The Battle of Agordat was fought near Agordat in Eritrea from 26 to 31 January 1941, by the Italian army and Royal Corps of Colonial Troops against British, Commonwealth and Indian forces, during the East African Campaign of the Second World War. The British had the advantage of breaking Italian codes and cyphers before the offensive and received copious amounts of information from Italian sources on the order of battle and plans of the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Royal Air Force) and the Italian army.
After the garrison of Italian and colonial troops at Kassala in Sudan was ordered to withdraw in mid-January, the British offensive into Eritrea due in February 1941 began in mid-January instead. Agordat was an excellent defensive position and the British advance was slowed by delaying actions and mined roads but the attack began on 28 January on the left (northern) flank, which was repulsed. Determined fighting took place on the hills and plain below until 31 January, when the British attacked behind four Matilda tanks and Bren Gun Carriers, which easily destroyed the Italian Fiat M11/39 tanks and forced the infantry to retreat.
To avoid being cut off the Italians began a disorderly retreat to Keren, leaving behind 1,000 prisoners, several guns and 14 knocked out tanks; another 1,000 men were taken during the British pursuit. The Battle of Agordat saw some of the most determined and effective defensive operations of the war by the Italian and local forces. The battle was the first big victory in the British offensive against Italian East Africa and was followed by the Battle of Keren (5 February – 1 April), which led to the fall of the Eritrea Governorate.
Background
Italian offensive in 1940
After weeks of inactivity by the Italian forces after the declaration of war, Amedeo, Duke of Aosta the Viceroy and Governor-General of Italian East Africa (Africa Orientale Italiana [AOI]), commander in chief of Comando Forze Armate dell'Africa Orientale Italiana (Italian East African Armed Forces Command) and Generale d'Armata Aerea (General of the Air Force) ordered a limited offensive to seize a number of Sudanese settlements on the border with the AOI, including Kassala. The Italians were interested in acquiring Kassala to strengthen their frontier defences and as a potential starting point for an invasion of Sudan.
It was also hoped that taking Kassala would boost morale among Italian troops and impress the local population. The rainy season was approaching, and once it began offensive operations would be impossible until the end of September, due to the lack of paved roads, leaving little time for the Italians to act. A force was assembled near the Sudan border to capture Kassala. The British were aware of its presence and had considered an attack to forestall the Italians but this was prevented by poor wireless communication.
Advancing on Kassala were two colonial infantry brigades, four squadrons of cavalry, approximately 24 armoured vehicles (a mix of light tanks, medium tanks and armoured cars) and ten batteries of artillery. Many of the troops being Askari in Italian service. Starting from Teseney (an Eritrean town to the south-east of Kassala) the Italian force was divided into three columns, one approaching Kassala from the east (consisting mainly of cavalry) while the other two advanced on either side of the Gash River.
The British commander in Sudan, General William Platt, commanded 7,000 troops, consisting of the 4,500 men of the Sudan Defence Force (SDF) and three British regular battalions. General Wavell, Middle East Command, whose priority was the defence of Egypt and Sudan had to wait for reinforcements. Kassala had a garrison of around 500 men of the SDF and the local police, consisting of two motorised infantry companies and a mounted infantry company, with no artillery or armoured vehicles. The action began with an air raid by the Regia Aeronautica, then at 06:30 hours, Italian cavalry arrived and engaged the defenders outside of the town. The SDF, in lorries with machine guns, carried out hit-and-run attacks on the flanks and rear of the Italian columns. Despite being outnumbered, the SDF and police put up a spirited defence that inflicted significantly more casualties on the attackers than they suffered themselves. After an action Pitt described as "brisk but short-lived", the defenders withdrew from Kassala and rallied at the next stop on the railway line, Butana Bridge.
At Kassala, the 12th Colonial Brigade built anti-tank defences, machine-gun posts and strongpoints. The Italians were disappointed to find no strong anti-British sentiment among the Sudanese population. During the Italian attack at Kassala a battalion of Italian colonial troops and a banda (pl. irregulars) attacked Gallabat and forced No. 3 Company, Eastern Arab Corps to retire. Karora was occupied unopposed when the Sudanese police were ordered to withdraw and at Kurmuk on 7 July, another colonial battalion and a bande supported by artillery and aircraft, overcame a force of 60 Sudanese police after a short engagement.
The Italian attacks had gained a valuable entrepôt to the Sudanese hinterland at Kassala, had made it more difficult for the British to support the indigenous resistance in Gojjam by capturing Gallabat; the loss of Kurmuk prompted some of the locals to resort to banditry. Local Sudanese opinion was impressed by the Italian successes but the population of Kassala continued to support the British and supplied valuable information during the occupation. The SDF continued to operate close to Kassala and on 5 July, a company of the 2nd Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment arrived at Gedaref to act as a reserve for the SDF. The British discovered that rumours of the arrival of the West Yorkshire company had reached the Italians in greatly magnified form and Platt decided to bluff the Italians into believing that there were far greater forces on the Sudanese border. An Italian map captured on 25 July showed around 20,000 British and Sudanese troops in Kassala province. The 5th Indian Infantry Division was ordered to Port Sudan on 2 August.
Italian plans
After the conquest of British Somaliland, the Italians in the AOI adopted a more defensive posture. In late 1940, Italian forces had suffered defeats in the Mediterranean, the Western Desert, the Battle of Britain and in the Greco-Italian War. General Ugo Cavallero, the new Italian Chief of the General Staff in Rome, adopted a new strategy in East Africa. In December 1940, Cavallero ordered the Italian forces in East Africa to concentrate on the defence of the AOI by withdrawing to better defensive positions. On 31 December, Frusci ordered a retirement from the area north of Kassala along the track east of Sabdaret with outposts at Serobatib and Adaret, with a mobile force at Sabdaret as a reserve.
