Battle of El Alamein
The Second Battle of El Alamein (23 October – 11 November 1942) was the decisive engagement in the North African campaign and the first clear British land victory over Germany in the war. General Bernard Montgomery's Eighth Army, after meticulous preparation, broke Rommel's Afrika Korps through a sustained attritional battle in the Western Desert of Egypt, 95 kilometres west of Alexandria. Rommel, ill and outnumbered, was forced into a retreat that did not stop until Tunisia. Churchill, who had ordered church bells rung throughout Britain for the first time in the war, said: 'Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.' The North African campaign as a whole reflected the global character of the war: British, Australian, New Zealand, Indian, South African, Free French, and Greek forces had fought alongside each other, and its conclusion made the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy possible in 1943.
- Year: 1942 CE
- Category: Military
