Chapter 17 - The Tide Turns in North Africa: El Alamein to Tunisia

The war reached another turning point in October 1942, even before the start of the Soviet counteroffensive at Stalingrad. This one involved the defeat of Rommel's Axis forces at El Alamein in Egypt. Even though it came in a much less important theater of operations, it has received at least as much attention as the German debacle in Russia. But, as in the Pacific and Russia, the Axis held the initiative during much of 1942. And, once again its victories proved to be a prelude to disaster. Before the end of the year, Rommel's vaunted Afrika Korps was in full retreat across Libya and faced still another danger from the west. Anglo-American forces had invaded the French colonies of Morocco and Algeria in early November and had driven eastward into Tunisia. There the Axis would make its last desperate stand in Africa in a struggle that would last until May 1943 and would end with another mass surrender.

THE "SIDESHOW" IN NORTH AFRICA

Hitler had always considered North Africa as a sideshow. Once he committed himself to the invasion of the Soviet Union, the North African campaign represented a drain on German resources, which he hoped to keep as slight as possible. Some observers have pointed to this as a great missed opportunity on Hitler's part. They argue that had he been willing to concentrate on North Africa, he might have conquered Egypt and the Suez Canal and driven on to seize the oil fields of the Middle East. Rommel certainly thought so. He pleaded repeatedly for reinforcements and more equipment to enable him to complete the conquest of Egypt and advance beyond. But Hitler and the Wehrmacht leaders chose to keep him on a short leash while concentrating on the Eastern Front. In reality, even if Hitler had been willing and able to allot greater resources to this theater, it appears highly doubtful that the Germans could have conquered Egypt, not to speak of the Middle East, because of the huge logistic problems involved.

The distance from Tripoli, the main Axis port in western Libya, to the British naval base at Alexandria in Egypt is over 1,300 miles, more than twice the distance from the prewar Soviet-Polish border to Moscow. The port of Tripoli had limited capacity, and the Germans had to transport supplies from there for hundreds of miles along a single road. Rommel was also short of trucks. There were other ports east of Tripoli, but they were all far inferior in capacity. Coastal shipping was also in short supply. These logistic facts made it impossible for the Germans to supply large forces and extremely difficult for them to supply the troops they did have in North Africa. British air and naval forces, operating from the island of Malta south of Sicily, also harassed Rommel's supply line across the Mediterranean. The Axis considered an invasion of Malta to eliminate this threat, but nothing came of it. They did, however, subject the island to intense bombing and inflicted severe damage on British convoys attempting to supply Malta.

After Rommel's 1941 spring offensive bogged down along the Libyan-Egyptian border, he tried repeatedly to dislodge the British force that held Tobruk, the bypassed port on his left flank. But the British clung tenaciously to the town, in large part to prevent the Axis from obtaining a port close to the front. Although the acquisition of Tobruk certainly would have helped Rommel, it actually had limited importance because of the harbor's inadequate capacity and the Axis shortage of coastal shipping.

The British hoped to regain the initiative, and General Wavell made an attempt to oust the Axis forces from their border positions and relieve the Tobruk garrison in May. But Rommel proved as skillful in defense as he had in offensive operations, and the attack failed. Meanwhile, Churchill had sent reinforcements, including tanks, to Egypt and prevailed upon Wavell to undertake a second and more powerful offensive in June. The British employed a flanking movement, which caught Rommel by surprise, but then followed up with direct attacks against Axis armor and antitank guns at Halfaya ("Hellfire") Pass. Although they were at a considerable numerical disadvantage in tanks, the Axis forces handled their armor much better than the British, who still tended to group their tanks in packets rather than in large concentrations. The Germans also effectively adapted their 88-millimeter antiaircraft gun for use as an antitank weapon. British Matilda tanks, which had been so efficient against the Italians, proved vulnerable to the 88. Rommel's troops forced the British to withdraw back to Egypt.

Churchill considered Wavell's handling of the operation to be overly cautious and replaced him with General Claude Auchinleck. Wavell actually exchanged positions with Auchinleck, who had been commander in chief in India and had spent most of his career there. He had also commanded operations in northern Norway in 1940 and later organized the defense of southern Britain against the invasion that never came. Quiet and popular with his men, he was receptive to new ideas, but, like most British generals at this time, knew little about armored warfare. Auchinleck soon obtained reinforcements and formed the new 8th Army. But he bluntly resisted Churchill's insistent prodding for another offensive until he considered his forces strong enough to defeat Rommel and relieve Tobruk.

Auchinleck chose General Alan Cunningham to lead the 8th Army. The brother of the Mediterranean Fleet commander, Cunningham came to Egypt from East Africa, where he had directed the victory over the Italians earlier in 1941. But he had accomplished this famous exploit with much smaller forces and had no experience handling large armored units. During the following months British strength grew steadily, giving them a greater numerical superiority than they had enjoyed in their June offensive. British tanks were considerably more plentiful than those of the Germans, but they were inferior in quality to Rommel's Panzer III and Panzer IV models.

Auchinleck finally launched his offensive on November 18 with the intention of relieving Tobruk, but heavy fighting erupted around the Sidi Rezegh escarpment. Again the Axis forces outclassed their opponents in the use of armor. Rommel boldly directed a column around the British southern flank, hoping to shake Cunningham's confidence and force another withdrawal. He succeeded at first. Cunningham, whose morale had reached a low ebb, believed the battle was lost. But Auchinleck refused to break off the offensive. He replaced Cunningham with General Neil Ritchie and ordered the 8th Army to hold its ground. Rommel, now in a highly vulnerable forward position and still at a disadvantage in strength, had no choice but to fall back, enabling the British to relieve Tobruk. His flight continued throughout December all the way to El Agheila, the point from which he had launched his offensive in the previous spring.

