Page:Charles Robert Anderson - Tunisia - CMH Pub 72-12.djvu/3



Victory at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers gave the United States Army and its British ally solid toeholds in the western Mediterranean Theater of Operations. But it offered no guarantee of easy access to Italy or southern Europe, or even to the eastern end of the Mediterranean, where the British desperately needed assistance to secure Egypt and strategic resources in the Near East. The sudden entrance of American forces during 8-11 November 1942 created an awkward deployment in which two pairs of opposing armies fought in North Africa, one in Tunisia, the other in Libya. Neither Axis nor Allies found any satisfaction in the situation; much fighting remained before either adversary could consider North Africa secure.

Even before the fighting in northwest Africa ended, intense negotiations between American and French officials began. On the morning of 10 November in Algiers Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark, deputy to Lt. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Commander in Chief, Allied Force, met Admiral Jean Francois Darlan, commander in chief of the collaborationist Vichy government's military forces. The different motives and needs of the two sides made these sessions difficult for all. The Allies were in a hurry to gain French help in fighting the Germans and Italians before the Axis could reinforce its units in Africa. On the same day talks in Algiers opened, British Lt. Gen. Kenneth A. N. Anderson began moving his Eastern Task Force into position off Tunisia for the next series of landings. With Clark and Darlan still in the early stages of negotiations, the enemy acted. On 11–12 November German submarines fired several near-misses at the American aircraft carrier Ranger, scored hits against three ships, and sank three transports off Casablanca. Intelligence sources reported Axis aircraft and transports en route to Tunis. Meanwhile, across the negotiating table General Clark found a frustrating lack of urgency in his French counterparts.

Ever since France had surrendered to Adolf Hitler in June 1940, French officers had been struggling with Nazi demands that they fight the Allies on the one hand and with their need to retain a measure of