The 6th Australian Division (Major General Iven Mackay) assaulted the strongly held Italian fortress of Bardia, Libya, assisted by air support and naval gunfire and under the cover of an artillery barrage.

The victory at Bardia enabled the Allied forces to continue the advance into Libya and capture almost all of Cyrenaica, which led to Operation Sonnenblume, German intervention in the fighting in North Africa, changing the nature of the war in the theatre.

[9] Italy's position in the centre of the Mediterranean made it unacceptably hazardous to send ships from Britain to Egypt via that route, so British reinforcements and supplies for the area had to travel around the Cape of Good Hope.

Nonetheless, even when Britain was threatened with invasion after the Battle of France and equipment was urgently required to re-equip the British Expeditionary Force after its losses in the Dunkirk evacuation, troops and supplies were still despatched to the Middle East Command.

[17] These divisions guarded an 18-mile (29 km) perimeter which had an almost continuous antitank ditch, extensive barbed wire fence and a double row of strong points.

[23] Shortages of raw materials, coupled with the increased technological sophistication of modern weapons, led to production problems that frustrated efforts to supply the Italian Army with the best available equipment.

[26] Bergonzoli knew that if Bardia and Tobruk held out, a British advance further into Libya eventually must falter under the logistical difficulties of maintaining a desert force using an extended overland supply line.

[31] Prime Minister Robert Menzies ordered that all commands in the division were to go to reservists rather than to regular officers, who had been publicly critical of the defence policies of right wing politicians.

Most other equipment was obsolescent and would have to be replaced but new factories were required to produce the latest items, such as 3-inch mortars, 25-pounder field guns and motor vehicles; War Cabinet approval for their construction was slow in coming.

[45] The plan developed by Mackay and his chief of staff, Colonel Frank Berryman, involved an attack on the western side of the Bardia defences by 16th Australian Infantry Brigade (Brigadier Arthur "Tubby" Allen) at the junction of the Gerfah and Ponticelli sectors.

The British were unfamiliar with diesel engines and a lack of spare parts, indifferent maintenance and hard use under desert conditions soon took their toll, leading to many breakdowns.

[56] A naval bombardment was carried out on the morning of 3 January by the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships HMS Warspite, Valiant and Barham and their destroyer escorts.

On crossing the start line the 2/1st Infantry Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Eather, came under Italian mortar and artillery fire.

The lead platoons advanced accompanied by sappers of the 2/1st Field Company carrying Bangalore torpedoes—12-foot (3.7 m) pipes packed with ammonal—as Italian artillery fire began to land, mainly behind them.

[59] The 2/2nd Infantry Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel F. O. Chilton) found that it was best to keep skirmishing forward throughout this advance, because going to ground for any length of time meant sitting in the middle of the enemy artillery concentrations that inflicted further casualties.

[61] At 0750 the 2/3rd Infantry Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel V. T. England), accompanied by the Bren gun carriers of A Squadron, 2/6th Cavalry Regiment (Major Denzil MacArthur-Onslow) moved off for Bardia.

By midday, 6,000 Italian prisoners had already reached the provosts at the collection point near Post 45, escorted by increasingly fewer guards whom the rifle companies could afford to detach.

Wrigley's force had a long and exhausting approach, and much of its movement forward to its jump off point had been under Italian shellfire intended for the 16th Infantry Brigade.

The sun had now risen, and Captain C. H. Smith's D Company came under effective fire from machine guns and field artillery 700 yards (640 m) to the north east.

[74] That evening, Brigadier Savige came forward to the 2/5th Infantry Battalion's position to determine the situation, which he accurately evaluated as "extremely confused; the attack was stagnant.

[79] The 2/1st Infantry Battalion began its advance on schedule at 0900, but the lead platoon came under heavy machine gun fire from Post 54, and Italian artillery knocked out the supporting mortars.

Leaving a small party at the hospital under Corporal M. H. Vause, who could speak some Italian, MacArthur-Onslow pressed on with two carriers to the Hebs el Harram, where they took over 1,000 prisoners.

[84] The 2/2nd Infantry Battalion, supported by the three Matilda tanks and the guns of the 7th Medium Regiment, advanced down the Wadi Scemmas towards an Italian fort on the southern headland of Bardia.

Captain N. A. Vickery, a forward observer from the 2/1st Field Regiment, attacked an Italian battery in his Bren gun carrier and captured 1,000 prisoners.

[87] General Giuseppe Tellera, the commander of the Italian Tenth Army, considered the possibility of sending a force to relieve the Bardia fortress but in the end concluded that such an operation had no chance of success.

[88] On the morning of 5 January, the 19th Infantry Brigade launched its attack on the Meriega sector, starting from the Bardia road and following a creeping barrage southward with the support of six Matilda tanks, all that remained in working order.

[91] "On a battlefield where Italian troops won little honour", Gavin Long later wrote, "the last to give in belonged to a garrison whose resolute fight would have done credit to any army.

Favourable articles appeared in The New York Times and the Washington Times-Herald, which ran the headline "Hardy Wild-Eyed Aussies Called World's Finest Troops".

[95] During the battle, Wavell had received a cable from General Sir John Dill stressing the political importance of such victories in the United States, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt was attempting to get the Lend-Lease Act enacted; it became law in March 1941.

"[97] In Germany, the Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, was unconcerned by the military implications of the loss of Libya but deeply troubled by the prospect of a political reverse that could lead to the fall of Mussolini.