Meanwhile, the outbreak of war in East Asia led to the shift of two Allied divisions and an armored brigade as well as four fighter squadrons from North Africa to southeast Asia. Rommel sensed that conditions were favorable for a counterattack, which he delivered on January 21, 1942. His forces outmaneuvered the British and forced them to withdraw to a fortified position running southward from Gazala, about 35 miles west of Tobruk. Here Rommel once more encountered supply problems, and a lull developed in the campaign while both sides built up their strength and prepared to take the offensive in the spring.

ROMMEL DRIVES INTO EGYPT

Rommel struck first. He unleashed a major offensive on May 26. Although he had obtained some reinforcements, he was still inferior to the British in armor but now had air superiority. He also had another advantage. Axis intelligence had broken the code used by the U.S. military representative in North Africa, which provided detailed information on British intentions and troop dispositions. Rommel used another wide flanking attack in an attempt to swing north to the sea and cut off the British defenders. Auchinleck had received Ultra warnings of the impending assault, although they gave no help as to where the Axis would strike. He nevertheless guessed correctly that Rommel would combine an attack in the center with a thrust around the desert flank. Auchinleck recommended that Ritchie mass the bulk of his armor so that he direct it in strength wherever it was most needed. But Ritchie ignored this advice and left his tanks scattered in various areas. Indeed, Ritchie lacked the experience to command in the field at this critical moment. He had served ably as a staff officer for 20 years but had not held a battlefield leadership role since World War I. Auchinleck had originally intended his appointment to be temporary and had actually directed field operations himself in the crucial days immediately following Cunningham's dismissal.

When Rommel opened his offensive, he soon realized that his forces were not strong enough to complete their initial thrust. Accordingly, he switched to a defensive position and lured Ritchie into attacking him. The Axis troops then made effective use of their antitank guns to wear down the British, who suffered such heavy losses in piecemeal assaults that Rommel was able to resume his offensive. Ritchie withdrew toward Egypt while one British force fell back on Tobruk. This time Rommel attacked the town before the British could consolidate their position. His troops quickly overran the defenders and captured 35,000 prisoners as well as vast quantities of fuel, food, and drinking water on May 21. These supplies enabled them to thrust deeply into Egyptian territory. They reached El Alamein, 60 miles west of Alexandria, on June 30. Hitler rewarded Rommel for his dramatic success by promoting him to field marshal.

Auchinleck was determined to make his stand at the El Alamein position. It was ideal for defense, taking the form of a 36-mile bottleneck between the Mediterranean to the north and the impassable salt marshes and soft sand of the Quattara Depression to the south. This meant that the Axis forces could not outflank El Alamein and thus could only take it by frontal assault. Auchinleck dismissed Ritchie and took over personal command of the 8th Army. He was able to consolidate his defenses while Rommel encountered problems. The supplies, which the Germans had captured at Tobruk, were dwindling, and they were running short of armor.

Rommel tried, nevertheless, to break through at El Alamein in early July. But Auchinleck's forces held firm, although their subsequent counterattack failed to dislodge the Axis troops. This struggle, the First Battle of El Alamein, to a considerable extent marked the turning point of the North African campaign, even though Rommel remained dangerous until August. It represented a personal triumph for Auchinleck and a major contribution to the ultimate Allied victory. In the months that followed, Britain sent a stream of reinforcements and supplies to the 8th Army, including many American Sherman and Grant tanks which mounted 75-mm guns. The British also regained predominance in the air.

Despite Auchinleck's success in stopping Rommel in the First Battle of El Alamein, the disasters that had preceded this victory and the failure of his counterattack afterward led to his ouster. Churchill appointed General Harold Alexander commander of the entire theater and placed General Bernard Montgomery in charge of the 8th Army. Alexander exuded an aura of contagious confidence. At age 25, he had commanded a battalion on the western front in World War I, being wounded three times and winning numerous decorations for bravery. In 1940, he guided the final stages of the Dunkirk evacuation before directing the defense of southern Britain. He took over command in Burma in 1941, just in time to supervise the long, arduous retreat to India. Although his new position made him Montgomery's superior, Alexander actually exercised little control over the headstrong leader of the 8th Army.

Montgomery, like General MacArthur, possessed an outsized ego and loved to be the focus of publicity. But if anything, he was more arrogant, certainly far more abrasive, and clearly the most controversial British general of the war. The son of an Anglican bishop, he had served on the western front of World War I and almost succumbed to a sniper's bullet. The war's carnage convinced him of the need for organization, training, and caution in military operations. He also took a deep personal interest in his soldiers' welfare and, in return, earned their devotion. "Monty," as he became known to the public, commanded a division in the BEF during 1940 and later all forces engaged in the defense of southwestern Britain. He also shared MacArthur's fondness for unusual headgear, but he preferred an Australian slouch hat and later a beret to the American's gold-bedecked cap.

These changes occurred in mid-August, just before Rommel's last attempt to gain a breakthrough at El Alamein. His plan involved another "right hook" maneuver followed by a thrust northward toward the sea. In addition to his usual numerical disadvantage in armor, Rommel suffered from poor health. He directed his attack against the Alma Halfa Ridge, a position that, ironically, Auchinleck had strengthened with a deep belt of fortifications before his dismissal. Montgomery also used a defensive plan that Auchinleck had devised. When Rommel's offensive failed, Montgomery claimed that the plan was his own and refused to grant any credit to his predecessor. Montgomery also had the help of detailed Ultra reports that indicated where Rommel would attack and the forces he would use. This struggle forced Rommel into a permanent defensive stance.

