General Eisenhower put Admiral Darlan in charge of French North Africa. He alone, the theory went, could guarantee an orderly transfer of authority and, most important of all, induce the Vichy troops in Tunisia, where there had been no Allied landings, to cooperate. The chances of this happening were fading fast on November 11 when Eisenhower made the Darlan appointment, but considering the stakes, a slim chance was better than none at all.
The French in Tunisia, however, decided to let German forces land, thus dooming the Allies to a long and bitter campaign instead of the walkover they had hoped for and needed. Had the French in Tunisia responded to Darlan’s call, enabling the Allies to arrive there first, the infamous agreement would have been easier to take. Bad as it was in other respects, the worst thing about the “Darlan deal” was that it yielded few benefits. Democratic principles had been sacrificed in vain.
Luckily for the Allied cause, Darlan was soon assassinated by a French civilian. But because FDR hated Charles de Gaulle, the logical choice for leader of the Free French forces, General Henri Giraud was put in Darlan’s place instead. Giraud was unacceptable to most of the French in North Africa, however, so de Gaulle brushed him aside and assumed power himself. Then, on November 9, 1943, de Gaulle created a government in exile, which in time would become the real government of France.
While all this intrigue progressed, the war continued. Only a few days before Operation Torch began, Britain’s Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery and his Eighth Army administered a severe defeat to General Rommel at El Alamein in the western desert of Egypt. El Alamein became the farthest point of Germany’s advance in North Africa, and Britain’s victory there ensured the safety of Egypt and the vital Suez lifeline.
Although it was slow off the mark, the Eighth Army eventually began pursuing Rommel while, from the opposite direction, Allied units advanced to within 12 miles of Tunis. Then the rainy season and stronger German defenses put the offensive on hold and gave Hitler time to send in more troops.
Hitler seems to have reinforced Tunisia because he could not bear to admit defeat or tolerate losses of territory. By doing so, he prolonged the fighting there for up to five additional months. During that time and partly because of the Tunisian campaign, the Allies abandoned their plan to invade France in 1943, thus enabling the Nazi regime to survive for an additional year. From this standpoint, Hitler’s refusal to leave Africa proved to be a tactical mistake that, in one of war’s cruel ironies, nevertheless brought him strategic benefits.
On May 11, 1943, the last Axis army in Tunisia surrendered, costing Hitler another 250,000 men, in addition to many more killed or evacuated because of wounds. The North Africa campaign had been messy, and long. During it the U.S. Army experienced what would turn out to be its only defeats by the German Army—losing at Sidi bon-Zid and at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in February.
Yet Operation Torch had paid for itself in many ways. By committing so many resources to it, Hitler made Africa a significant front that eased the pressure on Russia. And in addition to ending in victory for the Allies, it was a valuable learning experience for U.S. commanders. Politically essential in any case, it might have been strategically important as well had it not led the Allies to invade Sicily and then the Italian mainland.
After Tunisia fell, General Marshall wished to move most of the Allied troops in Africa to Britain. From there they would be positioned to invade France some time in the summer of 1943. Doing so would have been feasible, for France was weakly defended at the time and the Allies already controlled the English Channel and much of the air over France. But U.S. leaders were uncertain about this course, whereas the British were united on the need to take Sicily, which would strengthen the Allied grip on the entire Mediterranean. FDR therefore gave his consent to the invasion, code named Operation Husky.
It might have been possible to have both Husky and Overlord in the same year—if the Allies had moved at top speed. During the months before Tunisia fell, General Patton had been training troops in Morocco. These forces could have been used to take Sicily in May or early June, when it was undefended. Instead, the Allied high command scheduled Husky for July 10, by which time Germany had moved three divisions to the island.
The Sicilian campaign was poorly run. It took 43 days to defeat the Germans, most of whom then escaped to the Italian mainland. As Operation Roundup was now out of the question, the Allies invaded Italy next, partly because the British wanted it but partly through sheer momentum.
This series of bad decisions meant that the war would last for two more years, whereas if Roundup had succeeded in 1943, it might have been over in one. Italy, which was supposed to have been an easy win, became a horror for the Allies. Some of the worst fighting of the war occurred there and it became a strategic liability, as some Americans had predicted it would. The Italian campaign used up divisions that would have been more useful in France. And, because the Italians under Allied control had to be supplied with food and fuel to stay alive, much of the shipping freed up by Operation Torch went to serve civilian instead of military purposes. The Mediterranean, a sea of dreams for Britain, thus became a nightmare for General Marshall and the U.S. War Department.
FURTHER READING Blumenson, Martin. Kasserine Pass. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967. Carver, Michael. Dilemmas of the Desert War: A New Look at the Libyan Campaign, 1940–42. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Grigg, John. 1943: The Victory That Never Was. New York: Hill & Wang, 1980. Howard, Michael. Mediterranean Strategy in the Second World War. New York: Praeger, 1968. Lucas, James. War in the Desert: The Eighth Army at El Alamein. New York: Beaufort, 1983. Sainsbury, Keith. The North African Landings, 1942. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1976
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