The Mareth Line 1943

In the six months that passed between Alamein and the final surrender there was much hard fighting, as the defeated German and Italian Panzer Army sought to hold off the encroaching Eighth Army in a series of defensive positions across the Western Desert. Rommel, his health suffering from the strains of command, fought a number of major actions during this campaign - at El Agheila, Mersa el Brega, Buerat and Medenine - before his forces settled into the pre-war French defensive position the Mareth Line. All the way he was pursued by an increasingly confident Eighth Army under the command of General Montgomery, but never was Montgomery able to outflank the retreating German and Italian forces decisively, and Rommel was even able to divert forces to inflict a sharp defeat on the newly arrived US forces at Kasserine Pass in February 1943. This was one of Rommel's last acts in the Desert War as his health problems forced his return to Germany shortly afterwards. The stage was now set for the last great battle of the Desert War as the veteran formations of the British Eighth Army took on their foes in the Afrikakorps for one last time in the major set-piece battle for the Mareth Line.