THE SECOND BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN

Montgomery was the master of the "set-piece" battle, an offensive in which the commander plans everything down to the last detail and amasses overwhelming manpower and materiel. If he had counterattacked immediately following the Battle of Alma Halfa, he might have cut off the German spearhead, which was in a highly vulnerable position. But Montgomery chose to eliminate any possibility of failure and refused to take action for almost two months. When he finally attacked in the Second Battle of El Alamein on October 23, his troops outnumbered the Axis forces 230,000 to 80,000. He also enjoyed an advantage in armor of 1,200 to 500, and only 210 of Rommel's tanks were of high quality. British command of the air was also overwhelming. Ultra reports continued to aid Montgomery as well. They provided information that enabled British submarines and aircraft to sink Axis shipping with cargoes bound for North Africa. Montgomery also gained a clear picture of Axis strength and morale, both before the offensive began and while it was in progress.

The British opened their offensive with an enormous artillery barrage that, though destructive, eliminated any chance of surprise. When the battle began, Rommel was not in Egypt. He had fallen victim to a severe case of boils, a common desert malady, and had flown to Germany for treatment. He did not return until two days after the start of the struggle. The bottleneck nature of the El Alamein position made it extremely difficult for attacking forces to maneuver under any circumstances. But Montgomery compounded the problem by concentrating most of his strength against a four-mile stretch of front near the northern end of the line. This enabled the Germans to bring firepower to bear against British armor, which also suffered heavy casualties in the extensive enemy mine fields. British tank losses were four times greater than those of their opponents, but the Axis could not afford even this ratio of attrition. By November 2, Rommel realized that he must retreat if he were to avoid total disaster. But Hitler, true to his "hold fast" mentality, delayed the withdrawal for two days.

Despite Rommel's earlier spectacular victories, his handling of this retreat was probably his greatest achievement. But he accomplished it only by taking over Italian motorized transport and ungallantly leaving most of his allies behind. Their sacrifice enabled 40,000 men to escape. The 8th Army followed, but Montgomery's pursuit lacked boldness. If he had acted with more vigor, he might have destroyed Rommel's forces. He did make several attempts to outflank the fleeing enemy, but these were too tentative and did not penetrate deeply enough to get the job done. Instead, Rommel was able to retreat into Libya. Meanwhile, in early November, British and American forces landed in French Morocco and Algeria and moved toward Tunisia, threatening the Afrika Korps from the west. This time there was no halt at El Agheila as the Axis troops continued their flight across Libya to Tripoli and beyond. By the end of 1942, Hitler's dream of victory in Egypt had faded into the grim prospect of total expulsion from North Africa. But to the British, the victory at El Alamein enabled them to finally breath easier and dare to hope for continued success. As Churchill noted, "This is not the end, nor is it even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

PROBLEMS OF A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE

The Allied invasion of French North Africa was actually the fruit of a disagreement over strategy that began soon after the entry of the United States into the war and persisted for several months. It reflected the often contentious and somewhat fragile nature of the Allied coalition. The alliance of Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union was just as much a marriage of convenience as the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939. It came into being in 1941 because all three powers had the same enemy, at least in Europe. Russia had not yet entered the war against Japan.

Britain and the United States enjoyed substantial agreement on basic war aims. And although the Western Allies frequently disagreed on strategy, they maintained a remarkable degree of cooperation. Both were democracies, detested the Nazi regime, and wanted to establish free governments in the countries that they planned to liberate from German rule. They also intended that those governments would be friendly toward them.

The Soviet Union, by contrast, had a totalitarian regime that harbored ambitions in Eastern Europe. To what extent Stalin had clearly thought out those ambitions in 1941, or for some time to come, is not clear. But he certainly intended to restore the Soviet borders that had existed prior to the German invasion. This, of course, would mean Russian control of eastern Poland, the Baltic states, Bessarabia, and Northern Bukovina as well as the territories that the Soviets had taken from Finland in the Winter War. However, as ruthless as he was as dictator, Stalin was also a realist who recognized the limits of power and believed strongly in spheres of influence. As long as the Western Allies acknowledged the Soviets' right to fulfill their war aims in Eastern Europe, he appears to have been willing to extend the same recognition to Britain and America in Western Europe and the Mediterranean.

Coalitions are notoriously difficult to hold together, and this one contained the seeds of disintegration right from the start. Soviet historians argued that a cold war between Russia and the West had existed for many decades before the period that we now refer to by that name. They contended that the Cold War was merely put on hold during World War II to facilitate the defeat of the common enemy, only to flourish anew in the war's aftermath. To be sure, the Western Powers had looked upon Russia with distaste and distrust well before the twentieth century. Both Americans and British had denounced the tsarist regime as an absolute monarchy in an age of rising democracy. Britain also had long feared Russian encroachment toward the Mediterranean, in the Middle East, and on the fringes of India as well as in East Asia. The United States disapproved of Russian ambitions in China. These concerns had been pushed to one side during World War I when all three powers fought Germany, but they emerged in a new form with the triumph of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution and the creation of the Soviet Union. For its part, the tsarist regime considered Britain and the United States to be economic bullies that threatened Russia's rightful sphere of influence. Later, the Bolsheviks viewed the Western Powers as hated capitalists who exploited the working classand threatened the very existence of the fledgling Soviet state. Stalin had been suspicious of the Western Powers throughout the 1930s, and he made the 1939 pact with Hitler in the hope of watching Germany fight it out with the British and the French. As for Britain and the United States, they had deplored the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Soviet seizure of eastern Poland and the Baltic states, and, most of all, the invasion of Finland. Yet when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, Churchill offered cooperation to Stalin without hesitation. He considered alliance with Russia infinitely preferable to continued British isolation in the struggle against Germany, and he quickly diverted arms to his new ally. Roosevelt also extended lend-lease aid to Stalin even before the U.S. entry into the conflict.

