Where to halt the retreat in Cyrenaica?

General Neil Ritchie took command of the Eighth Army when the desert war seemed won: Operation Crusader had relieved Tobruk and thrown the Axis back to the west. Within days the situation reversed. The counterattack launched by Erwin Rommel broke through the overstretched British vanguards and retook Benghazi on 29 January 1942. The Eighth Army's columns are falling back eastward across Cyrenaica, dogged by an enemy that has regained the initiative.

Ritchie must regain control before the retreat turns into a rout. His divisions are tired, his supply line stretched over hundreds of kilometres of track, and the open desert offers few natural features on which to anchor a defence. The further he withdraws, the more he spares his forces the immediate shock, but the more depth he gives up and the closer he brings the enemy to Tobruk and the Egyptian frontier. Every day the Axis gains consolidates the reconquest of Cyrenaica.

Three options lie before him. He can halt the retreat and fortify a line running from Gazala on the coast down to the oasis of Bir Hakeim in the south, to hold in front of Tobruk. He can instead fall back further, all the way to Tobruk itself, to buy time and shorten his supply lines. Or he can attempt an immediate counterattack to retake Benghazi and throw Rommel back before he digs in.