***Unfortunately the Allied Official Histories of WW2 & ¡¡¡WIKIPEDIA!!! ignore the important role of the Italian Bersaglieri & 131st Centauro Armoured Division, preferring you to believe it was a German victory.***


However, historian & former US senator Brian John Murphy has written that:

"Axis forces also made a breakthrough on Highway 13, where the Italians of the Centauro Division SPEARHEADED the attack. In the early morning hours, the Italians pressed their offensive, broke through the remains of the American line, and continued up Highway 13." (Source: [ Ссылка ] Facing The Fox, Brian John Murphy, America in WWII, April 2006)

Peter Hoffman, Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg's official biographer has written that:

"Rommel returned to the railway station at Kasserine which briefly served as the combined command post of the German Africa Corps and the 10th Panzer Division, and ordered these two formations to take the Kasserine Pass. In the evening dusk Rommel observed, as he dictated for his diary, 'the exciting scene of the tank battle north of the pass'. He had SPECIAL PRAISE for the 7th Bersaglieri, who attacked fiercely and whose commander fell during the attack; they threw the American, British and French forces out of the pass ..." (Stauffenberg: A Family History, 1905-1944, Peter Hoffman, p.171, McGill-Queen's Press, 2008)

The 5th Bersaglieri Reenactment Unit reveals that:

"With the available GERMAN TROOPS EXHAUSTED and still waiting for German reinforcements to arrive, Rommel now ordered the two battalions of the 5th Bersaglieri Regiment (XIV & XXII Battalions, +-1,000 Infantry) forward to the attack. The Italians dismounted form their trucks and backed up by their mortars and the available artillery made a frontal assault on the surrounding ridges. The regimental assault companies and the heavy weapons platoons were sent forward, attacking at several suspected weak points in the Allied defensive lines. A successful breach was made about noon in the frontline minefields and defensive positions and some 800 Bersaglieri infantry stormed forward through the captured frontline strong points." ([ Ссылка ] 5th Bersaglieri Regiment)

Even US historian Bruce Watson concedes that the tanks from the 'Centauro' Division were Rommel's armoured vanguard in the push through Kasserine Pass before the Germans swung south and north to attack the British defending Thala & the Amercicans defending Tebessa:

"At 4:30 P.M., 20 February, Axis troops rolled through Kasserine Pass. A battalion of the Centauro Division headed west on the road to Tebessa ... The battlegroup from the 10th Panzer Division under Fritz von Broich FOLLOWED the Centauro battalion into the pass but headed north following the branch road toward Thala." (Exit Rommel: The Tunisian Campaign, 1942-43, Bruce Watson, p. 102, Stackpole Books, 2006)

The German attacks on Thala and Tebessa were failures along with the earlier failed German attacks on Sbiba & Kasserine Pass, until the Italians took over & paved the way through Kasserine Pass & even Highway 13 leading to Tebessa.

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