Both Britain and the United States approached the war, at least in part, as a moral crusade against Hitler and Nazism. The Atlantic Charter reflected this attitude. But the two countries differed on their interpretations of the document. Roosevelt saw the charter as having worldwide implications, including the right of British colonies to obtain independence. Churchill viewed it as applying only to nations that had lost their independence during the war. Stalin does not appear to have taken the charter seriously.

In December 1941, Churchill and the British chiefs of staff traveled to Washington to confer with Roosevelt and the U.S. service chiefs in the Arcadia Conference. These leaders confirmed the "Europe first" approach to the war, which the Allies had laid down in January, and stipulated that the Pacific and East Asia would remain of secondary importance until the defeat of Germany. The Allies also agreed to form a unified Anglo-American high command that would operate in Washington. This combined chiefs of staff organization consisted of the top military and naval leaders of the two countries. But since the British chiefs would be in Britain most of the time, Field Marshal Sir John Dill, a former army chief of staff, would remain in Washington as London's permanent representative.

During the Arcadia Conference, the Americans noted the close coordination that existed among the British chiefs of staff compared to their own lack of cooperation. The British had established a chiefs of staff committee, consisting of Churchill's representative, General Hastings Ismay, and the heads of the three services - Field Marshal Alan Brooke (army), Admiral Sir Dudley Pound (navy), and Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal (RAF). The United States had only the loosely linked Joint Board, which provided little real coordination.

In the aftermath of the conference, the Americans formed a joint chiefs of staff organization. It included General Marshall, Admiral King, and General H. H. Arnold, the head of the Army Air Force, as well as Roosevelt's personal representative, Admiral William Leahy, a former chief of naval operations. This body henceforth provided overall direction to the American war effort, under Roosevelt's supervision.

Britain and America confronted a dilemma in the unmistakable fact that the Soviet Union carried the predominant burden of the war against Germany from 1941 to 1944. This proved embarrassing to Roosevelt and Churchill and was a deterrent to their hopes of modifying Soviet ambitions in Eastern Europe. They were hardly in a position to be demanding on this point, given the magnitude of the Soviet war effort.

The lack of a massive Western contribution in 1942 angered Stalin, especially during the summer and fall, when the Germans were driving toward Stalingrad and the Caucasus. To be sure, the British were fighting Rommel in North Africa, but this was a sideshow, involving relatively small numbers. The desert struggle was also far away from Germany and could bring little direct relief to the Soviet Union. Britain did begin heavy bombing raids against German cities in 1942, but despite extensive damage inflicted by these attacks, they had relatively little impact on Germany's war industries.

ALLIED DIFFERENCES ON STRATEGY

Stalin insisted that Britain and the United States open a second front by undertaking a cross-channel invasion of Nazi-occupied France in 1942. Such an operation would place them in a position to drive directly on Germany and force Hitler to divert troops from the eastern front. U.S. leaders, including Secretary of War Stimson and General Marshall, shared Stalin's interest in a cross-channel assault. They argued that once established in western France, the Allies could thrust toward the heart of Germany by the shortest route. To them, every other potential theater of operations was of secondary importance. The British, however, preferred a more flexible approach, which recognized the need to invade Western Europe but also emphasized the exploitation of other opportunities, especially in the Mediterranean.

The division of opinion reflected long-standing differences regarding strategy in the two countries. Since the Civil War, American military leaders had focused almost entirely on the belief that the chief objective of strategy was the destruction of the enemy's ground forces and that everything else must be subordinated to this. The American approach was preeminently a military one and relegated political and economic considerations to secondary importance. British leaders had traditionally given much greater weight to these factors. Their approach reflected Britain's worldwide political and economic interests as well as its dominant position on the high seas. During the wars of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the British had created alliances, in which their continental allies assumed most of the burden of land combat. This freed Britain from the need to recruit a mass army and enabled it to pursue a peripheral strategy with the aid of its powerful navy. The British struck at various enemy strongholds and in the process often acquired additional territories for their empire. Britain also used its navy to enforce a blockade, strangling enemy trade. World War I had been something of an exception to this approach, in that Britain had adopted conscription to create a mass army for the first time. This did not prevent it from nibbling at the periphery, however, most notably the unsuccessful Churchill-inspired attempt to seize the Turkish straits leading to the Black Sea and Russia. Memories of the awful carnage on the Western Front had made the British fearful of another bloodbath and less than enthusiastic about a cross-channel invasion.

In keeping with his preference for a peripheral strategy, Churchill broached the possibility of an Allied landing in French North Africa during the Arcadia Conference. At that time, Auchinleck's British 8th Army was pursuing Rommel across eastern Libya toward El Agheila. Churchill proposed that Allied troops occupy the French colonies of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, which bordered Libya on the west. This would threaten Rommel's rear and, it was hoped, lead to his expulsion from Africa. Roosevelt was sympathetic to such an undertaking, and the two civilian leaders and their military staffs agreed that this would be the major operation of 1942. They indicated that any invasion of the European mainland would have to wait until 1943.

But the failure of Auchinleck's offensive to gain decisive results and Allied setbacks in East Asia dashed hopes for an early invasion of French North Africa. The Japanese triumphs necessitated the diversion of ships, troops, and planes to the Pacific and delayed the possibility of an assault against the French possessions.

