
Montgomery assembled a force for a counterattack, including around 190,000 men and over 1,000 tanks. They were stopped at the First Battle of El Alamein, which, though technically a stalemate, did prevent the Afrikakorps from rolling through the rest of Egypt, and by extension the Middle East.

Germany's Afrikakorps had to step in to prevent their defeat in 1941, and were able to push the British all the way into Egypt.

North Africa had been a battleground since Fascist Italy's invasion of Egypt in 1940. The Second Battle of El Alamein saw two legendary generals, Britain's Bernard Montgomery, and Germany's Erwin Rommel - who was nicknamed the "Desert Fox" - fight for the fate of North Africa.
