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Mareth Line

The Mareth Line was a system of fortifications built by France in southern Tunisia in the late 1930s. The line was intended to protect Tunisia against an Italian invasion from its colony in Libya. The line occupied a point where the routes into Tunisia from the south converged, leading toward Mareth, with the Mediterranean Sea to the east and mountains and a sand sea to the west.

Mareth Line

2,200 ft (670 m)

25 mi (40 km)

French colonial administration of Tunisia

French army (1939–1940)

German–Italian Panzer Army (Deutsch-Italienische Panzerarmee/Armata Corazzata Italo-Tedesca) [1943]

Derelict

1936 (1936)

French colonial administration of Tunisia and French Army

March 1943 (March 1943)

reinforced concrete

Abandoned after 1943

Battle of the Mareth Line

The line ran along the north side of Wadi Zigzaou for about 50 km (31 mi) south-westwards from the Gulf of Gabès to Cheguimi and the Djebel (mountain) Matmata on the Dahar plateau between the Grand Erg Oriental (Great Eastern Sand Sea) and the Matmata hills. The Tebaga Gap, between the Mareth line and the Great Eastern Sand Sea, a potential route by which an invader could outflank the Mareth line, was not surveyed until 1938.


After the French Armistice of 22 June 1940, the Mareth Line was demilitarised under the supervision of an Italo-German commission. Tunisia was occupied by Axis forces after Operation Torch in 1942 and the line was refurbished and extended by Axis engineers into a defensive position by building more defences between the line and Wadi Zeuss 3.5 mi (5.6 km) to the south but French-built anti-tank gun positions were too small for Axis anti-tank guns which had to be sited elsewhere.


The Battle of Medenine (6 March 1943) against the Eighth Army was a costly failure. At the Battle of the Mareth Line (16–31 March 1943) the Eighth Army was contained within the Mareth Line defences. An outflanking move west and north of the Mareth Line was followed by Operation Supercharge II which broke through the Axis defences of the Tebaga Gap and led them to retreat from the Mareth Line to Wadi Akarit. The Mareth Line is derelict and is commemorated at the Mareth Museum.

Background[edit]

French strategy[edit]

In the 1930s the defence of the French colonial empire (French Indochina, Pacific Islands, West Indies, African colonies and Syria–Lebanon) was left to the French Foreign Legion, colonial and "native" units, the Marine nationale (Navy) and the Armée de l'Air (Air Force). By the late 1930s, the Navy had only one aircraft carrier and the Armée de l'Air could spare only second-rate aircraft. Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia provided much of the manpower of the Armée coloniale and Tunisia, with the Italian colony of Libya to the east, was excepted from the priority given to the defence of metropolitan France.[1] French plans for defence of Tunisia assumed that Italy would launch an overwhelming assault that France could not easily oppose. Italy was expected to launch attacks on Egypt and Tunisia as soon as war was declared, with the Italian Navy securing supply and blocking any substantial Anglo-French relief. With a force of six divisions, a fortress division and a cavalry division to defend Tunisia, capable of only local operations with limited objectives. The French army considered the construction of a "Maginot Line in the desert" (ligne Maginot du désert).[2][a]

Geography[edit]

Central Tunisia is dominated by the Atlas Mountains, while the northern and southern portions are largely flat. The primary feature in the south is the Matmata Hills, a range running north-south roughly parallel to the Mediterranean coast. West of the hills, the land is the inhospitable Jebel Dahar and the Dehar region of desert beyond to the west, making the region between the hills and the coast the only easily traversed approach to northern Tunisia.[4] A smaller line of hills runs east–west along the northern edge of the Matmata range, further complicating this approach. At the far northern end of the Matmata Hills is the Tebaga Gap. From the Mediterranean the coastal plain rises gently to the Matmata Hills. The plain consists of gravels and sands, with salt flats between the sandy areas, which turn into bogs after light rain becoming impassable to wheeled vehicles. There are numerous wadis from the hills to the sea, including the bigger Wadi Zeuss and Wadi Zigzaou. Inland, the sources of the wadis are steep and rocky, widening near the coast, the beds having streams or muddy bottoms, with firmer areas traversable by vehicles.[5]

Second World War[edit]

Demilitarisation 1940, Axis occupation 1943[edit]

The Second World War began in 1939 but the Mareth Line was inactive from 1939 to 1940, as Italy remained neutral until a few days before the Armistice of 22 June 1940, after which, the line was demilitarised by an Italo-German commission. In November 1942, the British Eighth Army (General Bernard Montgomery) defeated Panzerarmee Afrika at the Second Battle of El Alamein and the British First Army landed in French North Africa in Operation Torch. Axis forces occupied Tunisia in the Tunisia Campaign and from November 1942 to March 1943, the Panzerarmee conducted a fighting retreat through Egypt and Libya, pursued by the Eighth Army. In March the Eighth Army reached the Libya–Tunisia border and paused at Medenine to prepare to attack the Mareth Line. Axis engineers built an outpost zone from Wadi Zeuss 3.5 mi (5.6 km) back to the Mareth Line. Field fortifications were constructed at Sidi el Guelaa, south of Aram on the main road from Medinine to Mareth, around Aram and at Bahira. The Mareth Line was refurbished for occupation by the Panzerarmee and by March 1943, more than 62 miles (100 km) of barbed wire, 100,000 anti-tank mines and 70,000 anti-personnel mines had been laid, bunkers had been reinforced with concrete and armed with anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns.[8]

Post war[edit]

After the Battle of the Mareth Line, the defences were left to become derelict and are commemorated at the Mareth Museum at Gabès.[14]

Dear, I. C. B., ed. (2001). The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  0-19-860446-7.

ISBN

Gauché, Maurice (1953). Le Deuxième Bureau au Travail, 1935–1940 [The at Work]. Archives d'histoire contemporaine (in French). Paris: Amiot Dumont. OCLC 3093195.

Deuxième Bureau

Prior-Palmer, Brigadier G. E. (March 1946). "II, Medenine to Tunis". . Hanover: H.Q. 8th Armoured Brigade. Retrieved 3 June 2015. no isbn

A Short History of the 8th Armoured Brigade

Stevens, Major-General W. G. (1962). "8–10". . The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945. Wellington, NZ: Historical Publications Branch. OCLC 4377202.

Bardia to Enfidaville

Strader, J. W. Tactical Bomber Operations in the ETO (1944)

Travel tips to visit the Mareth Line museum