Rapidly taking the offensive against his distracted and over-stretched opponent , by April 1941 Rommel had driven Self_motion the British and Commonwealth forces in Cyrenaica back across the Egyptian border .

The rapid British advance Self_motion during Operation Military_operation Compass ( 9 December 1940 – 9 February 1941 ) forced Causation the Italian 10th Army to evacuate Emptying Cyrenaica , the eastern province of Libya .

A few thousand men of the 10th Army escaped Escaping the disaster Catastrophe in Cyrenaica but the 5th Army in Tripolitania had four divisions .