With the British to the east settled in to regroup, von Arnim and Rommel saw the opportunity to use their interior lines to strike the Allied troops in the western part of Tunisia with their combined forces, driving them back from the Eastern Dorsale. Then they could combine to strike the British if necessary.
On February 14, 1943, von Arnim attacked out of the Faid Pass with his 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions, overrunning a battalion of U.S. armor and two battalions from the 34th Infantry Division and opening a huge gap in the Allied defenses. The Americans lost over 80 percent of their tanks and 1,400 men were captured. Next, the 10th Panzer pushed north toward the flank of the Allied line defending the Fondouk Pass, while 21st Panzer pushed for the city of Sbeitla. Elements of the U.S. 1st Armored Division were shoved roughly aside with heavy losses; a hasty counterattack merely provided the German gunners with targets, and fifty of fifty-four tanks were lost. Two elements added to the demoralization of the defenders. Accompanying the Germans was a company of Tiger heavy tanks whose 88mm guns tore through everything the Americans had. Worse, Allied air cover, when it appeared at all, attacked everyone indiscriminately. The Americans fell back, ceding the town, and its huge stockpile of supplies, to the attackers.
By the end of the second day the Allies were pulling back all along the line. To the west, the Germans moved toward Sbiba, threatening Thala and the vital port of Bône. To make matters worse, Rommel’s DAK had advanced from the south and captured Feriana and the airfield at Thelepte from its U.S. 1st Infantry Division defenders, capturing over 60,000 gallons of fuel. A DAK task force hit the Free French behind the Western Dorsale, and Rommel’s desert veterans flanked and captured the Kasserine Pass after a fierce fight, sending the Allied defenders retreating toward Algeria. The U.S. 1st Armored Division lost over 2,500 men and 112 tanks in the fighting, over half of its combat power. Anderson and the U.S. II Corps commander Maj. Gen. Lloyd R. Fredendall responded to the crises by sending reinforcements haphazardly into the line, intermingling units and creating massive command problems.
The Germans pressed troops north and west, but backed off when they hit determined resistance. British troops and armor from V Corps moved south to restore the Allied line but were savaged by sudden attacks. In one German attack, a captured Valentine tank led the way into a British strongpoint south of Thala, helping the attackers destroy thirty tanks and 28 artillery pieces and capture 600 men before withdrawing.
With the western forces in disarray, the Axis pulled back through the passes and turned their attention toward the British, but Montgomery had not budged from his line at Medenine. Deciding not to attack that fortified position, Rommel chose instead to leave a small mobile delaying force at the Mareth Line, knowing it could be flanked, and to build better defenses at Wadi Akarit to the north.
Hitler succeeded in getting his delay.
By mid-March 1943 the battlefronts had again stabilized. Both Allied fronts in Tunisia were quiet. In the east, von Manstein had managed to concentrate his armored forces and strike back at the overextended Soviet spearheads. His counterattack in the Ukraine destroyed three Soviet armies and recaptured the city of Kharkov, but mud, casualties, and exhaustion stopped the German advance. The respite gave Hitler the chance to consider his options for the coming summer season.
The problems and concerns he faced were nearly global. In the East, despite the reprieve that von Manstein’s success had gained him, he knew the battles would recommence as soon as the spring mud dried. To the north, an increasingly hostile Sweden and a war-weary Finland threatened his position in Norway.
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The United States had already offered to mediate between Finland and the Soviet Union, something Hitler had refused to allow. To the south, his Balkan allies were shaken by the disaster at Stalingrad and looking for a way out. Neutral Turkey was actively seeking to establish a Balkan pact under its leadership. Losing the Balkans would deprive Germany of significant resources—oil, bauxite, cadmium, and more.
And again, there was Italy. Now ejected from their African colonies, and facing the prospect of war on their own soil, the Italians under Mussolini remained questionable. With his attention focused on the Western Allies and the threat they posed, the Italian leader was pushing for Germany to make the Mediterranean theater a higher priority for troops and equipment. Defending his country would take more than he had. Of the 94 divisions Italy had recruited, fully a third had been destroyed in Africa and on the Eastern Front—over 130,000 men were lost when the 8th Army was overrun. Another thirty divisions were stuck in the Balkans fighting partisans.
