Rommel withdraws from Gazala

On 16 December 1941 General der Panzertruppe Erwin Rommel began withdrawing Panzer Group Africa from its positions at Gazala, several dozen kilometres west of Tobruk. For three days his troops had been beating off attacks there by the British XIII Corps – New Zealanders, Indians and the Polish Carpathian Brigade – but the German panzer divisions now had only a handful of serviceable tanks, and British armoured brigades were working round the line from the south. Rommel preferred to give up the whole of Cyrenaica rather than let himself be surrounded. He got his way in the face of vehement objections from the Italian Chief of the General Staff, the Italian Commander-in-Chief in Libya and the German field marshal who was just taking over command in the Mediterranean. Within nine days his troops had crossed the whole of Cyrenaica, escaping the fate of the Italians in the winter of 1940. On 24 December the British entered an abandoned Benghazi, while Rommel halted at Agedabia (Ajdabiya), on the Gulf of Sirte.

Three dates

Many chronologies state under 15 December that Commonwealth forces pushed Rommel back on the Gazala line; under 16 December that Rommel ordered a retreat all the way to El Agheila, where he had begun his march in March, and was waiting there for reinforcements in men and tanks; and under 25 December that the Allies recaptured Benghazi. All three refer to a single manoeuvre, and each needs qualifying. 15 December was not a day of British victory: the attack on the Gazala line stalled, and a German-Italian counter-attack destroyed a British battalion that day. Rommel left not because he had been driven out but because he feared encirclement. Nor were the attackers only Commonwealth troops; the Poles took part as well. Nor did the retreat go straight to El Agheila (Al-Uqayla). The order of 15 and 16 December provided for a march through Mechili and Derna to Agedabia, where the Axis forces stood until 25 December. They returned to the positions at Mersa Brega and El Agheila, from which Rommel had set off eastwards at the end of March 1941, only on 2–12 January 1942. Reinforcements, moreover, began arriving while the retreat was still under way. Finally, according to most accounts the British took Benghazi on Christmas Eve, 24 December, not on 25 December.

The Gazala line

After two weeks of fighting at Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk, the dash to the Egyptian frontier and unsuccessful attempts to close the ring round the fortress again, Rommel concluded at the beginning of December that he could not hold on east of Tobruk. On 5 December the Italian high command, the Comando Supremo, informed him that his supply situation would not improve before the end of the month. On the night of 7–8 December the Afrika Korps and the Italian Mobile Corps broke contact with the enemy, and by 12 December all the Axis forces had reached the positions at Gazala, prepared earlier by Italian rear units. The siege of Tobruk ended after eight months. On the Egyptian frontier – at Bardia, Sollum and the Halfaya Pass – German and Italian garrisons were left cut off, with orders to hold out for as long as possible.

The line ran south from the shore of the Gulf of Gazala, across escarpments and hills, to Alem Hamza. The Italian X Corps stood by the sea; further inland was XXI Corps with the Brescia, Pavia and Trento divisions; the southern end was held by General Gastone Gambara’s weakened Mobile Corps with the Ariete and Trieste divisions; and General Ludwig Crüwell’s Afrika Korps stood behind the southern flank, ready to counter-attack. The position had one great weakness: its southern flank hung in the open desert, and from there British tanks could make for Mechili, a junction of desert tracks deep in Cyrenaica, and cut off the whole army’s line of retreat.

Rommel had no illusions about his strength. In those days he was visited at the headquarters he had set up on 12 December in a wadi south-east of the Gulf of Gazala by the Italian Commander-in-Chief in Libya, General Ettore Bastico, who was alarmed by the course of the battle. Bastico wanted to move one of the Italian divisions to Agedabia, through which ran the only road to Tripolitania. According to Rommel’s diary, there was a “very stormy argument”: Rommel declared that he would not allow Italian divisions to be taken from him, and that if necessary he would withdraw through Cyrenaica with the Germans alone and leave the Italians to their fate.

13–15 December: the attack on the line

After the relief of Tobruk the commander of the British Eighth Army, General Neil Ritchie, regrouped his forces. XXX Corps with the 2nd South African Division was to besiege the garrisons on the frontier, while Lieutenant General Alfred Reade Godwin-Austen’s XIII Corps received Major General William Gott’s 7th Armoured Division, the 4th Indian Division, the New Zealand 5th Brigade and the Polish Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade. The idea was simple: the infantry would pin the enemy frontally, while the 4th Armoured Brigade would go round his southern flank and strike at his rear.

On 13 December the New Zealand 5th Brigade attacked on the sector next to the coast, and the 5th Indian Brigade struck at Alem Hamza. The Trieste Division held Alem Hamza, but an English battalion, the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment), took Point 204 further west and found itself in an exposed salient. That same day the Afrika Korps attacked a group from the 7th Indian Brigade that was moving to the battalion’s aid; British guns and Valentine tanks beat off the attack, destroying, according to British tallies, a dozen or so German tanks. Rommel noted that a strong infantry attack had broken the front of the Italian Mobile Corps, that enemy reconnaissance had reached Bir Temrad, a dozen or so kilometres behind the line, and that the situation had been made “extremely critical” by the unreliability of one of the large Italian formations.

15 December was the day of the heaviest fighting. Rommel regarded Point 204 as the key to the position. In the afternoon the Ariete Division, the remnants of the 15th Panzer Division, the Bersaglieri of the 8th Regiment and the German 115th Motorised Infantry Regiment overran the Buffs’ positions. According to British figures the battalion and the units supporting it lost more than a thousand men killed and captured; only 71 soldiers and one battery got away. Italian authors credit the taking of prisoners mainly to the Bersaglieri. It was a tactical success for the Axis, but also its last effort: by the evening, sources agree, the Afrika Korps had eight serviceable tanks and the Ariete about thirty. Meanwhile the 4th Armoured Brigade, which had swung in a wide arc to the south, stood on the afternoon of 15 December near Bir Halegh el Eleba, several dozen kilometres behind Rommel’s southern flank, from where it could cut his supply routes.

The Poles at Gazala

For Brigadier General Stanisław Kopański’s Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade this was its first battle in the open field after eight months of defending Tobruk. On 12 December the brigade moved out of the fortress to El Adem as XIII Corps reserve, and on 14 December its leading elements made contact with the New Zealanders. Polish and English-language accounts describe the start of the attack differently. According to the English-language accounts, the two brigades attacked together before dawn on 15 December and, despite taking the enemy by surprise, came within a hair’s breadth of breaking the line, but the Brescia and Pavia divisions, supported by the Trento, beat off the attack. According to the Polish accounts, the 1st and 3rd Rifle Battalions went into the attack on the afternoon of 15 December: the 1st Battalion took Point 187, while the 3rd Battalion, under fire from the neighbouring hills, advanced with difficulty and at dusk took Point 183. That day the two battalions lost 16 killed and 86 wounded and took more than 400 Italians of the Pavia Division prisoner.

On the morning of 16 December the Poles beat off an Italian counter-attack on Point 187, and at 2 p.m. a company of the 3rd Battalion with a reconnaissance platoon in carriers stormed Point 183 on the Carmuset er Regem escarpment, taking several hundred prisoners. At dawn on 17 December patrols found that the Italians were pulling out, and the 2nd Battalion set off in pursuit. After a dozen or so kilometres it broke up the rearguard and captured a battalion of the 7th Bersaglieri Regiment, some 600 men, and then reached the road to Derna. According to Polish figures, the Carpathian Brigade lost 23 killed and 94 wounded at Gazala and took 59 officers and 1,634 other ranks prisoner. In Polish memory this fighting took its place alongside the defence of Tobruk as proof that after the defeats of 1939 and 1940 the Polish soldier was once again fighting successfully in the open field.

The decision to retreat

On 15 December Rommel understood that if he stayed at Gazala, British tanks would reach Mechili and bar his way. He reported to his superiors that after four weeks of uninterrupted fighting the fighting strength of the troops was declining and that deliveries of weapons and ammunition had stopped altogether. The army intended to hold the Gazala area on 16 December, but a withdrawal through Mechili and Derna would be unavoidable on the night of 16–17 December at the latest if it was not to be outflanked and destroyed by a superior enemy. According to British accounts, he issued the order to abandon the line on the night of 15–16 December, against the objections not only of the Italian generals but also of Crüwell.

The Italian command was horrified. Giving up Cyrenaica, which the Axis forces had recovered only in April, meant a political defeat for Benito Mussolini. On 16 December the Chief of the Italian General Staff, General Ugo Cavallero, flew to Rommel’s headquarters. According to Rommel’s diary, at their first meeting at 3.15 p.m. Cavallero accepted that the only escape route was the narrow strip through Timimi and that the troops would leave that night, and raised no objection. At 11 p.m., however, he returned with Field Marshal Albert Kesselring – since the beginning of December German Commander-in-Chief South (Oberbefehlshaber Süd) – Bastico and Gambara. Cavallero, as Rommel recorded, “in a voice trembling with emotion” demanded that the order be cancelled, since he saw no need for it and feared political difficulties for the Duce. Kesselring backed him firmly: he could not imagine giving up the airfield at Derna, which his air force needed just as it was moving from the Eastern Front to Sicily. According to Rommel, Bastico and Gambara behaved so vehemently that Rommel finally asked Bastico how he himself, as Commander-in-Chief in North Africa, would resolve the situation. Bastico gave an evasive answer.

Rommel did not give way. The orders had been issued and were already partly carried out, and the choice, as he explained, was simple: either stay and lose the whole Panzer Group, and with it Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, or withdraw, give up Cyrenaica and at least save Tripolitania. The delegation left empty-handed. The dispute was one of the sharpest in the history of the German-Italian coalition in Africa: formally Rommel was subordinate to Bastico, but in practice he alone decided the fate of the Axis forces in Libya.

The retreat across Cyrenaica

On the evening of 16 December the Afrika Korps and the Italian Mobile Corps under Crüwell’s command set off westwards along the edge of the desert, along the southern slopes of the Jebel Akhdar, through Mechili towards El Abiar. The non-motorised Italian divisions left on the night of 16–17 December on foot and in a few lorries, along the narrow coastal strip through Derna and Barce (Al-Marj). On the morning of 17 December Polish patrols found the positions in front of them empty.

The British failed to cut this route. The 4th Armoured Brigade, which on 15 December had stood in Rommel’s rear, sent only a small detachment north on the morning of 16 December and itself went south for fuel; in the afternoon the 15th Panzer Division passed close by, closing its way north. Ritchie ordered the retreating columns to be cut off, but the pursuing brigades had more than a month of fighting behind them, their supply lines grew longer every day, and the fuel lorries could not keep up. British commanders also remembered how in February, after the Battle of Beda Fomm, a pursuit across the desert had cut off the Italians’ retreat, but this time the enemy was more careful. Rommel’s main concern was to cover the bottleneck at Agedabia, through which the whole army had to pass, and he had sent a strong covering force there even before the retreat from Gazala.

The retreat was an ordeal for the soldiers of both sides: winter rains, cold nights, mud on the desert tracks, air attacks on the columns on the coast road. On 22 December Rommel wrote to his wife that he was short of ammunition and fuel and had no air support, and on 23 December that he would probably manage to bring the main force out of the encirclement. The British took Derna and the road through the Jebel Akhdar in turn, and on 24 December their leading units entered Benghazi. In a letter of 25 December Rommel noted with satisfaction that the British had not cut off his route and had found neither fuel nor food in Benghazi. By 25 December his troops had taken up positions around Agedabia: the infantry in makeshift positions on both sides of the town, the Afrika Korps and the Italian Mobile Corps in reserve for a mobile defence.

The battleship convoy

Rommel was falling back on his supply bases, and in the second half of December these began to fill up. After the disaster of the Duisburg convoy in November and further losses, the Italians were carrying fuel to Derna and Benghazi in warships, and on 13 December two fast cruisers carrying fuel for Tripoli were sunk by British destroyers off Cape Bon. That same day convoy M41 came to grief: a British submarine sank two of its ships, and the next day a submarine torpedoed the battleship Vittorio Veneto, which was covering it. The Regia Marina then committed almost its entire fleet. Convoy M42, of four ships, left Taranto on 16 December under the cover of four battleships, several cruisers and some twenty destroyers. On 17 December, in the First Battle of Sirte, Admiral Angelo Iachino clashed with the escort of Rear Admiral Philip Vian, who was covering a supply ship for besieged Malta. Both sides avoided a decisive engagement, and both got their ships through. On 18 December three ships of convoy M42 reached Tripoli, and on 19 December the German Ankara put into Benghazi, still in Axis hands. According to Rommel she brought two companies of tanks, artillery batteries and supplies – the first shipment of weapons since mid-November. That same night the British Force K from Malta, sent against the convoy, ran into an Italian minefield off Tripoli and lost a cruiser and a destroyer.

According to the British official history, by mid-December the Axis supply situation in Libya had improved, except for fuel. For Rommel, who was falling back on shorter supply lines while the British ones stretched to hundreds of kilometres, it was enough to rebuild his armoured strength.

Place in the war

The withdrawal from Gazala brought to a close Operation Crusader, which had begun on 18 November. The British relieved Tobruk and regained Cyrenaica, but they did not destroy Rommel’s army, which kept its cohesion, its staffs and its core of experienced units. The last act was played out at Agedabia. On 27 December the reconstituted 22nd Armoured Brigade went round the Axis positions by way of El Haseia, but in three days of armoured fighting the Afrika Korps, reinforced by tanks from the convoy, inflicted heavy losses on it; according to a note in the post-war edition of Rommel’s papers, it destroyed some 65 of the brigade’s tanks. Rommel considered that the year had ended with a “good finish”. The Comando Supremo, after long hesitation, agreed to a withdrawal to the positions at Mersa Brega, which the Axis forces occupied on 2–12 January 1942. On the Egyptian frontier Bardia capitulated on 2 January, Sollum on 12 January and the Halfaya Pass on 17 January.

The British victory proved short-lived. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, some of the troops and aircraft intended for Claude Auchinleck went to the Far East, and Kesselring’s German air force in Sicily began to neutralise Malta, opening the way to Libya for the convoys. In December the Mediterranean Fleet lost more ships, and on 19 December Italian human torpedoes put its last two battleships out of action at Alexandria. On 21 January 1942 Rommel went over to the offensive from the El Agheila positions; at the end of January he retook Benghazi, and at the beginning of February he was back at Gazala. There the front came to a halt for more than three months, until May 1942, when in the Battle of Gazala Rommel routed the Eighth Army and took Tobruk. The Carpathian Brigade, which in December had attacked the Gazala line, defended it from the other side in February 1942, and the dispute between Rommel, Bastico and Cavallero over who really commanded in Africa resurfaced with every subsequent retreat and offensive.