The Egyptian and Libyan border over which Operation Brevity was conducted.
Operation Brevity was a limited offensive conducted in mid-May 1941, during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. Conceived by the commander-in-chief of the British Middle East Command, General Archibald Wavell, Brevity was intended to be a rapid blow against weak Axis front-line forces in the Sollum–Capuzzo–Bardia area of the border between Egypt and Libya. Although the operation got off to a promising start, throwing the Axis high command into confusion, most of its early gains were lost to local counter-attacks, and with German reinforcements being rushed to the front the operation was called off after one day.
Egypt had been invaded by Libyan-based Italian forces in September 1940, but by February of the following year a British counter-offensive had advanced well into Libya, destroying the Italian Tenth Army in the process. British attention then shifted to Greece, which was under the threat of Axis invasion. While Allied divisions were being diverted from North Africa, the Italians reinforced their positions and were supported by the arrival of the German Afrika Korps under GeneralleutnantErwin Rommel. Rapidly taking the offensive against his distracted and over-stretched opponent, by April 1941 Rommel had driven the British and Commonwealth forces in Cyrenaica back across the Egyptian border. Although the battlefront now lay in the border area, the port city of Tobruk—100 mi (160 km) inside Libya—had resisted the Axis advance, and its substantial Australian and British garrison constituted a significant threat to Rommel's lengthy supply chain. He therefore committed his main strength to besieging the city, leaving the front line only thinly held. (Full article...)
The following are images from various Libya-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1Territorial growth of Italian Libya: Territory ceded by Ottoman Empire 1912 (dark-green) but effectively Italy controlled only five ports (black), territories ceded by France and Britain 1919 and 1926 (light-green), territories ceded by France and Britain 1934/35 (red) (from History of Libya)
Image 17Al Manar Royal Palace in central Benghazi – the location of the University of Libya's first campus, founded by royal decree in 1955 (from Libya)
Image 18A proportional representation of Libya exports, 2019 (from Libya)
Image 19Flag of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (lasting from 1977 to 2011), the national anthem of which was "الله أكبر" (English: Allahu Akbar=god (is) great) (from History of Libya)
Image 29Libya is a predominantly desert country. Over 95% of the land area is covered in desert. (from Libya)
Image 30A protest against the anti-Gaddafi supporters in Tripoli (from Libya)
Image 31Libya map of Köppen climate classification (from Libya)
Image 32King Idris I announced Libya's independence on 24 December 1951, and was King until the 1969 coup that overthrew his government. (from History of Libya)
Image 33The Arch of Septimius Severus at Leptis Magna. The patronage of Roman emperor Septimus Severus allowed the city to become one of the most prominent in Roman Africa. (from History of Libya)
Image 34Omar Mukhtar was the leader of Libyan resistance in Cyrenaica against the Italian colonization. (from History of Libya)
Image 43Australian infantry at Tobruk during World War II. Beginning on 10 April 1941, the Siege of Tobruk lasted for 240 days. (from History of Libya)
Image 44The Siege of Tripoli in 1551 allowed the Ottomans to capture the city from the Knights of St. John. (from History of Libya)
Image 45Change in per capita GDP of Libya, 1950–2018. Figures are inflation-adjusted to 2011 International dollars. (from Libya)
Image 50The temple of Zeus in the ancient Greek city of Cyrene. Libya has a number of World Heritage Sites from the ancient Greek era. (from History of Libya)
The Vandals occupied Roman North Africa in the early 5th century and established an independent kingdom there. Under their king, Geiseric, the Vandal navy carried out pirate attacks across the Mediterranean, sacked Rome in 455, and defeated a Roman invasion in 468. After Geiseric's death in 477, relations with the Eastern Roman Empire were normalized, although tensions flared up occasionally due to the Vandals' adherence to Arianism and their persecution of the Nicene native population. In 530, a palace coup happened in Carthage due to a defeat against the Moorish Chieftain and war chief of the Frexes tribe Antalas that made Gelimer blaming Hilderic due to his defeat against the Moors and the Vandals overthrew the pro-Roman Hilderic and replaced him with his cousin Gelimer. The Eastern Roman emperor Justinian took this as a pretext to intervene in Vandal affairs, and after securing the eastern frontier with Sassanid Persia in 532 he began preparing an expedition under general Belisarius, whose secretary Procopius wrote the main historical narrative of the war. Justinian took advantage of rebellions in the remote Vandal provinces of Sardinia and Tripolitania. These not only distracted Gelimer from Justinian's preparations but significantly weakened Vandal defenses through the dispatch of the bulk of the Vandal navy and army under Gelimer's brother Tzazon to Sardinia. (Full article...)