But Mussolini knew that any change in Hitler’s priorities would require resolution of the two-front-war problem. He began suggesting either a negotiated peace with Stalin or the development of an East Wall—a fortified defensive zone against the Soviets. Hitler publicly rejected any possibility of negotiations with Stalin, although privately he had authorized a peace feeler the previous December. Stalin, with his armies on the attack, rejected it.
Hitler could not ignore Mussolini completely, however, regardless of his personal opinions about the Italian’s capabilities. To do so would lead to an Italian surrender and worse problems. In one respect, Hitler realized that Mussolini was right—the war in the East had gone badly and an outright military victory, something Hitler had thought inevitable in 1941, was unachievable. He would have to accept wearing his enemies down or winning a significant enough victory to negotiate from a stronger position.
With this in mind, Hitler ordered some repositioning of troops, strengthening Greece with two divisions and the Balkans by four. In addition he formed a new command under Rommel in northern Italy, to be built around the veteran 1st Panzer Division. These troops would be used to defend Italy or, as he feared, disarm the Italians in the event they collapsed.
Then he turned his attention to his most pressing problem—the East. He decided that some sort of limited offensive was needed with the goal of consolidating his defensive position, throwing the Soviets off balance, eliminating their immediate reserves, and demonstrating to his allies that Germany was still dominant. The most obvious target for such a limited attack was the bulge around the Ukrainian town of Kursk. Eliminating that bulge would destroy all the Soviet troops within the bulge as well as any reserves the Soviets sent to rescue encircled forces, and would shorten his front line by nearly 150 miles. Thus, on March 13, Operations Order 5 was sent out. It predicted that the Soviets would soon attack and ordered all defensive measures to be upgraded. Army Group Center was to prepare to attack the Kursk salient from the north, while Army Group South would prepare to strike from that direction. His subsequent Operations Order 6 gave the specifics of what he called “Operation Zitadelle,” and two other operations (Habicht and Panther) aimed at gaining more room in the industrial Donets Basin. The earliest date for the attack was set for May 3, 1943.
In the West, Britain and the United States were recovering from the setbacks in Tunisia. Lt. Gen. George Patton arrived to take command of the U.S. II Corps and rebuild it after its disastrous baptism of fire. Montgomery’s 8th Army reopened Tripoli, resupplied itself, and prepared for further operations. The setback had been severe but neither ally was overly concerned. They continued to look ahead.
Strategy for the war differed dramatically between Britain and the U.S. The British saw the Mediterranean theater as the sole region where they could reasonably meet (and beat) the Germans in 1943. In addition, they believed there was a strong possibility that Italy could be knocked out of the war. The United States, however, saw the Mediterranean as an unnecessary sideshow. The American leaders wanted a cross-Channel attack as soon as possible, so they could drive straight into Germany, end the European portion of the war, and turn their attention to the Pacific and Japan. They had agreed to the Torch landings in Morocco and Algeria solely in return for Britain’s commitment to invade France in the autumn of 1943. But when the Allies convened the Casablanca conference in January of that year, both sides knew that a cross-Channel assault would not be possible that year. With that hanging over the proceedings, they acrimoniously hacked out their next step, finally agreeing to follow up their “victory” in Tunisia with the invasion of Sicily. Unfortunately, because of the U.S. reluctance toward all things Mediterranean, Sicily was seen as the end product of the Allied advance, rather than one part of a more coherent plan.
Once the decision was finally made, planning started for the Sicilian operation. Initial decisions established that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower would be commander-in-chief, with British Gen. Sir Harold Alexander as his deputy and overall ground commander. After that, the decision-making broke down completely, aided by the fact that there were five separate planning sites involved: Washington, London, Cairo, Rabat, and Algiers.
By April 1943, three months later, there was still no agreed-upon plan of action. The best they had come up with was having a British Eastern Task Force, under Montgomery, land at widely spaced sites from Gela to Syracuse. The British landing was to be concurrent with a U.S. Western Task Force under Patton landing near Palermo. However, when apprised of the plan, Montgomery exploded and flatly rejected it. He felt the planners were underestimating the Axis resistance and demanded, in a wholly insubordinate fashion, that the landings be more concentrated. His nominal superior, Alexander, finally agreed after nearly undercutting any authority he had left by suggesting the decision rested with Churchill. Part of Alexander’s concerns rested with the distrust he had of U.S. combat capability, stemming from their abysmal performance during the Axis attacks in February. This lack of trust was particularly galling to the Americans because they felt, with considerable justification, that many of their problems in Tunisia were created by faulty dispositions ordered by British general Anderson.
The new plan had the British 8th Army, with three divisions, land near Syracuse, while the newly named U.S. 7th Army, also with three divisions, landed at Gela. The plan angered the U.S. commanders, especially Patton, who saw their part in the operation reduced from capturing a key Sicilian port to protecting the British left flank. Patton was further angered when his request to replace the green 36th Infantry Division, tapped for the invasion, with the veteran 1st Infantry Division was turned down by Eisenhower, who wanted to give more American troops combat experience.
While the Allies finished their battles in Tunisia and Hitler moved his resources around, the Soviets also took the respite provided by the
rasputitsa
(the Russian name for the muddy/roadless weeks of the spring thaw) to consider their next moves. Despite the loss of Kharkov and the sad end to their winter offensive, they had been very successful in pushing the Germans back. Stalin felt he had the manpower and material to keep the initiative by attacking as soon as the ground firmed up.
His generals thought otherwise and recommended caution. They knew, based on two years of fighting the fascists, that the Germans would be attacking when the roads cleared—both to shore up their faltering alliances and to exact some revenge for the loss of 6th Army. A study of their maps showed them the same thing the maps showed the Germans—the Kursk salient was an obvious target for a fascist attack. This was confirmed by their spies—and by the Western Allies’ Ultra intercepts (although, as always, the source was disguised when such information was passed to the Soviets). Stalin’s generals, led by his chief troubleshooter, Marshal Zhukov, suggested they allow the Germans to attack, wear down the assault troops and armor with a defensive battle, then launch counteroffensives against a weakened foe. For the moment, Stalin took their advice.
In early April he ordered the Kursk salient—and all other front lines—to prepare extensive defenses in anticipation of the German attack. To ensure that the Germans would in fact be stopped—something the Soviets had yet to do—Stalin established the Steppe Military District, with six full armies, three tank corps, and one of his new tank armies,
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a total of 580,000 men, 9,000 guns, and 1,600 tanks. This deep reserve would be used to blunt any significant German success and provide the troops for the ensuing counterattacks. Once the Germans had been stopped, the thinking went, the Soviets would unleash their attacks first into the Orel salient north of Kursk (Operation Kutusov), then against Kharkov to the south (Operation Rumiantsev). The overall goal would be to drive the Germans back to the Dnepr River or beyond.
Even as the decisions were being made and implemented, other events were having their impact, especially in the West. In late March the Allies struck again in Tunisia, this time from both directions. The American II Corps—four divisions rejuvenated under Patton’s forceful command—moved against Gafsa and put pressure on the defenders at El Guettar. Three days after the United States moved, Montgomery’s 8th Army assaulted the Mareth Line. In both cases the well-fortified defenders made the Allies pay for each yard. But the odds were against the Axis, and the dual crises made von Arnim move troops away from Tunis toward the threatened zones.
The Allied attacks stalled the transfer of troops out of Tunisia. The transfer had been slow anyway—much slower than the transfer into the country. Allied strength on the sea and in the air made the move slow, but internal problems made things worse. Rommel had expected his veteran DAK troops to be withdrawn first, but Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring interfered, demanding his “elite” Hermann Göring Panzer Division be given priority. The argument had finally been resolved with elements of the Hermann Göring Division and the 21st Panzer sharing the withdrawal along with an equal number of Italian troops. In all, only nine battalions of German troops were able to get out of Tunisia before the Allies attacked.