The Leclerc Column at the Gates of the Fezzan
, whose real name was Leclerc de Hauteclocque, has commanded from Chad the meagre forces of in Africa. An officer who rallied to as early as 1940, he has turned this loyal colony into the base from which fighting France can still strike. A year earlier, his column seized the oasis of Kufra from the Italians, and there he swore not to lay down arms until the French flag flew once more over Strasbourg.
To the north of him stretches the Fezzan, a vast desert region of southern Libya held by the Italian army and studded with isolated forts amid the dunes. To attack these positions means crossing hundreds of kilometres of desert with worn-out trucks, little fuel, little water, and a handful of men. Leclerc has only a few hundred fighters, where his adversary holds entrenched garrisons supported by aircraft.
Leclerc must decide how to wield this slender instrument. Launch a true motorised column across the desert to reduce the Italian forts of the Fezzan despite the weakness of his means; confine himself to harassing raids in order to preserve irreplaceable forces; or wait for the British offensive to resume in Cyrenaica so as to act in concert and not expose himself alone.
Chad, February 1942, Colonel Philippe Leclerc: how should he carry the war to the Italian positions in the Fezzan with such slender means?
Leclerc launched his columns against the Fezzan in February 1942. With around 500 men split into several detachments, his troops crossed the desert, struck the Italian positions and, over some fifteen days, destroyed several forts, seized dumps and equipment, and took around fifty prisoners, at the cost of a few killed and wounded. These daring raids affirmed as a military force in its own right in Africa and fed its rising legend. The complete conquest of the Fezzan would not come until late 1942 and early 1943: a second campaign, waged with far greater means, reduced the last Italian garrisons, reached Tripoli, and linked up with Montgomery's British , a prelude to the liberation of North Africa.
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