Italian First Army

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The Italian First Army was an Italian army formation, in World War I, facing Austro-Hungarian and German forces, and in World War II, fighting on the North African front.

During World War I, the First Army participated in the defense of Caporetto, against combined Austro-Hungarian and German divisions in October 1917. It faced several defeats before being pushed back several dozen miles.

In World War II, after Panzer Army Africa's defeat at the Second Battle of El Alamein and the Operation Torch landings on northwestern Africa in November 1942, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was forced to make one of the longest retreats in history, evacuating the "Western Desert" of Egypt and Libya and establishing a defense on the Mareth Line in southern Tunisia. After establishing the Mareth Line Rommel took command of the newly created Army Group Africa and turned over the German-Italian Panzer Army (former Panzer Army Africa) to Italian General Giovanni Messe, renamed as the Italian First Army, on February 23, 1943.

Messe's First Army took part in Rommel's attempt to break through the Kasserine Pass along with General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim. The First Army attacked Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's British Eighth Army at Medenine, just in front of the Mareth Line. However, the First Army was crushingly defeated, and Rommel's and Arnim's attempts for a breakthrough also failed.

By the end of May, Allied troops had captured all of North Africa, and Messe's First Army was part of the 270,000 Axis troops taken prisoner.