However, this was only a brief happy time for Mussolini. The oil and supplies brought to Malta, despite heavy losses, by "Operation Pedestal" in August and the Allied landings in North Africa, "Operation Torch", in November 1942, turned the fortunes of war against Italy. After years of stalemate, the Axis forces were ejected from Libya and Tunisia in six months after the "Battle of El Alamein", while their supply lines were harassed day after day by the growing and overwhelming aerial and naval supremacy of the Allies in what has just been the Mussolini's "Italian Mare Nostrum".