The sands of North Africa yielded the first great Allied victory of the Second World War. Map of the Allied Operations in Europe and North Africa 1942-1945. But not before almost three years of bitter struggle in which both sides had to contend with the particular challenges of maintaining an army in the inhospitable conditions of the desert. The North African Campaign was a key part of World War II because it was one of the first times the United States started fighting for the Allies, and it created another front that the Germans would need , to fight on which forced the Axis' reasources to be divided even more. I hope we'll see North Africa maps appearing in the future (along with the Hurricane Mk.IIB, C & D and fixes to the Mk.Vb & Vc FMs) - I loved African Canyon on AB for the theme and I enjoyed the Sicily HB map so some from the North African campaign would be grand. Map … In 1940 Italy invaded British controlled Egypt but the Italian forces were defeated by the British counterattack. Here are 10 key events of the North African campaign. Map of the Battle of Stalingrad July 17, 1942 - February 2, 1943. World war II Interactive North African campaign map. western desert campaign. The North African Campaign (1940-1943) produced some of the British army's most iconic moments of the Second World War, and the Allied and Axis armies repeated advance back and forward across Libya, before the Allied victories of El Alamein and Operation Torch forced the Axis forces back into an increasingly small bridgehead in Tunisia. Photo: Wikimedia, CC0. Based on the page North Africa. Tunisia campaign. Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, excluding photos, directions and the map. Thanks to Mapbox for providing amazing maps. Map of Allied Gains in Europe - December 15, 1944-May 7, 1945. This clickable map shows the overall course of the Northern African campaign from 1940 until 1942, following the series of Allied and Axis victories that saw the armies advance and retreat across Libya and Egypt five times in two years. Thus, the North African campaign and the naval campaign for the Mediterranean were extensions of each other in a very real sense. The struggle for control of North Africa began as early as October 1935, when Italy invaded Ethiopia from its colony Italian Somaliland. 1. See this page's contributions. Home Operation Torch Tunisia Campaign Western Desert Campaign More Info Operation torch. Map of Operation Overlord - 1944. Map of Europe 1944: Allied Gains. That move made Egypt very wary of Italy’s imperialistic aspirations.