WW2's Tunisian campaign: the Stalingrad of Africa

Summary

History Extra Podcast: "WW2's Tunisian Campaign: the Stalingrad of Africa"

Date: December 3, 2025
Host: Rob Attar
Guest: Military Historian Saul David

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Rob Attar speaks with renowned military historian Saul David about the often-overlooked Tunisian campaign during World War II. Drawing from research in his new book, "Tunisgrad," Saul David explores why this critical North African campaign was, in his view, one of the three major turning points of the entire war—comparable in significance to Stalingrad. The conversation highlights strategic decisions, battlefield realities, collaboration between Allied forces, and why the campaign's legacy remains eclipsed by more famous confrontations in Europe and the Pacific.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why is the Tunisian Campaign Underappreciated?

[02:49]

• Despite being contemporaneous with Stalingrad, the Tunisian campaign remains in the shadows.
• Saul David: "American historians still to this day argue that the North African campaign wasn't as necessary and as effective as the British promised it would be. My research and my belief is that actually it was much more effective."
  — [04:48]
• The campaign was seen as peripheral because it delayed the cross-Channel invasion, leading some to argue this prolonged Soviet dominance in post-war Europe—a view David disputes.

2. Origins and Geography of North African Combat

[05:46]

• The context reaches back to 1940 with Mussolini’s ambitions in North Africa.
• Saul David: "It's an opportunity for him to get some territorial additions to Italy. He's particularly keen on creating...a new Roman Empire in North Africa."
  — [06:08]
• Initial British victories (Operation Compass) almost forced Italy out but British overextension (supporting Greece) allowed the Axis, led by Rommel, to regain ground.

3. Strategic Importance of Tunisia

[10:22]

• Tunisia’s proximity to Sicily rendered it vital for Mediterranean control. Rather than risking direct landings in Tunisia, the Allies landed further west (Operation Torch) and anticipated a "race for Tunis" against the Axis.
• Saul David: "The thinking is if we land on French North Africa and we can persuade the French not to fight us, we can then get to Tunisia as quickly as possible..."
  — [10:44]

4. Operation Torch and Vichy France’s Role

[14:32]

• The Torch landings (November 8, 1942) were the largest amphibious assault so far, complicated by uncertainty about Vichy French resistance.
• Most Vichy troops initially fought the Allies; only after realizing their precarious position did Admiral Darlan agree to stop fighting—too late to prevent German reinforcements in Tunisia.
• Saul David: "There's a lot of fighting on the 8th and 9th, and then finally on the 10th... But by that point it's already too late because...the Germans...have already allowed Axis forces in."
  — [15:08]

5. Race to Tunis: Numbers and Initial Battles

[17:04]

• Both sides quickly funneled troops into Tunisia; initial Allied advances nearly reached Tunis but were checked by German counterattacks.
• The Axis held advantages in air superiority, elite units, and strategic high ground.
• Quote: "We took the hill three times, but the Germans took it four."—American infantryman on the battle for Longstop Hill [21:22]

6. Difficult Allied Cooperation: British, Americans & French

[23:34]

• Early U.S. and British collaboration was fraught with cultural and doctrinal friction.
• Saul David: "Eisenhower...is brilliant at handling people... if I hear any of you criticizing the British for being British, you're out of here immediately."
  — [24:20]
• Misgivings and inexperience led to missteps, but the joint command grew more cohesive over time, learning painful lessons through defeat and adaptation.

7. Axis Counteroffensives and the Battle for Kasserine Pass

[28:09]

• By early 1943, Axis (now under Kesselring, von Arnim, and Rommel) attempted to defeat Allied armies in detail. Coordination failures (notably, Rommel not given command over all armored forces) blunted Axis ambitions.
• The Kasserine Pass saw considerable Allied defeat—"the last great victory won by Rommel"—but lack of German coordination prevented a decisive Axis breakthrough.
• Rommel's final counterattack at Medenine in March 1943 was repulsed by Montgomery, effectively signaling the Axis’ doom in Tunisia.

8. Final Allied Victories and Tunisgrad

[34:00]

• After the link-up of British Eighth Army and Allied forces advancing from the west in April 1943, unified actions broke Axis resistance.
• The swift Allied advance (Operation Strike) led to the fall of Tunis (May 7, 1943) and surrender of over 250,000 Axis troops—surpassing Stalingrad in POWs.
• Saul David: "It's not just the number...it's the quality of those troops. These are veteran Panzer formations...These are really excellent troops. And they all go into the bag mainly because Hitler is too stubborn to get them out while he still has an opportunity."
  — [36:00]
• Losses forced Germany to draw air resources from elsewhere, helping set up D-Day’s eventual Allied air superiority.

9. Allied Commanders and Psychological Impact

[38:15]

• Tunisian campaign forged the Allied command structure critical for Sicily, Italy, and Normandy. Poor commanders (e.g., Fredendall) were replaced by more effective leaders (e.g., Patton).
• Saul David: "By the end of the Tunisian campaign, you've got together a team that is going to be the Western Allies' go-to group for the rest of the war."
  — [39:22]
• Morale soared for Allies, while Axis soldiers and leaders (notably Goebbels) compared the collapse to Stalingrad.

