Hold the bastion or save the divisions?

In mid-December 1940, Benito Mussolini sees his dream of an African empire cracking apart. Launched on 9 December, the British Operation Compass has swept away in forty-eight hours the fortified Italian camps around Sidi Barrani, in Egypt, taking tens of thousands of prisoners.

The rout is swift. Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, commander-in-chief in Libya, abandons Sollum on 16 December and withdraws four divisions along the coastal road towards a stronghold of eastern Cyrenaica: Bardia. The small force of General Richard O'Connor, though greatly inferior in numbers, pursues its breakthrough westward, supported by the Royal Navy and the RAF.

Mussolini must settle on a course of action. To concentrate further west, towards Tobruk, would save the divisions still available but would mean abandoning conquered ground and publicly accepting the scale of the disaster. To hold Bardia, fortified and backed by the sea, might break the British momentum — at the risk of locking four divisions there against an adversary who dominates the sky, intelligence and morale. The Duce, anxious for the regime's prestige after the Greek failure, weighs the honour of arms against military prudence. The order he sends to the garrison commander will seal the fate of tens of thousands of men.