How Hitler Could Have Won World War II

When Erwin Rommel pulled his beaten panzer army into Tunisia in late January 1943, he spotted an opportunity to transform the military situation in North Africa by a single, great stroke. If it succeeded, it could throw the Allies on the defensive and possibly lead to stalemate.

Montgomery was moving toward the Mareth line with his usual agonizing slowness. His army could be ignored for a couple weeks. The Allies in Tunisia had been stopped by the rains of Mediterranean winter and were arrayed on a north-south line with the British in the north, the newly organized French 19th Corps in the center, and the U.S. 2nd Corps under Fredendall in the south.

Rommel, in the Mareth line, recognized he had landed in Napoleon’s “central position” between two enemy armies, and could strike out and defeat one before having to turn back and confront the other.

Rommel saw something else: the Americans and the French were advanced far eastward into central Tunisia holding the Eastern Dorsal passes at Fondouk, Faid, and Gafsa, and shielding the passes in the Western Dorsal Mountains sixty to seventy miles to the west.

If Axis forces could seize Faid and Gafsa, and drive on to the Western Dorsal passes beyond Feriana and Kasserine, they would arrive at the huge American supply base and headquarters of Tebessa. At Tebessa Axis forces would be well west of the Allied line in Tunisia and deep into the Allies’ communication zone. If Axis armor then struck north to the sea a hundred miles away, it might cut off the entire Allied army in Tunisia, or force it to withdraw into Algeria.

Then Rommel could turn back on Montgomery, with his own forces and Arnim’s 5th Panzer Army, and either destroy 8th Army or drive it into precipitate retreat.

General Fredendall had played into Rommel’s hand. Although Eisenhower had instructed him to set up a mobile reserve behind a screen of reconnaissance forces and light delaying elements, Fredendall had lumped his infantry on isolated djebels, or hills, along the line and scattered his reserves in bits and pieces.

On February 1, 1943, 21st Panzer Division, now under 5th Panzer Army and mounting 91 tanks (half authorized strength), overwhelmed a poorly armed French garrison at Faid pass. This caused Allied commanders to conclude the Axis were planning an offensive, but they figured it would come at Fondouk, thirty miles north of Faid. General Anderson, commanding the whole front, held back in reserve behind Fondouk Combat Command B of the U.S. 1st Armored Division, with 180 tanks and 18 tank-destroyers, half the strength of the division.

Rommel’s intention in seizing Faid was to gain a starting point to thrust on to Sidi Bouzid and Sbeitla, 15 and 35 miles west. At Sbeitla two roads led through passes in the Western Dorsals, one due north twenty miles to Sbiba, the other by way of Kasserine, twenty miles west, toward Tebessa. To assist 21st Panzer, Rommel asked Arnim to send down 10th Panzer Division, with 110 tanks, plus a dozen Tiger tanks. But Arnim envied Rommel’s fame and did not want to help him gain more. He provided only one tank battalion and four Tigers, and withdrew these shortly afterward for an attack he was planning farther north.

Meanwhile around Gabes, Rommel assembled a combat group with 26 tanks and two small infantry battalions from Africa Corps under Major General F. K. von Liebenstein. These, with the 23 obsolete tanks remaining to the Italian Centauro Division, were to seize Gafsa.

The attack from Faid opened on February 14, under the command of Lieutenant General Heinz Ziegler, Arnim’s deputy. One group from 21st Panzer made a wide sweep from the north around U.S. 1st Armored Division’s Combat Command A near Sidi Bouzid and struck the Americans in the flank, while another went around the other flank and attacked from the rear. Meanwhile, two groups from 10th Panzer swept straight through Faid pass and pinned down the Americans frontally. The Americans fled the field, leaving 40 tanks, 60 half-tracks, and the guns of five artillery battalions behind. Next morning Combat Command C counterattacked across thirteen miles of an open plain directly on Sidi Bouzid, to be met by a storm of shells when it came within range of German guns. The shellfire halted the charge, and pincer attacks on each flank routed the whole command. It lost another 54 tanks, 57 half-tracks, and 29 guns.

