At 2:30 a.m. on 5 January, Rommel began to attack in the direction of Le Keef. Rommel captured the Kasselin Pass and advanced to Tara south of Le Chaif. However, Rommel was unable to capture Tara, and his offensive was halted by Allied reinforcements. After all, Rommel only had more than 50,000 men, while the British and American troops were 400,000!! More than 300,000 Italian troops were basically playing soy sauce, and Rommel, who had no choice, stopped the attack and ordered the troops to retreat.

Rommel's offensive, as a sortie with "limited objectives", can be said to be brilliantly successful. But the disparity in strength between the two forces was too great to achieve the strategic goal of forcing the Allies to withdraw from Tunisia, although that goal seemed very close. British theorist Liddell. Hart said: "If Rommel had taken full control of the campaign and attacked Terbesa without being contained, the Anglo-American forces in Tunisia would have been completely defeated, and such a goal would have been completely achieved." The rapid capture of U.S. military bases and central airfields, with their large supply reserves, would make it impossible for Allied forces to hold their positions in Tunisia. ”

Rommel's offensive inflicted heavy losses on the American troops. Of the 30,000 men of the 30,000 men of the 2nd Army, 3,000 were killed, 4,000 were captured, and 260 tanks were destroyed or captured, the worst defeat of the American army in the North African theater. Shamed and humiliated, Eisenhower replaced Fredendoyle and appointed the brave and combative Major General Patton as commander of the U.S. 2nd Army. Patton had long longed to fight Rommel, saying: "I have read his books many times, studied every one of his battles, and I think I know him well, and my life's desire is to fight him."

After retreating, Rommel soon received three divisions, one armored division, and two infantry divisions transported by Zhang Jun, and Rommel's total strength reached 100,000. Zhang Jun also had no way to transport more troops to Rommel, because the troops reaching Sicily, Italy, were still transporting other troops, after all, the large SS forces were also very scattered, and Zhang Jun estimated that it would take at least 20 days for him to transport the large forces of the SS to Sicily, Italy, and then send these troops to African soil in ten days. And Britain and the United States are also stepping up their rush to transport troops, and everyone is using refueling tactics against each other.

Rommel decided not to wait for Montgomery to attack, that is, to attack him first. However, Montgomery knew the direction and exact timing of Rommel's attack from the information obtained by the Wehrmacht, so he transferred artillery and troops from the coast to the southern strip chosen by Rommel as the breakthrough point, and gathered nearly eight divisions, 1,400 tanks, 1,350 artillery pieces, and 1,470 anti-tank guns near Medenin, establishing a tight defensive line.

In the early hours of January 8, Rommel launched an attack on Medenin with 460 tanks from three armored divisions, supported by 600 artillery pieces and 10,000 infantry. At 8 a.m., when German armored units advanced to a ridge about 15 kilometers from Medning, they were heavily bombarded by nearly 500 anti-tank guns deployed by Montgomery. By noon, the German SS panzers broke through. Documents captured by British prisoners and captured by the reconnaissance battalion confirm that Rommel knew only about his campaign, and Montgomery knew every detail of Rommel's plan of action in advance. At 5 p.m., Rommel ordered the offensive to be canceled. 460 tanks were lost 50 units. "From the very beginning, we failed to catch the enemy by surprise, so the operation lost its own meaning," he lamented. ”

Zhang Jun was also quite angry when he received Rommel's report, and the plan he handed over to the High Command would be leaked, and there must be something wrong with the Wehrmacht's turtle grandson, of course, not necessarily a spy, but it is certain that there was a problem with the Wehrmacht's Engel code, Zhang Jun has been using the original codebook, that is, all the German words are arranged irregularly, printed, and then numbered on the numbers, and replaced once a month, this kind of cipher is simply not deciphered by the allies, but the Wehrmacht's gang of turtle grandsons, has been clinging to the ignorant self-confidence that Engel's code cannot be cracked, and continues to use Engel's code, this time something went wrong, if it weren't for the documents seized by Rommel this time, everyone would be in the dark, Zhang Jun immediately magnified this extremely urgent situation, magnified it tenfold, and sent it to the high command, so that the eight grandsons of the Wehrmacht would have a headache.

Montgomery relied on the strength of the outnumber, Montgomery's strength at this time had reached more than 500,000, there was no way to suggest that the Italian troops defend on the perimeter, and his SS troops were used as mobile forces, and at the same time prepare for the next attack, Montgomery commanded the troops to slowly approach the Maret Line. Hitler also agreed with Rommel's approach that Italian troops were not placed in peripheral positions.

Compared with the Allied and SS forces, the German army had a certain air supremacy within the range of the aircraft on the island of Malta, and beyond the island of Malta was the world of Allied aircraft and navy, and the supplies of the Allied countries were also transported through the navy, and the German and Italian troops lacked supplies and reinforcements. Rommel was well aware that his troops were at an absolute disadvantage, and Rommel had no choice but to hold on.

