mm turrets, removed from Char 2C tanks built in 1918. At Ben Gardane an advanced position was built consisting of a square redoubt inside an anti-tank ditch with casemates on the flanks and concrete infantry shelters. Small triangular strongpoints at the corners were surrounded by anti-tank rail obstacles that continued around the position. The Mareth line was equipped with obsolescent 75 mm and 47 mm naval guns for anti-tank defence and a few new 25 mm anti-tank guns and infantry small arms. The artillery casemates with 75 mm guns and most of the blockhouses and casemates had embrasures for automatic weapons. In 1938 work the Mareth line was so important that work on coast defences was stopped and in 1939 the line was occupied by colonial divisions and some locally raised units. After the outbreak of the war, a line of advanced positions () was built on high ground at Aram south of the main line. Second World War Demilitarisation 1940, Axis occupation 1943 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 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 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 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 and by March 1943, more than 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. Medenine and Mareth The Axis forces opposing the Eighth Army were renamed the Italian 1st Army (General Giovanni Messe) on 23 February 1943 and attempted a spoiling attack, the Battle of Medenine (, Operation Capri).