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Operation VULCAN—the final Allied attack in the Tunisia campaign—begins on April 22. As he'd long planned, Eisenhower orders Patton to relinquish command of II Corps so he can begin preparations for the invasion of Sicily. This leaves II Corps in the command of Bradley who successfully lobbies Alexander for a greater role in the final push toward Tunis and Bizerte where a quarter of a million Axis troops await.
To capture Bizerte, Bradley must first capture the town of Mateur. Ironically, one of Bradley's first decisions as II Corps commander is to ignore Eisenhower's orders to follow a route through the narrow Tine River Valley, so obvious a site for an ambush that the commander nicknames it the Mousetrap.
While Alexander orders Anderson's First Army to take the lead on capturing Tunis, Montgomery is loath to allow another commander to take all the glory. As such, Montgomery attempts to beat Anderson to Tunis, but he finds that his Eighth Army is far better suited to desert warfare than the mountain warfare it encounters in Northern Tunisia. Having come to this realization, Montgomery transfers two of his divisions to Anderson, effectively ending Montgomery's role in the African campaign.
Over the next week, two British attacks from the south become stalled. As for Bradley's II Corps, it too faces stiff resistance from Axis fighters. Atkinson writes, "Once started [Bradley's] attack was never stopped […] and the drive that began Good Friday can be seen as a continuous, two-week victory march to the sea that finally brought the U.S. Army battle honors fairly won" (499).
On April 27, Bradley attempts to take Hill 609, which he recognizes as the linchpin on which the Axis defensive bridgehead rests. When Anderson orders that he go around the hill and furthermore lend out some of his troops, Bradley refuses. By April 30, General Ryder's 34th division manages to take the hill and successfully repel a series of German counterattacks. Atkinson writes, "As Bradley had foreseen, the capture of Hill 609 unhinged enemy defenses across the entire front, from the Mediterranean to the Mousetrap" (510). Two days later, Mateur falls to the Allies ahead of schedule. On May 7, the Americans finally reach Bizerte and find the city effectively wiped off the map thanks to a fierce Allied bombing campaign over the past few days.
Having already broken through the bridgehead, Tunis falls easily to the British that same day. Unlike Bizerte, much of Tunis remains intact, and many of its residents remain in the city throughout the Allied occupation. Further south, scattered fighting persists, including an ill-advised and entirely unnecessary assault by Montgomery on Zaghouan which needlessly costs him 400 casualties. By May 13, both Arnim and Messe surrender, ending the Tunisian campaign and handing victory to the Allies.
Allied casualties during the Tunisian campaign total over 70,000 dead, wounded, or captured men. Atkinson estimates around between 50,000 and 60,000 dead or wounded Axis soldiers, along with around 250,000 more taken prisoner. Strategically, the Tunisian campaign offers the Allies a strong position from which to launch an invasion of Italy. Just as important, Roosevelt's decision to invade North Africa forestalls an invasion of northern Europe which, given the Allies' early struggles in North Africa, would likely have resulted in disaster. Perhaps the biggest consequences of the North African campaign are psychological. According to Atkinson, "Most Yanks had arrived in Morocco and Algeria convinced that they were fighting someone else’s war; now they were fully vested, with a stake of their own" (538).
Finally, Atkinson argues that the North African campaign serves as a prelude, setting into motion dynamics that will continue throughout the war and beyond:
It was also a place where many things that flowered later in the war first germinated. Some were soul-stirring, such as the return of France to the confederation of democracies. Some were distressing: the Anglophobia of Bradley, Patton, and others; Alexander’s contempt for American martial skills; and various feuds, tiffs, and spats. More profound was a subtle shift in the balance of power within the Anglo-American alliance; the United States was dominant now, by virtue of power and heft, with consequences that would extend not only beyond the war but beyond the century (538).
With Patton once again sidelined from the most crucial fighting in Tunisia as he prepares for the invasion of Sicily, one last individual in Atkinson's cast of characters takes center stage: Bradley. His ascent at the 11th hour of the North African campaign is advantageous from a narrative perspective, as Bradley reflects a great number of qualities Atkinson prizes in a general. During the final push to the bridgehead, Bradley displays an aggressiveness Atkinson finds so frequently absent in Allied commanders at this stage of the war. He also possesses a great deal of tactical acumen, improvising a path around the perilous Mousetrap and understanding before his superiors the importance of capturing Hill 609. In Atkinson's telling, Bradley's ability to combine the keen tactical thinking of Montgomery with Patton's unrelenting belligerence is crucial in breaking through the Axis bridgehead and clearing the way to Tunis. Beyond that, Bradley's resounding success serves as a rejoinder to the British commanders who look down on American generals throughout the campaign.
Yet the II Corps' march through the bridgehead is only made possible by acts of mild insubordination on Bradley's part. His decision to avoid the Mousetrap is a clear departure from Eisenhower's plan and one Bradley makes without consulting the supreme commander. Then, in a somewhat absurd about-face, Bradley refuses Anderson's orders to go around Hill 609, explaining that he only takes orders from Eisenhower, the man he just effectively disobeyed. That Bradley is right about both moves speaks to his tactical brilliance, but it also exposes persistent flaws in the Allied chain-of-command.
With Tunis in the hands of the Allies, Atkinson takes stock once more of how Eisenhower, the US Army, and America in general grow as a result of the North African campaign. Of Eisenhower, Atkinson writes, "Naïveté provided a convenient screen for a man who was complex, shrewd, and sometimes Machiavellian […] he had learned the hardest lesson of all: that for an army to win at war, young men must die" (533).
In another recurring theme, the terrible loss of life has a galvanizing effect on both Eisenhower and the rest of the American army, as they learn to despise the enemy with the kind of hatred needed to defeat it. In a letter to his brother Arthur, Eisenhower writes, "Far above my hatred of war is the determination to smash every enemy of my country, especially Hitler and the Japs" (519). That hatred is felt among the rank-and-file of the US Army as well. Atkinson points out, "Most Yanks arrived in Morocco and Algeria convinced that they were fighting someone else's war; now they were fully vested, with a stake of their own" (538).
Atkinson then explores question of whether the territory won in North Africa is of enough strategic importance to justify so many Allied casualties. Citing the fact that Germany transfers seventeen divisions from western Europe to the Eastern Front during the North African offensive, Atkinson argues that "the campaign in North Africa had done little to influence the titanic struggle waged by the Russians" (539).
While the North African campaign may do little to alleviate pressure on the Soviet Union, it at least signals to Stalin that the United States is committed to fighting the Nazis. Better still, it offers the Americans a staging ground to prove their mettle, to earn confidence, and to develop sufficient hatred of the Germans before launching a far more challenging—and potentially catastrophic—invasion of Europe: “If TORCH provided one benefit above others, it was to save Washington and London from a disastrously premature landing in northern Europe" (540). Atkinson acknowledges that TORCH had been a massive risk, yet "it deferred the even greater gamble of a cross-Channel invasion until the odds improved" (540).
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