In the autumn of 1940, victory at the Battle of Britain and the impending season of storms put the danger of a Nazi invasion away, giving Britain at least a few months to mobilize its forces. In the end of the same year, and in the first months of the following one, the British conducted two brilliant campaigns in Africa, in which their modest forces crushed the Italian forces holding several times the advantage. It began on 9 December, when General Richard O’Connor, who with only 31.000 men at his disposal smashed in two months of fighting the approximately 215.000-strong Italian army of Marshal Graziani, forcing it not only to retreat from Egypt, but to withdraw to Tripoli. One element of the success of this campaign was the functioning of the A Force disinformation team under the command of Colonel Dudley Clarke, appointed by the British commander in Egypt, General Archibald Wavell. The team, installed in a hastily adapted brothel in Cairo, received information from BP about the intentions of the Italian side from decrypts of Italian codes. Knowing the plans and concerns of the Italians, the A Force team was able to suggest to O’Connor actions to strengthen the Italians in their false opinions, or to encourage them to abandon activities unwelcomed by the British. While fighting continued in the deserts of Egypt and Libya, in the third decade of January 1941, two arms of the British attack on the Italian army in East Africa, led by Amadeus II of Savoy, Duke of Aosta, were launched from Sudan and Kenya. 9.000 soldiers under the command of General Platt entered Ethiopia from the Sudan, and less than 6.000 commanded by General Cunnigham set off from Kenya heading towards the Italian army of some 200,000 soldiers. Despite the power imbalance on 18 May, Duke of Aosta capitulated at Amba Alagi, and two weeks earlier, Emperor Haile Selassie was able to descend from the mountains and return to the capital of his country. In this campaign too, the decryption of the Italian messages played a key role.