the italians had shown the ability to co-ordinate columns separated by many miles of desert; the british forces had kept their discipline during the retreat and preserved most of their forces. british somaliland was annexed to italian east africa and mussolini boasted that italy had conquered a territory the size of [[england]], british somaliland, the border outposts of karora, gallabat, kurmak and [[kassala]] in sudan and [[moyale]] and [[buna, kenya|buna]] in kenya. news of the evacuation came as a shock to british public opinion but wavell backed godwin-austen, saying that he had judged the situation correctly. the british had to immobilise and abandon 350 vehicles and most of their stores because of the need to ferry everything to the ships offshore.