Mareth line

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Mareth Line Location and Operations March 1943
Infantry bunker of the Mareth Line
Scheme of the fortifications

The Mareth Line (also Gabes Line ) was a fortress line in southern Tunisia between the cities of Medenine and Gabès , south of the eponymous Mareth .

It was built by the French colonial power between 1936 and 1939 and originally served to protect Tunisia from an attack from Italian- occupied Libya . The line, about 35 kilometers long, was based in the southwest on the 800 meter high Matmata heights, which were impassable for wheeled vehicles, and met the Mediterranean in the northeast. Before the position, the Wadi Zigzaou was a natural obstacle for armored vehicles. The position itself consisted of a series of concrete bunkers, gun emplacements, minefields and wire barriers.

In the first years of the Africa campaign during the Second World War , the Mareth line played no role. After the defeat of France, it has not been expanded since 1940 and began to deteriorate. After the defeat of the German-Italian Panzer Army Africa in the Battle of El Alamein (October 3, 1942 to November 10, 1942), the Axis forces began to withdraw to Tripolitania . They could only stay there until mid-December and then evaded the British 8th Army in the direction of Tunisia. By February 15, 1943, the Panzer Army Africa had brought its remaining forces to the Mareth Line. When their commander, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel , inspected the position, he was not very optimistic. In his opinion it was too weak and could be bypassed in the west (according to the historian Basil Liddell Hart it consisted only of bunkers behind the wadi, which had been connected with trenches; Winston Churchill , however, later described it as "excellently developed" ). He suggested the expansion of a position on Wadi Akarit 60 kilometers further north. But the Italian Comando Supremo forbade further disengagement movements and handed over command of the army (now Italian 1st Army ) to the Italian General Giovanni Messe , who set up defense in the Mareth line.

The British 8th Army's operations to overcome the Mareth Line began on March 19, 1943 ( Battle of the Mareth Line ). In addition to frontal attacks, British troops bypassed the Matmata Heights in the southwest and threatened the line of retreat of the Axis forces after a breakthrough. The latter evacuated the Mareth Line on March 27 and withdrew to Wadi Akarit.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reinhard Stumpf: The War in the Mediterranean 1942/43: The operations in North Africa and the central Mediterranean , p. 732
  2. ^ Kurt von Tippelskirch: History of the Second World War , Bonn 1956, p. 302
  3. ↑ Richard Collier: War in the desert , Eltville am Rhein 1980, p. 171
  4. ↑ Reinhard Stumpf: The War in the Mediterranean 1942/43: The operations in North Africa and the central Mediterranean , p. 736f.
  5. ^ Winston S. Churchill: The Second World War , Bern / Munich / Vienna 1985, p. 755
  6. ^ Basil Liddel Hart: History of the Second World War , Vol. 2, Bergisch Gladbach 1979, p. 559
  7. ↑ Brief description of the battles: Kurt von Tippelskirch: History of the Second World War , Bonn 1956, p. 304f; Richard Collier: War in the desert , Eltville am Rhein 1980, pp. 171–173; Basil Liddel Hart: History of the Second World War , Vol. 2, Bergisch Gladbach 1979, pp. 576-580

Web links

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