Kasserine Pass

1. Lead

Kasserine Pass was the first great battle between the United States Army and the German Army in the Second World War, and it was a defeat. Between 19 and 25 February 1943, in the mountains of central Tunisia, the battle-hardened Afrika Korps of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel smashed through the inexperienced American II Corps, overran its positions at Sidi Bou Zid and the Kasserine Pass itself, and drove the Americans back more than 50 kilometres before running out of fuel and being stopped by Allied reinforcements. The Americans lost about 6,300 men — killed, wounded and captured — and some 180 tanks, while the Germans lost far fewer. It was a humiliation, and it was reported as one: the American press, the British allies and the American soldiers themselves all asked how it had happened. But Kasserine was also the making of the American Army. In the weeks that followed, the II Corps was reorganised, its commander was replaced by George S. Patton, its tactics were overhauled, and the lessons of the pass — about combined arms, about air support, about command — were learned so thoroughly that the same American Army, a month later at El Guettar, fought the Germans to a standstill, and never again lost a battle of that kind.

2. Key Facts

Date	19–25 February 1943 (main fighting 19–22 February)
Location	Kasserine Pass and Sidi Bou Zid, central Tunisia
Result	German tactical victory; Axis advance halted and Rommel withdrew on 23–25 February
Allied commanders	Lt. Gen. Kenneth Anderson (British First Army); Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall (US II Corps); Maj. Gen. Orlando Ward (1st Armored Division)
Axis commanders	Field Marshal Erwin Rommel; Col. Gen. Hans-Jürgen von Arnim (5th Panzer Army)
Allied strength	US II Corps: about 30,000 men, with British and French troops in support
Axis strength	About 30,000 men, including the 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions
Allied losses	About 6,300 casualties (about 300 killed, 3,000 wounded, 3,000 captured); about 180 tanks lost
Axis losses	Estimated 1,000–2,000 casualties; about 30–35 tanks lost

3. Background

The Race for Tunisia

The battle at Kasserine Pass grew out of the race for Tunisia that followed Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942. When American and British troops landed in Morocco and Algeria, the Germans and Italians rushed reinforcements into Tunisia, the last Axis foothold in North Africa, and the two sides raced for the ports of Tunis and Bizerte. The British First Army, under Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson, drove east from Algeria towards Tunis, but the winter rains, the mountainous terrain and the rapid arrival of German troops — the 5th Panzer Army under General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim — stopped the advance short of the capital. By January 1943 the front had settled into a stalemate in the mountains of northern and central Tunisia, with the Allies holding the west and the Axis holding the coastal plain around Tunis. The Americans, who had landed in November, were still learning to fight: their first experience of combat, at places like Oran and Algiers, had been against the French, and their first battles against the Germans, in the winter of 1942–43, were small and inconclusive.

Meanwhile, to the south, the British Eighth Army under General Bernard Montgomery was advancing westwards from Libya after its victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein, driving Rommel’s German-Italian Panzer Army before it. Rommel, caught between the Eighth Army in the south and the First Army in the west, saw a chance to strike first. If he could smash the American II Corps in central Tunisia, he could cut the Allied supply lines, seize the airfields and depots around Tébessa, and buy time for his army to withdraw into Tunisia in good order. The Americans, spread out across a wide front in the mountains, with their units scattered and their command divided, looked like the weakest link in the Allied line — and Rommel, who had built his reputation on striking the weakest point, decided to hit them.

The American Army’s First Test

The American Army that faced Rommel in February 1943 was brave but unready. Its soldiers were well equipped — they had more trucks, more radios and more artillery than the Germans — but they had never fought a major battle against a first-class enemy, and their officers, from the corps commander down, had no experience of armoured warfare at this scale. The II Corps commander, Major General Lloyd Fredendall, was an able administrator but a poor battlefield commander: he set up his headquarters in a deep ravine more than 100 kilometres behind the front, in a complex of bunkers and tunnels, and he communicated with his divisions by telephone and radio rather than by visiting them. His divisions were spread out across a front of more than 150 kilometres, in isolated positions that could not support each other, and his armoured division, the 1st Armored under Major General Orlando Ward, was split into small “combat commands” scattered along the line. The American tanks, mostly M3 Lees and M4 Shermans, were good vehicles, but the crews had not yet learned how to fight them against German anti-tank guns and the long-barrelled guns of the Panzer IV.

