| 1942 | |
| 4 November | The battle of El Alamein reaches its conclusion with a victory for Lt. Gen. Montgomery’s Eighth Army and a defeat for GFM Rommel’s Panzerarmee Afrika. |
| 5 November | Rommel’s forces are in full retreat and Montgomery’s armoured formations give chase, trying to cut off and capture as many of the enemy as possible by various manoeuvres across the desert. |
| 6 November | Attempts to trap the fleeing Axis forces at Fuka fail. |
| 8 November | Operation Torch lands Anglo-American forces in North Africa. These forces are gradually enlarged to form First Army. Rommel now has an enemy army to his front and his rear. |
| 11 November | After managing to evade being captured at Mersa Matruh, Rommel and his army cross over the Sollum Heights into Libya. |
| 13 November | Eighth Army reaches Tobruk and finds that Rommel’s forces have gone. |
| 19 November | Axis forces pull out of Benghazi and retreat into the El Agheila positions. |
| 14 December | Montgomery launches his attack at El Agheila but finds that the bulk of Rommel’s army has pulled out, falling back on a new line at Buerat. |
| 1943 | |
| 14 January | Anticipating Eighth Army’s attack, Panzerarmee Afrika withdraws from Buerat towards a new position at Homs. |
| 15 January | Montgomery attacks the Buerat Line only to find that most of the enemy have departed leaving just rearguards behind. |
| 20 January | Rommel has no intention of holding the line at Homs or the port of Tripoli, and starts a staged withdrawal which will take him from Libya into Tunisia and the defences of the Mareth Line. |
| 23 January | Eighth Army arrives in Tripoli to much celebration. |
| 15 February | Eighth Army begins arriving in force in the area in front of the Mareth Line. Its long supply chain stretching back hundreds of kilometres is severely stretched and it will take weeks before it is ready to mount an assault. |
| 17 February | Rommel uses the pause to exploit the exposed nature of the Anglo-American force in Tunisia and helps Gen. von Arnim’s 5. Panzerarmee to launch a surprise attack on the Americans at Kasserine. |
| 6 March | Generale Messe, now in command of what has become Italian First Army, |
| launches, at Rommel’s suggestion, a spoiling attack on Montgomery’s forces before they are ready to launch their own attack on the Mareth defences. Operation Capri fails miserably. | |
| 9 March | GFM Rommel leaves Africa never to return. |
| 20 March | Montgomery launches Operation Pugilist against the Mareth Line. Its limited strength of just one division, 50th Division, is not capable of withstanding a counterattack by 15. Panzer-Division and is forced back to its start line. An outflanking move by New Zealand Corps through the Tebaga Gap also fails. |
| 23 March | Montgomery changes his plans and decides to make the Tebaga Gap his main assault and reinforces the New Zealand Corps with HQ X Corps and 1st Armoured Division. |
| 26 March | Lt. Gen. Horrocks’ X Corps launches Operation Supercharge II and drives through the Tebaga Gap to outflank the defences at Mareth. The enemy retreats north of Gabes to a new position at Wadi Akarit. |
| 6 April | Eighth Army attacks the enemy line at Wadi Akarit. By the end of the day, after heavy fighting, Gen. Messe realizes that the position is untenable and gives the order for a retreat to a new position at Enfidaville 240km to the north. |
| 16 April | Eighth Army closes up to positions at Enfidaville but intends to execute only limited attacks leaving First Army to continue the drive towards Tunis. |
| 3 May | First Army launches Operation Strike, the final offensive to take Tunis. |
| 13 May | All Axis forces in Tunisia surrender to the Allies; the war in North Africa is over. |