secured Tobruk could then advance through the desert to Benghazi, cutting off all enemy troops along the coast, such as those atDerna. This advance would be protected from counterattack, due to escarpments that were quite difficult for a military force to climb, running generally from Tobruk to Soluq. Due to the importance of maintaining supply in the desert, getting cut off in this area was disastrous. Therefore, whoever held both Soluch and Tobruk controlled the majority of Cyrenaica.
Finally, 24 km (15 mi) south of the port was the largest airfield in eastern Libya. This was significant due to the importance of air power in desert warfare.
Although not as much a reason for its strategic significance, the British built a rail line from El Alamein to Tobruk during the course of the war. This rail line was significant both for purposes of supply and as a sense of pride to the Allied troops, as the rail line was built through a little-populated, inhospitable desert.
Italian forces (and their native Libyan allies � about two divisions of the latter) invaded Egypt in early September 1940 but halted their advance after a week and dug in at Sidi Barrani. In early December, British Empire forces � an armoured division and two infantry divisions � launched a counterstrike codenamed Operation Compass. The Italians had previously invaded Albania andoccupied part of the south of France, and had now made a military incursion into a British protectorate. The counterstrike involved the British pocketing two of the Italian camps against the Mediterranean, forcing their surrender. This led to a general Italian retreat to El Agheila. Tobruk was captured by British, Australian and Indian forces on 22 January 1941.
Italy called on her German ally, which sent an army corps, under the name Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK). Italy also sent several more divisions to Libya. These forces, under Lieutenant-GeneralErwin Rommel, drove the Allies back across Cyrenaica