The command arrangements made things worse. The American II Corps was under the British First Army, and Anderson and Fredendall did not trust each other; Anderson thought the Americans were inexperienced and badly deployed, and Fredendall resented taking orders from a British general. The air support was equally divided: the Allied air forces in North Africa were organised by nationality and by command, and the American ground troops had little experience of calling in air support, while the German Luftwaffe, though outnumbered, was experienced and aggressive. The stage was set for a disaster, and the Germans, who had been watching the American dispositions for weeks, knew exactly where to strike.

Rommel’s Plan

Rommel’s plan, codenamed Operation Frühlingswind (“Spring Wind”), was to strike through the Faïd Pass and Sidi Bou Zid, destroy the American positions there, and then drive west through the Kasserine Pass towards Tébessa and the Allied supply depots. A second thrust, under von Arnim, would strike towards Béja in the north. The two attacks were meant to be co-ordinated, but Rommel and von Arnim disagreed about the objective: Rommel wanted to drive deep into the Allied rear, while von Arnim wanted a more limited attack to the north, and the disagreement, which was never resolved, split the Axis effort at the critical moment. Rommel’s own force, about 30,000 men with the 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions, the Italian Centauro Division and the Afrika Korps’ own troops, was strong enough to break the American line, but it was short of fuel and supplies, and it had to win quickly or not at all. The plan depended on surprise, on speed, and on the Americans being as unready as Rommel believed them to be — and in all three respects, it worked, at least at first.

4. Opposing Forces

The forces at Kasserine were roughly equal in numbers — about 30,000 men on each side — but they were very different in experience, in organisation and in the quality of their command.

	Allies	Axis
Infantry	US 1st Infantry Division; US 34th Infantry Division; British 6th Armoured Division (in reserve); French XIX Corps	10th Panzer Division; 21st Panzer Division; Italian Centauro Armoured Division; Afrika Korps infantry
Armour	1st Armored Division (M3 Lee, M4 Sherman, M3 Stuart tanks); British Valentine and Crusader tanks	Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks; Italian M13/40 and M14/41 tanks; Tiger I tanks (a small number)
Artillery	US 105 mm and 155 mm howitzers; British 25-pounder guns	German 88 mm guns (used as anti-tank guns); 105 mm and 150 mm howitzers
Air support	US 12th Air Force; RAF (No. 242 Group); French air units — poorly co-ordinated	Luftwaffe Fliegerkorps Tunis; Italian Regia Aeronautica — experienced but outnumbered
Command	Divided: US II Corps under British First Army; Anderson and Fredendall in disagreement	Divided: Rommel and von Arnim in disagreement over objectives

The American II Corps

The American II Corps was the largest American formation in Tunisia, but it was deployed as if it were still on a training exercise. Its 1st Armored Division, the corps’ main striking force, was split into three combat commands — A, B and D — scattered along a front of more than 100 kilometres, so that no single commander could mass its tanks. The 1st Infantry Division, the “Big Red One”, a veteran of the landings in Algeria, was in the north, and the 34th Infantry Division, a National Guard division, was in the south. Between them lay the Faïd Pass and Sidi Bou Zid, held by thinly spread infantry and a few tanks. The corps’ artillery was good, and its trucks gave it mobility, but its communications were poor, its reconnaissance was weak, and its officers had never fought a battle against German armour. The corps also suffered from a shortage of the most basic things: maps of the area were poor, the troops had no experience of the desert mountains, and the supply lines, running back to the ports of Algeria, were long and vulnerable.