10. The Human and Tactical Experience

[39:47]

• Fighting in Tunisia was brutal: mountainous terrain, dreadful winter conditions, supply difficulties.
• Saul David: "For ordinary infantrymen and armor to fight in those conditions was a great proving ground for what they're going to have to do in northwest Europe."
  — [40:56]

11. Conduct on the Battlefield

[41:36]

• Combat was intense but generally more humane between the Western Allies and Germans than on the Eastern Front, with relatively few atrocities or mistreatment of POWs.
• Saul David: "Rommel and von Arnim...fought a much cleaner war...prisoners, they did treat their prisoners reasonably well..."
  — [42:49]

12. Reframing the Campaign in Historical Memory

[43:38]

• David argues the Tunisian campaign deserves recognition as the Western Front's true turning point—on par with Stalingrad in the east and Guadalcanal in the Pacific.
• Saul David: "What is the big turning point in Western Europe? In my view, it's the capture of North Africa. It's Tunisgrad...the beginning of the end for the Germans in Western Europe."
  — [45:02]

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Notable Quotes

• "American historians still...argue that the North African campaign wasn't as necessary...In my belief, it was probably the most effective thing they could have done in 1942. It destroyed an awful lot of Axis power..." — Saul David [04:30]
• "We took the hill three times, but the Germans took it four." — American infantryman on Longstop Hill [21:22]
• "Eisenhower...is brilliant at handling people...If I hear any of you criticizing the British...you're out." — Saul David [24:20]
• "By the end of the Tunisian campaign, you've got together a team that is going to be the Western Allies' go-to group for the rest of the war..." — Saul David [39:22]
• "What is the big turning point in Western Europe? In my view, it's...Tunisgrad...the beginning of the end for the Germans in Western Europe." — Saul David [45:02]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:49] Why the campaign is underappreciated
• [05:46] Background of North African fighting
• [10:22] Why Tunisia was strategically vital
• [14:32] Torch landings and Vichy France’s role
• [17:04] Early forces and Axis advantages
• [23:34] Allied command and cultural challenges
• [28:09] Axis counteroffensives & Kasserine Pass
• [34:00] Final Allied offensives and endgame
• [39:47] Life for ordinary soldiers
• [41:36] Conduct and treatment of POWs
• [43:38] Tunisian campaign’s place in history

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Memorable Moments

• The vivid description of the chaotic "race for Tunis" and the knife-edge nature of early fighting.
• The honest acknowledgment of both Allied friction and learning curves—Patton's criticisms and Eisenhower's demand for unity.
• Comparison of the final Axis surrender in Tunisia to Stalingrad—not just in numbers, but in strategic impact and psychological blow.
• The assertion that Tunisgrad should be recognized as the Western theater's true turning point.

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a comprehensive account of the Tunisian campaign's military, political, and human dimensions, challenging listeners to reconsider its significance in WWII history. Saul David advocates for its recognition as a key hinge moment—a "Stalingrad of Africa"—whose consequences rippled through the remainder of the conflict and shaped the future Allied victory in Europe.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host (Rob Attar)]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. For the Allies, it was an enormous triumph, and for Nazi Germany it was another Stalingrad. But But 80 years on, the battle for Tunisia is barely mentioned in the popular accounts of the Second World War, having been totally eclipsed by the iconic clashes in Europe and the Pacific. In his new book, Tunisgrad, the military historian Saul David aims to redress the balance. And speaking to Rob Attar for today's episode, he argues that this North African campaign was one of the three biggest turning points of the entire war for.

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

Tunisia has been compared to the mighty and more famous clash at Stalingrad. So why, therefore, do you think that the battle for Tunisia isn't better known?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? Not least because it takes place pretty much at the same time. Rob I think the answer to that question is that it's always been considered to be peripheral. The strategy of the Allies at that time was, let's defeat the Germans, let's defeat them as quickly as possible. And of course, most of the American Chiefs of Staff felt that the simplest way to do that was simply to go across the Channel, which, of course, they are going to do in 1944, as we know, with the benefit of hindsight. But in 1942, there's no question it would have been a much tougher proposition, and Churchill was well aware of this. But he was also well aware of, if we're going to assist the Russians, if we're going to keep the Russians, the Soviets, in the war, we need to do something this year. The Americans are now in. They've come in at the end of 1941, so we've got a lot of weight, we've got a lot of men and material we can use, but it's too early to cross the Channel. So let's do the next best thing and invade North Africa. But the issue is, if you think about it, it's going to lead to a delay effectively in both helping the Russians directly, because there's a feeling that even if the Germans do siphon away some of their power to the North African campaign, it's not going to be anything like as much as it would have been if the Allies had invaded northwest Europe. And of course, it's going to delay the actual invasion of northwest Europe at least until 1943, which is what the British were really promising in 1942. But of course, we know that other things got in the way, and it wasn't until 1944. Now, because of all of that, I think American historians still to this day argue that the North African campaign wasn't as necessary and as effective as the British promised it would be. My research and my belief is that actually it was much more effective. It was probably the most effective thing they could have done in 1942. It destroyed an awful lot of Axis power, that is Italian and German power, and it was well worth doing. And it was the. Really, the key player in all of this, Rob, was Roosevelt. If he hadn't been able to persuade his chiefs of staff that the British policy was the right one, it never would have happened. But still to this day, there are those who believe that, no, it's so called scatterization, which is what the US Chiefs of Staff used at the time. This idea of scatterization, in other words, not going to the heart of the enemy, just like peripheral attacks, was simply delaying the inevitable. And some people even go so far as to argue that the depth the Soviets got into Europe and therefore the post war settlement was partly a result of North Africa and us not going in earlier. I don't believe that, but that is one of the reasons why people don't consider it to be as crucial a campaign as I think it clearly is and I think my book shows.

