- Type
- Ruin
- Coordinates
- 31.5808°, 25.0522°
History
The Italians built the fort on the plateau near Bardia after seizing Libya, to guard the colony's eastern border with Egypt. In the early 1930s it became one of the posts on the barbed-wire barrier with which the colonial authorities cut off the Senussi resistance from Egypt. Its frontier position put it on the front line of the Second World War: the British took it as early as 14 June 1940, four days after Italy entered the war. Between 1940 and 1942 it changed hands repeatedly in successive operations, including Brevity, Battleaxe and Crusader, until after El Alamein in November 1942 British forces took it for good. Wrecked in the fighting, it was never rebuilt.
What to see
What remains of the fort are low, partly tumbled stone walls and fragments of buildings on a flat, stony plateau not far from the coast. The site lies away from any settlement, beside the road from Bardia towards the Egyptian border, and draws mainly military-history enthusiasts. Traces of the fighting can still be seen around it, and at Tobruk, more than 100 km to the west, lie the war cemeteries of soldiers killed in 1941–1942.
Wikipedia article Wikidata Q2754865
Popularity: articles about this site in 16 Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia language editions and others).