On the flanks of the American advance the panzers were also ready and waiting. At a command the whole German column turned inwards and to the barrage from the village was added the cannonade of the vehicles on the flanks. The American charge advancing as a deep formation of column of companies was struck and hurled back. Caught in a pocket of fire the survivors were struck again as they tried to carry out their orders. And even when at last the American attack recoiled there was still a gauntlet of shells to be run before they could reach the safety of their own lines. By twilight the battle had ended.
On 16 February a unit from 10th Panzer reconnoitred to a road junction some 14 miles north-west of Sidi bou Zid and joined forces with a second force of panzers on the Faid-Sbeitla road. The mission for 10th Panzer ended and in accord with the orders of 5th Panzer Army it swung northwards. The 21st Panzer continued the drive to Sbeitla, a key point in the defence of the Kasserine pass, for it was through this pass that Rommel intended to drive in his ambitious attack upon the rear of the 1st Army.
In the face of German pressure the Allied line swung back to positions along a mountain range, the western Dorsal, in the area of Pont du Fahs, and then evacuated Gafsa.
According to Liebenstein Rommel's plan to attack Gafsa had been turned down by Commando Supremo who wanted to maintain the boundaries between the two panzer armies along the 34th parallel, but when Liebenstein entered the town upon Rommel's order he found the place evacuated. The Allies had withdrawn so quickly that contact with them was lost and a reconnaissance unit had to be sent out to regain this. This armoured recce unit moved towards Feriano which was then captured by 17th. Rommel was now convinced that his original plan, with its deep thrusting blow into the Allied back, could succeed and he proposed to move upon Tebessa, but von Arnim did not agree for he considered that such an advance through the mountainous country in that region would consume too much of the little infantry strength which the armies had, to say nothing of the supply difficulties which an extension of the supply line would involve.
With the end of the Sidi bou Zid operation, Ziegler returned to 5th Panzer Army and Rommel ordered the advance upon Tebessa to continue. The American troops around Sbeitla were struck by 21st Panzer who then wen: on to capture the village thus allowing Rommel to bring forward 10th Panzer and to direct this unit upon Kasserine, the vital pass.
Rommel's southern drive from Gafsa was also pressing forward and by 18th Thelepte had been captured. On 19 February the Axis forces in this area were nearing the Kasserine pass, and reconnaissance units pressed forward via Bou Chepka towards Tebessa. Orders for the attack upon Kasserine pass stated that the offensive would open during the night of 19/20 February.
When the attack began Buelowius Battle Group attacked the high ground on either side of the pass and had captured it by dawn forcing the Americans to withdraw, during the morning of 20th, towards Tebessa. The 10th Panzer units then came up and Rommel pivoted these behind the Africa Corps and sent them storming towards Thala to outflank the second range of hills blocking Tebessa.
Meanwhile, the 21st Panzer Division had advanced from Sbeitla to Sbiba when but the efforts of the past days had overstretched it and the advance slowed to a halt in the face of extensive mine-fields and strong opposition. The division then took up defensive positions from which it beat off strong American attacks on 21st. To draw off Allied strength from Rommel's attack the 5th Panzer Army made a number of excursions and attacks in the Oued Zagra, Djebel Abiod, Beja, and Siliana areas. On 17th, its 47th Regiment and the Buhse Battle Group captured Pichon and advanced twenty miles past that place by 21st. On that day also 10th Panzer, pursuing the American forces, occupied Thala and Africa Corps gained to within five miles of Djebel el Hamra. The Americans poured more and more troops into the battle and these with British armour and infantry of the Guards Brigade recaptured Thala. The Buhse Battle Group tried and failed to capture Tebessa by coup de main on 22nd. The United States forces, occupying a semi-circle of high ground, beat back the Axis attacks and the whole valley to the north-west of Kasserine as well as the heights to the north and west of the pass were sealed by the Allied forces. A battlefield conference of senior officers which Kessel-ring attended, reluctantly accepted that the failure to take Tebessa, the tiredness of the troops, and the imminence of a British attack upon Mareth compelled a breaking-off of the offensive and a return to the start lines from which they had set out with such high hopes.
Threats to the flank of Africa Corps required this be the first unit to withdraw and then followed 10th Panzer on 23rd, while 21st Panzer, embroiled in a bitter fight to the south and south-east of Sbiba, guarded the flanks. German combat groups, acted aggressively in the Pichon sector, brought some relief by drawing off the American pressure but then the German withdrawal became so rapid that the Allied spearheads lost touch with the rearguards on 26 February and did not regain this until 6 March.
Army Group Afrika Tunisia
It had been clear [24] since the first days of the fighting in Tunisia that the time would come when the desert Army and 5th Panzer Army would have to combine to form a single command. Thus it was obvious that the post of Army Group Commander would have to be created and that this post would be offered to Rommel. But his health deteriorated during the two years of his command and the strain of the successive withdrawals since October 1942 had brought him so low that his immediate replacement was essential. Von Arnim was selected to succeed him and the Italian general, Messe, was taken from the Russian front and appointed to command the German/Italian Panzer Army. Rommel formally took over command of Army Group Africa at IS.OOhrs on 23 February, and very soon thereafter laid down the post and the fate of his soldiers passed into the hands of von Arnim.
But before he left Africa there w&s still much to be done and Romme! addressed a conference on the future situation in Tunisia. In the course of this discussion he stressed that without supplies no bridgehead could be held and said that even if the Axis forces took up their best defensive positions, the life of the Army Group could be reckoned in months and not years.
As if to underline the weakness of the Axis forces the limited attacks which von Arnim launched in support of Rommel's Kasserine thrust and to gain more tactically advantageous positions failed almost completely. Olivenernte — the operation to take out Medjez El Bab - was not able to be resurrected and a new plan code-named Ochsenkopfwas designed to drive the Allies from their commanding positions along an arc of hills on the western and southwestern front in the north to seize the port of Tabarka, in the centre to capture Beja, and in the south to gain such ground in the Medjerda sector that the British forces in Medjez el Bab would be cut off.
This plan can be described only as madly optimistic for no new major units had arrived in the bridgehead, excepting a rifle regiment of a Penal Division, the 999th (Africa) and, indeed, the only armoured element of 5th Panzer Army had been sent to support Rommel. By shuffling his forces Arnirn managed to form a Lang Brigade made up of 47th Regiment, parts of 334th Division, and Captain Koenen's battalion of specialist troops from the Brandenburg Division.