The operation was to be initiated after the capture of the Caucasus, the securing of the territories in North Africa, and after resistance in the Soviet Union had finally been overthrown. German armies would launch attacks from Libya through Egypt, and from Bulgaria through Turkey. Those armies would then link up in the Middle East and then march through Iran and Iraq as an assembled force finally convening in India, where they would seal their final victory over Britain. Defeats at Stalingrad and El Alamein in late 1942 and early 1943, canceled the plan.