The German and Italian Attack Force

The Axis force that attacked at Kasserine was smaller in men but far richer in experience. The 10th Panzer Division, under General Wolfgang Fischer, and the 21st Panzer Division, under General Hans-Georg Hildebrandt, were veteran formations that had fought in France, in Russia and in Libya, and their officers and men knew exactly how to fight a battle of manoeuvre in the desert. Their tanks, the Panzer III and the long-barrelled Panzer IV, were individually better than the American M3 Lee, and their 88 mm guns, used as anti-tank weapons, could destroy an American tank at ranges the Americans could not match. The Italian Centauro Division, though less well equipped, fought well at Kasserine, and the Afrika Korps’ own infantry and artillery were among the best in the German army. Above all, the Axis had Rommel himself — a commander who had spent two years outfighting the British in the desert and who understood, better than any Allied general in North Africa, how to use speed, surprise and ground to win a battle.

Air Power and Supply

The air battle over Tunisia favoured the Germans in February 1943, despite their inferior numbers. The Luftwaffe’s fighters, based at airfields close to the front, could fly several sorties a day, while the Allied air forces, based further back and organised by nationality, struggled to co-ordinate their efforts. American ground troops, who had been promised air support, often saw German aircraft over their positions and few Allied ones, and the lack of air cover became one of the bitterest complaints of the American soldiers after Kasserine. Supply, too, favoured the defence in the short term: the Axis, fighting close to their own depots around Tunis, had short supply lines, while the Americans, supplied from Algeria, had long ones. But the Axis advantage was temporary. Rommel’s tanks burned fuel at a rate his supply system could not sustain, and by the third day of the offensive his divisions were already running short of petrol — a shortage that would decide the battle as surely as any American counterattack.

5. The Battle

Sidi Bou Zid / Sidi Bou Zid

The battle began on 14 February 1943, five days before the attack on Kasserine Pass itself, at Sidi Bou Zid, a small town at the foot of the Faïd Pass. The German 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions, attacking in the early morning fog, struck the American positions on the two hills that guarded the pass — Djebel Lessouda and Djebel Ksaira — where two battalions of American infantry, with a few tanks and artillery, were isolated and outnumbered. The American tanks, sent forward to counterattack, ran into a trap: German 88 mm guns, hidden in the hills, destroyed them at long range, while German tanks, using the ground for cover, picked off the survivors. By the end of the first day, the Americans had lost more than 50 tanks and the two infantry battalions on the hills were cut off. On the second day, a larger American counterattack, led by Combat Command A of the 1st Armored Division, was destroyed in the same way: its tanks advanced across open ground into the fire of the German guns, and in a few hours it lost 46 of its 52 tanks. Among the prisoners taken was Lieutenant Colonel John Waters, the son-in-law of George S. Patton, who had been sent forward to observe the battle. By the evening of 15 February, the American line at Sidi Bou Zid had collapsed, the survivors were falling back towards Kasserine, and the road to the pass was open.

The Attack on Kasserine Pass

The attack on the Kasserine Pass itself, on 19 February 1943, was the second act of Rommel’s offensive, and it was the act that broke the American line. The pass, a narrow gap about 3 kilometres wide through the Dorsal mountains, was the key to central Tunisia: whoever held it controlled the road west to Thala and Tébessa, and the road to the Allied supply depots that Rommel needed to take. The Americans who held it were a thin screen of engineers and infantry, spread out along the pass and the hills on either side, and they were no match for the two panzer divisions that attacked them. The German plan was simple: the 10th Panzer Division would attack the pass from the east, while the 21st Panzer Division swung around to the south, through a gap the Americans had left unguarded, and the two divisions would meet on the far side of the pass. The plan worked, and by the evening of 19 February the pass was in German hands, and the road west was open.