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

So they decide on this North African campaign and I think it might be helpful for listeners here maybe to explain what the landscape's like in North Africa at this point. Because the British and British Empire forces have been fighting North Africa already for some time, haven't they?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

They have. I mean, we have to go back to 1940 when the Italians, Mussolini's fascist Italian state, rather cynically enters the war on the 10th of June 1940 and that date's significant. France is effectively beaten by that point. And Mussolini knows if he comes into the war at that point, really he's just cleaning up. And it's an opportunity for him to get some territorial additions to Italy. He's particularly keen on the possibility of creating what he described as a new Roman Empire in North Africa. The Italians have been in North Africa since 1912 when they took over the North African colony of Libya. But they have much more ambitious plans than that and that ultimately it's to, it's to conquer Egypt, the Suez Canal and you know, and at best maybe get control of the oil fields of the Middle East. And so following on from that declaration of war on both France and the UK on 10 June, just a few months later, he orders his army in Libya, the Italian 10th army, commanded by Graziani, who's a pro fascist general, to invade into Egypt. Now Egypt occupied quite an unusual position because it was a former British mandate that was still occupied by British troops. So technically it was independent, but it still had a very large British and Commonwealth garrison, although Rob nowhere near as big as the Italian invading army. So there was a real danger even as early as the autumn of 1940 that the British were going to be thrown out of North Africa altogether. They were saved by an extraordinary campaign known as Operation Compass, commanded by General Richard O'. Connor. With just 36,000 men, he turned the tables on a far bigger Italian army and defeated it completely. So that by February 1941 there was a real danger that his successes were going to go all the way to Tripoli, which was the headquarters of the Italian forces in Libya, and throw them out of North Africa. And the reason that didn't happen is because Churchill decided to sidetrack some of the troops to Greece So you have this knock on effect of Britain. Remember in 1941, no Americans in the war, we're still fighting the Axis alone. You know, it's a wing and a prayer if we're going to stay in the war. Germany hasn't invaded the ussr, so there's still just us fighting alone. And Churchill's very much of the opinion that we need to keep the Balkans onside, we need to keep Turkey on side, which is why he tries to support the Greek regime that goes horribly wrong. Greece falls to the Germans after they invade and we have to withdraw our forces there back to Crete that's then conquered by the Germans. So pretty much by the summer of 1941 we are in a bit of a hole. Not least because the Germans have sent two divisions under their dashing commander, Erwin Rommel, to support the Italians in Libya. And Rommel very quickly by his aggressive tactics and the fact that the British and Commonwealth armies in Libya, North Africa have been weakened by the troops sent to Greece, he very quickly turns the table on them and you effectively get rob a kind of toing and fraying. One minute the Germans are advancing the Axis forces, German and Italians advancing across North Africa to the borders of Egypt. Next thing they're being pushed back by a British and Commonwealth counterattack. It was Operation Battle Axe in the summer of 1941. Then later on that year was a more successful operation that pushed them all the way back into Libya. They then came back the other way. And so that by the summer of 1942, when some of these discussions as to whether or not there will be a second landing in North Africa is going to take place, the Germans have actually managed to conquer, after a nine month long siege, the port of Tripoli. And it really does look like they're going to get all the way to the Suez Canal and they are stopped at a place called El Alamein, which listeners will know is a key location because there are two battles that are fought there, one defensive in the summer of 1942 and one offensive of course by General Sir Bernard Montgomery, who's taken control of the British Field army in Egypt, the 8th Army. And he's building it up with forces partly supported by America, including Sherman tanks that he's then going to use to launch in a massive operation towards the end of October, which is just about the point that the Americans and the British are planning to land in French North Africa.

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

So essentially you've got this fighting that's been going on for a couple of years in the east of North Africa and then you've got Operation Torch, which this new Allied landing on the west of North Africa. And so why was it deemed so important to take control of Tunisia?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

Well, if you look at the map of French North Africa, you've got three countries, you've got Tunisia, which is the furthest to the east and the closest to Sicily. So it's a very important strategic location in terms of controlling the sea lanes of the Mediterranean. Directly to the west of that is Algeria. And then furthest to the west all the way to the Atlantic coast is Morocco. All three of those states are controlled by Vichy France, which is technically neutral, but it's really under the thumb of the Germans. It's a collaborationist regime that the Allies were very keen to peel away from Germany if they could. And so the thinking is if we land on French North Africa and we can persuade the French not to fight us, we can then get to Tunisia as quickly as possible. And this will allow the forces that land in French west North Africa to form one part of a vise. The other part of the vise, of course, is Montgomery's 8th Army. That will eventually trap Rommel's army, Panzer army in between. Now, what they don't bargain on is that the Germans are going to double down and send reinforcements themselves. So they know there's a possibility that that might happen. Rob. And there's a lot of thinking, let's land straight in Tunisia. And the reason they don't land in Tunisia is because it's too dangerous. It's too close to Sicily, it's too close to airfields and of course submarines and U boats. So any ships, Allied ships bringing troops in to land at the locations at the key ports in Tunisia will come under attack and will probably be decimated. So the furthest they decide to go east in the Mediterranean is Algier and then the next port is Iran. Those are both in, in Algeria and they're also going to land in Morocco. So it's a kind of halfway house solution. We're going to land as far east as we can so that we can try and get into Tunisia as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, there's a danger the Axis are going to try to do the same, which is why the support of the Vichy forces is so crucial. Because if the Vichy in Tunisia say no to the Germans and the Italians, you're not coming in. Then there's a good chance that they can get there first. But if they don't, then you've got a problem. You've got a so called race for Tunis, which is exactly what happens.

