World War, STRATEGY: Proving Table

“Africa,” said the late Marshal Italo Balbo when he was Governor of Libya, “is the continent on which the great nations of the world must prove their right to priority.” It has indeed turned out to be Italy’s proving table. Isolated from the rest of World War II, British successes on land (see p. 36) and sea (see p. 30) in the Mediterranean area had been brilliant. But the British had not relinquished their conviction that this time the great nations would have to hand in their final proofs not in Africa but on or near a little patch of islands hard by the shoulder of disproven France (see below). They still expected an all-out attack at home.