The First Day

The Kasserine Pass itself is a narrow gap, about 3 kilometres wide, through the Dorsal mountain range, and it was held by a thin screen of American troops: a battalion of the 19th Engineer Regiment, a battalion of infantry, and a few guns, spread out along the pass and the hills on either side. On the morning of 19 February, after a heavy artillery bombardment, the German 10th Panzer Division attacked from the east, while the 21st Panzer Division swung around to the south, through a gap in the hills that the Americans had left unguarded. The American engineers, fighting as infantry, held their positions for most of the day, but by evening the German tanks were through the pass and the American line was broken. The defenders, outnumbered and outgunned, fell back in confusion, abandoning guns and vehicles, and the Germans, advancing through the night, pushed on towards Thala and Sbiba. The American command, meanwhile, was in chaos: Fredendall, in his headquarters far behind the front, had little idea of what was happening, and his orders, when they came, were contradictory and late.

The Pass Falls

By 20 February the pass was in German hands, and the road west was open. The 10th Panzer Division drove towards Thala, where a British armoured brigade and American artillery were hastily assembling a defensive line, while the 21st Panzer Division pushed towards Sbiba, where French troops and American infantry were holding the road. The fighting at Thala and Sbiba, on 21 and 22 February, was the closest the Germans came to a breakthrough. At Thala, British tanks and American guns, fighting from prepared positions, stopped the 10th Panzer Division after a day of hard fighting, and at Sbiba, French infantry and American artillery held the 21st Panzer Division at bay. The German advance, which had covered more than 50 kilometres in three days, was running out of momentum — and, more importantly, out of fuel. Rommel’s tanks had outrun their supply columns, and the fuel that had been captured from the Americans was not enough to keep them moving.

The Advance to Thala and Sbiba

The fighting around Thala and Sbiba deserves attention because it was there, not at the pass itself, that the battle was decided. At Thala, the British 6th Armoured Division’s 26th Armoured Brigade, with American artillery in support, fought a defensive battle that the Germans had not expected: the British tanks, hull-down behind ridges, and the American 105 mm guns, firing over open sights, destroyed German tanks as they advanced, and the 10th Panzer Division, which had expected to break through, was stopped cold. At Sbiba, the French XIX Corps, under General Louis Koeltz, with American infantry and artillery, held a line of hills against the 21st Panzer Division, and the German attacks, though fierce, made no headway. The two battles, fought on 21 and 22 February, cost the Germans time, tanks and fuel — and time was what Rommel did not have. Behind him, the Eighth Army was advancing from the south, and in front of him, the Allies were pouring reinforcements into the line. The window for a decisive victory was closing, and Rommel, who had always known when to stop, began to think about withdrawing.

Rommel Withdraws

On 22 February, Rommel met von Arnim at his headquarters and the two men argued about what to do next. Rommel wanted to continue the attack towards Tébessa, but his tanks were short of fuel, his men were exhausted, and the Allied reinforcements were arriving faster than he could deal with them. Von Arnim, who had never supported Rommel’s plan, wanted to withdraw. The argument was settled by the facts: on 23 February, Rommel ordered his divisions to pull back through the Kasserine Pass, and by 25 February the Axis forces were back on their start lines, having gained nothing but a few kilometres of ground and a victory that meant nothing. The withdrawal was orderly and well conducted — the Germans, as always, were good at retreating — and the Americans, still disorganised, did not pursue effectively. The battle was over, and the pass, which had been the scene of the American Army’s worst defeat of the war, was back in Allied hands.

6. Turning Point

The Stand at Thala and Sbiba

The turning point at Kasserine was not a counterattack but a stand: the defence of Thala and Sbiba on 21 and 22 February. Until then, the Germans had had everything their own way — surprise, speed, and an enemy that could not co-ordinate its defence. At Thala and Sbiba, for the first time, they met a prepared defence, with artillery, tanks and infantry working together, and they were stopped. The stand bought the Allies the one thing they needed most: time. Time for the reinforcements to arrive, time for the command to be sorted out, and time for Rommel’s fuel to run out. It also showed, to the Americans themselves, that German tanks could be stopped, and that the defeat at the pass was not the result of German invincibility but of American mistakes — mistakes that could be corrected. It also gave the Allied commanders the confidence to reorganise, to replace Fredendall, and to rebuild the II Corps into the army that would win at El Guettar a month later.

