Background
German tanks span across Egypt in order to claim the Suez Canal, in 1941. Soon after, the battles of El Alamein occur between British and German troops (the Atlantic 1941).
The North African Campaign occured in the North African deserts from June 1940 to May 1943. The region of North Africa consists of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and the Western Sahara.
- Algeria was a French colony, Italy had control over Libya, and the British held Gibraltar and Malta, two beneficial areas in the Mediterranean (they opened to straits to the Atlantic). France and Britain influenced Egypt because they owned the Suez Canal, but Germany did not control much and there were no American bases at the time.
- Control of Egypt was important because Egypt was located at the center of a vital geographic-strategic network that included the Eastern Mediterranean, Ethiopia, the Middle East, and the Suez Canal.
- The North Africa Campaign included 3 campaigns; the Desert War fought in Libya and Eygpt, Operation Torch in Morocco and Algeria, and the Tunisia Campaign in Tunisia.
-The campaign partially occured because Joseph Stalin urged for a second front in Western Europe to weaken the Axis powers.
What is a campaign?
A campaign is a series military operations done to achieve a goal confined to a certain area or involving a certain type of fighting (air, desert, water).
Why North Africa?
North Africa is rich in resources and its countries contain perfect port cities around the Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and Suez Canal. European powers claimed this land to reap it of it's resources, especially France, who claimed most of Western Africa, and Britain, who held the Eastern part.