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[Military Historian (Saul David)]

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[Podcast Host (Rob Attar)]

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[Military Historian (Saul David)]

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[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

So Vichy France doesn't then seek to repel the Axis, essentially. Do they then fight on the side of the Axis or do they try to remain neutral?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

Yeah, it's fascinating, the sequence of events actually, Rob, because the landings take place on the 8th of November 1942. And just to say a quick word about the operation, Operation Torch. I mean, it was a huge amphibious operation and we know of course that it was superseded by Sicily and then the landings in Italy and of course D day to come. But at that time it was the greatest amphibious operation of the war. Troops being brought all the way from the United States, also down from the uk. They were having to sail hundreds of miles, some of them coming the last leg from Gibraltar, which was the only toehold the Western Allies still had in the Mediterranean. At that point, the Germans and the Italians were pretty much controlling the sea lanes in the Mediterranean. It was a huge operation. Not a vast number of troops involved, about 120,000 troops involved, but the logistics to land them on a shore that they didn't know would be hostile were enormous and potentially insurmountable. But it went incredibly well. They managed to land these troops on day one, on 8 November 1942. What they weren't sure about is what was going to happen next. They'd been in contact with some of the pro Western Allied Vichy generals in North Africa who said, look, we'll help you. But unfortunately for the Western Allies, the majority of troops, Vichy troops, stayed loyal to Petain, the Vichy regime in France, and they were told to resist the Allied invaders. So there's a lot of fighting on the 8th and on the 9th, and then finally on the 10th, just two days into the campaign, the Vichy commander in North Africa, realising the game's up, a man called Admiral Dahlan does a deal where he effectively says, okay, if you make me overall commander of French forces in North Africa, I will tell everyone to stop fighting. But by that point it's already too late because the authorities in Tunisia, under pressure from the Germans, have already allowed Axis forces in. And so you get this literally two or three day moment where it, it would have been possible for the Allies to have got there first, but the Germans get there, they bring people in by plane and also by ship, and they build up their forces in the key ports of Tunis and Bizerta, strong enough so that they can then march westward and try and meet the Allies before they're coming eastward. So it's this battle for Tunis. Can we, the Axis forces, build up enough supplies and men before the Allied armies coming from the Torch landings can get into Tunisia and take control?

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

So what was the balance of forces then between the Allies and the Axis? Who had the numerical superiority?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

Well, it's extraordinary that at this early stage of the campaign, we're talking tens of thousands of troops. Now, I've already told you that 120,000 Western allies landed in Algeria and Morocco. But if you look at the map, you can see that particularly the landings in Morocco, they've got enormous distance to go. You know, they've got a couple of thousand miles to go to get to Tunisia. And so the Germans have a window of opportunity. And also crucially, and this is a factor that plays out all the way through the early stage of the fight for Tunisia. The Axis forces have air superiority because their airfields in originally Sicily, and of course, once they get into Tunisia, in Tunisia, give them an air umbrella that the Allies don't have. They're moving their airfields forward. They're kind of building airfields as, as they go, but their fighters and their attack planes are coming much longer distances. And so although the Western Allies managed to get maybe 20,000 men into the fight in the first month or so, these are our troops who don't have proper air cover. They're a mixed bag of British infantry, some American armor, also some British armor. And they up against some very effective German troops. They have the 10th Panzer Division that's sent out there relatively quickly, some paratroopers, some elite veteran troops really are sent against them. And it's this early fight between maybe 15,000 Germans and up to 20,000 allies that is the key struggle. And it gets very, very close in this fighting in the first month. At one stage there's an armored force, so called Blade Force, which is a western allied force that gets within just 15 miles of Tunis, but it's forced back by some very effective German defence. And slowly but surely these initial troops that got into Tunisia are pushed back so that you then get effectively a defensive line that the Germans are not only determined to hold, but also expand outwards. And meanwhile, just to say a quick word about Hitler, because he's been completely taken on the hop by this invasion, as you might imagine he would. And what's interesting is how quickly he sees the strategic importance of North Africa. If anyone wants to understand whether or not Churchill was right in doing what he did, it's look at the reaction of Hitler and his senior military planners. They realize that the so called glassy that is the defensive bulwark of Europe, which is North Africa. If it's taken by the Western Allies, then you lose control of the Mediterranean and you also vulnerable all along the southern shoreline. And of course ultimately in 1944 the Western Allies are going to invade Southern France. But even before then they're able to take Sicily and they're able to take Italy. And the other thing Hitler realizes is that if the Italians are defeated in North Africa, there's a real danger they might leave the war. I mean that after all was was Mussolini's major project and the humiliation and the loss of men and material might actually force them out of the war. So it's absolutely vital in his mind that they keep a presence in North Africa, they prevent Rommel from being defeated and Bey that in his wildest dreams they actually drive the Western Allies in the sea and get all the way as far as Casablanca. I mean, pie in the sky frankly, given the men and material that the Americans are eventually able to put into North Africa and the British. But that was Hitler's instinct and he was right to consider that because the loss of North Africa is going to be a disaster for the Axis.

