Operation Sonnenblume

Operation Sonnenblume (, "Operation Sunflower") movement of German and Italian soliders to North Africa in February 1941, during the Second World War. The Italian 10th Army () had been destroyed by the Allies attacks during Operation Compass  The first parts of the new German Afrika Korps commanded by Geral Erwin Rommel, left Naples to go to Africa and arrived on 11 February 1941. 

Rommel arrived in Libya on 12 February, with orders to defend Tripoli, using aggressive tactics. The first German soliders reached Sirte on 15 February, continued to Nofilia on 18 February and a German raiding party attacked a British patrol near El Agheila on 24 February. On 24 March, the Axis captured El Agheila and on 31 March attacked Mersa Brega. The weak 3rd Armoured Brigade failed to push the Germans back and began to retreat towards Benghazi the next day. 

 succeeded because the ability of the Germans to mount a big attack was underestimated by General Archibald Wavell, the main British General for the Middle-East, the War Office and Winston Churchill. Rommel transformed the situation by his unexpected attack, despite a lot of spy reports from the decoding of signals from the German Enigma coding machine and MI14 (British Military Intelligence). Many experienced British units had been transferred to Greece in Operation Lustre and others to Egypt to get new gear. Some commanders appointed by Wavell to Cyrenaica Command didnt  live up to expectations and Wavell relied on bad maps, when he later arrived to see for himself.
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