{"id":1853,"date":"2012-08-07T21:34:35","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T03:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=1853"},"modified":"2012-08-11T21:06:42","modified_gmt":"2012-08-12T03:06:42","slug":"this-week-in-the-war-5-11-august-1940-italians-invade-british-somaliland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=1853","title":{"rendered":"This week in the War, 5&#8211;11 August 1940: Italians invade British Somaliland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?attachment_id=1989\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1989\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1989\" title=\"By derivative work: Themightyquill (talk) Italian_East_Africa_Map.jpg Government of Italy via Wikimedia Commons\" src=\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Wsomalia6-300x269.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"269\" srcset=\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Wsomalia6-300x269.png 300w, https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Wsomalia6-150x134.png 150w, https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Wsomalia6.png 668w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>This week in the war, 5 and 6 August 1940, the Italian army captured crucial positions in British Somaliland, Britain&#8217;s colony in the Horn of Africa.<\/p>\n<p>The invasion force was 24,000 strong and included artillery, air support, and light and medium tanks. The assault was launched from bases in Italian East Africa.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?attachment_id=2024\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2024\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2024\" title=\"Camel Corps Memorial, London, LondonRemembers.com, [Creative Commons]\" src=\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Wcamelcorps.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"154\" height=\"154\" srcset=\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Wcamelcorps.jpg 154w, https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Wcamelcorps-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 154px) 100vw, 154px\" \/><\/a>The British could call on 4,000 troops, including the Somaliland Camel Corps and the Nyasaland (now Malawi) King&#8217;s African Rifles, but had no armour and little artillery.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?attachment_id=1917\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1917\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1917\" title=\"Britain's Somaliland Camel Corps\" src=\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Wsomalia5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"366\" height=\"138\" srcset=\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Wsomalia5.jpg 366w, https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Wsomalia5-150x56.jpg 150w, https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Wsomalia5-300x113.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 366px) 100vw, 366px\" \/><\/a>Despite being reinforced, the British were pushed back and forced to evacuate by sea. They were getting used to it! (Dunkirk, Norway,&#8230;). The evacuation was largely unopposed because, some say, Italy was interested in negotiating a peace treaty with Britain. Hitler had had the same idea. (See my post of 18 July 2012 <a title=\"An end to the war?\" href=\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=1590\"><em>An end to the war?<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Britain, of course, had worries closer to home. The Battle of Britain was well under way and about to enter phase two: the <em>Luftwaffe\u2019<\/em>s attack on RAF airfields.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week in the war, 5 and 6 August 1940, the Italian army captured crucial positions in British Somaliland, Britain&#8217;s colony in the Horn of Africa. The invasion force was 24,000 strong and included artillery, air support, and light and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=1853\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[190,189],"class_list":["post-1853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-war-ii","tag-camel-corps","tag-somaliland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1853"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2025,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853\/revisions\/2025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}