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

And as you were saying earlier, in the early stages, the Axis do pretty well in the battle for Tunisia. How do the Allies seek to turn the tide then?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

Yeah, it's very interesting. For that first month, there's a belief that they can still get to Tunis, they can still win the race, and they can not only defeat the troops that are already there, but they can stop any more coming. If you can gain control of the ports of Tunis and Bizerta and the airfields around them, you pretty much control Tunisia. And you're also going to eventually throttle the supply lines that are getting through to Rommel. So it's a hugely important target to get your hands on these two ports, which is why the fighting's so desperate on both sides. They get relatively close. There's a famous battle round about Christmas time for a feature that the Western Allies call Longstop Hill. And this battle for Longstop Hill really encapsulates this early fighting because it's originally taken by the Coldstream Guards. They then hand it over to a regiment of American infantry. But what they don't realise is there's a little bit of high ground just beyond Longstop Hill that the Germans are controlling, and they then counterattack from there. So, as one of the American infantrymen who fought on that feature says bitterly afterwards, we took the hill three times, but the Germans took it four. And they end up in control of this absolutely vital feature that was controlling the route into Tunis. And it's the capture of terrain like that that proves so vital, because the topography of. Of Tunisia is worth talking about a little bit. I mean, of course, the earlier fighting that we were mentioning has really been across desert, and that's perfect for armour. But in Tunisia generally, particularly in the center of Tunisia, but even the north of Tunisia, it's very mountainous. You do have some coastal plain, but to get through that coastal plain, you've got to get through this mountainous region. Not ridiculously high mountains, but significant in relation to the ground around them. And, of course, the Germans become very effective at building defensive positions on the high ground. And to get through the mountain passes, you effectively have to take those positions on the high ground. And it becomes very much a struggle for mountain passes. And, of course, as we move into winter, the conditions get increasingly tough for everyone. It gets colder, it gets wetter, it's even snowing in places, it's raining, and these are really miserable. It's brutally tough living conditions, particularly for the American Troops who are fighting their first major campaign of the war. I mean, one of the reasons why Churchill's able to persuade Roosevelt, among many other reasons, that North Africa wouldn't be a bad idea for the Americans to concentrate on first is that this will allow you to cut your teeth against German troops, and it's going to give you a chance to adapt to the fighting in northwest Europe much more effectively. Nevertheless, it had its own difficulties, and fighting in the mountains proved to be a very difficult task for both sides, but particularly for the Western Allies, as you say there.

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

Of course, this was one of the first instances of the Americans military involvement in the war against the Nazis. How did the British and Commonwealth and American forces all work together? How smooth was that?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

It's interesting that, given that this was the first time the British and Commonwealth forces had fought alongside the Americans, it took a considerable period of time for them to really iron out their differences. I mean, they fought in a very different way. You know, the whole command structure was different. The way the army was structured was different. You had, overall, an American commander in chief. That was Eisenhower. I mean, this is his first campaign. He's completely untested at this point, relatively young, he's enjoyed rapid promotion. He's only 50 years old, and he's the overall commander in chief. And below him, you've got a series of layers of command that, as much as possible, they've tried to divide between British and American. So in his staff, for example, you've got senior people who are American, the senior people who are British. They don't get on that well, truth be told, because they do things very differently. But Eisenhower, one of the reasons I think he becomes so important to this campaign and also later campaigns in the Mediterranean and Northwest Europe, is he's brilliant at handling people. He was an excellent organizer, very, very capable staff officer with a really sharp mind, but he was brilliant at getting on with people and getting them to work together. And one of the first things he said to all the Americans on his staff is, if I hear any of you criticizing the British for being British, you're out of here immediately. And, of course, the same instructions went down from senior British officers to their command structure. And there was a lot of difficulty in the early stages of the campaign. You've got people like Patton, who's only a corps commander at this stage. He's commanding a couple of divisions. He's not an army commander yet, who doesn't like the way the British do things. He thinks they're very kind of hidebound in their tactics. They're not very bold about their tactical decision making. He doesn't like the way so many of the British commanders have their HQ far away from the front line. And he's very disparaging of the British. Meanwhile, we are still saying pretty much the same thing. General Anderson, who takes command of the 1st army, which is the major formation that lands at Torch, you know, describes the Americans as green. He loses confidence in them in the first few weeks of fighting. And so you get a very unstable situation in which things could have gone badly wrong in terms of the, you know, the bad feeling between the Americans and the British. And one of the reasons it doesn't is because Eisenhower insists that all these differences have to be thrashed out. And the more they work together, the more they begin to appreciate what each other side is good at. And the one thing I'll say for the Americans is that although they were very green, they were very inexperienced at this stage of the war. They do learn incredibly quickly. That's not to say that there aren't more disasters to come, Rob. And I think one of the interesting things about the North African campaign is that when people look back and they think, well, we had the 8th army coming from Egypt, and we had the 1st army and associated French and American troops landing in West North Africa, surely it was only a matter of time before we win that campaign. But actually there were moments, moments when it was on a knife edge, particularly at this early stage. And also, as we move into the first couple of months of 1943, as.