Earlier in the month, Frusci had received orders from Rome to cancel plans to invade Sudan, withdraw from Kassala and Metemma in the lowlands along the Sudan–Eritrea border and hold the more easily defended mountain passes on the Kassala–Agordat and Metemma–Gondar roads. Frusci was reluctant to withdraw from the lowlands, because it would be a propaganda defeat after he had announced that the British were about to attack and would be defeated. Kassala was also an important railway junction; holding it prevented the British from using the railway to carry supplies from Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast to the base at Gedaref.
British plans
In October 1940, the British formed Gazelle Force, a mobile brigade that combined SDF and Indian troops in lorries, supported by a battery of British field artillery, which launched raids against Italian advanced posts around Kassala on the Ethiopian plateau, where hill ranges from 2,000–3,000 ft (610–910 m) bound wide valleys and the rainfall makes the area malarial from July to October. After a British reverse at Gallabat in November, Wavell held a review of the situation in Cairo from 1 to 2 December. With Compass imminent in Egypt, the British forces in East Africa were to provide help to the Patriots in Ethiopia and continue to pressure the Italians at Gallabat. Kassala was to be recaptured early in January 1941, to prevent an Italian advance deeper into Sudan and the 4th Indian Infantry Division (Major-General Noel Beresford-Peirse) was to be transferred from Egypt to Sudan from the end of December. With the success of Compass, East Africa was made second in importance after Egypt, a strategy in which victory over the Italian forces in Ethiopia was to be achieved by April 1941.
The transfer of the 4th Indian Division took until early January 1941. Platt intended to begin the offensive on the northern front on 8 February, with a pincer attack on Kassala, by the 4th Indian Infantry Division and 5th Indian Infantry Division (Major-General Lewis Heath), less a brigade each. News of the Italian disaster in Egypt, the harassment by Gazelle Force and the activities of Mission 101 in Ethiopia, led to the Italians withdrawing their northern flank to Keru and Wachai and then on 18 January to retreat hurriedly from Kassala, Tessenei and the triangle of Keru, Biscia and Aicota. Wavell ordered Platt to begin the March offensive early on 9 February and to begin on 19 January, when it seemed that Italian morale was crumbling. Wireless decrypts greatly aided British preparations and the decision to attack ahead of schedule. The Italian withdrawal led Wavell to order a pursuit and the troops arriving at Port Sudan (Briggs Force) to attack at Karora and advance parallel to the coast, to meet the forces coming from the west.
Ultra
The Italians in the AOI had replaced their ciphers by November 1940 but by the end of the month, the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) in England and the Cipher Bureau Middle East (CBME) in Cairo had broken the Regio Esercito and Regia Aeronautica replacement codes. Sufficient low-grade ciphers had also been broken to reveal the Italian order of battle and the supply situation by the time that the British offensive began on 19 January 1941. Italian dependence on wireless communication, using frequencies on which it was easy for the British to eavesdrop, led to a flood of information from the daily report from the Viceroy, to the operational plans of the Regia Aeronautica and Regia Esercito. On occasion, British commanders had messages before the recipients and it was reported later by the Deputy Director Military Intelligence in Cairo, that
...he could not believe that any army commander in the field had [ever] been better served by his intelligence.
— DDMI (ME)
Prelude
Italian retirement
The situation in late 1940 rendered the Sudanese towns of Kassala and Gallabat untenable, leading to the decision by Italian command to abandon them and withdraw the troops to Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Italian 12th Colonial Brigade (General Orlando Lorenzini) at Kassala retired on the night of 17/18 January 1941, which to the British suggested that the situation in Egypt was affecting Italian strategy in East Africa and that a bolder British policy was justified. The British offensive from Sudan due on 9 February was brought forward to 19 January and Platt was ordered to mount a vigorous pursuit.
While the garrison of Gallabat was ordered to reach Gondar, the 12th Colonial Brigade retired towards the foothills of the Eritrean highlands. Its retreat was pursued and harassed by Gazelle Force, which scouted ahead of 4th Indian Infantry Division and flanked pockets of resistance. The 4th Indian Division was sent 40 mi (64 km) along the road to Sabderat and Wachai, thence as far towards Keru as supplies allowed, with the Matilda Infantry tanks of B Squadron, 4th RTR to join from Egypt. The 5th Indian Division was to capture Aicota, ready to move east to Barentu or north-east to Biscia.
During the advance from Kassala to Agordat, Gazelle Force fought a brief battle with the Italian 41st Colonial Brigade near the village of Keru on 21–22 January 1941, where they found themselves being charged by Askari cavalry. Once the surprise of facing a horseback charge in the 1940s passed, Gazelle Force troops opened fire with field guns, rifles and machine-guns. Pitt wrote, "within ten minutes it was all over, dead and wounded men and beasts strewn about, dust clouds covering the survivors as they galloped frantically for the shelter of the scrub from which they had so dramatically appeared". Stubborn fighting followed as 4/11th Sikhs (later relieved by the 2nd battalion Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders) engaged Italian troops on high ground. The Italians retreated during the night, abandoning to the British, "a formidable defensive position", after finding themselves outflanked and under attack from the rear by troops from the Highland Light Infantry. During the withdrawal of the 41st Colonial Brigade, 800 of its troops were taken prisoner, including the Brigade commander and his staff.