Tug Argan — fall back or hold in Somaliland

Major-General Alfred Godwin-Austen, 51, has only recently taken command of the meagre forces of British Somaliland, the poorest and most desolate of Britain's East African possessions. A decorated Great War officer, he knows his position is almost untenable: the neighbouring Italian army in Abyssinia fields hundreds of thousands of men, while he has only a few colonial and British battalions.

On 4 August 1940, the Italians crossed the frontier and took Zeila and Hargeisa within forty-eight hours. The only port to protect, Berbera, opens onto the Gulf of Aden, a week's sailing from the bulk of reinforcements. London leaves him latitude between resisting to the utmost and preserving his garrison.

On 11 August the main blow falls at Tug Argan pass, some 60 km from Berbera. There a composite force — African rifles, Rhodesians, Black Watch, Punjabi companies, camel corps — faces five colonial brigades, Blackshirts and around a hundred armoured vehicles. The ratio of forces reaches fifteen to one. Position by position, his strongpoints are outflanked and surrounded. Hold at all costs, withdraw methodically, or counter-attack? Godwin-Austen must decide the fate of his garrison.