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

An aside there, you just talked about the French landing. This would be the Free French, right? These wouldn't be Vichy French troops. These would be the French forces who are not loyal to Petain.

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

Yeah, well, actually, interestingly enough, that no French troops land, probably with good reason, because they literally would have been up against other French troops. What they do do is they march inland. So. So there have already been Free French troops answering to de Gaulle, who's effectively been declared a traitor by Vichy France by going to Britain and saying to all Frenchmen, come and rally to my flag. Well, they've already been fighting on the side of the British and Commonwealth troops in North Africa and in other parts of Africa, and they march up to take part in the Tunisian campaign. Meanwhile, some of the Vichy French troops have eventually come over onto the side of the. Of the Western Allies. So you've got these, you know, this strange combination of French forces, some who would say, well, you know, we've been fighting the Germans since 1940, and some we would say, well, we were only acting under orders and now our orders are different. And so we're now fighting on the side of the Western Allies.

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

So as you've explained early on, this was quite a close run thing. The battle for Tunis. How did the Allies eventually come to triumph?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

Well, what you have in the early stages of 1943 is, in my view, one of the key moments of the campaign. You've got changes in the Western Allied command structure. You originally had Eisenhower, and Eisenhower had aspirations to be a field commander. I mean, any general worth his salt would want to command armies in the field, but he had no experience. So what eventually happens, particularly after these early setbacks and the failure to get to tunis in late 1942, that was the aspiration. The feeling we can clear the Axis forces out by the end of 1942 and conquer Tunisia is a rejiggling of the command structure. And they put in place directly below Eisenhower a very effective commander called Alexander. And Alexander has been Monty's boss, Montgomery's boss, he's commander in chief, Middle east, but now he's given command of an army group. So all the forces who are going to fight in tunisia, that's the 8th army that's coming from Egypt, but also the 1st army and the US and French troops are now going to come under the overall command of General Sir Harold Alexander. And he too, a little bit like Ike, is very good at organizing people. He's very good at delegation. He knows Monty's a very good field commander, so he gives him a certain amount of autonomy. He's not so convinced about Anderson, so he keeps a closer eye on Anderson. But overall he manages to integrate the strategy of the Western Allies. And, and his main thing is, let's get these two armies, the 8th army and the 1st army, let's make sure they meet up. So the link up of those two armies is absolutely crucial. But the Axis forces are not standing idly by while all this is going on. They're saying to themselves, led by Kesselring, who's the overall German commander in the Mediterranean, this is our last opportunity. So we're going to reinforce the forces in Tunisia. They are an army that's led by a man called Von Arnim, who's experienced commander from the Eastern Front. And then at the same time, you've got Rommel's army withdrawing into Tunisia. And once you link up those two armies, there's a possibility, Kesselring thinks, to attack the two Western Allied armies that are coming into Tunisia and defeating them. One after another, or in detail, as they have it, in military parlance. And this comes very close to actually happening because there is a series of Battles in February 1943 in the mountains of central Tunisia in which the French, the Americans and the British suffer a series of defeats, most famously at Kasserine Pass, which some of the listeners might have remembered. And the Kasserine Pass is generally considered to be the last great victory won by Rommel. So you've got von Arnim's forces fighting and Rommel's forces fighting side by side. Unfortunately, they are not as coordinated as they should have been. And Rommel, just before the Kasserine Pass battle, argues for all the armoured forces, which of course, are the most effective striking forces, to come under his command so that he can get through the Kasserine Pass, another pass a little bit further to the north, known as the Sebiba Pass. And once they're through those two passes, they will be into the plains beyond and effectively into the Allied lines of. Of communication. And so what Rommel wants to do is a huge kind of sickle sweep, you know, a little bit like the campaign in 1940, and if it goes well, go all the way to the North African coast and completely disrupt the lines of communication and possibly defeat the Western Allies in entirety. But he's never given control of all those armoured forces. Kesselring basically allows von Arnhem to act as a separate commander. And as a result, this original, very ambitious plan of Rommel's is watered down. And by watering it down, the line of advance that Rommel's going to go on when he comes through Kasserine Pass is much closer to where the main Allied forces are. You're not going to get deep beyond them and behind them, you're just going to come into Western Allied reserves, which is exactly what happened. So, literally, a day or two after this great success at Kasserine Pass, he's rebuffed as he tries to move beyond there and is forced to withdraw back through the pass. So what could have been a great opportunity, opportunity for the Axis forces is lost partly because of this disparate command structure. Could they have done what Rommel hoped? You know, this is a great $64,000 question. Rommel always believed that it was a huge wasted opportunity. It might have been beyond him to have got all the way to the North African coast, but he certainly could have caused a lot more damage than he did. And by being repulsed, by withdrawing back through the Kasserine Pass and basically back to the coastal Plain he was effectively conceding that the defeat of the Western Allies in North Africa was probably beyond him. He did actually have one last throw of the dice, which is the second part of the plan, which is to defeat the 8th army, who he attacks at Medenine in southern Tunisia in early March. And he's repulsed quite easily from there by Monti. Another victory for Monti, because Monti has cited his forces very effectively, using a lot of anti tank guns. And most of Rommel's remaining armored forces are destroyed at Medenine. And that for him is the beginning of the end. He then flies back to Europe to advise Hitler that the battle for North Africa is lost and the best he can do is withdraw his troops. And Hitler tells him, as I'm sure listeners won't be surprised to hear, that's not going to happen. They're going to fight to the finish there. And by the way, you better go to a sanitarium and get your health back. I mean, effectively sidelining him. And Rommel never returns to North Africa. The next crucial moment is the meeting of the two Allied armies, the first army and the eighth army, as the Germans withdraw into their kind of Tunisian fortress. The two armies finally meet in southern Tunisia in early April 1943. And that really is the beginning of the end. You've got another month of fierce fighting. You've got famous battles like Wadi akarit, as the 8th army comes up from the south. You've got an absolutely brilliant operation called Operation Strike, which takes place in early May and drives a wedge right the way between the remaining Axis forces in North Africa. And you've also unusually got which takes place just before Operation Strike, an unusual and very rare defeat by Montgomery, although he tried to pretend it wasn't a defeat when he tries to defeat the first Italian army, which had German troops in it at Infidaville and Fida, as it's called in Tunisia today. And he's repulsed from that location. But the final operation, Operation Strike, gets all the way to Tunis in just two days, is a brilliantly planned operation partly designed by this wonderful New Zealand commander called Tuka, Francis Tuka. And that really is the final moment once Tunis is captured on 7 May, just a matter of days before the remaining forces in North Africa capitulate, which they do six days later. But in that very short period of time, an extraordinarily high number of troops go into the bag. 250,000 Axis troops. Slightly more of those are German than Italians, so about 130,000 Germans go into the bag. And it's not just the number, which, by the way, was far more than the 100 or thousand or so who were captured at Stalingrad. It's the quality of those troops. These are veteran Panzer formations. They've got some of the Hermann Goring fighting there, they've got paratroopers. I mean, these are really excellent troops. And they all go into the bag mainly because Hitler is too stubborn to get them out while he still has an opportunity. So not only have you captured a huge number of excellent troops and destroyed a huge number of Axis planes, something like an estimated 2,400 planes were lost. Now, that's about 40% of the total. Why is that significant? Because all of those planes have to be taken from somewhere else. And what you really got in Germany by the end of 1943 is a drawing back of the air defenses into Germany proper to defend against the Western Allies strategic bombing campaign, which denudes the forces on the Eastern Front and is also going to make it impossible for them to get air superiority when the Allies finally invade Western Europe for D Day. Following on, what else is gained by the capture of North Africa? You've now got control of the shipping lanes in the Mediterranean. You're going to get total control when you. When you invade Sicily, which is going to happen a few months later. But you're basically saving, they reckon, a million tons of shipping because you no longer need to go all the way around the Cape and up through the Suez Canal. You can just come straight through the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean and up to the uk. And these communication links are absolutely vital for the success of the Western Allies fighting for the rest of the war. But you've also achieved, effectively, the beginning of the end for the Italians. And the Germans know this. There are a lot of quotes actually around this time. You know, interestingly enough, Goebbels himself compares the loss of Tunisio to Stalingrad. This is going to be another Stalingrad for us. So does Churchill. Just a month later, when he's talking about the consequences of the North African campaign and what they've actually achieved, he says, we have struck the enemy a blow which is the equal of Stalingrad and most stimulating to our heroic and heavily engaged Russian allies. We have destroyed or captured considerably more than a quarter of a million of the enemy's best troops. The African war is over. Mussolini's African Empire and Corporal Hitler's strategy are alike, except exploded. One continent at least has been cleansed, purged forever from Fascist and Nazi tyranny. It's only going to be a few months after this, during the invasion of Sicily, that Mussolini himself is going to be toppled, and then Italy themselves are going to be knocked out of the war shortly after the invasion of Italy in September 1943. So an awful lot of disaster flows from this for the Axis forces and a lot of benefit for the Western Allies.

