The North Africa campaign of 1940-43 brought the British Army its first significant land victory, they then suffered a reversal in fortune between 1941 and 1942 and rallied in 1942 to 1943. For the 8th Army there followed another long struggle up the mountainous length of Italy in 1943-45.
The scope of Britain's wartime Middle East Command stretched far beyond the Libyan desert where the 8th Army's most famous battles were fought - from Gibraltar and Tunisia in the west, to Iraq and Persia in the east, and from Greece south to the Gulf of Aden. In the 1940-43 period of World War II, this was the only arena where the British Army could take the ground war to the German Wehrmacht; it saw a succession of setbacks and triumphs, until spring 1945 found the 8th Army victorious in northern Italy. A summary of these campaigns is illustrated by photographs, and detailed colour plates of the wide range of uniforms worn in the varied conditions of this huge theatre of war.
