whose defences had been neglected, was left with a mixed garrison under South African Major General Hendrik Klopper.

Rommel attacked on 20 June and broke in within hours. On 21 June Klopper surrendered about 33,000 men and large stocks of fuel and supplies. Winston Churchill heard the news while meeting Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington and later wrote that “Defeat is one thing; disgrace is another.”

Why the British lost

Historians usually point to several British weaknesses. The boxes of the Gazala Line were too far apart to support one another, so Rommel could destroy them one at a time. British armoured brigades were often committed piecemeal rather than together, while Rommel concentrated his tanks and used his 88 mm anti-tank guns aggressively alongside them. Command was also divided: Ritchie was relatively inexperienced, and decisions were often slowed by conferences with his corps commanders and by long-distance advice from Auchinleck in Cairo.

Rommel took great risks, and at the end of May his army was close to disaster in the Cauldron. His readiness to lead from the front, and to exploit the slowness of British reactions, turned that danger into victory.

Consequences

Hitler promoted Rommel to field marshal. Using captured supplies, the Axis army advanced into Egypt, and the planned invasion of Malta was postponed. Auchinleck dismissed Ritchie and took command himself, halting Rommel at the First Battle of El Alamein in July. The United States sent hundreds of Sherman tanks to Egypt, which helped the British win the Second Battle of El Alamein in October–November 1942.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1942, 26 May: Axis forces begin the attack on the Gazala Line.
• 1942, 27 May: Rommel’s armour sweeps round Bir Hakeim.
• 1942, 1 June: The 150th Brigade box is destroyed.
• 1942, 5 June: The British Operation Aberdeen fails.
• 1942, 10–11 June: The Free French break out from Bir Hakeim.
• 1942, 14 June: Ritchie orders withdrawal from the Gazala Line.
• 1942, 21 June: Tobruk surrenders.
• 1942, 22 June: Rommel is promoted to field marshal.

Why it matters

Gazala showed Rommel’s skill at mobile warfare and exposed British weaknesses in command and in coordinating tanks, infantry and artillery. It brought the Axis closest to Suez, yet it also overstretched Rommel’s supply lines and set the scene for his defeat at El Alamein.