Bevin Alexander - How Hitler Could Have Won World War II

Meanwhile other fast-moving German units took Sousse and Sfax, while two Italian battalions from Libya came up the coast to Gabès on November 20, just in time to foil a move on the town by the American 509th Parachute Battalion. On November 22, a small German armored column evicted the French from the road junction of Sbeitla, a hundred miles into the Tunisian interior, turning it over to an Italian detachment—which in turn was expelled by a detachment of the 509th Parachute Battalion.

On November 25 Anderson finally began his offensive on Tunis in three columns, reinforced by tanks and motorized infantry of the U.S. 1st Armored Division, which had rushed 700 miles from Oran. By this time German forces had trebled, though they remained far weaker than the Allies. Major Witzig’s parachute engineers held up the northern column, finally stopping its advance by an ambush on November 30. The center column, with a hundred tanks, thrust to the Chouigui pass, a few miles north of Tebourba. Next morning, however, ten German tanks, supported by two infantry companies, pushed south against the Allied flank and led the command to break off the attack.

Meanwhile, the third column attacked Medjez el Bab, partially encircled Koch’s battle group there, and drove on toward Djedeida, only twelve miles from Tunis. In the afternoon seventeen American tanks reached the airfield at Djedeida and destroyed twenty aircraft.

German antiaircraft guns disabled three of the tanks, and the remainder fell back, but the unexpected strike unnerved Nehring, and he ordered his forces to pull back to a small bridgehead around Tunis, giving up Bizerte, everything west of Djedeida, and all the coast from just south of Tunis. This would cut off the connection with Libya and Rommel. A fuming Kesselring arrived on November 28 and ordered the decision reversed.

Nehring now sent all armored and reconnaissance vehicles into an attack westward toward Tebourba. Since parts of 10th Panzer Division had arrived, Nehring had 64 tanks, including five 56-ton Tigers with high-velocity 88-millimeter guns and 100 millimeters of armor—Hitler’s new “secret weapon,” the most formidable tank to come out of World War II, which he sent to Tunisia to test in combat.

The attack was aimed as a flanking move from the north toward Chouigui pass, with the intention of swinging onto the British rear around Tebourba. The Germans, in two converging columns, overran British forces guarding the flank and pushed on toward Tebourba, but were checked by artillery fire and bombing before they could get astride their objective, the Tebourba–Medjez el Bab road. But the threat caused Anderson to pull back his spearhead to Tebourba. Next day Nehring increased pressure, cutting off the road and forcing the Allies to evacuate Tebourba by a dirt track along the Medjerda River, leaving more than a thousand prisoners.

The Germans erected a new defensive line eight miles east of Medjez el Bab, running north to the sea and south to Libya. Nehring had built a solid line of resistance, but Hitler replaced him with Colonel General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim and renamed the forces in Tunisia 5th Panzer Army, though Arnim had fewer than 25,000 fighting men. The Allies deployed 40,000 in the line, and held many more in the rear.

By now the winter rainy season had begun, and General Eisenhower decided to give up the offensive till the weather improved. This gave Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini time to make a stupendous military error. They commenced shipping in more and more troops, altogether about 150,000 men. Yet the Allies had assembled overwhelming sea and air forces—many times more than had ever threatened Rommel—and could throttle the German-Italian army by cutting off its supplies. Sooner or later its fuel, ammunition, and food would be exhausted and it would have to surrender, leaving few Axis troops to defend Sicily and Italy.

Erwin Rommel noted dryly afterward that, if Hitler had sent him in the spring of 1942 only a fraction of the troops he poured into Tunisia, he could have conquered Egypt, the Suez, and the Middle East, and virtually ruled out an Allied invasion of northwest Africa.

After Rommel’s last offensive failed at El Alamein around the first of September 1942, it was obvious from Ultra intercepts of German messages that supplies and men were not getting to Rommel in any quantity. Therefore, the British 8th Army possessed overwhelming superiority and could push the Axis out of Egypt and Libya at any time.

But Bernard Law Montgomery, the new commander of 8th Army, was not only a difficult, eccentric man concerned with his own glory, he was also excessively methodical. For the next seven weeks Montgomery worked out details of a set-piece counteroffensive, assembling even more tanks, artillery, and men.

The attack was supposed to commence well before the Operation Torch landings, but Montgomery would not be hurried, and finally set the date at October 23.

By this time 8th Army’s fighting strength totaled 230,000 men, while Rommel had fewer than 80,000, of whom only 27,000 were German. The British committed 1,440 tanks, while Rommel had 210 German tanks and 280 obsolete Italian tanks. The RAF could send in 1,200 combat aircraft; the Luftwaffe and Italians could send in only 350.

Because of poor food, many Axis troops had become sick. Rommel was one of the casualties, and in September he went back to Europe for treatment and rest. He was replaced by General Georg Stumme, while General Wilhelm von Thoma took over Africa Corps. Both were from the Russian front and were unused to desert conditions. On the first day of the attack, Stumme drove to the front, ran into heavy fire, and died from a heart attack. Rommel, convalescing in Austria, flew back on October 25 and resumed command of a front already heaving from British attacks.

Montgomery took no advantage of his overwhelming strength by sweeping around the Axis positions. Instead, he launched a frontal attack near the coast, which led to a bloody, protracted struggle. British armor pushed a narrow six-mile wedge into the Axis line. The 15th Panzer Division lost three-fourths of its tanks resisting the advance, but also inflicted huge losses on the British. By October 26 the British armored wedge was stuck in a deep German antitank field. Stymied, Montgomery brought another armored division, the 7th, north to launch a secondary attack toward the coast from within the wedge on October 28. But this attack also hung up in a minefield. Rommel moved his 21st Panzer and Ariete Divisions to meet the new attack, and though his tanks achieved a knockout ratio of four to one, the British still ended up with eleven times as many tanks—800 to 90 German.

Montgomery reverted to his original line of thrust, but it took till November 2 to shift the armor. Minefields again caused delay. While the tanks were immobilized, Rommel launched a counterstrike with the last of his armor. He destroyed 200 British tanks, but lost three-quarters of his own. Rommel was now at the end of his resources. Africa Corps, which started with 9,000 men, was down to 2,000 and thirty tanks. The British still had 600.

Rommel decided to fall back to Fuka, 55 miles west, but Hitler issued his familiar call to hold existing positions at all costs. Rommel recalled the columns already on the way—a decision he regretted bitterly, writing that if he had evaded Hitler’s “victory or death” order he could have saved the army.

Two British infantry divisions opened a breach on the southwest, and on the morning of November 4 three armored divisions passed through it with orders to swing north and block retreat along the coast road.

It was now possible to cut off Rommel’s entire army, especially as General Thoma was captured during the morning and an order to retreat that Rommel now issued—in defiance of Hitler—was not sent out till the afternoon.