In the spring of 1942 the turning points for World War II in North Africa were approaching. After recovering from a series of defeats the previous fall, Rommel was preparing for the final push towards Tobruk, a key port that would allow him to shorten his supply lines and advance into Egypt with a view to occupying the strategic Suez Canal.
The main obstacle for Rommel and the Afrika Korps to achieve these objectives were the Allied troops of the 8th Army, deployed around the small town of Gazala, some 60 kilometers from Tobruk. Those forces were commanded by British General Neil Ritchie, who had designed a device made up of seven "defensive boxes" with an inverted triangle pointing south.
At the southern vertex of this display, was the oasis of Bir Hakeim. A defensive enclave around an old Ottoman fort, surrounded by mines, barbed wire and trenches. Its garrison was the 1st Free French Brigade, commanded by General Marie-Pierre Kœnig, a contingent made up largely of Foreign Legion troops, with Czech, Swiss, Polish and French soldiers from Africa and France. Asia, as well as Spanish.
The latter were exiled Republicans who had fought in the Civil War and, after crossing the Pyrenees, had joined the Foreign Legion. They served in the Norwegian or Dunkirk campaigns and later joined General Charles de Gaulle's Free French units. In total, some 300 Spaniards were framed in the 1st Brigade, out of a total of 3,700 troops deployed in Bir Hakeim.
Thanks to the interception of communications, Allied intelligence had ascertained the possible date of the German-Italian attack – the end of May – but General Ritchie had no further information. Being aware of when was not going to be enough to counter the famous audacity of the Desert Fox.
The key to Rommel's plan was not to move directly towards Tobruk. The Italians of the Ariete Armored Division were to occupy Bir Hakeim. Next, the Afrika Korps panzers would make a long flank to the south to break through the British lines. With this maneuver, the German hoped to surprise Ritchie, who had the bulk of his armored reserves further north, too far away to react in time.
The Axis forces were punctual for the rendezvous and began their offensive at dawn on May 26, 1942. The Luftwaffe fired flares to mark the Ariete's advance towards Bir Hakeim in the dark. They soon engaged in combat with the defenders, and the Italians were driven back by Allied artillery and mines.
As the historian Eduardo Pons Prades collects in Spanish Republicans in World War II (La Esfera de los Libros, 2003), General Jacques Pâris de Bollardière, famous years later for criticizing the torture used by the French army in Algeria, recounted that, In those early stages of the fighting, he began to hear shouts in Spanish: “Go for them! Like in Madrid, comrades!"
De Bollardière also recalled that several Italian tanks managed to penetrate the Allied lines, but were greeted by the launch of Molotov cocktails. With these improvised bombs, the Spanish managed to immobilize several enemy armored vehicles and fired at their crews through the loopholes.
The legionnaires, who saw their companions act like this, baptized these defensive techniques as "the Spanish recital of Bir Hakeim". After repulsing the first Italian assault, euphoria gripped the defenders to the point that General Kœnig had to remind his men that they still had two more days to hold, by which time Ritchie's troops would theoretically be in counterattack conditions.
At first, the battle for the entire Gazala line seemed to favor the allies. The Afrika Korps got bogged down by the resistance of various “defensive boxes”. Ritchie's little aggressiveness saved Rommel from a bigger disaster. The German general was able to recover and demonstrated his ability to overcome extreme situations.
Bir Hakeim was a thorn in the back of the Desert Fox's plans. Their panzers could outrun the position, but leaving it behind was a dagger that could plunge into their supply lines. Rommel opted to reinforce the Ariete with two divisions: the Italian Trieste and the German 90th Light. The attack resumed on June 2 under the leadership of the Afrika Korps commander-in-chief himself.
Again, the defenders' fire repulsed the Italian tanks, and minefields made an effective assault by the Trieste and 90th Light divisions impossible. Even so, the Axis forces completed the encirclement of the position. With the enemy surrounded, Rommel sent an offer of surrender at noon on June 2 through two Italian officers.