As the Germans swarmed through the gaps around Faid, they quickly isolated, encircled, and forced the surrender of the Americans on adjoining djebels, ending any chance to block the advance. Anderson ordered withdrawal to the Western Dorsals.

The panzers attacked the Americans in front of Sbeitla on the morning of February 17. The Americans fought stubbornly until nightfall, then fell back. In three days, the Americans had lost 150 tanks and nearly 3,000 men captured, while German losses had been minuscule.

Meanwhile the battle group under General Liebenstein occupied Gafsa, which the Americans had abandoned, and rushed on to capture Feriana, twenty miles southwest of Kasserine, on February 17, destroying a number of American armored personnel carriers (APCs) and guns, then seized the airfield at Thelepte, where the Americans destroyed thirty aircraft on the ground to prevent capture.

As the crisis unfolded, General Fredendall acted in panic, pulling American forces back to Tebessa and setting fire to some of the supply dumps there. British General Sir Harold Alexander, who took over command of the whole Tunisian front on February 19, reported that “in the confusion of the retreat American, French, and British troops had become inextricably mingled; there was no coordinated plan of defense, and definite uncertainty of command.”

Rommel now resolved to drive through Tebessa and then turn north. This would force the Allies to pull their army out of Tunisia, or face its destruction. But the strike had to be made at once. Otherwise the Allies could assemble large forces to block the way.

Furthermore, Rommel told Arnim, “the thrust northward had to be made far enough behind [that is, west of] the enemy front to ensure that they would not be able to rush their reserves to the [Western Dorsal] passes and hold up our advance.”

But General Arnim either could not see the possibilities of the strike or, as Rommel believed, “wanted to keep the 10th Panzer Division in his sector for a small private show of his own.”

Rommel appealed to the Italian Comando Supremo. The Italian supreme command agreed to an attack, but prohibited a thrust by way of Tebessa. Instead it had to go by way of Thala to Le Kef; that is, through Kasserine and Sbiba passes and northward just behind the Western Dorsals.

To Rommel this was “an appalling and unbelievable piece of shortsightedness,” for it meant the thrust was “far too close to the front and was bound to bring us up against the strong enemy reserves.”

But it was no time for argument. Rommel put his Africa Corps on the road at once for Kasserine pass, while 21st Panzer got orders to strike northward from Sbeitla to Sbiba, twenty-five miles east of Thala. Rommel ordered 10th Panzer Division to Sbeitla, where it could support the Africa Corps or 21st Panzer, whichever needed help. But Arnim delayed sending 10th Panzer, so none of it was on hand when the attacks opened.

The blow toward Thala came where Alexander was expecting it, and he ordered Anderson to concentrate his armor for the defense of the town. Anderson sent the British 6th Armored Division to Thala, and the 1st Guards Brigade to Sbiba.

At Kasserine, German motorized infantry, used to desert warfare, tried to rush the pass. They ignored the 5,000-foot mountains on either side, which the Americans held and from which forward observers called down heavy mortar and artillery fire on the Germans. This stopped the attack in its tracks.

Meanwhile 21st Panzer Division came to a halt in front of Sbiba, held up by water-soaked roads, a dense minefield, and the guards brigade. This division, too, made the mistake of attacking frontally in the valley instead of striking off across the hills.

Just as Rommel had predicted, the strike to Sbiba and toward Le Kef was so close to the Allied lines that reserves could get into blocking positions quickly. Some took positions in the hills that were difficult to assault, gaining time to bring up more reinforcements.

Rommel concluded the Allies were weaker at Kasserine, and he focused his attack there, ordering up 10th Panzer Division. When Rommel arrived on the morning of February 20, General Friedrich von Broich, 10th Panzer commander, told him he’d brought only half his force—General von Arnim had held back the rest, including the Tigers, which Rommel was counting on.

Panzer grenadiers and Italian mountain troops now made flanking attacks on both sides of the pass, while, for the first time in Africa, Rommel unleashed Nebelwerfer—rocket launchers—modeled after the Russian Katyusha launcher. Nebelwerfer could throw 80-pound rockets four miles. They shook the Americans badly, and by 5 P.M. that day the pass was in German hands. Rommel reported that the Americans fought extremely well, and that German losses were considerable.