Global InformationMediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II information
| Mediterranean and Middle East theatre | |||||||||
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| Part of the Second World War | |||||||||
 A map of the Mediterranean in 1941 | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
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Allies
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Axis
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Archibald Wavell Claude Auchinleck Harold Alexander Henry Wilson Dwight D. Eisenhower Mark W. Clark Jean de Tassigny Joseph de Monsabert Enver Hoxa Veli Dedi Fyodor Tolbukhin Dušan Simović Josip Broz Tito Alexandros Papagos  Haile Selassie Kassa Haile Darge |
  Benito Mussolini  Rodolfo Graziani Pietro Badoglio Italo Balbo Ugo Cavallero Ettore Bastico Prince Umberto Adolf Hitler † Albert Kesselring Wilhelm List Alexander Löhr | ||||||||
The Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre was a major theatre of operations during the Second World War. The vast size of the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre saw interconnected naval, land, and air campaigns fought for control of the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and Southern Europe. The fighting lasted from 10 June 1940, when Italy entered the war on the side of Germany, until 2 May 1945 when all Axis forces in Italy surrendered. However, fighting would continue in Greece – where British troops had been dispatched to aid the Greek government – during the early stages of the Greek Civil War.
The British referred to this theatre as the Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre (so called due to the location of the fighting and the name of Middle East Command), the Americans called it the Mediterranean Theater of War and the German informal official history of the fighting is the Mediterranean, South-East Europe, and North Africa 1939–1941. Despite the large size of the theatre, the various campaigns were not seen as neatly separated areas of operations but part of a vast, contiguous theatre of war.
Fascist Italy aimed to carve out a new Roman Empire, while the Allies aimed to retain the status quo. Italy entered the war on June 10, 1940 and immediately invaded France and bombed Malta, which would remain under siege for over 2 years. Italian forces then attacked Greece, but it was not until the introduction of German forces that it and neighbouring Yugoslavia were overrun. Allied and Axis forces fought back and forth across North Africa, while Axis interference in the Middle East caused fighting to spread as far as Palestine and Iraq. With confidence high from early gains, German forces planned to capture the Middle East with a view to possibly attacking the southern border of the Soviet Union. Devastating losses in the Magreb, Egypt, and Tunisia halted Axis interference in North Africa by May 1943. The Allies then invaded Italy, resulting in an armistice authorized by the royal government, causing a civil war. A prolonged battle for Italy commenced between the Allied-aligned Kingdom of Italy in the south and Axis-aligned Italian Social Republic in the north, lasting until May 2, 1945 with the Surrender of Caserta.
The Mediterranean and Middle East theatre had the longest duration of the World War II, resulted in the destruction of the Italian Empire, and severely undermined the strategic position of Germany, resulting in German divisions being deployed to Africa and Italy and total German losses (including those captured upon final surrender) being over two million.[d] Italian losses amounted to around 177,000 men with a further several hundred thousand captured during the process of the various campaigns. British losses amount to over 300,000 men killed, wounded, or captured, and total American losses in the region amounted to 130,000.
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- ^ Blair (1996), p. xiii
- ^ Woodman (2004), p. 1