Then, in December, the British Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East, General Archibald Wavell, launched Operation Compass, expelling Italian forces from Egypt and pushing them all the way west across Libya. Starting in January, 1941, he started another offensive into Italian East Africa, conquering the short-lived state. Italy was also facing problems in the Balkans, where the Greek Army had pushed the Italians out of Greece and were now stalemated in southern Albania.
German paratroopers (fallschirmjäger) landing on Crete Alarmed by the Italian setbacks, Hitler authorized reinforcements, and sent German forces to Africa in February. The British also started redeploying their forces, sending soldiers from North Africa to Greece starting in early March; in an effort to secure their transportation lines, the Royal Navy managed to engage the Regia Marina in the Battle of Cape Matapan, doing significant damage to the Italian fleet. The German forces in Africa, led by German General Erwin Rommel, however, launched an offensive against the now depleted British forces near the end of March. During this offense, the British also feared having their oil supply cut due to a Nazi-friendly coup d'Êtat in Iraq in early April. They were further pressed when the Germans invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. By the middle of April, Rommel's forces had pushed the British forces back into Egypt with the exception of the port of Tobruk, which he encircled and besieged. Shortly after, the British responded to the coup in Iraq by invading and occupying the country. By the end of May, German forces had conquered Yugoslavia, mainland Greece and further captured the island of Crete, forcing a withdraw of all British forces from the Balkans. In June 8, the British and Free French invaded Vichy controlled Syria and Lebanon due to the Vichy allowance of Axis forces to pass through the area and utilize military bases. A week later, Wavell launched Operation Battleaxe, which was intended to be a major offensive in the Western Desert, but resulted in the loss of nearly half of the British tanks in the region. Frustrated by the lack of success, Churchill had Wavell replaced with Claude Auchinleck in early July. In late August, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the British and the Soviets launched a joint invasion of Iran to secure its oilfields and the Persian Corridor supply route for Soviet use.
A British Crusader tank passes a burning German Panzer IV in the desert There was then a lull in activity. The Soviet-German war had significantly reduced the importance of the Mediterranean theatre to the Germans and the British spent their time building up their forces. On November 18, they launched Operation Crusader, an offensive in the Western Desert which pushed 10