The slow build up had brought Allied force levels up to a total of 54,000 British, 73,800 American and 7,000 French troops.
In four days, it succeeded in recapturing all lost ground and took 850 German and Italian prisoners. Most important, on 6 March 1943 command of the II US Corps passed from Fredendall to George S. Patton, with Omar Bradley as assistant Corps Commander. Independent candidate Kais Saied holds the Tunisian flag at a press conference after exit polls pointed to victory. Let nothing pass" but very few Axis ships even attempted passage. Tunisia is roughly rectangular, with its northern and much of its eastern boundary defined by the Mediterranean. The French military commander in Tunisia, General Barré, moved troops into the western mountains of Tunisia and formed a defensive line from Tebersouk through Majaz al Bab (Medjez el Bab). Erwin Rommel had made plans for forces retreating through Libya to dig-in in front of the defunct French fortifications of the Mareth Line. The Allies consisted of British Imperial Forces, including a Greek contingent, with American and French corps. This would coincide with the wide left hook manoeuvre Montgomery was planning with a new operation called "Supercharge II".[67]. On 11 November, the British 36th Infantry Brigade had landed unopposed at Bougie but supply shortages delayed their arrival at Djedjelli until 13 November.
The Axis forces would control the two natural entrances into Tunisia in the north and south, with only the easily defensible mountain passes between them. They were forestalled by an Axis counter-attack, led by Major-General Wolfgang Fischer, whose 10th Panzer Division had just arrived in Tunisia.
On the morning of 22 February, as Broich prepared to launch his attack, his front was hit by a devastating artillery barrage. Some of the most prominent candidates include: Youssef Chahed: He became Tunisia's youngest-ever prime minister when he took office in 2016. De Gaulle and Giraud met in late January but little progress was made in reconciling their differences or the constituencies they represented. The Free French suffered 19,439 casualties; 2,156 killed, 10,276 wounded and 7,007 missing.
At least 12,000 Germans surrendered in Major-General Fritz Krause's sector (of the initial batch of 25,000 prisoners, fewer than 400 were Italian). Nick Force had taken a heavy beating and did not expect to be able to hold out the next day. First Allied Attack on Tunisia German Counterattack Operation Eilboete Kasserine Pass Eighth Army Final Allied Attack on Tunis. French XIX Corps would be held back until IX Corps and Eighth Army had drawn in the opposition and then advance toward Pont du Fahs.
The French had earlier constructed a 20 kilometres (12 mi) wide and 30 kilometres (19 mi) deep series of defensive works known as the Mareth Line along the plain, to defend against an Italian invasion from Libya.
This meant that at Algiers the disembarkation of mobile forces for an advance to Tunisia would necessarily be delayed. Large quantities of supplies became available to the British from the United States and the supply situation of the Eighth Army eventually resolved. Had the Allies been able to get a tighter stranglehold on the Axis communications immediately after the 'Torch' landings, they might have won the gamble of the Tunisian Campaign by the end of 1942 and victory in Africa as a whole might have been close. But the attitude of Vichy forces remained uncertain until on 22 November, when the "Darlan Deal" placed French North Africa on the Allied side. [44] Pushing aside the remains of CCA and CCC, the battlegroups were confronted by Combat Command B in front of Sbeitla. [94] From 27 December 1942 to 17 January 1943, the Luftwaffe lost 47 aeroplanes; Regia Aeronautica losses are unknown. .css-8h1dth-Link{font-family:ReithSans,Helvetica,Arial,freesans,sans-serif;font-weight:700;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;color:#FFFFFF;}.css-8h1dth-Link:hover,.css-8h1dth-Link:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}Read about our approach to external linking. On Saturday, a court rejected his request to be freed from detention pending a verdict in his case.
While the battles wound down, factionalism among the French again erupted. A further attack early on 23 February was again beaten back. At 92, he was the oldest sitting president in the world at the time of his death. This allowed US and British forces that had been securing Algeria to go to the front. Blade Force, an armoured regimental group made up of 37mm gun Stuart light tanks and 75mm M3 GMC self propelled guns, was to strike across country on minor roads in the gap between the two infantry brigades towards Sidi Nsir and make flanking attacks on Terbourba and Djedeida. [68] The main attacks were by Corps Weber which had the 334th Infantry Division, newly arrived elements of the Hermann Göring Division and the part of the 10th Panzer Division not involved in Unternehmen Frühlingswind (Operation Spring Wind). They penetrated the Italian-held line[66] and established a small bridgehead west of Zarat on 20/21 March.