While General Kœnig was evaluating the proposal, one of his Spanish assistants – Pons Prades identifies him only with the last name Carrillo – launched a bravado: “We are going to tell them to go to hell, but we will say it carefully”. The French commander favored a less eschatological proposal, but one that also showed determination: "Tell General Rommel that handing him over this position without a fight is not one of my plans."
The next day, there was also an Allied response from the skies. The concentration of Axis forces provided clear targets for the British fighter-bombers. Thus the RAF bought a little time for the defenders of Bir Hakeim. Kœnig thanked the support over the radio. The response of Vice Marshal Arthur Coningham, commander of the Desert Air Force, could not have been more British: "Thanks for the sport", in reference to how easy it had been to hit enemy columns from the air.
Rommel was content to hold the encirclement and resorted to his own artillery and air strikes to try to surrender Bir Hakeim. He repeatedly repeated his offer of surrender with the same response from Kœnig. In addition, the Desert Fox also had to focus his attention on other points on the front. Clumsy as Ritchie's forces reacted, they were a threat the Axis could not ignore.
Among the defenders, each nationality began to evoke warlike deeds to increase morale. The French remembered the Battle of Camarón—an 1863 Foreign Legion clash against vastly superior Mexican forces—while the Spanish remembered their resistance to more intense enemy attacks at the Battle of the Ebro nearly four years earlier.
On June 7, the Germans and Italians again tried the direct assault. The situation on the rest of the front was increasingly favorable to Rommel, but he still needed to finish off Bir Hakeim in order to charge towards Tobruk. The Spaniards surprised again with an audacious raid with tanks, which was joined by other legionaries. These counterattacks made the Italian-German vanguard fear that it could be isolated, and it withdrew.
After that confrontation, the routine of the previous days was repeated. The Germans shelled for the next forty-eight hours, and on June 10 Rommel refocused on Bir Hakeim. In parallel, Kœnig received orders from Ritchie to withdraw. The British considered that Bir Hakeim "was no longer essential." The challenge for the defenders was to cover the twelve kilometers that separated them from the rest of the 8th Army.
The Free French forces prepared their escape with great ingenuity. The Afrika Korps detected nothing, and, shortly after midnight on June 11, the evacuation of Bir Hakeim began. Kœnig's men gathered all available vehicles and, under cover of night, took advantage of a breach in the minefields made by his engineers to get out. Meanwhile, a group of five hundred soldiers, coming from the Pacific colonies, would cover the withdrawal, holding the enemy in the oasis.
According to Pons Prades, the Spanish drove most of the Bren Carriers, troop transport tanks, which saved many legionnaires and colonial troops. The Axis forces detected the escape, so a good stretch had to be made under intense enemy fire that put Kœnig himself in trouble, who escaped in extremis.
By dawn, the Allied forces had left Rommel's troops behind. They spread out so as not to offer an easy target for the air force and to reach the British lines in relative safety. Kœnig could boast of having escaped with 70% of his men; 141 were killed and some 840 were captured. The exact numbers of victims vary according to the source, but, according to Pons Prades, the majority of the deceased were Spanish.
About the prisoners, it is only clear that 10% were French. A German officer pointed out that they had captured “red Spaniards, Swiss, Czechs, Poles and blacks […], scum of the worst kind”. Hitler ordered the execution of the German Jews who had fought with the Foreign Legion, but Rommel refused to comply, furthering his reputation as a chivalrous enemy among the Allies.
The Germans and Italians had 3,300 casualties at Bir Hakeim. In the end, Rommel was able to conquer Tobruk and add to his Desert Fox legend. The victory might have been brighter if the Spanish Republicans and the rest of the Foreign Legion had not held out for two weeks. In addition, thus the British army was able to withdraw with a certain order towards Egypt, where they put up a better resistance.
For his part, General de Gaulle took advantage of the resistance of Kœnig and his men to show the British and Americans that the Free French forces were first-rate fighters, to be trusted for the rest of the war.
