Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel

by Butler, Daniel Allen

  Even as all of this was happening, events in southern Tunisia were intruding on Rommel’s attention. Two Allied corps, the Free French XIX Corps and the American II Corps, had been building up their strength just east of Sidi Bouzid: if left undisturbed they could strike almost due east, toward the coastal city of Sfax, cutting Tunisia in two and trapping Rommel’s forces in the south, or they could move southeast and take Gabes, accomplishing the same thing. An attack on Sfax was, in fact, precisely what Eisenhower was planning, but the American and French units were not yet ready to move. As the 21st Panzer Division had already been sent to von Arnim as a precautionary measure to avert any such move by the Allies, Rommel authorized von Arnim to make use of it in a preemptive attack on the forward French positions in the Faid Pass, just to the northeast of Sidi Bouzid; Faid was the main pass from the eastern Atlas Mountains into the coastal plains, and so was the easiest and most direct route for any army advancing from the west to follow if it was moving to the coast.

  Von Arnim brought up the 21st Panzer and three supporting divisions of Italian infantry to attack the French XIX Corps, which was understrength and poorly equipped, most of its tanks and artillery dating from 1940 or earlier. The French were, understandably, mauled by the German attack, most of XIX Corps being overrun. Frantic requests for reinforcements from the American 1st Armored Division went unanswered, and when the American II Corps finally counterattacked, with one combat command, a brigade-sized unit, sent out to do battle with four Axis divisions, it was stopped cold, as the savvy veterans of 21st Panzer were waiting in strong defensive positions. Taking heavy losses, the Americans retired in some disorder to Sbeitla, 30 miles southwest of the Faid Pass. Ten days later it was the U.S. Army’s turn, as von Arnim sent four kampfgruppen to strike at Sidi Bouzid; the American deployment was amateurish, and two of the three combat commands of the 1st Armored Division were tumbled out of the town with heavy losses. Von Arnim turned northwest, toward Sbeitla, and soon the Americans were abandoning that town as well, finally taking up defensive positions of their own in Kasserine Pass, 40 miles west of Sidi Bouzid and less than 15 miles from the Algerian frontier; the 1st Armored Division lost over 150 tanks and 1,500 prisoners in the two battles. The withdrawal from Sidi Bouzid and Sbeitla also compelled the American forces in Gafsa to retreat as well.

  All of this came as welcome news to Rommel, who, as von Arnim’s actions to the north were unfolding, was preoccupied with getting the German-Italian Army Group, now properly styled the First Italian Army and Afrika Korps, settled into the Mareth Line. He had first examined the line for himself on January 26, three days after Tripoli had been abandoned, and he had not been impressed by what he found. Apparently he was expecting a scaled-down version of France’s Maginot Line, and when he did not find it to be such, he initially pronounced it worthless: his assessment of the line is an example of Rommel at his most pessimistic:

  [The line] consisted of antiquated French block-houses which in no way measured up to the standards required by modern warfare. Added to that they had been completely disarmed after the Armistice with France. They could, therefore, serve little purpose in action other than as cover against artillery fire, and the defense proper would have to be fought from field positions lying between the French block-houses. The southern part of the line could be regarded as completely proof against tanks. Its center was given some protection against tanks by a steep wadi, but this obstacle could be overcome by well-trained tank crews. Its northern end was covered to the front by a salt marsh, but most of this was negotiable by vehicles. The siting of the line was also bad, for it lay immediately behind some high ground, which denied any long-range artillery observation to the defense, and at the same time provided the attacking force with excellent opportunities for fire control. So these hills, too, had to be held by our troops, which meant a serious division of our strength.236

  It is readily apparent, even from Rommel’s description, that, while far from being the ideal defensive position Rommel had believed it to be, the Mareth Line had the potential to be a position of significant strength, if adequately and energetically defended; at the same time, reading Rommel’s evaluation of the line gives the impression that he expected the position to defend itself. Energy was something which Rommel clearly lacked in February 1943, as witnessed by two letters he wrote to Lucie in the first half of the month:

  7 February 1943

  Dearest Lu,

  Dr. Horster came to see me yesterday and advised me to begin my treatment as soon as possible. My whole being cries out against leaving the battlefield so long as I can stand on my feet.