In the weeks that followed the Arcadia Conference, American military leaders became increasingly skeptical of the proposed North African operation. Stimson, Marshall, and General Dwight Eisenhower, the chief of the War Department's operations division, agreed that such an undertaking would only divert strength away from a cross-channel invasion of Europe. They developed an alternative plan in March 1942 that called for an immediate buildup of Allied strength in Britain preliminary to a cross-channel invasion in the spring of 1943 (Operation Roundup). But they also saw the possibility of a smaller landing on the coast of France (Operation Sledgehammer) as early as the fall of 1942. They recommended the latter if it proved necessary to divert German troops away from the Eastern Front or if other developments posed the likelihood of a successful undertaking of this type.

Initially, the British response was favorable, and they accepted the proposal in principle. But from the start, top British leaders, especially Field Marshal Brooke, had strong reservations about Sledgehammer. After studying the possibility of an invasion in 1942, Brooke came to the conclusion that the Allies were not strong enough to undertake such an operation. Specifically, he pointed to shortages of troops, equipment, and landing craft. Brooke had succeeded Dill as army chief of staff shortly before the Arcadia Conference. Previously, he had commanded a corps in France and had skillfully conducted the evacuation of BEF troops from Dunkirk. Brooke felt little confidence in the strategic sense or command ability of his American allies and quickly emerged as the foremost British opponent of a cross-channel invasion.

Brooke gained Churchill's support for his opposition to Sledgehammer, and the prime minister pressed Roosevelt to abandon plans for a possible cross-channel invasion in 1942. In its place he urged a return to the original proposal to land in French North Africa. Although the debate continued for weeks, Roosevelt eventually accepted Churchill's argument. His decision angered Marshall, and the general now sided with Admiral King and urged Roosevelt to resist the proposed North African operation and, if necessary, abandon the "Europe first" strategy and concentrate on the Pacific. But his effort failed. Roosevelt had definitely abandoned Sledgehammer and insisted that Western forces undertake an offensive somewhere in the general European theater in 1942. He could see no alternative to North Africa.

Roosevelt made his decision in part because of his desire to convince the Soviets that the Western Allies were determined to fight the Germans. But he also realized that many Americans favored gaining revenge for Pearl Harbor by concentrating on the Pacific, and he hoped to involve them emotionally in the war against Hitler. All these factors led to a compromise. Roosevelt ordered the military to go along with a North African invasion (Operation Torch), and he continued to view Europe as the crucial objective. But he also agreed to divert stronger forces to the Pacific, and during 1942 and most of 1943, more American forces operated in the Pacific than in the European theater.

Critics have contended since the war that Churchill was fundamentally opposed to any invasion of Western Europe, but this is probably an exaggeration. To be sure, the prime minister remembered the bloodbath on the western front in World War I and wanted to avoid another. Such fears certainly played an important part in his opposition to Sledgehammer. But his primary concern appears to have been to avoid a cross-channel invasion until the Allies had become strong enough to ensure success. Considering the improvised nature of the German plan for an invasion of Britain in 1940, Churchill's opposition to Sledgehammer was not unfounded. But whether it was wise to shift strength to the Mediterranean instead of focusing all efforts on a buildup for an invasion of France in 1943 is another matter. Once Churchill and Roosevelt made the decision to intervene in French North Africa, prospects for a cross-channel operation in 1943 plummeted, and the likelihood of the Allies becoming bogged down in a Mediterranean strategy increased sharply.

Churchill believed that the West could plan both a Mediterranean and a cross-channel strategy and exploit the one that offered the best chance of success. But American military leaders viewed Churchill's policy as one designed to secure Britain's political and economic interests in the Mediterranean. Certainly Churchill was a staunch believer in the need to maintain the British Empire on the strongest possible basis after the war. But it is unlikely that this motive alone sufficiently explains his actions. Critics have also argued that he was primarily interested in keeping British losses as small as possible and allowing the Soviet Union to pay the chief cost in blood. Stalin, the most vehement of these critics, charged that the Western Allies were content to see the Soviets fight a war of attrition against Germany. Again, it is clear that Churchill was concerned about casualties on the scale of World War I. But he was also determined to keep the Soviets in the war and feared that Stalin might seek a separate peace if it appeared that Britain and the United States were not making a serious effort to defeat Nazi Germany.

British reluctance to undertake a cross-channel invasion increased as a result of an abortive raid on the French channel port of Dieppe on August 19, 1942. The British planned this operation as an experiment to determine if they could capture an enemy port and hold it for a limited time. A force of 5,000 Canadian troops attacked the port itself, while a thousand British Commandos and 50 American Rangers attempted to knock out coastal batteries that flanked the city. The German defenders greeted the Canadians with merciless fire and prevented them from crossing the sea wall. No fewer than 68 percent of the Canadians were killed, wounded, or missing, a statistic that created lasting bitterness in Canada. Dieppe was an especially well-fortified point, and the Allies made the landing in daylight without sufficient preliminary bombardment. This bloody failure convinced the British that they had been correct about Sledgehammer and probably weakened their resolve to undertake Operation Round-up in 1943.

But the Dieppe raid also taught the Allies some valuable lessons regarding the conduct of amphibious operations. It proved clearly that they could not take a fortified port by direct assault from the sea. This realization led to the eventual creation of artificial harbors that ships could tow across the channel. Dieppe also demonstrated the need to provide strong and continuous naval fire from close range against enemy coastal defenses. Finally, it led the British to devise specialized armored vehicles such as amphibious tanks that could be launched offshore and reach land under their own power. Other innovations included bulldozer tanks that could clear beach obstacles and tanks equipped with flails that could open paths through mine fields. These and other modified vehicles proved especially helpful when the cross-channel invasion finally took place.

