Rommel, the Desert Fox, after his defeat at the Battle of El Alamein, finally realized the need to shrink the front. So Rommel led the African Legion and continued to retreat westward. While retreating, Rommel continued to use his wits and successfully evaded Montgomery's pursuit, but the U.S. army was then fully engaged in the battle in North Africa, so the first large-scale battle between the American and German forces broke out at the Kesselring Pass.
After the end of the Battle of El Alamein, many people, both the Allies and the Nazis, believed that the defeat of the German Afrika Korps had been decided, and that the once invincible Desert Fox was now only surviving. The logistical line, which was constantly stretched by Rommel himself, severely limited the combat effectiveness of the Nazi Afrika Korps, and coupled with the two-sided attack of the Allied forces, the collapse of the Afrika Korps was almost a matter of time!
But Rommel, the cunning fox, had never thought of it that way. In his opinion, the German army was not a complete defeat at this time, as long as the front line was reduced and the length of the logistics line was reduced, he could still gain some advantages. At that time, you can concentrate all your strength to fight any opponent who comes, whether he is a desert rat or a desert eagle, as long as he dares to come, he will add some black pepper to make African barbecue.
Since El Alamein, although Rommel has fallen behind, his strategy and tactics are like foxes. Just give him a chance, he will take a hard bite and move back into the situation. Therefore, because of his retreat, he should not ignore the fact that he is an attacking general.
Of course, the Allies also seemed to be aware of Rommel's cunning, so they did not intend to give Rommel a chance to strike back, and the troops attacked in a combined attack, intending to kill Rommel in one go and turn the Desert Fox into North African fur. Rommel, on the other hand, had been leading his troops to shrink the line in order to avoid being encircled by the Allied pincer offensive, and was waiting for the opportunity to prepare to take a bite back, break the situation, and block the Allied offensive.
Rommel wanted to break the deadlock and take the initiative for another reason. With successive defeats by the Germans and Italians in North Africa, Hitler was dissatisfied with him. Because he was playing alone at every turn, if he continued to disobey orders, Hitler would let General von Arnim, who commanded the Fifth Panzer Army in North Africa, take over the command. He was also a well-known German general who excelled in polish and French campaigns.
So Rommel desperately needed a victory to prove that he was still a ferocious hunter, the "Desert Fox". So after the outbreak of World War II, the first major contest between the bald eagle from the United States, oh no, should be called the Desert Eagle and the German Desert Fox began.
In order to make all the American hawks into North African kebabs, Rommel drew up a counterattack plan, intending to use the only armored force in his hand to cross several passes in the west and then intersperse to the northwest, to stop the Allied advance and eliminate the allied forces that were in the front.
So where did Rommel come from? The answer was that after he had led the German and Italian armies to shrink the front, the Axis forces gained a brief period of stability along the Maret Line.
The Germans and Italians succeeded in blocking an Allied offensive in Tunis, and combined with previous battles, the Allied combat effectiveness seemed to rely mainly on the superiority of troops to force the crushing. Therefore, Rommel intended to use his internal theory at this time to counterattack, taking advantage of the fact that the British and American troops did not strengthen their ties with each other, and bite them fiercely, breaking them one by one.
However, the situation on the battlefield was ever-changing, and the situation that Rommel had managed to stabilize at the end of 42 years changed again in January of the following year. Tripoli, a German logistics port, was attacked by montgomery, the British "little desert rat." Ronalme, whose logistics line was cut off, could only occupy the Maret Line and re-establish the logistics line in Tunisia.
Fortunately, General von Amne's Panzer Army reached the foothills of the eastern Atlas Mountains on 30 January. But along with the good news came the bad news, that is, the German 21st Panzer Division, which was caught between the American and French troops, had to withdraw from the battlefield.
But the cunning Rommel took advantage of the defeat of the German panzer division and carefully prepared a trap for the Americans, digging a large pit. The pit was exactly the same as the one he had dug before, but the Americans were unaware of what had happened to the British, and they had suffered heavy losses from 88 mm anti-aircraft guns on the German preset positions.
The U.S. First Panzer Division, on the other hand, tried to encircle the Germans in a flanking roundabout manner. These fledgling bald eagles would find their flanks attacked by German armored units. Therefore, it was necessary to terminate the roundabout strike tactics and avoid the expansion of losses. In the end, the American army, which had learned the power of the Desert Fox, could only retreat temporarily to avoid its sharp edge.
Having achieved relative stability, Rommel decided to continue his counterattack plan, intending to weaken the U.S. forces by seizing the U.S. logistics base in the western Algerian Mountains, while replenishing German supplies and strengthening his offensive forces. Then make that abominable desert rat into a desert roast rat.
Had the American front not formed several scattered protrusions and the infantry separated from the tanks, perhaps Rommel would not have carried out such a bold act of robbery.
