They had fought across virtually the whole North African shore to the east of Tunisia after winning a victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein in November 1942.

First Army controlled the forces that had landed in Morocco and Algeria in November 1942 in the first of the great Allied amphibious assaults of the war, Operation Torch.

One was overextension of lines of communication and the other was the greater concentration of German troops that the smaller defended area produced.

Rommel's veteran formations slammed into II Corps and the green American troops did not perform well.

250,000 men were taken prisoner, a number equal to that at Stalingrad on the Eastern Front earlier in the year.