For someone who has read much about World War II in North Africa, the geography of the Libyan revolution brings back memories. What is today written in English as Tobruq, a port in eastern Libya, was known as Tobruk when it was a Italian fortress nearest Egypt which fell quickly to an Australian attack in early 1941. And later it was still named Tobruk when it was famously besieged by the Germans and Italians between May 1941 and November 1941. Early in the current revolt it fell to Libyan rebels, apparently without opposition.
A major concern during World War II in North Africa was logistics, as both sides pushed along the seacoast of Libya, only to run short of supplies as they went beyond Benghazi for the British, coming from the east, and the borders of Egypt for the Germans and Italians, coming from the west. Benghazi, today the leading city of the Libyan rebels, was taken by the British three times and by the Germans two times. Shortages of water, fuel, food, and ammunition were always a constraint for the advancing army, and increasing supplies the basis for recovery for the retreating army as it fell back towards its base. Today both sides of the Libyan conflict seem to operate mostly along the coastal highway. Although both the British and the Axis forces would maneuver in the desert, the coastal highway was their lifeline for supplies of food, fuel, and ammunition. Some things change little over generations.
During World War II neither the Germans nor British paid much attention to the local populations. Sometimes they were a source of guides and intelligence. Sometimes they rescued allied servicemen cut off in the desert. Reading any war history written over the last 60 years, they appear only as bit players. Today they take the important roles.