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

Was there also then a significant psychological impact on both the Axis and the Allies from this campaign?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

The other major benefit of this campaign is that you've got a sense of creating a team that is the British and Commonwealth troops on the one hand and the Americans on the other, and the French too, that are now welded together into a formation that can continue the fight into Western Europe. So you get the same kind of command team with. With Patton commanding the 7th army and Montgomery commanding the 8th army, and Ike as overall commander for the invasion of Sicily that then goes on into Italy. And meanwhile, when they finally decide on the D Day landings, these are going to be the same senior commanders. Bradley, who's also fought in North Africa. Rommel, on the other hand, you know, ironically, is going to be opposing them when they land in Normandy. But this, the psychological and the practical knowledge of having fought in North Africa together, having cut their teeth together, having learned how each other does things, having winnowed out some of the weaker commanders, like a man called Fredendaal, who was the core commander, chiefly responsible, if anyone was, for the disaster at Kasserine he sacked. And they're able to replace him with Patton, who, you know, as we know, goes on to become one of the great commanders of the Second World War. All of these people weren't that well known in 1942. Monty's getting better known, of course, as a result of El Amain. But by the end of the Tunisian campaign, you've got together a team that is going to be the Western Allies, you know, go to group for the rest of the war, all the way until the march to Berlin.

