January 1941 British forces launched concurrent offensives from Sudan and Kenya into Italian East Africa.
As covered in earlier posts, at the end of January 1941 British forces launched concurrent offensives from Sudan and Kenya into Italian East Africa. In the northern portion of this offensive, British forces made initial good progress but then quickly bogged down in a protracted fight at Keren in Eritrea. On 27 March the British finally broke through the Italian defences at Keren thus culminating an eight-week battle that had cost them 536 dead and 3,229 wounded. During the same struggle the Italians lost at least 3,000 killed, 4,500 wounded and over 3,000 taken prisoner. Now with their main defensive line broken and many of their best units severely depleted from the recent heavy fighting, the Italians were thoroughly demoralized and hard pressed to offer further coordinated resistance against the advancing British units. As such, the British made good progress and in less than a month completed their conquest of Eritrea taking many thousands of prisoners in the process for mi