North Africa campaigns

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North Africa campaign (1940-3). During WW II there was fighting along much of the North Africa littoral. It was in essence a single theatre of war with two linked campaigns: a British campaign in the Western Desert, and an Anglo-American campaign, beginning with the TORCH landings in French North Africa in November 1942, and going on to link up with the British advance and eventually overwhelm Axis forces in Tunisia. The see-saw campaign in the Western Desert eventually brought German-Italian forces under Rommel within striking distance of Alexandria facing a British Eighth Army depressed by defeat. At Alamein the new British army commander Montgomery methodically applied superior force and then followed Rommel back across Cyrenaica towards Tunisia, taking Tripoli on 23 January 1943.

The North Africa campaign, WW II: theatre of operations
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A few days after Alamein an Allied invasion force under Eisenhower landed in French North Africa. There was some fighting with the French before Darlan, a senior minister in Pétain's Vichy government, who happened to be in Algiers, ordered a ceasefire. Having secured Oran, Algiers, and Casablanca, the Allied First Army advanced eastwards, taking Bone on 12 November before being stopped at Mejez el Bab, just 30 miles (48 km) south-west of Tunis. Hitler had reacted swiftly to the invasion, sending his troops into the Unoccupied Zone of France and reinforcing his troops in North Africa with what was to become Arnim's Fifth Panzer Army.

Arnim, anxious to prevent the Allies from cutting him off from Rommel, who was withdrawing before Montgomery, stopped First Army in hard-fought battles at Tebourba and Longstop Hill, and then counter-attacked in January 1943, knocking it off balance. When Rommel, who had now fallen back into southern Tunisia, joined in the following month and attacked into the Kasserine Pass the Allies were even more badly rattled. Eisenhower was preoccupied by political concerns and lacked relevant experience, and many of his troops and their commanders were green. Alexander was appointed to command an army group consisting of First and Eighth Armies in order to improve co-ordination.

It was fortunate for the Allies that the Axis forces had problems of their own. Rommel was unhappily under the authority of the Italian commando supremo (CGS of the Armed Forces), while Arnim was directed by Kesselring, the German C-in-C South-West. On 23 February Rommel was given command of Army Group Africa: his old German-Italian Panzer Army was retitled First Italian Army under Messe. Rommel was still very dangerous, and planned to use all three of his armoured divisions against Montgomery, who was now approaching the Mareth Line, a pre-war French defensive system, which had been designed to prevent the Italians moving from Libya into south-eastern Tunisia. On 6 March Rommel made an unsuccessful jab at Medenine, just east of the line, and was flown home, a sick man, three days later. Although Montgomery's frontal attack on the Mareth Line failed, he outflanked it from the south, and Messe fell back on Wadi Akarit.

By now Arnim's position was worsening daily as the Allied sea and air blockade throttled him. While Eighth Army took Wadi Akarit and advanced northwards to Sousse and Enfidaville, First Army fought its way towards Bizerta and Tunis. Arnim's men fought hard to the end, but Bizerta and Tunis were both captured on 7 May and the last Axis troops surrendered on 13 May. The Allies took 238, 000 prisoners, and had at last won the campaign in North Africa.

Some historians have seen the campaign as a strategic irrelevance for both sides. However, such was the importance of Egypt and the Suez Canal to Britain that it is hard to see how the war in the Western Desert could have been averted. If the TORCH landings and the advance into Tunisia did not contribute directly to the Allies' main strategic goal, the invasion of North-West Europe, they certainly provided the Allies with invaluable experience. Given their showing in some battles in the winter of 1942-3 it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the Allies were not ready for a cross-Channel invasion then. However, the theatre was a low strategic priority for both sides. The British would have fared better had they not diverted troops to Greece and the Far East, while far more Germans surrendered in Tunisia than Rommel ever commanded in the Western Desert.

Bibliography

• Carver, Michael, Dilemmas of the Desert War (London, 1986).
• Jackson, William, The Battle for North Africa (London, 1975)

— Richard Holmes

(1942–1943)

Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa by American and British forces in November 1942, was the first major joint Allied offensive operation in World War II. It was the largest amphibious military operation undertaken until then. More than 500 American and British warships, troop transports, supply vessels, and landing craft took part. Over 100,000 troops, mostly Americans, sailed from the United States and Britain to Morocco and Algeria in the opening phase of the invasion.

The decision to invade North Africa ran counter to the U.S. War Department's desire to invade German‐occupied France across the English Channel in 1943. The Soviet Union also wanted the West to open a second front. The British feared that a cross‐Channel invasion would be premature and would lead to a slaughter on the beaches of France, while Allied control of the North African coast, the ultimate objective of Operation Torch, would expose what Winston Churchill called the “soft underbelly” of occupied Europe. Facing pressure from President Franklin D. Roosevelt for a bold, uncostly military move in the European area before November congressional elections, and British objections to an early cross‐Channel operation, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall reluctantly agreed to the invasion of Vichy French–held North Africa.

Marshall picked U.S. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to be supreme commander, and British Adm. Sir Andrew Cunningham was chosen to be naval commander. They assembled forces, supplies, and naval and maritime support. Eisenhower also sent Gen. Mark Clark on a secret submarine mission to negotiate with local Vichy forces not to oppose the landings. Beginning on 8 November, four days after the British stopped German general Erwin Rommel at El Alamein in Egypt, the Anglo‐American landings commenced with commando port assaults and nighttime beach landings. The Allies aided Free French rebels and overwhelmed Vichy French resistance, which was relatively light. The Vichy military commander, Adm. François Darlan, visiting Algiers, was captured and persuaded on 11 November to order a cease‐fire. U.S. forces sustained 1,400 casualties, 526 of which were fatalities. As a result of the invasion, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler ordered the German Army to occupy Vichy France and rushed troops to Tunisia before the Americans could conquer it. On 14 February 1943, the U.S. II Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall, was surprised in the Kasserine Pass by a German counterattack and temporarily thrown back. Fredendall was replaced by Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., and his deputy, Maj. Gen. Omar Bradley, and they resumed the offensive. The U.S. First Army and Gen. Bernard Law Montgomery's British Eighth Army contained the Germans in Tunisia in April, and 250,000 German and Italian troops surrendered on 13 May 1943, marking the end of the North Africa Campaign. The U.S. casualities amounted to about 18,500.

[See also World War II: Military and Diplomatic Course.]

Bibliography

• George F. Howe, Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West, 1957.
• Carlo D'Este, World War II in the Mediterranean, 1942–1945, 1990

Codenamed Operation Torch, this was the first major joint Allied offensive of World War II and hitherto the largest amphibious military assault (1942-43). While the Soviets and the U.S. War Department favored opening a second major front, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was reluctant to authorize a potentially costly campaign, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill preferred to expose what he called Europe's “soft underbelly” from North Africa rather than risk slaughter on the heavily fortified French beaches. On November 8, over 100, 000 Anglo-American troops under Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower and British Adm. Sir Andrew Cunningham landed in Morocco and Algeria and quickly overwhelmed the Vichy French resistance. Adolf Hitler quickly ordered his army to occupy Vichy France and rushed troops to Tunisia before it was captured. In early 1943, the United States, led by Maj. Gen. George S. Patton and Maj. Gen. Omar N. Bradley, and the British, led by Gen. Bernard Law Montgomery, moved into Tunisia and eventually forced the Axis surrender on May 13, successfully ending the campaign.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.