The Supreme Commander

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  Eisenhower had, in short, given up the plain between the two Dorsals and established his troops along the eastern slope of the Western Dorsal. If the Germans could force a breakthrough they would not only get the Thélepte airfields but, more important, would be through the last major barrier between them and the great Allied supply base at Le Kef. Beyond Le Kef, Bone and even Algiers itself were possible targets. The Germans could begin to think in terms of turning a tactical advantage into a strategic triumph. They might even destroy the II Corps and isolate First Army, thereby reversing the entire position in North Africa. If all went well, the Germans could accomplish their objectives before Montgomery got up to the Mareth Line; by the time he arrived, Rommel and Von Arnim could combine their forces and concentrate on him.

  There were many “ifs” involved, undoubtedly too many, but Rommel had pulled off miracles before, and Rommel was directing this attack. Fortunately for the Allies, however, the German command situation was as muddled as theirs. Rommel and Von Arnim operated, to all intents and purposes, independently. Von Arnim wanted to confine himself to limited attacks, one of which would hit Fondouk. Rommel was after much bigger things. But Von Arnim was a vain, ambitious man who refused to co-operate. Higher headquarters had ordered him to give his best Panzer division, the 10th, to Rommel for the attack, but he had stalled and it was not committed. In a way, however, this helped Rommel, for as long as the 10th Panzer was not engaged the Allies felt they had to keep their strongest mobile reserves, CCB, in the north.14

  Despite the threat to the Allies, there was no panic at higher headquarters. Anderson was sure Rommel lacked the necessary supplies for a breakthrough all the way to the Mediterranean coast. The enemy would have to succeed quickly, if at all, because Montgomery was coming up on his rear. Anderson wanted to let the Germans expend their energy in a short-term offensive, then counterattack. Eisenhower agreed.

  The evening of February 15 Eisenhower reported to Marshall. After giving a realistic presentation of the situation and saying that he intended to “strain every nerve” to hold Thélepte, he discussed the long-range significance of the battle then in progress. “Our soldiers are learning rapidly,” he said, “and while I still believe that many of the lessons we are forced to learn at the cost of lives could be learned at home, I assure you that the troops that come out of this campaign are going to be battle wise and tactically efficient.”15

  The first two days of the battle Eisenhower carried a heavy load of work. Smith was in Tripoli seeing Montgomery, Clark was sick, and Alexander and Tedder had not assumed their commands. “I was really busy!” Eisenhower later told Marshall.16 He got the 9th Division artillery started on a 735-mile march for the battlefield, stripped the 2d Armored and 3d Infantry of equipment to send to Fredendall, and cannibalized other units then in training for the invasion of Sicily in order to get trucks, tanks, weapons, and ammunition to the Western Dorsal.17 On February 16 he ordered infantry, anti-tank guns, trucks, and even tanks from CCA sent south to beef up the line. He also told Fredendall “that every position to be held must be organized to max. extent—at once—mines, etc. Emphasize reconnaissance.”18

  While the battle around the Western Dorsal raged, Eisenhower had to deal with a serious personnel problem. Fredendall and his subordinates were at loggerheads. Robinett charged that no one at II Corps was co-ordinating the units in the field, no one knew what unit boundaries had been assigned, no one knew who was on the flanks or in support, no one was co-ordinating defensive fire or providing military police in the rear areas, and the piecemeal commitment of small units was causing great confusion.19 Ward was even angrier at Fredendall for splitting his division and for his interference with the commanders of CCA and CCB.

