North African Campaign

V

Final Victory

Just four days after Rommel’s retreat began, the Allies opened up an entirely new front in North Africa with Operation Torch. On November 8, 1942, American and British troops came ashore in French North Africa at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers. This opened a new front against the Axis powers and made Rommel’s position, as he retreated back into Libya, precarious. However, rather than abandoning their position in North Africa, Hitler and Mussolini agreed to pour troops into a Tunisian bridgehead with the aim of holding the allies for as long as possible. The unexpectedly rapid Axis reaction caught the Allied forces, now under the Supreme Command of United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower, off balance. Although the Allied forces attempted to reach Tunis before it could be properly reinforced, this advance stalled just 50 km (30 mi) from the city in the face of fierce Axis resistance. Over the winter of 1942-1943 the Allied forces in Tunisia had to endure severe weather and cope with not only overstretched lines of supply but also Axis air superiority.

Meanwhile, Montgomery’s Eighth Army had cautiously pursued the Afrika Korps through Libya. The fall of Tripoli on January 23, 1943, marked the collapse of the Italian overseas empire. The Eighth Army soon approached the Tunisian border where Rommel’s army occupied the old French frontier defenses. Rommel attempted to break the deadlock and the looming encirclement of the Axis forces in Tunisia by striking at the inexperienced U.S. Second Corps at the Kasserine Pass on February 20, 1943. Rommel’s veterans inflicted a severe defeat on the Americans, but he was unable to press home his advantage. The American troops quickly learned from this shock and became far more effective in the subsequent Tunisian battles.

Rommel then struck again at the Eighth Army but was comprehensively checked at Medenine on March 6, 1943, and outmaneuvered at Mareth on March 20. The Axis forces in Tunisia were being increasingly penned into their narrow bridgehead while their supply lines from Italy were strangled by increasingly effective Allied air and naval interdiction.

When, on May 6, 1943, the Battle for Tunis began it was only a matter of time before the Axis defense collapsed. The last-ditch fighting was bitter but on May 12, the Axis commander, Field Marshal Hans von Arnim (Rommel had been withdrawn in March), accepted the inevitable and surrendered the last Axis forces in North Africa. A total of 250,415 German and Italian soldiers and airmen became prisoners—a military disaster for the Axis powers that followed the Red Army victory at Stalingrad in February 1943.

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VI

Conclusions

The Allies eventually won in North Africa but only after a campaign lasting nearly two and a half years. The balance of advantage had swung to and fro in the Libyan desert and had only finally swung in favor of the Allies with the twin events of the Battle of El ‘Alamein and the Operation Torch landings. British tactical shortcomings had loomed large throughout the campaign, particularly in their handling of tank and infantry formations, which were only really corrected in the autumn of 1942. In contrast, the Afrika Korps had gained an enviable reputation for tactical prowess and formidable skill on the battlefield.

Ultimately, the relative importance of the theater to the two sides determined the outcome of the campaign. Hitler considered the North African campaign a sideshow and distraction from his much larger campaign against the Soviet Union (see Operation Barbarossa). This meant that Rommel’s army rarely had the resources necessary to develop its victories into more permanent strategic success. By contrast, Churchill and the British War Cabinet gave the North African campaign the highest strategic priority and thus were willing to use whatever resources were necessary to achieve success.

The German failure to recognize the full risks and opportunities of the North African campaign eventually cost them dearly. Within six months, the Allies were able to use North Africa as the launch pad for their continuing operations against Sicily and Italy, which soon drove Italy out of the Axis war effort. Perhaps most importantly, the North African campaign provided, in Churchill’s words, “the hinge of fate” or turning point that gave the Allied powers evidence that the seemingly invincible fascist powers could actually be defeated.

From a longer perspective, the North African campaign can be seen as one of the last European imperial conflicts. The campaign was largely fought over the heads of the native inhabitants of Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. The Allied victory seemed to confirm British dominance in the Mediterranean but this was to prove short-lived. Within 14 years of their victory in North Africa, the Suez Crisis brought home forcibly to the previous colonial powers of France and Britain that they no longer controlled the destinies of the region.

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