  12 February 1943

  It’s two years today since I arrived on African soil. Two years of heavy and stubborn fighting, most of the time with a far superior enemy. On this day, I think of the gallant troops under my command, who have loyally done their duty by their country and have had faith in my leadership. I have endeavored to do my duty, both in my own sphere and for the cause as a whole. . . .

  We must do our utmost to beat off the mortal dangers which beset us. Unfortunately it’s all a matter of supplies. I hope that my decision to remain with my troops to the end will be confirmed. You will understand my attitude. As a soldier one cannot do otherwise.237

  Naturally then, given that the Mareth Line had turned out to be something of a mirage, Rommel could at least be certain that, as a consequence of von Arnim’s actions, the rear of the Mareth position, such as it was and what there was of it, was secure from an Allied attack. Yet even as he read von Arnim’s after-action reports, he apparently recalled the bill of goods he and Leutnant Berndt had sold to Hermann Göring at the end of November 1942 in order to secure his cooperation in the planned withdrawal from Tripolitania. In it, they had proposed that Panzerarmee Afrika, as it was then, would fall back past the Mareth Line, head northwest and combine with the fresh German units in Tunisia, including the 10th Panzer Division: together the three German panzer divisions would launch a powerful, rapidly moving attack against the Americans holding central and southern Tunisia, pushing as far west as possible. Once that was done, the panzerarmee could move back to the Mareth Line before the ever-torpid Montgomery would be able to take advantage of its absence by launching an attack of his own. Now, incredibly, the opportunity to do exactly that suddenly presented itself.

  Rommel, whose spirits were somewhat revived by the opportunity of taking the offensive once again, quickly drew up an operational plan and sent it off to Rome on February 17: he proposed a concentrated attack toward Tébessa in French Algeria, as Tébessa at that point was the U.S. Army’s major supply base in North Africa. Comando Supremo and Kesselring, however, modified the plan, dividing Rommel’s armor and assigning two separate objectives: Kasserine Pass was to be taken by 10th Panzer while 21st Panzer took Sbiba Pass to the north. Rommel was distinctly unhappy with this meddling, as the alterations to his plan put his two panzer divisions (15th Panzer would remain at the Mareth Line) too far apart to be able to mutually support each other, and the axes of their advance were divergent. He was convinced that a single, powerful thrust through Kasserine to Tébessa would compel the Allies to pull back from Tunisia entirely: Rommel, whose strategic talents were so often derided by his colleagues, was thinking in terms of achieving a strategic victory; the plan drawn up in Rome offered only the possibility of tactical success.

  Once the attack was authorized, Rommel’s staff drew up the operational plans and sent out the necessary orders to all of the combat and support units which would be involved, and the two panzer divisions began moving forward in the early hours of February 19. One last-minute spanner was thrown into the works, however, when von Arnim, rather than dispatching the whole of 10th Panzer, sent only a battle group, deliberately holding back the Tigers of the 501st Heavy Tank Detachment. Rommel combined the kampfgruppe with the Italian Centauro armored division to form the Afrika Korps Assault Group, which would attack Kasserine Pass; 21st Panzer would make the attack on Sbiba Pass. De
spite the changes made in his original plan, Rommel expected to effectively roll right through the U.S. Army’s II Corps: he was openly dismissive of the Americans, declaring that they “had as yet no practical battle experience, and it was now up to us to instill in them an inferiority complex of no mean order.”238

  It came as something of a surprise then when the veteran 21st Panzer Division was stopped in its tracks as it drove on Sbiba: a combination of a previously undetected minefield and carefully sited Allied antitank guns took a heavy toll of the German tanks. The division continued to press its attack all through February 19 and well into the next day, but by sunset on February 20 it was clear that no breakthrough would be achieved at the Sbiba Pass. Whatever success Rommel would have in this attack would come at Kasserine.