THE INVASION OF FRENCH NORTH AFRICA

Once they had committed themselves to an invasion of French North Africa, the British and Americans appointed General Eisenhower to command the operation. Eisenhower had won Marshall's confidence and been given this lofty position despite being junior to many other Allied generals. This was quite remarkable, considering that he had never before held a field command. But he had gained a reputation as a first-class staff officer. Eisenhower had grown up in the small Kansas town of Abilene, where his father toiled as a creamery worker. Young Dwight pursued the same occupation until he won appointment to West Point by virtue of his strong performance in a competitive examination. "Ike," as his friends called him, missed the opportunity to see combat in World War I when the conflict ended just before his departure for France. During the interwar years Eisenhower served twice as an assistant to MacArthur. He became chief of the war plans division in 1941.

Eisenhower owed his selection as commander of the North African operation in part to his planning and organizational skills. Perhaps even more important, he possessed a rare talent for blending diverse personalities harmoniously in a common enterprise. First and foremost a team player. he proved particularly adept at securing cooperation between American and British officers who often did not like each other. His outgoing personality, twinkling eyes, and broad grin captivated everyone who met him. As General Montgomery later remarked, he had "the power of drawing the hearts of men towards him as a magnet attracts the bits of metal. He merely has to smile at you, and you trust him at once."

The Allies soon disagreed on the scope of the invasion. Churchill wanted to restrict the landings to Algeria and to extend them as far east as the port of Bone, 75 miles from the Tunisian border. Some British leaders favored landings even farther east at Bizerta in Tunisia. But Marshall worried about the danger of Axis air power if an Allied task force ventured so deeply into the Mediterranean. He also feared German intervention in Spain, followed by a thrust to the Strait of Gibraltar. Such an operation would imperil the Allied supply line through the narrow passage between Spain and Morocco. Marshall proposed that landings be limited to Morocco's Atlantic coast. This would enable them to take place without fear of German air attack but would necessitate a long advance across Morocco and Algeria. Eisenhower agreed with the British and opposed Marshall on this question.

Eisenhower and the British were undoubtedly correct, but this dispute ended in a compromise. The Allies agreed to land at Casablanca in Morocco and at Otan and Algiers in Algeria. But they dropped plans to assault either Bone or Bizerta. The failure to land farther east eliminated the opportunity for a quick sweep into Tunisia. This ultimately prolonged the North African campaign for six months and precluded any chance for a cross-channel invasion in 1943.

If the Allies could convince French military and naval commanders in North Africa not to resist the landings, they would gain a quick, bloodless victory. But many of the French officers were loyal to Vichy, which followed a policy of collaboration with Germany. Some also harbored a strong anti-British bias. This was especially true of naval leaders, who bitterly remembered the Royal Navy's attack on French warships at Oran and Mers-el-Kebir in July 1940. The British, accordingly, kept in the background as the Americans attempted to line up French support. But the Americans went about their task in an extremely cautious manner, fearing that they might alert the wrong people and jeopardize the invasion. And while some of the French leaders were sympathetic to the Allied cause, they worried about reprisals from their Vichy superiors and hesitated to commit themselves. Not surprisingly, the Americans failed to accomplish their mission.

Another vexing problem was the question of de Gaulle. Strong animosity existed between the military leaders loyal to Vichy and the Free French. The British and Americans excluded de Gaulle from any part in the planning and refused to use Free French forces in the landings. Roosevelt and the Americans especially considered de Gaulle to have little support in either France or North Africa. Instead, Allied leaders pinned their hopes on another French general, Henri Giraud, as the man who could rally the French once the landings had been made. Giraud, who had lost a leg in World War I, had commanded the French 7th Army during the debacle of 1940. He had made a dramatic escape from a German prison early in 1942 and was living in southern France. To facilitate this scheme, an Allied submarine brought Giraud to Gibraltar. But he had no authority in North Africa, and French officers there felt no loyalty to him. To complicate matters still more, Admiral Darlan, the commander in chief of all French armed forces, was in Algiers when the invasion took place on November 8.

The French resisted all three landings, but opposition was strongest at Casablanca, where coastal batteries and the battleship Jean Bart's 15-inch guns caused problems for both the invading troops and naval ships offshore. Resistance was weakest at Algiers, which surrendered on the first day. Eisenhower's deputy, General Mark Clark, quickly opened negotiations with Darlan in an attempt to halt hostilities, and his efforts culminated in a deal on November 10. Darlan agreed to order French forces to cease firing and join the Allies. In return, Eisenhower recognized the admiral's control over French administration in North Africa. Hitler responded to these developments by sending German troops into previously unoccupied France.

Darlan also "invited" Admiral Jean de Laborde, the commander of the French High Seas Fleet at Toulon on France's Mediterranean coast, to join the Allies in Algeria. Unfortunately, de Laborde hesitated, and when the Germans mined the entrance to Toulon harbor, he scuttled his fleet to prevent it from falling into their hands.

The decision to deal with Darlan embarrassed the Allies because he had been one of the most active collaborators in the Vichy regime and was intensely anti-British personally and a right-wing authoritarian politically. Eisenhower made the decision, with the backing of Churchill and Roosevelt, to save lives and speed the conquest of French North Africa. But Darlan's ascendancy came to an end when he fell victim to an assassin's bullet on Christmas Eve.