With the help of air support, CCB held on through the day. [35] It was not until June 1943 that the French Committee of National Liberation (CFLN) was formed under the joint chairmanship of Giraud and de Gaulle. [8], However, planners had to assume the worst case regarding the extent of Vichy opposition at Algiers and the invasion convoys were assault-loaded with a preponderance of infantry to meet heavy ground opposition. Read about our approach to external linking. About 90% of 18- to 25-year-olds voted for Saied, according to estimates by the Sigma polling institute, compared with 49.2% of voters over 60.
A determined counter-attack by 15th Panzer Division and the 136th Armoured Division Giovani Fascisti on 22 March, recaptured much of the bridgehead. [73] Ochsenkopf was to be the last major Axis offensive by the 5th Panzer Army. Six days after the fall of Tunis and Bizerte, the last Axis resistance in Africa ended with the surrender of over 230,000 Germans who became prisoners of war (POWs). Saied, in contrast, was relatively unknown in the decades he spent teaching constitutional law at a university in Tunis until he retired in 2018 and launched his political campaign.
Video, Biden or Trump? The Tunisian campaign (also known as the Battle of Tunisia) was a series of battles that took place in Tunisia during the North African campaign of the Second World War, between Axis and Allied forces.
[77] On 30 April, after a failed attempt by the 169th Infantry Brigade of the recently arrived 56th (London) Infantry Division, which had just arrived over 3,300 miles from Syria, it had become clear to both Montgomery and Alexander that an Eighth Army attack north from Enfidaville, into strongly-held and difficult terrain, would not succeed. [11], Once operations had commenced and despite clear intelligence reports regarding the Axis reaction, the Allies were slow to respond and it was not until nearly two weeks after the landings that air and naval plans were made to interdict Axis sea transport to Tunis. The 21st Panzer battlegroup at Sbiba was making no progress. Conversely, the Axis might have staved off for a long time their defeat in May 1943 had their forces received the supplies they needed. He held this opinion for far too long, and it would prove very costly. Abdelkarim Zbidi: The 69-year-old is a trained medical doctor who studied in France and has held the post of defence minister twice since 2011. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images [48] It had not had time to organise properly but was able to direct heavy artillery fire from the surrounding heights which brought the leading mechanised units of the Afrika Korps batlegroup to a halt. [55] An attempt to outflank them during the night of 21 February was a costly failure.
The decision to reinforce North Africa was one of the worst of Hitler's blunders: admittedly, it kept the Mediterranean closed for six more months, with a negative impact on the Allied shipping situation but it placed some of Germany's best troops in an indefensible position from which, like Stalingrad, there would be no escape. The Regia Aeronautica recorded the loss of four. The following day anti-tank guns from German and Italian units checked the advance of X Corps, to gain time for a withdrawal. [71] On 7 April, Anderson tasked the 78th Infantry Division with clearing the Béja-Medjez road. 290,000–362,000 (238,000-300,000 captured) With the arrival of the German Afrika Korps, the Axis counter-attacked in Operation Sonnenblume and in April 1941 reached the limit of their supply capacity at the Egyptian border but failed to recapture Tobruk. The Eighth Army was soon pushed back to Gazala west of Tobruk and at the Battle of Gazala in May 1942, the Axis pushed them all the way back to El Alamein, only 160 km (100 mi) from Alexandria. .css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link{color:inherit;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{color:#696969;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:hover,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link:focus,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited:focus{color:#B80000;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:link::after,.css-1hlxxic-PromoLink:visited::after{content:'';position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;z-index:2;}Beji Caid Essebsi: Tunisia's first freely elected president dies aged 92, Obituary: Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi, How Sousse attack led to security improvements in Tunisia, Trump and Biden clash over Covid in final debate. However, this came too late to affect the fighting on land because the armoured elements of 10th Panzer Division had already arrived. Finding no support for his ideas, he travelled on 10 March to see Hitler at his headquarters in Ukraine, to try to convince him to abandon Tunisia and return the Axis armies to Europe. Presidential power is also limited, and the significant reforms Saied advocates would require a two-thirds majority in parliament that will be difficult to build, said Masri.
[56] In a dispirited meeting on 22 February with Kesselring, Rommel argued that faced with stiffening defences and the news that the Eighth Army's lead elements had finally reached Medenine, only a few kilometres from the Mareth Line, he should call off the attack and withdraw to support the Mareth defences, hoping that the Kasserine attack had caused enough damage to deter any offensive action from the west. On 7 May, British armour entered Tunis and American infantry from II Corps, which had continued its advance in the north, entered Bizerte.[80]. The armies would gain airfields for the Allied air forces. Thousands take to streets after exit polls give conservative academic more than 70% of the vote, First published on Sun 13 Oct 2019 19.48 EDT.