In the Second Battle of El Alignment, British troops invaded, passing by the bodies of three slain German soldiers and wrecked tanks scattered across the desert. Allied forces overwhelmed the Germans at El Alayment, about 106 kilometers west of Alexandria, Egypt, from October 23 to November 4, 1942. The Germans withdrew about 2,700 kilometers, their longest retreat in about four months, and attacked and defended the Malet fortress inside Tunisia. On the North African front of World War II, the Battle of El Alamein broke out on the western front in Egypt, bringing the North African front to an end. Axis forces of Italians and Germans were decisively defeated by British troops.
The North African Front broke out in 1940 when Italian forces invaded Egypt from their colony in Libya. It threatened Britain's strategic assets, the Suez Canal and Persian oil fields. With the Italians defeated, the Germans intervened as Axis forces in the spring of 1941. The Germans achieved amazing results from the beginning of the war, recapturing Libya and threatening Egypt. By late 1941, however, the Germans had overstretched their supply lines and were forced to retreat in the face of British attacks; a reinvigorated Axis force in 1942 overthrew the British at Gazala and captured Tobruk.
German troops in North Africa joined forces with advancing German troops in the Caucasus, aiming to overrun the entire Middle East. The British army retreated chaotically into Egypt. The British rallied their exhausted forces and the First Battle of El Alamein broke out. Unlike other places in the desert, it became a sea of quicksand and stalemate, impassable to mechanized armies.
British troops, who had formed a multinational coalition force, began their attack on the night of October 23, 1942, with a massive bombardment. The British forces engaged the Axis forces and wore them down at the expense of the front line. The war of attrition was accompanied by brutal close combat between soldiers on both sides in a whirlwind of heat, noise, and fear. British troops defeated the Axis counterattack. British tanks were wrecked under chaotic mine sources and suffered heavy losses from German anti-tank guns, costing the British army dearly in its advance.