Zhang Jun was also anxious, and even if he couldn't transport all the SS troops to Sicily, it would be good to transport hundreds of thousands of SS troops to Tunisia in advance, but the railways in Italy were in frequent situations, either the bridge was blown up, or the railroad tracks were pickpocketed, and the Italian military and police were helpless at all, which greatly limited the transportation of the SS. In order to limit the movement of the German SS, Britain and the United States mobilized all the spy organizations hidden in Europe, after all, Britain has been operating in Europe for hundreds of years, and the spy organizations are still very perfect, and the British spies in Germany are much better under the blow of the Gestapo, while Italy, British spies are much more rampant, and the damned Italians can only stare and watch.

Montgomery commanded the British 8th Army to attack the Marette Line, and the U.S. 2nd Army under Patton's command had attacked the rear of the Maret Line from the southwest three days earlier. Messer was forced to retreat north with the Italian 1st Army from the Maret Line. Montgomery broke through the Gabes Pass and joined Patton eastward from Gafsa. The British 8th Army occupied Sfax again.

By mid-January, the Allies had completed the encirclement of the German and Italian forces. Rommel's successor, Rommel, led more than 100,000 people from six divisions of the African Panzer Group to retreat to northern Tunisia, and his three armoured divisions had more than 420 tanks left, and the war materials were extremely scarce and there was no supply. Alexander's 18th Army Group, on the other hand, had 33 divisions of 500,000 troops, 1,400 tanks and more than a thousand artillery pieces.

Alexander issued a general attack order, codenamed "The Blacksmith", which required his troops to storm the retreating Italian units along the entire arc of the front. Anderson's British 1st Army served as the main attack, breaking through the enemy's central line of defense and taking the city of Tunis; Montgomery's British 8th Army was to the south, attacking the enemy's left flank; Bradley's U.S. 2nd Army was to the north, striking at the enemy's right flank with the aim of capturing the port of Bisset; The French 19th Army expanded its gains by waiting for an opportunity to join the attack on Montgomery's left and Anderson's right.

At 9.30 p.m., Montgomery launched the first attack to the south. Anderson commanded the British 1st Army to launch a main attack on the central front, and Rommel concentrated most of his armored forces to put up fierce resistance, and the British 1st Army made slow progress. Alexander then transferred the 7th Panzer Division, the 4th Indian Infantry Division, and the 201st Guards Brigade from Montgomery to Andersen to augment the strike force of the British 1st Army. With the support of 400 artillery pieces and tactical air force, the British 1st Army attacked with all its might, and the Italian troops finally could not parry and all surrendered. At the same time, under the continuous pressure of the US 2nd Army, the Italian defense line in the north also began to collapse, so that only a small part of the Italian army ran to Rommel's troops, and the rest of the Italian troops went to the British and American prisoner of war camps to "enjoy the blessings".

Anderson's British 1st Army attacked Tunis, and soon after, Bradley's U.S. 2nd Army also reached Tunisian port. In his book The Last Days of Africa, the Englishman Morshid said: "The Italians were completely frightened, and they were overwhelmed when they saw the British tanks flying by." The Italian general was no longer able to give orders, as he had lost contact with his subordinates. In fear, the Italian army rushed to the beachhead, but they found that there were neither ships nor planes, and the army completely collapsed. ”

Marshal Messer of Italy surrendered to the Allies, about 200,000 Italian troops were captured, and only 633 escaped by sea. Italy's Afrika Korps was now completely finished.

At this time, Rommel did not have a pig-like teammate to help, but he could let go of his hands and feet, at least the materials stored in Italy in the ports of Tunisia and Tunisia were successfully taken over by Rommel, and Rommel took over the Italian materials, the most of which was actually red wine, of course, there were a lot of other weapons and ammunition, after all, Italy also had a long time in colonizing North Africa, and it was very normal to hoard some strategic materials, but when Rommel, who was short of materials, went to ask Messer for supplies, the other party never said no, But now there are a large number of them, such pig friends, pit friends, it is better to roll to the enemy's prisoner of war camp as soon as possible, so as not to waste supplies.

Now Rommel's war is based on Tunis City and Tunisian port, Rommel deployed two infantry divisions in Tunisia City, more than 30,000 people, and a battalion of armored troops to assist them in defense, Tunisian port is the focus of Rommel's defense, a total of more than 60,000 Rommel's SS troops, including three armored divisions owed a battalion, which is also the trump card in Rommel's hands, fortunately, Tunis City is still within the support radius of Malta Island, when the Luftwaffe came, air supremacy was the German SS, As soon as the Luftwaffe took the air supremacy, it was Anglo-American, which was equivalent to half of the air supremacy over Tunisia, and the Anglo-American and Rommel troops could only stumble to the death.

…… (To be continued.) )