Italian forces in East Africa were relatively strong in numbers, if not in quality, with 29 colonial brigades, each comprising several infantry battalions and some light artillery, concentrated around the recently conquered Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

With Cyrenaica and the Sudan under threat as well as Somaliland, only token units were available to control what was considered a relatively unimportant possession, devoid of infrastructure, productive capacity or natural resources.

The rugged Somali countryside was impassable by vehicles, meaning that the British could defend bottlenecks on the two roads to Berbera, which wound through the desert via the towns of Hargeisa and Burao, respectively.

Though the armistice had been signed at Compiègne, General Paul Legentilhomme, Commander-in-Chief of the French East African forces, announced that he would not join Vichy France in neutrality, proposing instead to continue the struggle from Djibouti.

[6] On 3 August, General Guglielmo Nasi led 35,000 Italian troops, the vast majority of them African conscripts, across the border from their staging point at Harar into British Somaliland.

General Reade Godwin-Austen arrived to take command of the British garrison from the Military-Governor, Brigadier Arthur Chater, who retained control of the Tug Argan front.

[7][8] Holding Tug Argan was essential to halting an invasion and the British made its defence their priority, though diminished by the French change of sides.

A unit of the Black Watch was rushed to the village of Laferug (to the rear of the gap) late on 10 August by truck and a brigade headquarters was established at nearby Barkasan.

[11] On 10 August, the headlights of advancing Italian supply convoys were clearly visible and Somali refugees, fleeing before De Simone's column, crossed the Mirgo Pass on the British left.

patrol skirmished briefly with four Italian armoured cars but the exchange of fire terrified the British camels and forced their riders to flee.

[12] After receiving word from other scouts that the Italian tanks and infantry were easily avoiding the crude minefields laid before the creek, the British forces holding the forward trenches were withdrawn to the battle line.

As this manoeuvre was nearing completion, Italian artillery and aircraft began to bombard the hills and parties of second-rate Ethiopian and Blackshirt troops attacked several times through the early evening.

De Simone deployed his main forces opposite the British positions; on the Italian left, the II Brigade prepared to advance through the wilderness towards the Punjabi troops in the north.

[18] By 14 August, Godwin-Austen knew that the XV Brigade was encircling the position, his troops were exhausted and his artillery, some already abandoned to the Italians, were running low on ammunition.

He informed General Henry Maitland Wilson, in command at Cairo, while Wavell was in England, that retreat from Tug Argan and evacuation from British Somaliland necessary.

To permit the main body of the colonial garrison to reach the coast, units of the Black Watch, 2nd Battalion King's African Rifles and the 1/2 Punjab Regiment formed a small rearguard at Barakasan, which fought into the night of 17 August.

[21] The Royal Navy had begun to evacuate troops from Berbera on 16 August, operations that few Italian aircraft flew against, possibly due to uncertainty about whether a peace treaty might be signed.

Irritated by Mussolini's boasting, Churchill excoriated Wavell via cable, labelling the low casualty numbers on the British side a mark of blatant cowardice and demanding that Godwin-Austen be subjected to a board of inquiry.