From almost the beginning of Winston Churchill's ministry, his primary war strategy focused on North Africa. He believed North Africa was the only place any kind of allied force could defeat the Germans. But why? This tends to be a question few
authors, or historians have asked. Why did the Americans and the British put forth such an effort to take North Africa? This is especially perplexing when taking into consideration that the United States always wanted a Europe first campaign. Furthermo
re, when glancing at this subject there seems to have been no real reason, strategically, to take North Africa. Yet, Churchill insisted that that was where the allies would have to go. The primary focus of this paper, then, is to answer the question of
why, and to determine if Churchill was correct in his assumption that North Africa was where the allies would eventually have to go.
As Hitler's armies marched on Russia his ally, Mussolini declared a state of aggression against the western allies of France and England. Earlier in the war he had ordered attacks on France, but only gained limited territory. Because of Hitler. M
ussolini began to worry that once the axis powers had won the war he would have very little to use as bargaining chips when it came to territorial distribution. Knowing this he looked to Africa as a way to gain territory and prestige in the eyes of his
allies, especially Hitler, whose forces, up to this point, had been almost unstoppable. Mussolini therefor ordered attacks on British occupied Egypt and on Greece in September and October 1940. These both proved unsuccessful for many reasons. First, th
e Italian equipment was terrible, tanks fell apart easily under fire and trucks, with solid tires, fell apart while driving on the rough terrain. Second, although Italian troops outnumbered British troops, morale was terrible and many were very poorly tr
ained. One Italian was quoted as saying, "This is a European war fought in Africa with European weapons against a European enemy. We take to little account of this..." In response to the attack on Greece, British forces occupied airfields on Crete and
in Greece. Hitler, not wanting British planes in striking distance to his one oil source in Romania, prepared and launched an operation against Greece, forcing the Britons to retreat. Then, early in 1941, British forces pushed the Italians out of Egypt
and back into Libya. In response, Hitler sent General Rommel with two-division tank corps, the Afrika Korps, to help out his allies. Hitler did this for two reasons. First, he wanted to protect the rear flank. Second, the British were gaining momentum,
and Hitler thought it important to stop the British before they could pull more troops off of the Russian front.
When Rommel came to North Africa he began frantically working, building dummy tanks and parading his troops in the hopes of giving the impression that he controlled a much larger force than he did. But the battle hardened Britons who had beaten the nume
rically superior Italians were gone, replaced with barely trained units, and England for her part was expecting depleted and badly beaten Italian remnants just waiting to be cleaned up. In short it could be said that there would be no way for England to
win with odds such as these and in the following year they were to take many casualties at the hands of the German-Italian army. It should be noted here that England did have a few things going for them. First, German intelligence in North Africa was te
rrible, as they would prove throughout the war in North Africa, as they were constantly unable to, "foretell what the enemy would do" in regards to North Africa. The second thing and the most important, according to Churchill, was that the U.S. would e
ventually be forced into the war. The third advantage was something called, the ultra secret, which enabled the British to break Hitler's codes from virtually the start of the war, giving them a major strategic advantage over the Germans.
At this point we should back up a little and ask the question, why North Africa? What, besides the million square miles of sand, is the strategic importance of North Africa? To answer the first question, Benito Mussolini saw an opportunity for te
rritorial gains and military gains against the western allies in Britain and France. The answer to the second question is more a matter of location than anything else. First, if the allies controlled North Africa they would have a better chance of holdi
ng the Mediterranean which was the epicenter of the war. As for Africa, it was the gateway to India and other British possessions through the Suez Canal. One of the fears of the allies was that Japan would invade India and Germany North Africa and the
two would meet somewhere in between, crippling Britons supply lines from India. As it turns out this was never a real threat, but it did cause occasional worry on the part of Churchill.