  The situation that developed at Kasserine on February 19, however, did not seem that far different than the one which obtained at Sbiba: a mixed American and French force was positioned to block the pass, and when Rommel sent the 33rd Reconnaissance Battalion forward to clear them away, it was thrown back. Next a panzergrenadier regiment attempted to force its way through the pass, and it too was repulsed. Exasperated, Rommel sent his tanks forward, but they in turn made very little progress; from all appearances, Rommel’s estimation of the Americans seemed to be flawed. Part of the explanation for the lack of success at both Sbiba and Kasserine, however, was the lack of experience in fighting in mountains and rough terrain on the part of Rommel’s battalion and regimental commanders: Rommel knew mountain fighting, none better, and understood that attacking along the floor of a valley was a recipe for failure. The attack had to be carried to the slopes on either side of valley as well, otherwise the enemy had the luxury of looking—and shooting—down on the attackers with near impunity. Rommel knew this, his subordinates did not, and he had not taken the time to explain to them this simple concept.

  When the Germans renewed their assault on Kasserine the next day, the prospects seemed no better than they had been previously. The Allies had moved up reinforcements during the night, a handful of light tanks from the British 26th Armoured Brigade; the Germans were reinforced also, however, in the form of the Italian Centauro armored division. Despite having fought hard and well on February 19 the Allied soldiers holding the shoulders of the pass melted away during the night, and when the panzers went forward again, though the remaining Americans defending the pass held on as long as they could, by mid-afternoon they too were in retreat. As Rommel had hoped, the road to Tébessa was now wide open, or so it seemed.

  The American 1st Infantry Division’s 16th Infantry Regiment and the already battered Combat Command B of the 1st Armored were rushed forward to the town of Djebel el Hamra, on the road to Tébessa, to block the advance of 10th Panzer and Centauro. The Germans and Americans fought fiercely throughout February 21, causing Rommel to take note of his opponents’ “skillful defense” and remark on “the flexibilty and accuracy of the American artillery.” It was on February 22 that the issue was decided, when an American counterattack finally pushed the Afrika Korps’ kampfgruppe back from Djebel el Hamra, ending the threat to Tébessa. Rommel still had one more card to play, however: he saw an opportunity north of Djebel el Hamra to take the town of Thala and in doing so cut the U.S. 9th Infantry Division’s supply line while trapping 1st Armored’s Combat Command B between the 10th Panzer Division to the north and the Afrika Korps’ kampfgruppe to the south. But what Rommel saw, Major General Kenneth Anderson, commander of the British First Army, to which the American II Corps was attached, could also see: by the time 10th Panzer and Centauro reached the outskirts of Thala, a screen of British and American armor, well-covered by antitank guns, lay in wait for them.239

  For a few hours that day at Thala Rommel was once again the Desert Fox of Battleaxe, Crusader, and the Cauldron: Leutnant Berndt, in a personal letter to Lucie, described how “it was wonderful to see the joy of his troops during the last few days, as he drove along their columns. And when, in the middle of the attack, he appeared among a new division which had not previously been under his command, right up with the leading infantry scouts in front of the tank spearheads, and lay in the mud among the men under artillery fire in his old way, how their eyes lit up.” Going forward with the 10th Panzer, he was able to gain a foothold in the town, but was forced to withdraw by the American artillery, at one point taking cover with an infantry unit in a grove of trees on the outskirts of Thala. The Axis armored divisions began to take heavy casualties, and as darkness fell, Rommel ordered a retreat—the last large Axis attack in North Africa was over. At Kasserine, Rommel had won his last victory, a conditional victory at best, because it achieved only local, tactical success without accomplishing anything of strategic value.240

