Rommel knew, as OKW and Commando Supremo must have known, that if the Panzer Army was to survive it must avoid a war of attrition and stay a potent force, for now there was a new menace.
On 8 November Anglo-American divisions had landed in Algeria and were racing for Tunisia aiming to cut off the Axis armies in the desert. If their drive succeeded then Panzer Army Africa and its Italian allies would be trapped, although Axis forces had been rushed to the Tunisian bridgeheads and the situation though desperate did not seem to be quite hopeless.
But in the desert it was clear that the whole of Cyrenaica would have to be abandoned and Rommel put forward a plan to dig in and to hold what line he could while the main of the Army was evacuated back to the mainland. Hitler rejected this plan and proposed to reinforce the army in Africa, supplying it with every requirement, but on the condition that the line of the Marsa el Brega position be held as a base for future operations.
The movement into these new positions was carried out in heavy rain which halted Montgomery's advance. The new defence line was a disaster. The so-called strong points were often 5 miles apart and not mutually supporting. The whole front covered 110 miles, that is a greater depth than at Alamein, with only 30,000 mines to form a barrier and with the open flank guarded by one unreliable, native battalion. Thus, with a weaker line, with fewer troops, and his losses not made good, Rommel was expected to delay the British advance indefinitely. Panzer Army was weak in numbers.
From an establishment of 264 anti-tank guns there were only 12 with the troops, and only 35 of the establishment strength of 371 tanks, 16 armoured cars from a total of 60, and 12 howitzers instead of 60. The Italian divisions which had been rushed across from the mainland to replace that army's losses were without front line experience and were, therefore, nothing but a dead weight of useless mouths to feed. There was no ammunition reserve, only three days supply of fuel and the army had had no bread for a week.
In view of his weakness and so that 8th Army's blow which would come in during the middle of December would strike into a vacuum, Rommel withdrew from El Agheila back to Marsa el Brega and the point from which the Africa Corps had set out with such high hopes 18 months previously. The whole of Marmarica and Cyrenaica had been given up and there was neither a geographical obstacle nor the forces available to hold back the British advance for any great period of time. The Gabes line in Tunisia was the next and best possible natural barrier and in view of the Allied and Axis landings in that country, a withdrawal of the Panzer Army into that region could be made without infringeing French sensibilities.
Rommel demanded a withdrawal to Buerat as an interim measure only, presaging the anticipated move back to Gabes and pointed out that there would be no fuel for the portering of the Italian infantry at the height of the battle and that in such a retreat as he was proposing the speed of the slowest unit determined the pace of the whole. His force must remain mobile; there could be no question of being tied down to fight an attritive battle. It was imperative that the non-mobile infantry divisions be sent back to Buerat before the battle opened. A lost battle would mean not only the destruction of the army but that Tripolitania would be lost and the Axis' new bridgehead in Tunisia would be smashed. [17]
Commando Supremo and OKW ordered that the Marsa el Brega position be held to the last and Kesselring who flew to Libya asserted that any withdrawal to Buerat would encourage an Allied attack. To this Rommel bitterly replied that, whether his army was rolled over and destroyed in the Marsa el Brega or in the Buerat position was irrelevant, unless he had freedom of action he could do nothing to stop the Allies winning the war in Africa within the shortest possible time. The strength of the Africa Corps was reduced to 54 panzers, 18 armoured cars, and 66 anti-tank guns, his men were sleeping in the open in pouring rain in mid-winter, and the rations had been cut and cut again. German losses alone during the month of November had been 1122 killed and 3885 wounded. If the Panzer Army was to hold the positions demanded by OKW and the Commando Supremo then each German battalion would be holding a front of two miles and there would be no reserve. Rommel demanded the supplies which Hitler had said he would send and the Fiihrer promised them all again but demanded as his price that Tripoli would be held. Political necessity as well as military requirement demanded the maintenance of the largest possible bridgehead on the African coast.
It was clear that Hitler still saw the African theatre of operations as two separate battles whereas Rommel considered that his Panzer Army and 5th Panzer Army in Tunisia formed a single combat zone. In a conference with the Fiihrer Rommel repeated the advantages which a withdrawal to the Gabes line inside Tunisia would bring, whereas the only advantage of the Buerat line was that it gained time to allow the Gabes feature to be properly manned. Rommel's arguments were coldly logical and their conclusions inescapable. The withdrawal began even as 8th Army's carefully prepared advance began its forward movement. First the Italian infantry was evacuated and then in the bitter winter weather of 13 December the remaining panzers moved westward again. But once again the critical shortage of fuel held the panzers prisoner and they were threatened with encirclement by the swift-moving 7th Armoured Division. In the nick of time supply columns reached the armour and enabled the panzer regiments to fight their way through the British ring, battling now with the despair of a forlorn hope and with the bitter knowledge that their Supreme Commander Hitler had dismissed their efforts and had ignored their urgent needs.
Without fuel and lacking the supplies which the Fiihrer had promised, Rommel could not hope to hold the Buerat position and once that line had been abandoned then Tripolitania would have to be evacuated if the Army was to be saved. In desperation the German commander asked for permission to march back to Gabes and received Mussolini's bombastic reply 'Buerat will be held to the last'. With only 38 panzers in action, a further 12 in the Buerat line, and 10 without fuel in Tripoli, there was little that the Panzer Army could do to fight a defensive battle. On 29 December the 8th Army stood ready to assault the Axis positions. A crisis conference attended by the senior German and Italian commanders from the mainland demanded that Mussolini's orders be respected but Rommel pointed out that the length of time that the Buerat position could be held depended less upon him and his Army than upon the British and theirs. There were 30,000 Italian troops who were a dead-weight and their transport from defence line to defence line used petrol which the panzers needed. Of the daily minimum requirement of 400 tons only an average of 152 tons arrived. The panzer arm was operating with only 20 per cent of its establishment and the infantry was 50 per cent below its requirements. There were two lines of defence along which minimal resistance could be offered: Homs-Misurata and the final perimeter around Tripoli. This was the last chance to save the army from destruction. The evacuation from Buerat began on 3 January; once again Rommel's logic had proved to be irrefutable.
In Tunisia the dangerous military situation compelled von Arnim, commanding 5th Panzer Army, to ask for one of Rommel's infantry divisions to be withdrawn from the line and sent to occupy Sfax against any Allied move from the Kasserine sector. Rommel appealed to Hitler against this demand and was ordered to send 21st Panzer but was instructed to withdraw the tanks from that unit and hand them over to 15th Panzer Division. That division withdrew and as the Axis forces pulled back from the Buerat position on 15 January they could see from the Tarhuna heights the fires which marked where 18 tanks of Centauro Division had been blown up to prevent them falling into British hands.