179 - Time to Fire Rommel? - WW2 - January 29, 1943

by Panzer
What? They want to fire who?
Who???
Rommel? What?
The... ROMMEL Rommel? THE Rommel?
But he's like the big star; the world-famous military genius.
But they still want to remove him from Africa?
All of them?
All of them...
Wow. That's sudden.
Yeah, alright. See you!
January 29th 1943
We've seen disagreement and often confusion among Allied High Command, with different
war aims or short term goals clashing, even differing ideologies.
Well, this week they make a stab at fixing that, this week they get their priorities
in order.
I'm Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.
Last week the Soviets continued trying to liquidate the Stalingrad Pocket, though they
succeeded in destroying the Germans trapped at Velikie Luki.
Soviet attacks from Voronezh down to the Caucasus continued and continued taking territory everywhere.
The Japanese were pushed back on both New Guinea and Guadalcanal, the Casablanca Conference
was still in progress in North Africa, and in Tunisia the Axis attacked into the Ousseltia
Valley.
The fighting there continues as this week begins, though it stops the 24th with the
German lines 7 or 8 km west of where they were a week ago.
The Americans take over 200 casualties, but the French are the real losers here, with
over 3,000 POWs lost.
A big problem has been that Henri Giraud has refused to integrate the French into the Allied
command structure, but after this, he agrees to allow Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower
to give Kenneth Anderson command of the entire Tunisian Front, British, French, and American
troops alike.
This means that Lloyd Fredendall's 32,000 men of Second Corps will join the 67,000 British
and Americans already in 1st Army.
Until the drive to Tunis can be resumed once the ground is dry, 2nd Corps is to play defense
on the Allied right flank, and 1st armored division is to be a concentrated mobile reserve.
Or is it?
Because Eisenhower then authorizes some of the armor to reinforce the valley and Fredendall
sends others to help in different raids.
"Instead of being 'well concentrated'…the division was soon scattered across southern
Tunisia.
As in the initial planning for SATIN, Eisenhower had issued ambiguous directives and then failed