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

I know in the books you write, you often spend a lot of time researching the experiences of the ordinary soldiers on the ground. From what you've read, what was it like to fight the Tunisian campaign?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

Fighting the Tunisian campaign, Rob, was a singularly difficult process for both sides. You had the terrain, which was mountainous. You had the climate, which certainly through the winter of 1942, 1943, was bitterly cold, wet mud churned up. It was difficult for wheel traffic to move about. It was difficult for armour to operate in that sort of terrain. And you're moving from one piece of high ground to the next. And there are a series of famous battles in which they're literally fighting uphill against an entrenched enemy. A lot of very effective artillery fire and mortar fire from the Germans. I mean, it was a brutal campaign for the Western Allies, but it was also a very important campaign for them, because, yes, you've got the 8th army and the Commonwealth troops fighting in the deserts of North Africa, but the conditions in Tunisia were uniquely tough, I would say, and for ordinary infantrymen and armour to fight in those conditions was a great proving ground for what they're going to have to do in northwest Europe. On the other side, of course, you've got the Germans who've got great experience from fighting in the mountains, which they are going to use to their advantage when they get to Italy. So some of the troops who actually get withdrawn from Sicily into Italy are using these types of tactics. You're controlling these mountain passes, you're creating a very effective defensive system in the high ground, that it's going to make fighting in Italy similar to fighting in Tunisia, which is a uniquely tough proposition, but also quite important if you're going to train veteran troops into taking on and eventually beating the Germans.

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

And do we know how the two sets of forces treated each other? How savage was this combat?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

There were moments, I think, in this campaign when, you know, prisoners weren't taken. There were moments of minor atrocities on both sides, but they were very rare. I would say even in the Normandy campaign, you had many more instances of this, and part of this is down to the personalities of the individual commanders. What you tend to see in the warfare of the Western Allies against German forces is if German troops are committing atrocities, there will be reciprocal atrocities, maybe not as many, maybe not as savage, by the Western Allies. But what you saw mainly in North Africa, particularly in the fighting in the deserts, but also in the mountains too, is two field commanders, Rommel and von Arnhem, who wanted to fight the right way, as it were, who wanted to fight in a very different way, of course, than was being fought on the Eastern Front. When even German Wehrmacht commanders, armed forces commanders, felt they were very much fighting, you know, untermenschen people beneath them. They accepted that the British and Commonwealth troops on the whole were their equals. And Rommel and von Arnhem, generally speaking, not without exceptions, Rob, but generally speaking, fought a much cleaner war. And I think you do get accounts on both sides who accept that they did take prisoners, they did treat their prisoners reasonably well. There are a couple of instances where American troops are taken prisoner and then sent to construct defensive positions where they're actually coming under shellfire by the Allies, which is, you know, technically against Geneva Convention mentions. But these are relatively rare and only came towards the end of the campaign where things were getting desperate for the Germans. On the whole, as prisoners of war, they were given enough to eat, they were given enough to survive and eventually, of course, withdrawn back to Italy and Germany where they were put in prisoners of war camps. So on the whole, I would say it was a much cleaner type of fighting than certainly you saw on the Eastern Front and even you were going to see on the Western Front when the Allies invade northwest west Europe.

[Interviewer (Rob Attar)]

Now, at the start of this conversation, we talked about the fact that this campaign isn't as well known as what was going on in Normandy and then in Operation Barbarossa. How do you think we should fit in the battle for Tunisia into our narratives of the Second World War?

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

Yeah, I mean, I think all historians want to look for hinge moments, those key moments where everything turns and it's never going to be the same again from that point onwards. And in my view, there are three key hinge moments in the Second World War, two that have always been acknowledged or pretty much acknowledged. One of them is Guadalcanal, which was the turning point in the Pacific when the American forces invaded Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. And this is the start of the pushback of the Japanese advances. It's the first offensive by the Americans and in a really brutal six month long campaign, they defeat the Japanese and it's backwards all the way for the Japanese from that point onwards. So that's really the turning point in the Pacific. The turning point on the Eastern Front is generally considered to be Stalingrad. That's the furthest point that Axis forces got, certainly in terms of geography, furthest point east they got. So what is the big turning point in Western Europe? In my view, it's the capture of North Africa. It's Tunisgrad. And the clue is in the name, Rob, because the German public, there is some dispute, by the way, among historians as to where the name actually came. Most people, myself included, think that it was given by the Germans themselves, the German public who considered the defeat and were talking about it alongside and as bad as Stalingrad, just like Goebbels was. And so to call it Tunisgrad, it's like, oh my God, you know, it's happened again. But they recognize the significance of the defeat. And I think for all the reasons I've already explained, which is if you give away a big chunk of your air force. If you lose your key ally in Western Europe and then you open up the whole of Southern Europe to invasion, which you've got to counteract, of course, with troops. We know how many German troops are going to have to fight in Italy. There's a constant fear that, you know, there are going to be Allied landings elsewhere. That, to me, was the beginning of the end for the Germans in Western Europe. And so those three great turning points, I hope after the publication of this book will be acknowledged a little bit more than they have been, because there's very much been a feeling that North Africa was a bit of a sideshow and it doesn't deserve to be taken as seriously as other key moments.

[Podcast Host (Rob Attar)]

That was military historian and author Saul David speaking to Rob Attar. Saul's book Tunis Grad Victory in Africa has just been published.

[Military Historian (Saul David)]

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