Mike Yaklich adds: Medenine was an interesting battle from another point of view. When Giovanni Messe replaced Ettore Bastico as Italian C-in-C in North Africa (to whom Rommel was technically speaking a subordinate, although he had an important "escape clause" in that Hitler has given him discretion to disobey Italian orders if he felt the preservation of his command demanded it. He also had a direct personal pipeline to both Hitler and Mussolini, something which upset not only his Italian superiors but also his German theatre commander, Kesselring), a thaw of sorts took place in relations between the "Desert Fox" and his nominal Italian bosses. Bastico (one of the more successful Italian commanders, with a long history of victories and important postings pre-WW2, and also a highly intelligent and somewhat prickly personality, not willing to suffer challenges to his authority) and Rommel had despised each other from their very first meeting (it hadn't helped that at this meeting they disagreed over Rommel's projected 1941 set-piece attack on besieged Tobruk, and that Bastico had predicted, correctly, that the British would mount a relief offensive with superior forces first). It seems astonishing, in retrospect, that the two managed to co-exist in the same theatre from July 1941 until January 1943, and furthermore that the greatest Axis successes in North Africa occurred during this time (remembering, too, that at any given point in the existence of "Panzer Army Africa" Rommel had far more Italian than German troops under his command, and in 1942 a nearly equal number of Italian armored and motorized formations, whose role in his successes has been consistently underestimated). At any rate, whereas Bastico had arrived in the theatre in 1941 (replacing the ineffective Gariboldi) determined to show Rommel who was in charge from the very start, Messe (who also had an admirable war record, having proved a successful commander in both Greece and Russia, a relative rarity among the Italians) took a completely different tack. He deferred to Rommel, pronounced himself honored to replace him, and told him he could decide his own time of departure (at this time "Panzer Army Africa" was being re-organized as "1st Italo-German Panzer Army" and, as the Libyan theatre command no longer existed after the retreat into Tunisia, the Italian numerical preponderance was recognized by naming an Italian officer, Messe, to command this formation, which included the old Afrika Korps). Thus the "Desert Fox" lingered for another month and a half before departing Africa forever, in the meantime fighting the battle at Kasserine, and, of course, Medenine.
At any rate, there was a difference of opinion over the Medenine offensive. I'd have to check my sources to recall exactly how it went, but I believe that in this case Rommel was determined to forsake the "right hook" through the desert flank which had been the opening gambit in every one of his previous desert offensives, in favor of the more direct attack along the coast.
But Messe dissuaded him, having air recconnaisance photos that indicated the majority of the enemy artillery was concentrated exactly where he planned to strike. Rommel in the end allowed Messe to convince him, and changed his plan.
But British intelligence had meanwhile learned of the final plan, and a last-minute regrouping placed the bulk of their forces in the path chosen.
Therefore Rommel's units ran into a wall of British armor and, especially, gunpower (with overwhelming air support), and the assault came to nothing.
After posting my comments about Rommel's last North African battle, I had to go dig up some sources to make sure I had it right. Luckily, I did--
Rommel had in fact initially wanted to make his attack along the coast, in contrast to every one of his earlier desert offensives, but was persuaded by Messe, the Italian commander, to follow the usual tactic of making a hook south around the desert flank. This despite the fact that such an attack would in this instance have to contend with much more difficult terrain, having to fight through the narrow passes of a series of high hills in the Libyan-Tunisian border zone, rather than simply maneuver through empty desert as in eastern Libya. As I stated in the earlier post, Messe convinced Rommel due to evidence from aerial reconnaissance indicating the mass of Montgomery's artillery was concentrated right where the German general planned to attack, but by the time the attack was finally launched Allied intelligence ("Ultra" intercepts) had disclosed the change, and Monty's forces had been redeployed to meet it.