These reasons were good reasons for the British to be in North Africa, but Churchill found it much more difficult to persuade his new allies in the U.S., who entered the war on December 7, 1941, to support such a campaign. Marshal, the U.S. chief
of staff, was convinced that the way to defeat Germany was to cut straight through Europe and take Germany itself. This could only be accomplished through a large scale landing on Europe itself. At first it was agreed that forces should be sent to Brit
ain in order to relieve British forces so they could be sent to Africa. They also agreed that if any operation was to take place in any theater a major build-up of forces needed to take place. This then became known as operation "Bolero". From here is
where major difficulty occurred. The U.S. pushed for a cross channel invasion into France known as operation "SledgeHammer", but the British pushed for an African invasion known as operation "Gymnast", later to be called "Torch". There were pros and cons
for both operations. The British argued that the allies would be unable to muster a large enough force before 1943 to be effective in Europe. Remember that Russia was still taking the brunt of the German forces and were still calling for a second front
. The Germans also had some thirty divisions in Western Europe, and in order to pull any forces away from Russia the allies would have to muster a force larger than that of the Germans. Then, the British argued, they would have to find some way to land
all of these troops onto Europe itself. This was one thing the Americans had to concede, there just wasn't enough landing equipment at this time of the war for a large scale landing in Europe. The Americans argued that to send troops to Africa would was
te resources and men in a theater of the war that probably would not pull forces away from Russia any more than sending no troops. This was now the stalemate which the allies had to find some way around.
The stalemate was finally broken from an unlikely source, Russia. Between May 20, and June 12, the Soviet Foreign Minister, Molotov, visited London, Washington and then went back to Russia via London. Molotov's first stop was in London where he w
as to plead Russia's case to Britain about opening a second front. Churchill, however sympathetic, knew better than to make promises he knew were impossible to keep. He did take this opportunity to try and explain the problems with large scale amphibiou
s landings such as shortage of equipment and a lack of air superiority. Molotov, not being a military man, considered Churchill's reasons evasive and perhaps he did not understand the technicalities, considering Russians had almost no experience with am
phibious operations. Churchill did make his position clear in that he was unable to commit to a second front in 1942. Molotov then went to the U.S. were he hoped to find a more positive reception.
In the first meeting between Roosevelt and Molitov, Roosevelt turned to his chief of staff Marshall with the question of a second front in 1942. Marshall was very careful about his wording in this situation, saying only that they were making every
effort to create a second front. However, after Roosevelt listened to the situation and the state of soviet morale, he became even more anxious to put some kind of force on Europe. Roosevelt then told his chiefs of staff that he would have to give Molo
tov a more specific answer in regards to a second front that year, as Sainsbury puts it, "clearly of an affirmative nature." On the next day, June 1, Roosevelt told Molotov that the Americans expected to establish a second front in Europe in 1942. Molot
ov then returned back to London on his way home to Russia.
Churchill, upon hearing Roosevelt's promise to Molotov, quickly tried to salvage the situation, telling Molotov that such an attack on Europe could only happen with air superiority. This could only be done Churchill said in a relatively small area
of the French coast. Churchill told Molotov that such an operation was doomed to failure and it would help neither Russia nor the allies. He did say that he would accept any reasonable plan that would help take pressure off Russia. By this he clearly
meant North Africa and operation Gymnast. Molotov then left for Russia with little comfort.
This may have been the most important event that led to the North African Campaigns. For now Roosevelt had made a promise that he had to keep. Churchill, long silent about North Africa, now made his push. It was clear to all that the main force
that would be able to land on Europe at this time would have to be British. It was also clear that no large force could be put on Europe any time soon that could defeat, or even challenge the thirty German divisions in western Europe at that time. Churc
hill made it clear that the British did not back operation Sledgehammer and by doing this they effectively vetoed it. Churchill then told Roosevelt that North Africa was the only place they could hope to win any time in the next year and it was the only
place they could hope to pull German forces away from Russia. Marshall and the rest of the American chiefs of staff clearly did not like North Africa because it would make impossible a landing on Europe the next year. Roosevelt, having to keep to his pr
omise of a second front in 1942, therefor gave Marshall a choice. Roosevelt told him that they could launch an attack in the Middle East or in North Africa. The problem for Marshall in this was that if an operation was launched in the Middle East it wou
ld be under British command. Marshall detested this even more than North Africa. He then gave way to Roosevelt, but did say to continue operation Bolero and to keep Sledgehammer open if the possibility to launch it came before operation Gymnast was read
y. This was a stalling tactic on the part of Marshall and there never was any real hope that Sledgehammer would ever be fulfilled. From this point on the Western Allies concentrated on landing in North Africa, in hopes of striking any kind of a blow to
Germany and to create some kind of second front. Though the second front the Russians looked for would not happen in 1942 or 1943, North Africa did prove to show its worth in the outcome of W.W.II. After a year of haggling and pushing Churchill finally s
aw his plans put into action.
