Eilbote began on the following day and achieved immediate and important successes. The 334th Division captured the pass east of Djebel Mansour and the heights at Djebel Chirich while the motor cycle battalion of 10th Panzer Division seized Djebel bou Daboussa. The Allies moved back under this pressure and the whole Axis line moved forward to occupy the ground. British counter-attacks around Bou Arada began on 21st and for days there was bitter fighting for high ground but then the northern arm of the German assault, coming through the Chirich pass, linked with a mixed German/Italian group on Djebel bou Daboussa. This sector was now dominated by the Axis troops holding the high ground and the Allies withdrew from it on 24 January. But the strain of battle in the mountains and in the terrible weather began to tell upon the Axis troops who had fought for six days without rest or reinforcement, and they no longer had the determination or the strength to achieve new objectives. Eilbote was called off but the results were satisfactory: the high ground between Pichon and Pont du Fahs was in Axis hands, the immediate threat to the southern half of the Tunis bridgehead had been averted, and the French Corps had been badly hit.
Successful French counter-attacks against the Italians revived the fears that these would not stand their ground. When one particularly severe counterattack around Djebel Chirich forced a German unit to fall back east of the gap the 5th Panzer Army commanders saw a chance to counter-attack, to outflank, and then to roll up the French line. They mounted a second Eilbote operation on 1 February. Tiger tanks of 501 Panzer Detachment, extra infantry, and increased artillery were posted to the assaulting units and, with this added strength, advances were made along the Pont du Fahs—Rebaa ad Yahia road. The French had by this time been reinforced with American equipment and men so that heavy fighting developed but the German forces went on to capture high ground on the right flank of the attack. There was less success on the inner left wing south of Djebel Chirich where the advance had to be made across open country dominated by American and French artillery of all calibres. Under the barrage of defensive fire the German attack in this area faltered and then halted. On the extreme left flank, however, Pichon fell to 47th Infantry Regiment and Ousseltia was captured by a storm troop detachment. Allied strength grew daily and the resistance which the Germans were meeting compelled them to break off the battle. The Axis wave receded as their troops gave ground and withdrew to strong defensive positions on the heights to the east of the Ousseltia valley.
The far southern extent of 5th Panzer Army's territory was an area in which there had been little fighting, for neither side had been strong enough to force a decision there, but in the second half of January, von Arnim at last had the opportunity to carry out an operation which would secure his links with Rommel's force. German positions to the east of the Faid pass, which had been lost in December, could be outflanked by any French debouchment aimed towards Sfax. Were this to happen then the rupture of the Axis front would have been brought about. As the other sectors of 5th Panzer Army front were relatively dormant there was an opportunity to carry out an operation against and to seize the Paid pass and to hold it as a barrier against the Allies.
To carry out this operation the 21st Panzer Division which was refitting at Mahares was placed under command of 5th Panzer Army and despatched to Paid. The battle plan was simple. Four battle groups would take part. One, with a holding role would attack from the east and under cover of this assault a second group would scale the height of Djebel Kralif. A third force would hold the Rebaou pass while a fourth column cut through the Maizila pass to block any flow of reinforcements to the Paid garrison and also to attack those troops from the west. On 30 January the battle groups struck and the storm troops on the heights of Djebel Kralif descended upon the northern flank of the French positions.
By nightfall it was over and the pass had been seized, but the Americans were not content to let so tactically important a feature be lost so lightly and 1st Armoured Division sent forward two armoured columns to attack the Rebaou and the Paid passes. The group which struck at the Rebaou pass penetrated some distance inside it but was then repelled. A column of infantry, artillery, and tanks commanded by Colonel Stark which charged into the Paid pass struck against experienced panzer men who had had time to prepare their defences.
An artillery barrage halted the American advance and then the Stukas went in to break up the cohesion. One company of 1st Armoured Regiment was drawn to within range of an anti-tank gun line and lost 9 tanks. The United States forces withdrew but came in again on 2 February against the Rebaou pass and this time using infantry ahead of the armour. But this assault, too, failed and the combat command went over to the defence in that sector. On other sectors, too, the American advance had halted and the troops of 1st Armoured Division began to move back upon Gafsa.
Plans had been made to attack Pichon and these were quite far advanced when intelligence reports indicated a strong build-up of American forces in the Sheitla-Tebessa-Sidi bou Zid sectors. This could only mean that an attack would be launched against the German troops in those sectors and that this would probably be made in conjunction with an expected British offensive at Mareth.
Arnim then decided to attack the American force in the Sbeitla sector before it had grown too large and if this move met with success then to exploit it by rolling up the Allied front from south to north. If he could compel the Allies to evacuate Medjez el Bab then the strategic aims for which the Germans had been striving since November and of which operation Olivenernte had been the most recent plan, might yet be achieved.
There were certain temporary difficulties. Fischer, an experienced and forceful tank commander, was killed in action while on a reconnaissance and his death resulted in a general reshuffle of senior posts. The loss of Fischer meant that the new commander would have to 'work' himself into the post and in view of the shortage of time von Arnim called off that attack and concentrated instead upon the objective of Sidi bou Zid.
Fischer's death and the difficulties which this caused can serve to illustrate at this point one weakness of the German command structure in Tunisia. From the first days there had been no adequate staff organisation and no staff officers at all. Most divisions reaching Africa were not complete formations but usually individual regiments, and, of course, were without divisional hierarchy. It can be appreciated that staff officers, even of quite junior rank were seized upon to fill empty staff appointments at fairly senior levels. Thus there was no Corps structure because there were insufficient numbers of efficiently trained officers and 5th Panzer Army formed ad hoc groupings and then called these Corps, although they seldom had the strength of even a division on the continental mainland. Only the length of front which such units had to hold, the tasks given them to perform, and the requirements of command structure led to these groupings being called Corps.
The Tunisian Bridgehead
In the last days of January to the accompaniment of icy winds and in bitter cold the advanced guards and then the main of Panzer Army Africa crossed the frontier into Tunisia and by 12 February, the second anniversary of the German arrival in the African theatre of operations, those Axis positions still on the soil of Tripolitania were also withdrawn into the bridgehead area. Here in this fertile country the desert veterans of the years of 1941 and 1942 returned to a European-type warfare in which the infantry arm carried the main burden of battle.