 Complete the following phrase:  During early 1942, the Axis forces had advanced steadily through northwest Egypt. It was decided that the British Eighth Army should make a stand just over west of Alexandria, at the railway siding of El Alamein, where the coastal plain narrowed between the Mediterranean Sea and the inhospitable Qattara Depression. On 26 June 1942, the 9th Division was ordered to begin moving from northern Syria to El Alamein. On 1July, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommels forces made a major attack, hoping to dislodge the Allies from the area, take Alexandria, and open the way to Cairo and the Suez Canal. This attack resulted in the 