  In the actions at Kasserine, Sbiba, and Thala, Rommel was given a close look at the future of Germany’s war with the Allies, and he was distressed by what he saw:

  Although it was true that the American troops could not yet be compared with the veteran troops of the Eighth Army, yet they made up for their lack of experience by their far better and more plentiful equipment and their tactically more flexible command. In fact, their armament in antitank weapons and armored vehicles was so enormous that we could look forward with but small hope of success to the coming mobile battles. The tactical conduct of the enemy’s defense had been first class. They had recovered very quickly after the first shock and had soon succeeded in damming up our advance by grouping their reserves to defend the passes and other suitable points.241

  That was not all about the U.S. Army that impressed Rommel. He would also note that “The Americans were fantastically well equipped and we had a lot to learn from them organizationally. One particularly striking feature was the standardization of their vehicles and spare parts.” Here was the system and method in focusing a nation’s intellectual ability, organizational talent, and industrial capacity on the task of winning the war which Germany was so gravely lacking. While German arms makers might continue to produce weapons that, on paper at least, were superior to their Allied counterparts, the British and particularly the Americans would be able to produce their tanks, guns, and aircraft in numbers that German industry could never hope to match, and then deploy and supply them with an efficiency no other nation could hope to achieve. For the first time, Rommel, who had already come to realize that Germany could not win this war, now began to entertain the idea that Germany would lose it.242

  In the meantime, there was nothing more to be accomplished in western Tunisia. Rommel would always regret the modifications made by Comando Supremo to his original plan for an attack through Kasserine, convinced that in dividing the attacking force, its strength was fatally diluted, leaving it too weak to achieve a decisive breakthrough at either Kasserine or Sbiba. He was also furious with von Arnim, who had refused to include the Tiger tanks of 501st Heavy Detachment with the 10th Panzer’s kampfgruppe, despite Rommel’s specific request that he do so. Though there were only 19 of them, the 56-ton Tigers were so powerful and so heavily armored (they carried a tank version of the 88mm gun and had 4-inch-thick frontal armor) that they would have been all but invulnerable to the Sherman tanks of Combat Command B—Rommel would remain convinced that their absence was decisive at Thala, where the Tigers’ guns would have outranged anything the Allies deployed against them. In any case, it was imperative that he return to the south, where a major assault on the Mareth Line by Eighth Army was expected to begin any day. On February 23, the Axis withdrawal from Thala, Sbiba, and Kasserine began, despite opposition from Kesselring, who imagined that there might still be opportunities for offensive action in western Tunisia. Rommel, however, was adamant: his forces were overextended, fuel and ammunition stocks were low, and reconnaissance flights spotted Allied armor massing near Kasserine for a counterattack. The withdrawal would be carried out as ordered.

  That evening, in a classic example of closing the barn door after the horse had bolted, a signal arrived from Rome announcing that “to sa
tisfy the urgent need for a unified command in Tunisia, Heeresgruppe Afrika” was to be activated under Rommel’s command. This decision could have been—should have been—made as early as the end of January, in which case the battles at Kasserine, Sbiba, and Thala, would have turned out very differently: Rommel would not have had to request von Arnim’s permission to use 10th Panzer, nor would von Arnim have been able to withhold part of the division as well as the 501st Heavy Tank Detachment—Rommel would have been able to simply issue orders for them. But the Italians had reverted to form and dithered about, balking on a meaningless point of national pride at the idea of once again subordinating their forces in North Africa to a German commander, in the process casting away the last opportunity the Axis would have to achieve something from their North African adventures. Rommel’s reaction to his elevation to army group command was decidedly mixed: as he later told it, “On the one hand, I was glad to feel that I would again be able to have some wider influence over the fate of my men, General Messe having shortly before assumed command over the Mareth front; on the other hand, I was not very happy at the prospect of having to go on playing whipping-boy for the Führer’s H.Q., the Comando Supremo and the Luftwaffe.” He did try, after a fashion, to put a good face on the news when he informed Lucie: