North African Campaign

During WW2 …

in 500 words or less:

Germany pretty much overruns Europe by the summer of 1940, conquering Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and France. She’s partnered with Italy and sits uneasy with Russia. Spain is neutral.

North African countries, most still European colonies, can be remembered as EL TAM, going east to west. That’s Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.

Libya is occupied by Italy; Egypt (as well as the strategic Suez Canal) by England. Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia are French colonies, and their status is uncertain as France is now under German rule.

c. 1940/1941 Italian forces in Libya attack and drive British forces in Egypt. British forces fight and drive back successfully.

A worried Hitler sends Rommel and the African Korps to bolster Italian troops. Rommel becomes the “Desert Fox” of legend, striking fear into the hearts of Allied commanders.

Battles and campaigns see-saw. One side gains the initiative until it becomes over-extended, runs out of supplies (gasoline, water) and/or men. Then the other side gets the momentum.

Russia, besieged by German forces in its north, central, and southern regions, demands a separate front far, far away to occupy German forces.

US wants an English channel invasion, but is in no shape to do this, as pointed out by Churchill. England also has raw memories of being kicked off the continent a year or two earlier at Dunkirk.

England wants to kick Germany out of North Africa for two reasons: gain control of the Mediterranean and use Tunisia as a staging ground for an invasion through Europe’s “soft underbelly”: Tunisia to Sicily to Italy to Germany.

Also it will “blood” inexperienced US troops as well as help to spread and thin out German resources.

Operation Torch, November 1942: green US forces land in Morocco and Algiers to attack the African Korps from the west. Montgomery is put in charge of British 8th Army to attack the Korps from the east – a pincer movement.

Rommel severely defeats ineptly-led US forces at the Battle of the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia. A learning experience for Supreme Commander Eisenhower. He installs a new general – Patton. Three months later, Germany evacuates Tunisia. North Africa is firmly in Allied hands by May 1943.

America learns how to fight.