Page:Charles Robert Anderson - Algeria-French Morocco - CMH Pub 72-11.pdf/3



Events bringing the United States Army to North Africa had begun more than a year before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. For both the Axis and the Allies, the Mediterranean Sea area was one of uncertain priority. On the Axis side, the location of Italy made obvious Rome’s interest in the region. But the stronger German partner pursued interests hundreds of miles north. A similar division of emphasis characterized the Allies. To the British the Mediterranean Sea was the vital link between the home islands and long-held Asian possessions as well as Middle Eastern oil fields. To the Americans, however, the area had never been one of vital national interest and was not seen as the best route to Berlin. But the fall of France in June 1940 had also brought a new dimension to the region. The surrender of Paris left 120,000 French troops in West and North Africa and much of the French fleet in Atlantic and Mediterranean ports. Both the Axis and Allies saw overseas French forces as the decisive advantage that would allow them to achieve their contradictory objectives in the Mediterranean.

Despite the great advantage which control of the African–Middle Eastern region would give to either of the forces contending for Europe, the huge armies that eventually fought for the area were deployed as a result of events only partially foreseen and decisions reluctantly made. Ever since he unleashed his armies on Poland on 1 September 1939, Adolf Hitler had been anxious to neutralize and possibly occupy Great Britain, much too anxious as events showed. When the air raids of 1940 did not bring a British surrender, Hitler sought to isolate areas of British interest in the Mediterranean from the home islands by closing the Strait of Gibraltar. But the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco frustrated the project by placing a high price on his cooperation. In the meantime, independent actions by Italy forced Berlin to give more attention to the Mediterranean. Italian offensives against British forces in Egypt and Greece bogged down and had to be hastily reinforced by German units. Not until April 1941—after nearly six months of effort that distracted Hitler’s generals from planning the