WORLD HISTORY AND FACTS

After two and a half years of combat, the war in North Africa approached its final conclusion as two Allied armies, the British Eighth and the Anglo-American First, entrapped two Axis armies, the German Fifth and the Italian First, in Tunisia.  Eventually, this contest would pit 19 Allied divisions against nine German and five Italian divisions. Early in this contest, the Axis launched a series of limited counter-attacks against the Allied forces in Tunisia from the beginning of January through the first week in March.  These were largely German affairs, although Italian forces did play minor roles in some of the undertakings. The first of these targeted French positions in the Fondouk Pass, resulting in a German consolidation of the Eastern Dorsals and the seizure of some 4,000 French prisoners.  The Germans next moved against the American II Corps on First Army’s southern flank. During a ten-day battle culminating in the Kasserine Pass, the Germans sharply rebuked the largely unteste