El-Alamein

El-Alamein, coastal town in northwestern Egypt, about 60 miles (100 km) west of Alexandria, that was the site of two major battles between British and Axis forces in 1942 during World War II. El-Alamein is the seaward (northern) end of a 40-mile-wide bottleneck that is flanked on the south by the impassable Qattara Depression. This crucial east-west corridor became a vital defensive line held by the British army and marked the farthest point of penetration into Egypt by German forces, who were intent upon capturing the Suez Canal.

After the British had inflicted severe defeats on the Italian forces in North Africa, the German general Erwin Rommel was chosen commander of Axis forces in Libya (February 1941). In January 1942 his forces started a new drive eastward along the North African coast to seize the Suez Canal. After losing Banghāzī in January, the British held the Germans in check until May. Then the German and Italian forces were able to destroy most of the British tank force, take Tobruk, and move eastward into Egypt, reaching the British defenses at El-Alamein (Al-ʿAlamayn) on June 30, 1942. Rommel attacked this line on July 1, but the next day the British commander, Gen. Claude Auchinleck, counterattacked, and a battle of attrition developed. By mid-July Rommel was still at El-Alamein, blocked, and had even been thrown on the defensive, thus ending the first engagement. The British had stopped his drive to overrun Egypt and seize the canal.

Both sides built up their forces in the ensuing pause, but the British, with more secure supply lines across the Mediterranean, were able to reinforce their army to much greater effect. Equally importantly, Gen. Harold Alexander took command of the British troops in this theatre in August, and Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery was named his field commander. On October 23, 1942, the British Eighth Army started a devastating attack from El-Alamein. Rommel’s forces—vastly outnumbered, with fewer than 80,000 against the 230,000 British—managed to contain the British attacks, but these battles of attrition left them fatally weakened. On November 4 Rommel ordered a retreat, and by November 6 the British had wound up the second battle and driven the Germans westward from Egypt back into Libya.

Following World War II, numerous memorial cemeteries maintained by Germany, Italy, and Great Britain honouring their fallen soldiers were erected near the battle site. A major legacy of the warfare has been the significant number of land mines that remained in the region, which subsequently rendered inaccessible more than one-fifth of the country’s terrain and blocked access to some oil and gas reserves.