The despair of the senior officers of Panzer Army was best summed up in the words of Stumme who commanded while Rommel was in Germany, 'We stop one hole only to tear another hole open. Freedom of manoeuvre is for the Army an absolute necessity.' As if to underline the complete misunderstanding of the situation facing Panzer Army which was held by OKH, an order was sent that all men who had served in Africa for longer than a year were to be returned to Germany. Then, the Malta [16] operation having been cancelled, the Ramcke Parachute Brigade, all of them specialists in parachute operations, were put into the line as ordinary infantry.
Throughout the long weeks of waiting British air supremacy kept the Germans in ignorance of the tremendous build-up of 8th Army strength but then came the first night of Alamein. A British force of 177,000 men, 2180 guns, 1110 tanks, and 700 aircraft faced an Axis force of 93,000 men, 1400 guns, 500 tanks, and 700 aircraft. The Panzer Army's 15th Panzer Division had only 3840 men, the 164th Division only 6343, 21st Panzer only 3972. and the 90th Light Division 2827 men. There were 24,173 men in the forward zone, including artillery and the flak division. Also in the front line sectors were 230 panzers with the Africa Corps and 300 with the Italians. There was no mobile reserve because there were neither troops, tanks, nor fuel to provide one.
The area of the 8th Army's assault and its power surprised Stumme and Rommel, who flew back from Germany immediately news came through, realised that it was too late to alter the situation. By the fourth day of battle the southern sector had to be robbed of men to fill out the northern flank and by 26 October the number of tanks with 15th Panzer had shrunk to 39 and to 98 with the 21st Panzer Division. Being less involved in the fighting the Italian tank losses had been correspondingly lighter. These figures were further reduced and on 27 October the Africa Corps had only 114 runners and the Italians 206. The losses in armour to 8th Army had been 215 machines.
The crisis in supplies was renewed and in desperation Rommel signalled to Hitler that the Army after 10 days of hard fighting against an overwhelmingly numerically superior enemy was exhausted. Shortage of petrol would condemn the non-motorised units to annihilation and even the mobile units had insufficient fuel to take them any great distance. Rommel's message concluded with the bitter forecast that Hitler must be prepared for the total destruction of the Army in Africa. The German commander had telegraphed no less than the truth for the artillery had no fuel to tow the guns and the panzer strength of the Corps had sunk to 30 machines.
Hitler's reply was characteristic: 'The German people follow with me ... the men of the Italian and German unjts in their heroic battles ... Not one step back. Victory or death.' This sort of armchair strategy did not suit Rommel who needed freedom of action. With Hitler's reluctant permission to move back to the Fuka pass came the usual promises of future supplies, including the improved 7.5cm anti-tank gun and the new 8.8cm weapon; but no immediate help could be given and in the retreat to take up the Fuka positions there were more serious losses when Montgomery's tank regiments, impatient for revenge, overhauled and smashed the less speedy Pavia, Brescia, and Folgore Divisions, wreaking such havoc that XX Corps was reduced to one weak battalion without tanks and Ariete was completely destroyed as a fighting force.
On 1 November a new and temporary front was built at Sollum and the panzer divisions held, as usual, the open desert flank against 8th Army's thrusts out of the sand seas. At every defensive line along which the Axis armies tried to halt the British advance certain situations repeated themselves. Firstly, the mobile troops would restrain for as long as possible 8th Army's assaults and appeals would be made by Rommel for permission to evacuate the non-motorised units of the Italian Army. From Hitler or from Mussolini would then come the order to hold the stated line to the last, but then they would finally give the authority to ferry back the Italian infantry to a new line. Lastly, in this series of frustrations the panzers would cover this withdrawal and conduct another fighting retreat to the next position, at which the same sequence of events would be repeated.
Rommel knew, as OKW and Commando Supremo must have known, that if the Panzer Army was to survive it must avoid a war of attrition and stay a potent force, for now there was a new menace.
On 8 November Anglo-American divisions had landed in Algeria and were racing for Tunisia aiming to cut off the Axis armies in the desert. If their drive succeeded then Panzer Army Africa and its Italian allies would be trapped, although Axis forces had been rushed to the Tunisian bridgeheads and the situation though desperate did not seem to be quite hopeless.
But in the desert it was clear that the whole of Cyrenaica would have to be abandoned and Rommel put forward a plan to dig in and to hold what line he could while the main of the Army was evacuated back to the mainland. Hitler rejected this plan and proposed to reinforce the army in Africa, supplying it with every requirement, but on the condition that the line of the Marsa el Brega position be held as a base for future operations.
The movement into these new positions was carried out in heavy rain which halted Montgomery's advance. The new defence line was a disaster. The so-called strong points were often 5 miles apart and not mutually supporting. The whole front covered 110 miles, that is a greater depth than at Alamein, with only 30,000 mines to form a barrier and with the open flank guarded by one unreliable, native battalion. Thus, with a weaker line, with fewer troops, and his losses not made good, Rommel was expected to delay the British advance indefinitely. Panzer Army was weak in numbers.
From an establishment of 264 anti-tank guns there were only 12 with the troops, and only 35 of the establishment strength of 371 tanks, 16 armoured cars from a total of 60, and 12 howitzers instead of 60. The Italian divisions which had been rushed across from the mainland to replace that army's losses were without front line experience and were, therefore, nothing but a dead weight of useless mouths to feed. There was no ammunition reserve, only three days supply of fuel and the army had had no bread for a week.
In view of his weakness and so that 8th Army's blow which would come in during the middle of December would strike into a vacuum, Rommel withdrew from El Agheila back to Marsa el Brega and the point from which the Africa Corps had set out with such high hopes 18 months previously. The whole of Marmarica and Cyrenaica had been given up and there was neither a geographical obstacle nor the forces available to hold back the British advance for any great period of time. The Gabes line in Tunisia was the next and best possible natural barrier and in view of the Allied and Axis landings in that country, a withdrawal of the Panzer Army into that region could be made without infringeing French sensibilities.
Rommel demanded a withdrawal to Buerat as an interim measure only, presaging the anticipated move back to Gabes and pointed out that there would be no fuel for the portering of the Italian infantry at the height of the battle and that in such a retreat as he was proposing the speed of the slowest unit determined the pace of the whole. His force must remain mobile; there could be no question of being tied down to fight an attritive battle. It was imperative that the non-mobile infantry divisions be sent back to Buerat before the battle opened. A lost battle would mean not only the destruction of the army but that Tripolitania would be lost and the Axis' new bridgehead in Tunisia would be smashed. [17]