Kasserine Pass, Battle of

Kasserine Pass, battle of (1943). The TORCH landings in North Africa in 1942 meant that Axis forces there were squeezed between Eighth Army under Montgomery in the east and the US forces under Eisenhower in the west. In February 1941, Rommel, who was facing Montgomery, decided to launch a pre-emptive attack against an Allied threat to his communications with von Arnim, further north.

He sent one column through Sidi bou Zid to the Kasserine Pass and another further south. The Germans attacked in the best blitzkrieg style, armour supported by aircraft. The US 1st Armoured Division was caught flat-footed, its piecemeal counter-attacks roughly handled. On 18 February Rommel broke through the Kasserine Pass and pressed northwards to the Western Dorsal Range, threatening the supply base at Tebessa. Eisenhower rushed reinforcements into the sector, Allied units steadied to their task, a thrust by von Arnim failed to materialize, and the attackers ran out of steam. Rommel then swung back to meet Montgomery, but received a bloody nose at Medenine.

The Allied reverse was in part a consequence of inexperience: the British, in a parody of a best-selling book, quipped, ‘How Green was our Ally’. More culpably, it was the result of overextension and poor co-ordination. It produced a command shake-up, with Patton taking over the US II Corps from Fredendall, and Alexander assuming command of Eighteenth Army Group.

— Richard Holmes

A mountain pass where, on February 20, 1943, American forces attempted to force their way past Gen. Erwin Rommel's German and Italian armored units as part of the Allied effort to expel the Axis from North Africa. Rommel turned back the inexperienced American troops, but it proved to be his last major desert victory. Well-supplied Allied forces won back the pass despite heavy losses on February 25.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

In a series of engagements in Tunisia during World War II that reached a climax near the Algerian border at the Kasserine Pass, combined Italian and German forces in February 1943 drove American and French troops back about fifty miles from the Eastern to the Western Dorsale mountains. These events grew out of two actions: the British victory at El Alamein on 23 October 1942, which precipitated the retreat of German General Erwin Rommel's army across Libya and into southern Tunisia; and the Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa on 8 November 1942, which prompted the Axis nations to dispatch troops from Italy to northern Tunisia. By January 1943, Rommel's troops, pursued by Lieutenant General Bernard L. Montgomery's Eighth Army, were settling into the Mareth positions. At the same time, General D. Juergen von Arnim held Bizerte and Tunis against Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson's First Army, composed of British, French, and American units.

The Americans were inexperienced and overconfident, and the French lacked modern and mechanized weapons and equipment. There were too few men for the large area they defended, yet the roads and railways from Algeria made support for larger forces impossible.

The battle opened 30 January 1943, when Arnim overwhelmed the French at Faïd Pass, and the Americans failed to restore the situation. Arnim attacked again on 14 February and marooned American forces on the Lessouda and Ksaira hills. At Sidi bou Zid he soundly defeated the U.S. First Armored Division, which lost ninety-eight tanks and about half of its combat effectiveness in two days. Allied troops abandoned Gafsa, Fériana, and Thélepte after destroying equipment and supplies, including facilities at two airfields, and the Americans were forced out of Sbeïtla.

Hoping to gain a great strategic victory by a wide envelopment through Tebéssa to Annaba (Bone), which would compel the Allies to withdraw from Tunisia, Rommel continued the offensive on 19 February. He thrust north from Sbeïtla toward Sbiba and sent two columns through the Kasserine Pass, one probing toward Tebéssa and the main effort toward Thala. After fierce fighting, all were stopped by determined defensive work. On 22 February a discouraged Rommel sent his units back to the Mareth positions to prepare for Montgomery's inevitable attack. Unaware of Rommel's withdrawal, the Allies moved cautiously forward, retook the Kasserine Pass on 25 February, and found the Italians and Germans gone.

The Americans learned their lessons and restructured their training programs. Major General George S. Patton Jr. replaced Major General Lloyd R. Fredendall at the head of the II Corps and restored the fighting spirit of the troops. General Harold Alexander instituted a better command system for the ground forces, and the French were rearmed and reequipped. Less than three months later, the Allies defeated the Italians and Germans and won control over all of North Africa.

Bibliography

Blumenson, Martin. Kasserine Pass. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967.

Greenfield, Kent R. American Strategy in World War II: A Reconsideration. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1963.

Macksey, Kenneth. Crucible of Power: The Fight for Tunisia, 1942–1943. London: Hutchinson, 1969.