  For his part, Fredendall wired Eisenhower on February 19, “At present time, 1st Armored in bad state of disorganization. Ward appears tired out, worried and has informed me that to bring new tanks in would be the same as turning them over to the Germans. Under the circumstances do not think he should continue in command.… Need someone with two fists immediately.”20

  The situation was nearly intolerable. Eisenhower could try to patch things up, relieve Fredendall, or relieve all of Fredendall’s subordinates. The last alternative was hardly feasible, and Eisenhower did not want to relieve Fredendall in the middle of a battle. Later in the war, when more was at stake and he had more confidence in himself, he would relieve commanders at the first sign of uncertainty in battle, and Fredendall had already shown many signs of uncertainty. But Fredendall was Marshall’s personal selection and Eisenhower had not yet relieved any officers so he had no precedent. He decided to try to patch things up. He sent Major General Ernest N. Harmon, commander of the 2d Armored Division, to II Corps headquarters. Fredendall could use him in any way that he saw fit. Eisenhower wanted Ward left in command of 1st Armored.21

  An hour or so later Eisenhower did ask for the relief of one of his staff officers. He decided that Mockler-Ferryman was too wedded to one type of information, had ignored too much evidence about the build-up around Sidi-bou-Zid, and had to go. He asked Brooke to provide a substitute; eventually Brigadier Kenneth W. D. Strong came to Algiers, to remain with Eisenhower through the remainder of the war as Eisenhower’s G-2.

  The same day, February 20, Rommel finally got control of the 10th Panzer Division and attacked Kasserine Pass. By February 21 he was through the pass and in a position to drive west toward Tebessa or north to Le Kef. Eisenhower heard the news just as he finished dictating a letter to Marshall. In a postscript, he assured the Chief of Staff that although he expected Rommel to drive toward Le Kef, “we have enough to stop him.… I am disappointed but nothing worse. We’ll do it—even though it is obviously a major job.”22 His biggest regret was that Anderson had decided he had to abandon the Thélepte airfields.

  By evening of the twenty-second it was clear to Eisenhower that Rommel had shot his bolt. The Germans were not going to be able to exploit their breakthrough at Kasserine and, in fact, were now in a perilous position, with all their supplies coming through the narrow gap in the mountains. Eisenhower wanted an immediate counterattack and urged Anderson and Fredendall to hit the Germans with everything they had that night. Both battlefield commanders disagreed. They felt Rommel had enough force for one more offensive and they wanted to keep the troops around Tebessa together to meet it. Eisenhower did not have a firm grip on the battle and he did not insist on his views or galvanize his subordinates to action. As a result, a fleeting opportunity was lost. Rommel had already decided to withdraw, and that night his troops began to pull back. It was a successful retreat.23

  Harmon had, meanwhile, arrived. After a short conference with Eisenhower he went by jeep to Tebessa. He got there the morning of the twenty-third, a few hours after Rommel began his withdrawal but before the Americans knew that the Germans were pulling out. The first thing Fredendall asked Harmon was whether he thought the headquarters ought to move to the rear. Harmon thought that was a strange question to ask someone who had just arrived, but replied, “Hell, no.”

  “That settles that,” Fredendall told his staff. “We stay.” He then gave Harmon an envelope and said, “Here it is. The party is yours.” Harmon opened it and found a typewritten order placing him in command of “the battle then in progress.” Fredendall, having turned everything over to Harmon, then went to bed and slept for twenty-four hours.24

  By the time Fredendall woke up the Battle of Kasserine Pass was over. Rommel had returned to the Mareth Line to await Montgomery’s attack. The American casualties in killed, wounded, and missing numbered over 5000, but they had not lost the battle. Rommel had made no strategic gain, nor had he imposed a sense of inferiority on the American troops, as he had wanted to do. He had felt that if he could hit them hard before they were prepared he could permanently destroy their morale. In this he failed. In the last days of the battle the Americans fought well and the G.I.s decided that they could, after all, stand up to the best the Wehrmacht had to offer.


  The soldiers and their commanders learned many lessons from the battle, which was what made it significant. The coalition command had not stood up well to the test of fighting on the defensive. Anderson and Fredendall did not get along nor did they communicate with each other. On a lower level, British and American officers made constant jibes at each other, the British sneering at the Americans’ fighting qualities while the Americans charged that the British stood by and refused to help during the crisis. Over the weeks that followed Alexander did much to improve this situation.

  For the G.I.s, Kasserine provided experience. “All our people,” Eisenhower reported to Marshall, “from the very highest to the very lowest have learned that this is not a child’s game and are ready and eager to get down to the fundamental business of profiting by the lessons they have learned and seeking from every possible source methods and means of perfecting their own battlefield efficiency.” Eisenhower had asked Alexander to provide experienced British officers to American units as liaison officers, something he could not have done before the battle because of national pride. Now, however, American officers realized they had something to learn from the British veterans. The troops, Eisenhower said, were “in good heart.… They are now mad and ready to fight.” The complacency he had noticed just before the battle was gone.

  Eisenhower himself had learned much. He was going to make it a fixed rule, he promised, that until the war was won no unit in his theater “will ever stop training,” including units in the front line. He also realized that his previous insistence on unity of command, which had been more or less theoretical and which he had ignored when Giraud refused to place French troops under Anderson, had to be achieved. A major cause of the early losses was the lack of co-ordination on the battlefield. He also learned that the combat command teams did not work, and thereafter kept his divisions together, fighting as a single unit.

  The biggest benefit to the Allies from the battle was the shakedown of the command. Harmon stopped off at Algiers after the battle, to see Eisenhower before returning to 2d Armored. Eisenhower asked for his impressions of the generals at the front. Harmon said Ward was all right but Fredendall ought to go. Alexander had already told Eisenhower the same thing. Still Eisenhower hesitated. He had a long talk with General Lucian Truscott, an assistant, and with Smith; both wanted Fredendall relieved. Then Eisenhower went to the front and conferred with the divisional commanders and liaison officers of II Corps and the senior staff people in Constantine. They were all in agreement on the need for a change. Eisenhower decided he could no longer put it off and offered the command to Harmon, but Harmon said he could not take the II Corps after recommending Fredendall’s relief. Harmon suggested Patton. Eisenhower agreed, and finally, on March 4, got rid of Fredendall.25*

  When Patton arrived, Eisenhower gave him a task he himself had been unable to perform. “You must not retain for one instant,” Eisenhower warned Patton, “any man in a responsible position where you have become doubtful of his ability to do the job.… This matter frequently calls for more courage than any other thing you will have to do, but I expect you to be perfectly cold-blooded about it.”26

  Eisenhower was determined that he himself would do as well as he wanted Patton to do. He told Gerow, training an infantry division in Scotland, that “officers that fail … must be ruthlessly weeded out. Considerations of friendship, family, kindliness and nice personality have nothing whatsoever to do with the problem.” If nothing else, generals owed it to the men to see that they were well led.

  Eisenhower said that he knew Gerow would do a good job, so “the only thing on which I would venture to give the slightest advice is that you must be tough.” He told Gerow to get rid of the “lazy, the slothful, the indifferent or the complacent,” even if he had to spend the rest of his life writing letters explaining his actions.27 That was the great lesson of Kasserine Pass.

  * Fredendall returned to a hero’s welcome and a promotion to lieutenant general, but he never held a combat command again.

  CHAPTER 13

  Climax in Tunisia

  Following the Battle of Kasserine Pass, the Axis fate in Tunisia was sealed. Eisenhower’s forces were increasing in men and equipment every day, while Montgomery, with the port of Tripoli to draw upon, also grew stronger. The Axis had good ports in Tunis and Bizerte and could, for the present, maintain their existing force, but the growing Allied air power was taking a larger and larger toll of enemy shipping. At Kasserine the Axis had failed to widen their bridgehead or cut Anderson’s supply lines and had thus lost their last opportunity to reverse the strategic situation in North Africa. The end was now in sight.

