An Army at Dawn

As the march to Tunis begins in earnest, the series of tactical errors committed by Allied troops falls largely on the shoulders of General Anderson. To be sure, Atkinson is unsparing in his evaluation of Anderson whom he criticizes for arranging his troops in a fatally over-dispersed column rather than in a concentrated thrust. However, Atkinson also points out logistical challenges and troop shortages that arguably doom Anderson's campaign from the start. In addition to the fact that only 12,000 of the over 100,000 men landed as part of Operation TORCH are at Anderson's disposal, logistical nightmares also plague the Allies—most egregiously, the tanks left behind "after they proved a couple inches too big for the bow openings on the only landing ships available" (53).

As the book progresses, it becomes clear that logistics—the practice of making sure troops are properly supplied and where they need to be—is at least as important to military operations as tactics. The website for the Smithsonian Institute quotes the old military axiom, "Amateurs study tactics, but professionals study logistics" ("West Point in the Making of America." The Smithsonian Institute), and the experience of the Allies in North Africa thoroughly supports this. Aside from faulty tanks and tons of weapons and ammunition languishing in Casablanca, Allied troops repeatedly await reinforcements that never arrive. Just as often, reinforcements arrive to find that the battle's already been called off, yet no one informed them. Tragically, the latter scenario frequently results in reinforcements pushing ahead anyway, loath to go against what they believe are their marching orders. These lapses take center stage during the battle over Djedeïda, when a commander ignores what he sees with his own eyes and instead pushes his division to certain doom, justifying his actions by stating, “I have my orders” (209).

Despite these systemic logistical failures, however, had Anderson not allowed his troops to remain so dispersed, such difficult and improvised troop movements may not have been necessary. Indeed, Atkinson attributes tactical failures to Anderson that are difficult for him to forgive: "Precisely what Anderson could have done otherwise, given his paltry force and stringy logistics, is debatable; but gathering his scattered troops into a compact, clenched fist would have been a start" (176).

That Anderson isn't held in the same esteem as popular World War II generals like Patton or Montgomery may also have something to do with his temperament. World War II scholar Richard Mead concludes that Anderson "handled a difficult campaign more competently than his critics suggest, but competence without flair was not good enough for a top commander in 1944." (Mead, Richard. Churchill's Lions. Staplehurst: Spellmount Ltd. 2007.)

As Allied forces fight and march across territory once ruled by Ancient Carthage, the symbol of the renowned general Hannibal is introduced. During the Punic Wars of the 3rd century BC, Hannibal led Carthage against the Roman Republic over supremacy of the Mediterranean region. Atkinson writes that Hannibal's wisdom is said to have trickled down through the ages to the Allied troops: "'Whoever has Medjez-el-Bab has the key to the door, and is the master of all Tunisia,' Hannibal supposedly declared […] the sentiment had been true in the centuries before Christ and it was true in 1942" (178). Moreover, the book's fifth chapter is titled Primus in Carthago, which translates to First in Carthage.

Perhaps most interesting of all is Eisenhower's worship of Hannibal which dates back to childhood: "Just forty miles south. Eisenhower's boyhood hero, Hannibal, had been smashed at Zama […] He hoped to visit the site someday, to understand by walking the ground what had gone wrong for the Carthaginians" (253). While Atkinson makes no attempt to answer this question explicitly, it is worth pointing out that while Hannibal's forces possessed a significant numerical advantage, many of them were ill-trained or mercenaries. Considering the Allies' own ultimate numerical advantage in North Africa and the fact that many of the American troops still feel like they're "fighting someone else's war" (538) as Atkinson later puts it, the parallels between Hannibal and Eisenhower are well-formed.

Meanwhile, more of Eisenhower's failings as a commander begin to emerge. According to Atkinson:

In truth, he spent at least three-quarters of his time worrying about political issues, and that preoccupation poorly served the Allied cause. Had he shunted aside all distractions to focus on seizing Tunis with a battle captain's fixed purpose, the coming months might have been different. But a quarter-century as a staff officer, with a staff officer's meticulous attention to detail and instinctive concern for pleasing his superiors, did not slough away easily. Eisenhower had yet to bend events to his iron will, to impose as well as implore, to become a commander in action as well as in rank (197).

Of all of Eisenhower's flaws, this tendency to become distracted by political issues at home and abroad is perhaps his most glaring weakness. By allowing himself to be distracted by issues of public opinion that are tangential to the actual fighting of the war, Eisenhower loses control of the increasingly convoluted command structure under him.

At the same time, this is also arguably the area in which the commander shows the most improvement in his performance as the North African campaign progresses. Throughout the book, Atkinson reserves heavy praise for Eisenhower over his ability to learn from his mistakes. The colossal tactical, organizational, and logistical problems that plague his command over much of the campaign serve as a necessary trial-by-fire, without which Eisenhower would have never become the kind of general capable of smashing Hitler in Europe. In a sense, Eisenhower is the best living embodiment of Atkinson's broader theme that through the tribulations of the North African campaign, America manages to discover and correct its weaknesses in a way that resonates through to the 21st century.

Before that happens, Eisenhower and the American military must contend with the painful realization that at present they are completely outmatched by the Germans. A letter from Eisenhower—written arguably at the nadir of the North African campaign—supports earlier claims that the commander's sunny disposition in public and with colleagues is a calculated persona. In private correspondence with friends, Eisenhower can come across as fatalistic and bitter, although in fairness he has all the reason in the world to feel this way given current conditions on the battlefield. In one letter, he writes that the strategy and tactics underlying the Allied North African offensive thus far "will be condemned, in their entirety, by all Leavenworth and war college classes for the next twenty-five years" (246).

As one might expect, a similarly low level of morale infects the entire Allied apparatus, from commanders to officers to enlisted men. Ironically, Atkinson frames this abysmal morale like so much else in the narrative: a necessary prelude to future triumphs. Of the Allied troops, Atkinson writes, "True, they did not hate yet; but they were developing the capacity of hatred which required a nihilistic core of resignation and rage" (262). According to Atkinson, one of the ironies of war is that defeating an enemy requires a measure of hatred that can only be achieved by suffering heavy losses. The idea of morale becomes far more complicated. While the disadvantages of low morale are clear and obvious, such a poor condition also provides a fertile breeding ground for the "nihilistic core of resignation" (262) required to annihilate the enemy.