Fuel, Command and the Limits of Blitzkrieg

The second turning point was logistical, and it was decisive. Rommel’s offensive was built on a gamble: that he could win quickly, before his fuel ran out. He could not, and the gamble failed. By 22 February his divisions were reporting fuel shortages, and the captured American fuel dumps, though large, were not enough to sustain a deep advance. The German supply system, stretched across the Mediterranean and dependent on convoys that were being sunk by the Allies — in part because of the siege of Malta, which the Axis had never been able to neutralise — could not keep up with the demands of a mobile offensive. The battle of Kasserine was, in the end, a demonstration of the limits of Blitzkrieg: a brilliant tactical instrument that, without fuel and without a clear strategic objective, could win battles but not campaigns. Rommel understood that, and he withdrew — the right decision, made just in time.

7. Casualties and Losses

American Losses

The American losses at Kasserine were heavy, and they were made worse by the number of men taken prisoner. About 6,300 Americans were killed, wounded or captured in the fighting from Sidi Bou Zid to the withdrawal, of whom about 300 were killed, about 3,000 were wounded, and about 3,000 were taken prisoner or listed as missing — though the exact figures vary between sources, and some accounts give a total of about 6,500 for the whole period from 14 to 25 February. The material losses were worse: about 180 tanks, about 194 half-tracks, about 208 artillery pieces and more than 500 trucks and other vehicles were lost or abandoned, along with large quantities of fuel, ammunition and supplies that fell into German hands. The 1st Armored Division, the corps’ main striking force, was so badly mauled that it had to be rebuilt, and the 34th Infantry Division, which had fought at Sbiba, was also badly hurt. The losses, though painful, were replaceable: the United States was producing tanks and guns in numbers the Germans could not match, and the men, though inexperienced, could be replaced and retrained.

	Allies	Axis
Killed	About 300 Americans (estimate)	About 200–300 (estimate)
Wounded	About 3,000 Americans (estimate)	About 500–800 (estimate)
Captured or missing	About 3,000 Americans
Total	About 6,300	About 1,000–2,000
Tanks lost	About 180	About 30–35
Guns and vehicles	About 208 guns, 194 half-tracks, 500+ trucks

Axis Losses and the Cost of Victory

The Axis losses at Kasserine were light by comparison — an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 casualties, including about 200 to 300 killed, and about 30 to 35 tanks lost — but the victory cost Rommel more than the figures suggest. His divisions, which had been fighting continuously since El Alamein, were exhausted, and the fuel and ammunition they had expended could not be replaced. The Italian Centauro Division, which had fought well, lost a significant part of its armour, and the 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions, which had been the spearhead of the attack, were left weaker than they had been before it. The battle also cost the Axis something less tangible but more important: time. The two weeks spent attacking at Kasserine were two weeks in which the Eighth Army advanced from the south and the Allies strengthened their positions in the north, and by the time Rommel withdrew, the Axis position in Tunisia, though still strong, was already doomed. The victory at Kasserine was the last great Axis victory in Africa.

8. Map and Geography

The Dorsal Mountains

Kasserine Pass lies in the Dorsal mountain range, the eastern Atlas Mountains of Tunisia, about 200 kilometres south-west of Tunis and about 50 kilometres east of the Algerian border. The pass itself is a gap in the mountains, about 3 kilometres wide, through which the road from Sidi Bou Zid runs west to Thala and Tébessa, and it is flanked by steep, rocky hills that rise 300 to 500 metres above the valley floor. The ground is dry and stony, cut by wadis — dry riverbeds that flood suddenly after rain — and covered in scrub and, in places, in pine forest. The mountains are not high by European standards, but they dominate the ground around them, and they channel movement into a few narrow passes: Faïd, Kasserine and Sbiba. Whoever holds the passes controls the movement between the coastal plain and the interior, and that is why the fighting in Tunisia, from the first weeks to the last, was a war for the passes.

