The Battle of Kasserine PassThe series of engagements in and around the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia marked the first time American forces engaged in full-scale combat against German forces in the Second World War. As they entered the campaign, the general feeling among the Americans was one of great confidence in their ability to rapidly defeat the Axis forces arrayed before them in the North African desert. A recent study argues, “the American military had been animated mostly by can-do zeal and a desire to win expeditiously; these traits eventually would help carry the day, but only when tempered with battle experience and strategic sensibility.”{1} However, at Kasserine, “Axis troops ... struck a blow and delivered a crushing defeat ... on the Americans and the French.”{2}IntroductionIn combat encounters comprising the Battle of Kasserine Pass, “German and Italian troops drove French and American soldiers from the Eastern Dorsale mountain range fifty miles across the Sbeitla Plain to the Western Dorsale, where the Allies stopped the attack and prevented the Axis from expanding a tactical triumph into a strategic success.”{3} Following on the heels of the early success of Operation Torch and the Allied drive into Tunisia, the American military believed it had demonstrated its combat prowess, and the defeat at Kasserine proved to be a shock to both the US Army and the public at home. In his treatise on the Battle of Kasserine Pass, Martin Blumenson asserts, “to the American people, the event was incredible. It shook the foundations of their faith, extinguished the glowing excitement that anticipated quick victory, and, worst of all, raised doubt that the righteous necessarily triumphed.”{4}Using personal papers and reflections of Captain Ernest C. Hatfield, U.S. Army, as a primary source, this study will analyze the Battle of Kasserine Pass from an operational perspective to determine why the Allied forces were dealt such a defeat. Specifically, this essay will…