Allied leaders recognized Giraud as his successor, but de Gaulle angrily challenged this decision. In frustration, Roosevelt and Churchill worked out a compromise that provided for the two generals to cooperate in a French Committee for National Liberation. Giraud proved totally inept politically, however, and de Gaulle easily outmaneuvered him. Within a year, Giraud had resigned, leaving de Gaulle in full control. The whole episode made de Gaulle highly resentful, and his relations with the British and Americans remained strained.

THE TUNISIAN CAMPAIGN

The Allied failure to land farther east than Algiers enabled Hitler to send troops across the 100-mile strait between Sicily and Tunisia to seize the major Tunisian ports of Tunis and Bizerta. The Germans encountered no opposition because Admiral Jean Esteva, the French resident-general, refused to switch his allegiance to Darlan and remained loyal to Vichy. They quickly established a defensive perimeter. It extended from 25 miles west of Bizerta southward through mountainous terrain to the Mareth Line, a defensive system that the French had constructed opposite the Libyan border. This enabled the Germans to provide a refuge for Rommel's troops, which were already in full retreat from El Alamein.

Meanwhile, the Allied forces that had landed at Algiers moved eastward. Airborne troops occupied Bone on November 12 and penetrated into Tunisia four days later. They reached a point within 12 miles of Tunis on November 28, but there the drive bogged down due to bad weather, a serious supply problem, a shortage of motorized transport, and fierce German resistance. The Allied attempt to seize Tunis and Bizerta quickly had failed. Indecisive fighting continued throughout December and January 1943.

Rommel ended his long retreat across the desert and reached the sanctuary of the Mareth line at the end of January. He now prepared to defend southern Tunisia against Montgomery's pursuing 8th Army while General Hans-Jurgen von Arnim commanded German troops in the north. Arnim had led a panzer division and later a corps on the eastern front. Hitler selected him for the Tunisian assignment because of his reputation for ruthlessness and his ability to get things done. But from the start, he and Rommel, who detested each other, engaged in jurisdictional disputes. Arnim opposed Allied forces under the leadership of the British general Kenneth Anderson, who had commanded a division in the Dunkirk evacuation as well as the unsuccessful attempt to capture Tunis and Bizerta. Noted for his stern and humorless manner, which did not endear him even to his own compatriots, Anderson soon encountered problems with his allies. The French objected to serving under a British officer, and General Lloyd Fredendall, the commander of the U.S. II Corps, disliked the British in general and Anderson in particular.

Eisenhower had exercised little direct control over the campaign, being absorbed in a myriad of political problems stemming from the Darlan deal and relations with French authorities in North Africa. He did warn the commanders in the field against taking risks, however, and clearly intended no further offensive action until reinforcements and more equipment arrived. Criticism mounted over his failure to provide a firm hand and hasten the conquest of Tunisia. For a time it appeared as if General Alexander would replace him. But Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to retain him in command. They also made Alexander his deputy.

As soon as Rommel arrived at the Mareth line, he concluded that continued defense of Tunisia was hopeless. He flew to Germany to try to persuade Hitler of this, but the Fuhrer refused to sanction an evacuation. The field marshal returned to Tunisia to await the arrival of Montgomery, who had encountered supply problems and had paused to clear the port of Tripoli before proceeding on to assault the Mareth line.

This delay enabled Rommel to attack U.S. forces in mountainous west-central Tunisia during mid-February. If he could weaken them sufficiently, he could confront Montgomery without fear of an American attack on his rear. But he also hoped to gain a strategic victory by breaking through to the supply base at Tebessa in Algeria, just across the Tunisian border. He believed its capture would force the Allies to retreat into Algeria. If all went well, he even visualized an armored thrust northward to Bone to cut off the Allies in Tunisia.

In reality, Rommel's offensive fell far short of these ambitious goals. It failed in part because the Germans had not created a united command structure in Tunisia. Rommel had no jurisdiction over Arnim's forces in the north, and Arnim refused to provide additional armor to enable the attack to be delivered in full strength. Despite these obstacles, Rommel scored an impressive early success. Not only were the American forces in his path inexperienced, but they also suffered from unsatisfactory training, poor discipline, and indifferent leadership. Eisenhower had long harbored doubts about Fredendall's abilities but, unfortunately, had hesitated to replace him.

Although the Allies received Ultra reports indicating that a German offensive was coming, they expected an attack in the north only. Actually, Arnim did plan to carry out such an assault independent of Rommel's operation. This mistake coupled with lax American precautions enabled Rommel to catch them by surprise. The Germans easily brushed aside the forces defending Faid Pass with new heavy "Tiger" tanks mounting an 88-mm gun, while Rommel prepared to strike directly at Tebessa. But his superiors were skeptical of such a daring plan. Instead, they ordered him to pursue a more limited objective by thrusting northwestward through the Kasserine Pass toward Thala and Sbiba. Ironically, if they had allowed Rommel to drive on Tebessa, he probably could have captured the supply base and threatened the entire enemy position in Tunisia. The Allies did not believe that he would be so bold as to advance in that direction. They expected him to do exactly as his superiors had ordered, and they arrayed their strongest forces in the path of his thrust toward Thala and Sbiba.

Rommel's panzers quickly broke through the poorly deployed U.S. forces defending Kasserine Pass. Panic gripped many of the Americans who fled in disorder, only to be killed or taken prisoner. But, despite this victory, the Germans were not strong enough to overcome the Allied troops blocking his progress toward Thala and Sbiba. He had no choice but to retreat through the pass. American forces had suffered a rude shock, but they had demonstrated their ability to rally from adversity and had contributed to the eventual failure of the German plan. Nevertheless, their initial setback had filled the British with concern about their combat ability. Alexander, who took over direction of field operations in Tunisia following the reverse at Kasserine Pass, believed that the Americans should play a secondary role during the remainder of the campaign. But Eisenhower refused to agree to this and insisted that they assume a major part in the final offensive.

