V.

Final Victory

Just four days after Rommel’s retreat began, the Allies opened up an entirely new front in North Africa with Operation Torch. On November 8, 1942, American and British troops came ashore in French North Africa at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers. This opened a new front against the Axis powers and made Rommel’s position, as he retreated back into Libya, precarious. However, rather than abandoning their position in North Africa, Hitler and Mussolini agreed to pour troops into a Tunisian bridgehead with the aim of holding the allies for as long as possible. The unexpectedly rapid Axis reaction caught the Allied forces, now under the Supreme Command of United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower, off balance. Although the Allied forces attempted to reach Tunis before it could be properly reinforced, this advance stalled just 50 km (30 mi) from the city in the face of fierce Axis resistance. Over the winter of 1942-1943 the Allied forces in Tunisia had to endure severe weather and cope with not only overstretched lines of supply but also Axis air superiority.

Meanwhile, Montgomery’s Eighth Army had cautiously pursued the Afrika Korps through Libya. The fall of Tripoli on January 23, 1943, marked the collapse of the Italian overseas empire. The Eighth Army soon approached the Tunisian border where Rommel’s army occupied the old French frontier defenses. Rommel attempted to break the deadlock and the looming encirclement of the Axis forces in Tunisia by striking at the inexperienced U.S. Second Corps at the Kasserine Pass on February 20, 1943. Rommel’s veterans inflicted a severe defeat on the Americans, but he was unable to press home his advantage. The American troops quickly learned from this shock and became far more effective in the subsequent Tunisian battles.

Rommel then struck again at the Eighth Army but was comprehensively checked at Medenine on March 6, 1943, and outmaneuvered at Mareth on March 20. The Axis forces in Tunisia were being increasingly penned into their narrow bridgehead while their supply lines from Italy were strangled by increasingly effective Allied air and naval interdiction.

When, on May 6, 1943, the Battle for Tunis began it was only a matter of time before the Axis defense collapsed. The last-ditch fighting was bitter but on May 12, the Axis commander, Field Marshal Hans von Arnim (Rommel had been withdrawn in March), accepted the inevitable and surrendered the last Axis forces in North Africa. A total of 250,415 German and Italian soldiers and airmen became prisoners—a military disaster for the Axis powers that followed the Red Army victory at Stalingrad in February 1943.