The Roads to Tébessa

The geography of the battle was defined by the roads. From the pass, the road west divides: one branch runs north-west to Thala, and the other runs south-west to Sbiba and then to Tébessa, the great Allied supply base and airfield centre. Tébessa was the prize: it held the fuel, the ammunition and the airfields that the Allied armies depended on, and if Rommel had taken it, the Allied position in central Tunisia would have collapsed. The roads themselves were narrow, winding and easily blocked, and they ran through defiles where a handful of guns could stop a column. The Germans, advancing along them, were strung out in long columns that were vulnerable to air attack and to ambush, and the Americans, falling back along them, were able to fight delaying actions at each defile. The ground, in the end, favoured the defence — and it was the defence, at Thala and Sbiba, that decided the battle.

9. Outcome and Legacy of Kasserine Pass

The Rebirth of the American Army

The most important consequence of Kasserine was the reform of the American Army in North Africa. Within days of the battle, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied commander-in-chief, relieved Fredendall of his command and replaced him with Major General George S. Patton, who took command of the II Corps on 6 March 1943. Patton, with his deputy Omar Bradley, imposed discipline, reorganised the corps, concentrated its armour instead of scattering it, and insisted on proper reconnaissance, proper communications and proper co-ordination with the air forces. The American command structure was also reformed: the Allied air forces were placed under a single commander, Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, and the ground forces were placed under General Harold Alexander, who imposed a unified command on the whole Tunisian front. The reforms worked quickly. On 23 March 1943, at El Guettar, the II Corps, under Patton, fought the 10th Panzer Division to a standstill in a battle that was, in every respect, the opposite of Kasserine: the Americans were prepared, their armour was concentrated, their artillery was massed, and their air support was effective.

The End of the Axis in Africa

Kasserine was the last Axis offensive in North Africa. After the withdrawal, Rommel, who was already ill and exhausted, left Africa for the last time on 9 March 1943, and the Axis forces in Tunisia, under von Arnim, were left to fight a defensive battle they could not win. The Allies, now unified under Alexander, attacked from the west and the south, and in May 1943 the Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered: some 250,000 German and Italian soldiers were taken prisoner, a loss comparable to Stalingrad, and North Africa was cleared of the enemy. The road to Sicily, and then to Italy, was open, and the American Army, which had learned its trade at Kasserine, went on to fight in Sicily, in Italy and in Normandy, where its experience in Tunisia — and the reforms that followed Kasserine — served it well. The battle that had begun as a humiliation ended as the foundation of the American Army’s victory in Europe.

Legacy

Kasserine Pass is remembered in the United States as the battle that taught the American Army how to fight. It is studied in American military schools as a case study in what goes wrong when a commander is remote from his troops, when armour is dispersed instead of concentrated, when air support is not co-ordinated, and when intelligence is ignored. The pass itself is quiet now, a road through the mountains of Tunisia, with a small cemetery and a memorial to the American dead, and the hills where the fighting took place are still scarred with the traces of the battle. The men who fought there — the engineers who held the pass, the tank crews who died at Sidi Bou Zid, the artillerymen who stopped the panzers at Thala — are remembered in the American Army as the men who paid the price of the Army’s education, and whose sacrifice made the victories that followed possible.

10. Commanders

Allied Commanders

Major General Lloyd Fredendall (United States). Commander of the US II Corps at Kasserine. Fredendall was a competent staff officer and administrator, but as a battlefield commander he failed: he placed his headquarters far behind the front, he dispersed his armour, and he lost touch with his divisions at the critical moment. He was relieved of his command after the battle and spent the rest of the war in training commands in the United States.

Major General Orlando Ward (United States). Commander of the 1st Armored Division. Ward’s division was split into combat commands and destroyed piecemeal at Sidi Bou Zid and Kasserine, and Ward himself, who protested against Fredendall’s orders, was relieved after the battle. He later commanded the 20th Armored Division in Europe and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson (Britain). Commander of the British First Army, and Fredendall’s superior. Anderson, a careful and methodical commander, distrusted Fredendall’s dispositions and tried, without success, to get the Americans to concentrate their forces. He commanded the First Army through the Tunisian campaign and was later appointed to command in East Africa.