Eisenhower also replaced Fredendall with General George Patton. He ordered Patton to tighten discipline and instill fighting spirit in the II Corps. Patton, who had commanded the landings on Morocco's Atlantic coast, succeeded brilliantly in this task. Patton's ego vied for prominence with those of Montgomery and MacArthur. He also shared their flamboyance and loved to wear two ivory-handled pistols. When America entered World War I, Patton served on General Pershing's staff in France. Later he became commander of armored forces and suffered a leg wound during the last American offensive. General Marshall appointed him to lead an armored brigade in 1940, and he entered the war as America's most accomplished and vigorous proponent of mechanized warfare. Autocratic, outspoken, and controversial, Patton did not care much for his British allies but cultivated cordial relations with the French.

Rommel now hoped to divert his armor to the southeast for an offensive against the British 8th Army before all of Montgomery's troops reached Medenine, opposite the Mareth line. But he encountered delays, and Ultra alerted Montgomery to the impending assault, including the exact date. The British rushed additional forces into position and prepared strong antitank defenses. When Rommel launched his attack on March 6, Montgomery's artillery inflicted heavy losses on enemy tanks and forced the Germans to fall back to the Mareth line. Once again, Rommel urged Hitler to evacuate Tunisia before it was too late. But the Fuhrer had grown tired of Rommel's entreaties, which he considered defeatist. Hitler relieved him of his command, placing all Axis forces in Tunisia under Arnim's control.

THE FINAL PUSH IN TUNISIA

In the weeks that followed, the Allies increased their strength and prepared for the final push. Montgomery delivered the major opening assault on March 20. He began with an ill-advised frontal attack against the Mareth line, followed by a thrust around the right flank of the Italian and German forces. His direct action failed, but the flanking maneuver succeeded. The Axis troops found themselves in danger of being cut off. They abandoned the Mareth line and retreated northward along the coast while Patton's U.S. II Corps applied pressure from the west.

By the middle of April, Allied forces had pushed the enemy back to a hilly perimeter around Tunis and Bizerta. Total Allied control of the air made it impossible for the Axis either to supply or evacuate their troops, which now were greatly inferior in numbers and equipment to their opponents'. Ultra provided such detailed and accurate information that Allied aircraft were able to destroy most of the German cargo planes that tried desperately to carry out supply missions. The combination of Allied air and naval power, Ultra, and the Italian navy's critical shortage of fuel also eliminated any possibility of rescue by sea. Although the Germans and Italians again fought tenaciously, by early May they could no longer withstand the mounting Allied pressure. They abandoned both Tunis and Bizerta and withdrew into the Cape Bon Peninsula to the east. With virtually no fuel or ammunition, their position was hopeless. On May 13, the last Axis forces surrendered. A total of 170,000 prisoners went into captivity, a disaster that some Germans referred to with grim humor as "Tunisgrad." In reality, more Axis soldiers surrendered here than at Stalingrad. In both battles, the Germans had tried to hold out in untenable positions, but had failed, in part because of their inability to keep open their lines of communication and supply due to insufficient air power. The disasters in Russia and North Africa represented a clear turning of the tide. They marked the start of mounting pressure on Germany as it attempted to fight enemies that were growing in strength on multiple fronts while its own power continued to decline.

Clearly, Hitler's decision to send troops to Tunisia was a blunder because of the sacrifice of so many soldiers. But it also lengthened the Allied operation in North Africa to such an extent that the British and Americans were unable to shift forces to Britain in time for a cross-channel invasion in 1943. Churchill and Roosevelt actually confirmed this outcome when they met in a conference at Casablanca in January 1943 while the struggle for Tunisia was still far from complete. Roosevelt accepted Churchill's proposal that the Allies concentrate on additional offensive operations in the Mediterranean during 1943, specifically, an invasion of Sicily. In return, Churchill approved a massive buildup for a cross-channel invasion in 1944.

During the Casablanca conference, Roosevelt also announced, with Churchill's prior agreement, that the United States and Britain were resolved to accept unconditional surrender as the only basis for peace with all the Axis powers. The two leaders intended the declaration as a means of convincing the Soviets that the Western Allies were serious about the war with Germany. They also hoped that it would deter Stalin from possibly seeking a separate peace.

Critics have branded the unconditional surrender declaration a serious mistake. They have contended that it provided the Germans with a propaganda windfall. Indeed, Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels did warn the German people that in view of this policy, they must continue to resist fanatically or be completely dominated by the vindictive Allies. The declaration may also have weakened the cause of a revived German conspiracy against Hitler. This included both civilians and military officers who hoped to kill Hitler, overthrow the Nazi regime, and seek a negotiated peace. Clearly, the demand for unconditional surrender made the conspirators' hope for a negotiated settlement highly dubious. But it is likely that even without the declaration, the Nazi regime would have maintained its absolute control over Germany, crushed the conspiracy's efforts to seize power, and fought the war to the bitter end.

One thing is clear, however. The declaration did not satisfy Stalin. The Soviet leader was furious when he heard that the Western Allies had postponed the cross-channel invasion. Assurances of unconditional surrender did nothing to reduce his suspicions that Britain and America were content that the Soviet Union should continue to bear the brunt of the war against Germany. The decision to postpone the assault on Western Europe also weakened the ability of Churchill and Roosevelt to argue against Soviet ambitions in Eastern Europe.