Until August of 1942, the British had been defeated one battle after another by General Rommel and the Afrika Korps. But, in this month General Claude Auckinleck was replaced by General Bernard Law Montgomery as head of the eighth army. Montgomer
y immediately made plans for a massive counteroffensive. In September, 1942 Montgomery soon defeated Rommel at Alam el Halfa.
Rommel and Montgomery continued preparations for a major confrontation and at El Alamein, on October 23, 1942 Montgomery launched his counteroffensive. Montgomery had devised a series of tricks, called operation Bertram, to persuade Rommel that th
e Allies were going one way, in the North, when they were actually going to the south. The battle started at 9:40 P.M. when 1,000 British guns opened fire on the Germans. The barrage lasted for four hours, then suddenly there was a strange silence. Thi
s was broken by the cries of the allied soldiers as they rushed out of the desert and drove through the Axis lines. Just before the assault, Rommel had been ordered back to Germany for medical treatment. He was replaced by General Georg von Stumme, who
later died of a heart attack on the battle field. Rommel was quickly ordered to return to the battle, but his counterattack was to late and the eighth army broke through the German lines on November 4, 1942. Rommel then escaped to Tunisia.
On November 8, 1942 operation Torch was launched with U.S. and British forces under command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The invasion was made up of three separate task forces. The first, made up mostly of British troops, took Algeriers with
little difficulty. The second and the third ran into difficulty when they encountered French resistance, but by November 10 and 11 the two forces had taken Oran and Morroco. When the French were defeated in North Africa Germany quickly took advantage of
the situation and occupied the rest of France.
By January, 1943 the Eighth Army, still in pursuit of Rommel, took Tripoli. Rommel then made his stand at Mareth Line, 200 miles North West of Tripoli. On January 20, 1943 Montgomery attacked from the front and on both flanks. Against bitter res
istance the British pushed through and on to Tunis and Bizerte. The British captured a quarter of a million soldiers, though Rommel escaped the final collapse.
One of the most important decisions of the war was for the allies to land troops onto North Africa and launch a large campaign there. After the Battle of Britain Churchill knew that North Africa would be the only feasible target for an allied inva
sion. At this point the U.S. was not in the war, but Churchill knew that eventually they would be drawn in and that when they were the inevitable defeat of the Axis Powers would eventually come. His only worry was that American help would come to late t
o save Britain. As events took place Churchill was proven correct. The North African campaigns accomplished more than any European landing could have done in 1942 and probably in 1943. North Africa was a place where the allies were able to engage Germ
any with relatively good odds. It did at least pull some German troops off the Russian front.
It could be said that once the U.S. entered the war the fall of Germany became inevitable, certainly Hitler thought so. However, I think that that is a simplified view of the subject. It still took careful planning, hard work and the deaths of th
ousands to defeat Germany. It is certain that the North African Campaigns served a vital roll in the defeat of Germany. North Africa was a disaster for the Axis. Italy lost all it's African colonies with an area ten times that of Italy. The Allies now
had bases for the coming assault on Italy and the Balkans. The Mediterranean could now be used by Allied shipping, instead of going around the Cape of Good Hope. The Allied troops had also gained battle experience, and as Eisenhower put it, "The soldie
rs are going to be battle wise and technically efficient." This was the beginning of the end for Germany and the Third Reich.