Major General George S. Patton (United States). The man who replaced Fredendall, and who rebuilt the II Corps in a matter of weeks. Patton’s energy, discipline and insistence on aggressive action transformed the corps, and his victory at El Guettar in March 1943 was the first proof that the lessons of Kasserine had been learned. He went on to command the Seventh Army in Sicily and the Third Army in France and Germany.

Axis Commanders

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (Germany). Commander of the German-Italian Panzer Army, and the architect of the attack at Kasserine. Rommel, the “Desert Fox”, had spent two years outfighting the British in North Africa, and his attack at Kasserine was his last great victory. He left Africa in March 1943, ill and exhausted, and was later given command of the defences of northern France. He was implicated in the July 1944 plot against Hitler and was forced to take his own life in October 1944.

Colonel General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim (Germany). Commander of the 5th Panzer Army, and Rommel’s rival. Von Arnim, a methodical and cautious commander, disagreed with Rommel about the objectives of the attack, and the disagreement split the Axis effort. After Rommel’s departure he commanded all the Axis forces in Tunisia, and he surrendered them in May 1943. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner in Britain and the United States.

General Wolfgang Fischer (Germany). Commander of the 10th Panzer Division, the spearhead of the attack at Kasserine. Fischer’s division broke through at Sidi Bou Zid and drove on Thala, and it was his tanks that came closest to breaking the Allied line. He was killed in action in February 1943, shortly after the battle, when his staff car struck a mine.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was the Battle of Kasserine Pass?
19–25 February 1943, with the main fighting at the pass on 19–22 February. The battle began earlier, at Sidi Bou Zid on 14–15 February.

How many Americans were lost at Kasserine Pass?
About 6,300 American casualties — about 300 killed, about 3,000 wounded and about 3,000 taken prisoner or missing — and about 180 tanks lost.

Why did the Americans lose at Kasserine Pass?
The II Corps was inexperienced, its armour was dispersed instead of concentrated, its commander was far behind the front, its air support was poorly co-ordinated, and it faced Rommel’s battle-hardened Afrika Korps. All of these failings were corrected in the weeks that followed.

Who replaced Fredendall after Kasserine?
Major General George S. Patton, who took command of the II Corps on 6 March 1943, with Omar Bradley as his deputy. Patton rebuilt the corps and won at El Guettar later that month.

Was Kasserine Pass a German victory?
Tactically, yes — the Germans broke through, inflicted heavy losses and drove the Americans back 50 kilometres. Strategically, no — Rommel gained no lasting ground, ran out of fuel, and withdrew within days. It was the last Axis offensive in North Africa.

Where is Kasserine Pass today?
In central Tunisia, in the Dorsal mountains, about 200 kilometres south-west of Tunis. The pass is a road through the mountains, with a small cemetery and memorial to the American dead.

Sources

1. Wikipedia, “Battle of Kasserine Pass” — dates, strength, casualty figures (about 6,500 American casualties) and the course of the battle.
2. US Army Center of Military History, Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West — the official history, the II Corps’ dispositions and the reforms after the battle.
3. Martin Blumenson, Kasserine Pass (Houghton Mifflin, 1966) — the standard account of the battle, its commanders and its lessons.
4. Erwin Rommel, The Rommel Papers (edited by B. H. Liddell Hart) — Rommel’s own account of the attack and his disagreement with von Arnim.
5. Carlo D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War (HarperCollins, 1995) — Patton’s rebuilding of the II Corps and the battle of El Guettar.
6. Encyclopædia Britannica, “Battle of Kasserine Pass” — background, the battle and its consequences.

Further reading

• Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 (Henry Holt, 2002).
• George F. Howe, Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West (US Army, 1957).