Bir Hakeim: An Ottoman Fort and Second World War Battlefield in Libya

History

Bir Hakeim is an oasis and former Ottoman fort in Libya, developed around an ancient Roman well during the Ottoman period. The site stood in Ottoman Tripolitania, the province that broadly covered the Tripolitanian region of present-day Libya, at the junction of two caravan routes. Its later history connected it to the Senussi movement, the First World War, Italian colonial rule, and the Second World War battle that made its name internationally known.

Ottoman and Senussi use

The fort was built around the older Roman well while the oasis belonged to the Ottoman province of Tripolitania. After Italy took the province during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911 to 1912, the Senussi, a Sunni Islamic religious and political movement influential across Libya and the Sahara, cooperated with the Ottoman and German sides against Italy and Britain.

During the First World War, the former Ottoman fort served as a Senussi prison. German and Ottoman assistance helped the Senussi organize fighters from tribes in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. In March 1916, Major Hugh Grosvenor led an armoured-car squadron of the Western Frontier Force approximately 120 miles across the desert from Sollum to Bir Hakeim. The force rescued 91 British prisoners of war captured from HMS Tara and HMT Moorina. German submarines had taken the prisoners after torpedoing their ships and then handed them over to the Senussi. Nearly all the guards were killed during the rescue.

Italian colonial period

Under Italian colonial rule, the former Ottoman fort became a garrison for Zaptié and Meharisti units of the Royal Corps of Libyan Colonial Troops. Zaptié were colonial gendarmerie troops, while Meharisti were camel-mounted military units used by the Italian forces in Libya.

Battle of Bir Hakeim

During the Second World War, Bir Hakeim formed the southern end of the British defensive line that extended approximately 70 kilometres into the desert from the coast between Gazala and Tobruk. The position became the scene of the Battle of Bir Hakeim within the wider Battle of Gazala, fought from 26 May to 21 June 1942.

From 26 May to 11 June, approximately 3,700 troops of the 1st Free French Brigade defended Bir Hakeim against roughly 40,000 German and Italian troops commanded by Generaloberst Erwin Rommel. The Free French were French forces that continued fighting alongside the Allies after France’s defeat in 1940 and the establishment of the Vichy regime. Brigadier General Marie-Pierre Kœnig commanded the defenders. Around 800 French troops were killed or went missing during the defence.

The force included the 13th Half-Brigade of the French Foreign Legion, whose 3rd Battalion was commanded by Captain Pierre Messmer. Other units came from the Free French Division, including the 2nd Marching Battalion of French Equatorial Africa, the Pacific Battalion, the 1st Marine Infantry Battalion, the 1st Artillery Regiment, the 1st Fusiliers Marins Battalion, troop D of the 43rd Battery of the 11th City of London Yeomanry Regiment, and the 22nd North African French Armoured Company. The 13th Half-Brigade had previously fought the German army at Narvik on 27 May 1940. At Bir Hakeim, the Kaddish was recited on most evenings.

The defence delayed the Axis offensive and contributed to the cancellation of Operation Herkules, the planned German invasion of Malta and the Suez Canal. It also gave the retreating British Eighth Army time to recover and reorganize before halting the German advance at the First Battle of El Alamein.

Aftermath and later memory

Algerian and Moroccan units of the 1st Free French Division later helped form the French Expeditionary Corps, commanded by Generals Alphonse Juin and Joseph de Goislard de Monsabert. These forces subsequently fought at Monte Cassino. The 3rd Algerian Infantry Division and Moroccan Tabors under General Augustin Guillaume were credited with breaking through the German Gustav Line.

The Italian forces at Bir Hakeim included nineteen-year-old Corporal Giovanni Secchiaroli, a medium-tank machine-gunner in the 8th Battalion, 132nd Tank Infantry Regiment of the Ariete Division. Wounded and the only survivor of his crew, he continued firing from his immobilized tank until another anti-tank round killed him. He received Italy’s Gold Medal of Military Valour posthumously.

The battle later gave its name to the Bir-Hakeim station on the Paris Métro and to the Pont de Bir-Hakeim bridge. Bir Hakeim is now uninhabited, and the former battle area remains contaminated by land mines and other unexploded wartime ordnance. In the early 1990s, Muammar Gaddafi’s government considered constructing an agricultural water pipeline from the Al-Kufrah oasis to Tobruk, but abandoned the plan because clearing the area was too expensive.

Remains

Bir Hakeim lies in the Libyan desert approximately 160 kilometres west of Sollum, 80 kilometres southeast of Gazala, and about 65 kilometres south of Tobruk. The site is organized around two modest rises and an eastern point. The northern rise, known as Les Mamelles, reaches elevation 186, while the southern point is marked by the ruins of a small Senussi fort. A line between the two rises follows ground that slopes slightly toward the northwest. Together with the eastern point, they form a roughly equilateral triangle with sides of about 3 kilometres.

Fortifications and water source

Former Ottoman fort

The principal historic structure is the former Ottoman fort, constructed around an ancient Roman well. Its position reflects the oasis’s value at the meeting point of two caravan routes and its later military use. The fort subsequently served as a prison under the Senussi and as a colonial garrison for Italian Zaptié and Meharisti units.

Senussi fort

The southern rise carries the ruins of a small Senussi fort. This surviving defensive feature forms one of the site’s defining points and is associated with the Senussi occupation of Bir Hakeim during the First World War. Its position, together with Les Mamelles and the eastern point, helps establish the physical outline of the former oasis and battlefield.