But they didn't, so on February 14, the German 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions launched an attack on Sidi Butchdi and within a day forced the U.S. Panzer Division to retreat. Even the Commander of the U.S. Army, Brigadier General McQueenlin, set up a command post in the village of Gite, was threatened by the Germans.
After a brief retreat, the Americans finally stabilized the front and began to organize a counterattack, intending to block the Germans around the forward command post. However, due to the great advantage of the German army in terms of tactical proficiency and actual combat experience of officers and men, the AMERICAN counterattack was not successful, and it paid the price of as many as 44 tanks, and could only withdraw from the village of Gite.
Ronme, who had achieved success, soon sent a report to the German high command and received a reply approving the implementation of the plan for the attack on The Kesselring Pass. To Rommel's surprise, however, the High Command made some changes to the offensive plan, spreading out Rommel's troops like beans, so that the German offensive forces were at risk of collapse at any time due to flanking strikes. But if the offensive was successful, the Germans could continue to capture allied strategic supplies to replenish themselves, and could also stabilize the front and support a safe logistics base.
Although Rommel opposed the excessive dispersal of troops, after all, he had suffered similar losses before. But the orders of the German high command had already been issued, and the arrows had to be sent on the strings. So on 19 February, Ronalme ordered an attack.
In order to ensure the success of the operation, Rommel personally led the 10th Panzer Division and the 21st Panzer Division in a surprise attack on Spibba and Kesseling and the Tara area. This cunning fox was indeed unstoppable, and the American army was once beaten into a mess, and even Colonel Roger of the First Panzer Division was killed in the battle.
The U.S. military command repeatedly tried to organize the defense, but it was preemptively penetrated by Rommel's North African Army before the U.S. army defense organization was completed. (Although it sounds domineering to the German Panzer Army north africa, in reality, most of them are equipped with old tanks))
The battle lasted for a day and a night, and by dawn, the U.S. commander had found that his armored units had become a pot of porridge. The scattered troops were either badly damaged or in a aimless head-wrenching spree, and since the troops were relatively scattered from the beginning, the First Panzer Division was now unable to immediately withdraw its troops into battle.
Colonel Alexander Stark, who commanded the British 26th Tank Brigade, did not bring winter to Rommel's cunning fox, and he himself was forced to retreat to the Tara area and reorganize his troops.
But Rommel did not expect that the Allies in Spibba had dug the same pit for him, and General Kenneth and General Harmon used heavy artillery ambush tactics and artillery cover to crush the offensive of the 10th Panzer Division, and the Germans lost a lot of equipment and had to retreat and reorganize.
The 21st Panzer Division's attack on Spibba was also stopped by the Allies, who had crammed three artillery battalions, two anti-tank artillery battalions, and parts of the British Sixth Panzer Division. The Allies were also in the direction of Hamra, successfully blocking the German offensive and taking more than 400 prisoners.
At the same time, because the German front was once again lengthened, the troops were too scattered, and the offensive operation against Tara was also lost. Heavy Allied artillery fire forced Rommel to order the 10th Panzer Division to retreat. The Allies, on the other hand, launched a massive air blockade, attacking the retreating Nazi forces along the way, forcing Rommel to retreat substantially, and ordering the termination of all battle plans.
Rommel was furious at the defeat of the campaign, and he had wanted to take advantage of the lack of effective coordination between the Allies, the lack of combat experience of officers and men, and the dispersion of troops to show a situation of multiple protruding troops, flattening the situation in North Africa.
Although before the campaign was launched, Rommel accurately grasped the flaws of the Allies and achieved good results in the early stages of the counterattack. Unfortunately, the revision of the German high command led to more dispersed troops and longer logistics lines. This happened to be a situation that Hitler had repeatedly roared at Rommel to avoid, and when Rommel wanted to avoid it, the German high command did not let him avoid it.
At the same time, Rommel could not control the entire Axis forces in Africa, he could not command all the Italian troops, and he could not directly command von Arnim. At the same time, General Arnim did not support the counterattack plan, and planted a time bomb of internal contradictions for the Afrika Korps.
The Battle of Kesselring Pass took six days, during which the Allied forces suffered a total of about 6,300 casualties and missing soldiers, and about 4,000 others were captured. Judging from the results of the battle, the German army and Rommel have tried their best, but there are many problems within the German command system, and eventually succeeded in making the situation worse for the Axis Afrika Korps, and eventually withdrew from the North African battlefield.
This battle was Rommel's last hunt in North Africa, the Desert Fox, and he did everything in his power to try to stabilize the battle and regain the initiative! But the ending was unfortunate for Rommel, who ultimately failed. But for the anti-fascist struggle, the defeat of the German army means that mankind has taken another big step towards the victory of the anti-fascist war.
World War II
Meet the Fox
The Battle of Catherine's Pass
Tunisia: 1942-1943