Despite earlier comments about the prevalence of Italian units in Rommel's commands-- and, ironically, despite the fact that Rommel largely washed his hands of the actual tactical control of the Medenine attack, allowing the Italian Messe to carry it out according to his plan-- the part played by Italian troops in this initiative was to be minimal, although the infantry of the Spezia Division was to advance on the northern flank of the Germans, and the pitiful remnants of the "Ariete Tactical Group" (which by the end of January had been down to only 14 operational tanks) were also to support the German effort. The operation proved abortive from the start. Armed with exact intelligence about his opponents' intentions, Montgomery had his forces perfectly deployed to stop the attack. When the panzers moved forward they were faced by 460 "six-pounder" antitank guns, backed by 350 pieces of heavier artillery and 300 tanks. The Allied tanks were hardly needed, as the British and New Zealand gunners practically won the battle by themselves. The Germans lost fifty tanks, gaining no ground against an artillery screen that blanketed them with 30,000 shells. Meanwhile Allied fighter-bombers took on the supporting German artillery, knocking out three batteries of the new six-barrelled "Nebelwerfer" 150mm rocket-launchers which had proved so effective just a few weeks earlier at Kasserine. Rommel departed Africa for good three days after this short-lived fiasco of an offensive.
In my earlier post I had mentioned the relatively good relations that existed between Rommel and Messe, and compared them with the absolutely horrid relations between the "Desert Fox" and Messe's Italian predecessor Bastico, whom Rommel referred to as "Bombastico" or, in a sarcastic mockery of the proper Italian form of address, "His Excellency." Ettore Bastico, however ("Ettore" being the Italian equivalent of "Hector"), was nobody's fool, and a man of parts in his own right. He was considered one of the Italian Army's leading intellects, he had had a very successful military career which to a large extent continued in North Africa (where the greatest Axis successes came during his tenure, although most of the credit for that has usually been ascribed to Rommel), and he had the ear of Mussolini-- the two men might even be described as friends. During the First World War, Bastico had held a series of staff positions rather than field commands, a sign that even then his superiors had recognized his mental attributes and marked him for inclusion in the Army's braintrust. In the early '20's, although still a serving Army officer, he had taught military history at the Italian naval academy, and in 1924 he published a book on the evolution of the art of war. Bastico also served as editor of Italy's most prestigious military journal. Later in the decade he headed the Army's physical fitness school, and even at the age of 65, when he was dealing with Rommel in North Africa, he still cut a trim figure (in contrast to many of his peers among the Italian generals). In the mid 1930's Bastico proved his mettle as a wartime commander of large formations.
In Ethiopia in 1935-36 he commanded a corps (3rd Corps) on the main front, which played a prominent role in Badoglio's drive to the capital Addis Ababa. In 1937 he took over command of the corps-size Italian contingent in the Spanish Civil War, the CTV. At the time Bastico assumed command, morale was poor following the humiliating failure of the Italian offensive at Guadalajara, but within a few months he was leading the CTV to one of its greatest successes, launching an offensive into the Basque country that culminated with the capture of Santander. Bastico was very much his own man (and confident of his own abilities, one of the reasons why he and the headstrong Rommel didn't hit it off, as both had similar personalities and neither was willing to defer to the other). As his Italian troops had played the lead role in the fighting, he took it upon himself to negotiate his own surrender arrangements with the defeated Republicans in the region. This in turn enraged the Nationalist commander-in-chief and future Spanish head of state Franco (not least because Bastico's terms were relatively lenient). Franco demanded and got from Mussolini Bastico's recall from Spain in the late fall of '37. But the Italian general's status in no way suffered from this back home. He was slated for an army command, and a year later (late '38) he was rewarded by being named to head the Italian Army's new showpiece, the freshly-created "Army of the Po" (Armata Po).
The Armata Po was the force created in furtherance of the new
official Italian Army doctrine of the "Guerra di Rapido Corso,"
basically an Italian variant of the "Blitzkrieg" philosophy
(although the latter term had not yet been coined when the Italians announced
the adoption of the "Guerra di Rapido Corso" in October 1938). The
Armata Po was to consist of a mechanized corps, with two armored and two
motorized infantry divisions, plus a "celere" corps, with three "celere"
divisions. The latter were light mobile formations, consisting of a mix of horse
cavalry, elite bersaglieri light infantry on bicycles, motor- and/or horse-drawn
light artillery, and a light tank battalion. The new army was supposed to be
held ready in northern Italy for rapid deployment in either an offensive or
defensive capacity. The problem with the Armata Po was not its concept, but
rather the material prerequisites for making it an effective force, especially
in terms of the mechanized components. The first two Italian armored divisions (Ariete
and Centauro) were formed in February and April 1939, respectively (several
months after the Armata Po was theoretically activated), and the Centauro was
immediately detached for duty overseas in the Italian occupation of Albania, to
be replaced by a new armored division, Littorio, which was not activated until
June.
Furthermore, the Italians had no real medium tanks at all at this time (not even
the inadequate M11 and M13 of WW2 usage), so all the armored divisions were
equipped with very light vehicles. Of the two motorized infantry divisions,
neither was fully equipped in terms of motor transport (and one hvirtually none,
having given up its vehicles along with their drivers and mechanics to form the
showpiece "Littorio" volunteer Army division in Spain). Furthermore,
both these divisions also lacked the medium tank battalion which was supposed to
be included. So the only part of the Armata Po which was fully up to standard
was the "celere" corps, which consisted mainly of bicycle troops and
horse cavalry. Despite the prestige of Bastico's posting, and the propaganda
value the Italians tried to derive from its existence, the Armata Po remained to
a large extent a paper command. In the Italian command shake-up of early
December 1940, following the twin disasters of Taranto and Greece, Bastico
received promotion to a theatre commander, albeit the rather minor theatre of
the Dodecanese islands. He remained there until summoned to take over in North
Africa in July 1941.
Personally, I feel the responsibility for the acrid relations between Rommel and Bastico falls primarily on Rommel. Bastico's biggest transgression, and the one which got their relations off to such a bad start, was to act as though he was Rommel's superior-- which he was, in the agreed-upon Axis chain of command in North Africa-- and to furthermore expect Rommel to actually follow his orders. This is nothing but standard military procedure, in fact one of the lynch-pins of all military order and discipline from time immemorial. Yet Rommel committed the kinds of afronts which would get any normal officer (at least, one who couldn't run behind the backs of his immediate superiors to two different heads of state) fired and sent packing in a heartbeat. Probably the worst was in January 1942, in his Benghazi offensive, when he not only defied the stop line for his operations imposed by both Bastico and Cavallero, the Italian Chief of the General Staff (Hitler had agreed that North Africa was to be an Italian theatre), but did not even inform his theatre commander-in-chief that he was going to attack until the operation was already in progress, citing concerns about Italian security (particularly ironic considering the degree to which his own communications were compromised by "Ultra," the real source of the leaks). On another occasion he deliberately kept his nominal superior waiting for half an hour, then proceeded to loudly berate him for Italian failings after losing a battle he had persisted in waging despite Bastico's specific and accurate warnings about how it would turn out! Who can blame Bastico if he sometimes seemed, as one German officer on Rommel's staff described him, "difficult, autocratic, and violent?" Bastico, for his part, didn't suffer such behavior tolerantly (what self-respecting commander-- and Bastico had plenty self-respect-- would take that from a subordinate?) and could be quite acid-tongued in expressing himself.
Furthermore, it didn't help matters that Bastico had on several occasions proved right (and Rommel wrong), so it was not a case of the gifted military genius Rommel simply ignoring his obviously mistaken Italian superior (in fact I say "gifted military genius" with great sarcasm because, although Rommel proved himself a master tactician-- though not without several glaring gaffes in this regard, too-- as a strategist he was in way over his head, a real babe in the woods, a factor which his reputation and mystique tends to obscure, but which careful analysis of his campaigns and concepts reveals quite clearly, IMHO). Bastico predicted (correctly) that the British would launch a powerful relief offensive at Tobruk before Rommel was able to mount his planned set-piece battle to take the port in the fall of '41. In the days before the British unleashed that offensive ("Crusader"), he and his staff repeatedly warned Rommel that the British were about to attack, information Rommel also ignored (with the result that many German units were taken by surprise, while the Ariete division, alerted through the Italian chain of command, was ready for action and possibly saved Rommel's bacon at the outset by tying down one of the most powerful British tank groups around Bir el Gubi for the first two days of the resultant battle). Perhaps most important, in 1942 Bastico tried to warn Rommel that his communications security was compromised ("Ultra"), but again Rommel preferred to believe that Italian human error or deliberate treason was the problem. So, personally, I don't believe that the blame for the animosity between the two men can be laid at the feet of Bastico.
Which brings me to the final point of this long-winded screed. As those who have tolerated my writings about the Italians over the years have probably come to recognize, in addressing topics like the relations between the German and Italian commands, I get the impression that many people come to the table with a preconception that of course the Germans were generally right and the Italians wrong. Part of this attitude is, I think, justifiably based on the admittedly superior battlefield performance of the German versus the Italian forces, generally speaking. Part of it is probably due to the short shrift the Italians have gotten for many years in a history based heavily on the wartime propaganda of the victors (primarily British) and the post-war apologism and scapegoating of many German participants (a fair measure of ethnic stereotyping and feelings of inherent superiority of both countries regarding the Italians may also factor into the mix). But the truth is much more complex and multi-dimensional, and no one participant or side was right all the time in their interpretation of the situation as it appeared while these events were occurring. Men such as Bastico and Messe should not be lightly dismissed merely because they were Italians, and Rommel was German--nor should their ideas and their assessments of the military situation. One might even make the case that the timidity ascribed (in many cases with a degree of justification) to so many Italian military commanders is further evidence that they were in fact good at their jobs-- they clearly saw that the Italian Army was in no shape to fight a first-class military power without a lot of outside help, and so they tried to avoid fighting when they could, and to limit their operations to the defensive (where it was easier to shore up weaknesses through choice of terrain, fortification, and the communications and control advantages of static versus mobile ops) whenever possible. All that aside, it should be remembered that Bastico and Messe were, just like Rommel, men with long and successful track records as military commanders. As such it is absurd to expect them to defer to a subordinate merely because that subordinate was a German and they were "merely" Italians. Bastico had already participated in victorious operations in three different wars before he came to North Africa, and had held large-scale independent commands. Messe, a career cavalryman (he had been the initial commander of the "celere" corps in Bastico's Armata Po) with the no-nonsense approach of an old horse trooper, had also been on the winning side more often than the losing. In the dark days of December 1940, when a new Greek offensive was threatening to seize the vital Albanian ports (whose fall would force the Italians to sue for a humiliating peace), Messe had been named to command a special corps to block the direct approach to those ports along the coast. His command established a firm front and held it till the end of the campaign. Then, in 1941-42, Messe had commanded the original Italian expeditionary corps in Russia (the CSIR), which made great advances alongside the Germans, and participated in several small but hard-fought battles, all victorious (including the capture of Stalino in October 1941, where the Italians played the leading role). When the CSIR was converted to the 35th Corps as part of a larger Italian army in Russia in 1942, with Messe still in command, it scored a notable success in defeating a Soviet counteroffensive around Serafimovich on the Don in August '42, a Russian initiative aimed at relieving pressure on Stalingrad. So Messe, too, was a proven successful wartime general in his own right (despite the handicap of commanding the poorly-equipped and often inadequately-trained Italian units), and he had no reason to kow-tow to Rommel, either. Being a better diplomat than Bastico (or, at least, willing to be more diplomatic), Messe placated Rommel, and the two got along fine. But the fact remains-- in my opinion at least-- that it was Rommel who acted like an insufferable prima donna, despite the fact that it is often Italian officers who carry that stereotype.
Mike Yaklich