  Impending victory was not without its problems. The traditional time for alliances to disintegrate is during a successful advance, as the partners fight over the spoils and claim the credit for themselves. Indications that this might happen in North Africa appeared as early as the beginning of March, with the arrival of Alexander and the Eighth Army on the front. Previously the nationalistic strains had been at a minimum, in large part because neither Anderson nor Fredendall had a preponderance of the ground strength, and neither had achieved any great victories that placed the other in the shadows. Now, however, the British were far stronger than the Americans, and the Eighth Army, fresh from its desert triumph, was boastful, given to making scornful remarks about the military prowess of the Americans. Alexander was inclined to share this attitude. He did not trust the Americans and wanted to give them only easy—and thus insignificant—objectives, saving the really hard jobs for British soldiers.

  On the higher levels these and other strains were handled without undue difficulty. Eisenhower and Cunningham were already close friends, and Eisenhower quickly established a similar relationship with Tedder and Alexander. Churchill and Roosevelt devoted a large part of their time and considerable skills to cementing the alliance. At AFHQ, by personal direction and example, Eisenhower had created a truely integrated staff and nationalistic problems almost never emerged there. In the field, however, among the line officers, where nerves were tighter, tempers shorter, and the need to keep the alliance running smoothly not so clear, trouble was bound to come. Dealing successfully with this problem was one of Eisenhower’s primary tasks. It was on the battlefield that the success of the alliance could be seen most easily and counted the most. Eisenhower’s job was to see to it not only that the Allies won in North Africa but that they won as allies.

  “Circumstances bring about odd situations,” Eisenhower told an old friend on the first day of March, “and I sometimes think that one of the oddest of all is the picture of a western Kansan, with all his profanity and outspokenness, being in command of an Allied organization where tact, suavity and diplomacy are all supposed to be essential weapons.”1 Eisenhower could have emphasized the “supposed to be,” for he never tried to become a top-hat-and-tail-coat type of statesman. The British liked him precisely because of his outspokenness and the honesty that went with it. Equally important was his recognition of the political problems inherent in the situation. He liked to say that he never let politics interfere with his conduct of a campaign and insisted that his staff make all decisions on military grounds only. But despite his penchant for portraying himself as a naïve soldier unaware of the complexity of statecraft, he was a keen and insightful politician who was sensitive to any danger that threatened the alliance. Eisenhower felt that the war could not be won if the alliance did not work and that it would not be worth winning if the British and Americans split after victory. He made his basic decisions, therefore, on the grounds of political as well as military necessity.*

  Holding to a concept of Allied unity and establishing and maintaining good relations with senior British military and political leaders, important as they were, did not by themselves insure success. Eisenhower had to instill in the line officers of both countries the same spirit he had brought about at AFHQ. He wanted American and British officers to respect, trust, and even like one another. �
��I realize,” he told Marshall, that the task would be difficult, because “the seeds for discord between ourselves and our British allies were sown, on our side, as far back as when we read our little red school history books.” But he was sure it could be done, and without tricks, gimmicks, force, or propaganda. “My method is to drag all [disagreements] into the open,” he said, “discuss them frankly, and insist upon positive rather than negative action in furthering the purpose of Allied unity.”2

  Eisenhower was not only Allied commander—he was also theater commander of the American Army in North Africa, and with his American subordinates he could use the direct methods of giving orders and relieving offending officers to achieve his aims. One of the reasons Fredendall went was his habit of criticizing the British. To his replacement, Patton, Eisenhower gave as a first task “the intelligent direction of opinion in our Army so that there is created a spirit of partnership between ourselves and the British forces.” He insisted that “negative measures will not answer the purpose; without being extravagant and without indulging in blatant propaganda, we can produce the result desired by sound leadership and the exercise of good sense.”

  Over the next two months one of the objectives toward which Eisenhower strove was building up the American Army in the eyes of the British. After Kasserine, and British remarks about the American performance there, this was essential. Eisenhower chose to accomplish his objective by the most direct means available—giving the II Corps a difficult mission and hoping that by successfully carrying it out the corps would restore its pride in itself and its image with the British. Before that could be done, however, he had to get Patton firmly in command and have Patton rebuild the II Corps. Eisenhower ordered Patton to rehabilitate the American forces and prepare them for an attack. He wanted intensive training that would take into account all the lessons learned at Kasserine.