ISBN 1-85367-445-1
320 pages

Foreword; Preface; photos; maps; OBs; Epilogue; Bibliography; Index

Appendices: Order of Battle: Allied Ground Forces; Order of Battle: Axis Ground Forces; Allied Battle Casualties: November 1942 - May 1943

   The campaign in French North Africa in 1942-1943 in many ways stands as one of the most interesting of the war, involving as it did relatively small but potent forces representing the armies of several nations spread over a wide area and fighting in some unusual terrain. David Rolf has done an excellent job of explicating the Tunisian battles in a thorough, academic fashion while garnishing his account with a wealth of fascinating snippets from participants. Nothing could ever completely replace such fundamental resources as the British and American official history volumes covering Tunisia (The Destruction of Axis Forces in Africa by Playfair et al and Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West by Howe), but The Bloody Road to Tunis certainly stands as the best book on the campaign—excluding the Torch landings themselves and the pursuit from Alamein—outside those two heavyweights.
   Rolf gets off to a bit of a slow start as he sets the stage. The first chapter opens with a brief overview of the Torch landings and the German reaction. The second chapters offers biographical sketches of Eisenhower, Mark Clark, Monty, Alexander, Rommel, and the other leading generals of the campaign. The third chapter traces the Axis buildup and the initial Allied efforts to push small contingents like Blade Force deep into Tunisia before the Germans and Italians could construct a solid perimeter. The spotlight then shifts to Rommel's withdrawal from Alamein and 8th Army's slow pursuit. For the most part this material is relatively sketchy and unimpressive, but Rolf soon gets up to speed, as does the campaign itself. By December, the author explains, with 8th Army halted at El Agheila, Montgomery questioned if perhaps it would be best for Tripoli to be captured by Anderson's British 1st Army advancing from the west.
   This, of course, was nothing but wishful thinking, and Rolf uses it as a springboard for an important theme running throughout the book. Despite the manifold possibilities of executing a unified, coordinated campaign with 8th Army attacking from Libya and 1st Army, US II Corps, and French forces attacking from Algeria, the war in North Africa for the Allies mostly degenerated into a series of spasmodic, badly timed thrusts with each Allied contingent seemingly content to wait for the other to do the dirty work. Indeed, while Monty suggested that 1st Army should take Tripoli, Eisenhower's coalition forces, slowed by logistical difficulties and unimaginative planning, soon ran into Axis counterattacks, withdrew, and insisted that the 8th Army men must exert pressure to relieve their comrades in French North Africa.

   When Eisenhower asked about the possibility of Eighth Army action in support of Operation Satin, Alexander's reply had been non-committal. If the enemy tried to disengage at Beurat, Eighth Army would attempt to follow up as soon as possible, whereas if Rommel halted he would be attacked without delay. 'It is hoped that subsequent attacks will take Tripoli in one bound,' wrote Alexander, 'In either case it is impossible for us from this end to prevent the enemy detaching some parts of his force to meet your attacks although every effort will be made to keep up maximum pressure on the enemy.'
   Eisenhower's strategy relied, not unreasonably, on a respectable rate of progress by Eighth Army in its pursuit of Rommel but Montgomery was still 500 miles away in the Sirte Desert. The Desert Rats could render no assistance should US II Corps troops, having broken through to the coast, be turned upon by the enemy from two sides. This was certainly not a risk which Eisenhower's superiors at home were prepared to take. Soon he was to discover the full implications of this as he slipped towards the nadir of his command in Tunisia.

   It soon became apparent to even the most optimistic Allied leaders that the chance for rapid success in Tunisia had vanished. Among other problems for the Allies, the jumble of forces and overlapping national commands made organizational efficiency impossible to achieve. Despite the best efforts of men like Eisenhower and Cunningham, inter-allied rivalry was rampant at every level. Even within the US Army, many personalities clashed. Orlando Ward of 1st Armored Division considered his superior, Lloyd Fredendall of II Corps, a drunkard and an SOB, while Ward also had trouble controlling his "mean and difficult" tank commander, Paul Robinett. These problems of command and control exacerbated the difficult situation in which the Allies found themselves, notably Rommel's impressive but ultimately unsuccessful Kasserine Pass offensive. Kasserine and subsequent events caused Ike to transfer Fredendall back to the States (although Rolf shows that subsequent inquiry seems to prove that most of his heavy-handed, faulty tactical dispositions were actually made according to Anderson's exacting specifications). Ward also found himself sacked and Robinett was spared dismissal only by a timely wound that sent him home.
   At Kasserine as in many other cases, the Allies in Tunisia called on Montgomery to provide assistance with more active operations on his front. In response to the call for aiding 1st Army and II Corps, Monty subsequently claimed "I speeded up events and by the 26th February it was clear that our pressure had caused Rommel to break off his attack against the Americans." Not for the first time or last time, Montgomery showed little regard for the facts.

   Such a claim was patently untrue and dismissed by his chief of staff, de Guingand—not that Montgomery took much notice. Alexander's directive [to Montgomery to lend a hand] was sent shortly before midnight on the 21st; discouraged by the severe check to his offensive before Thala and Djebel el Hamra Pass on the 22nd, Rommel called off his assault. ...[Montgomery] was at least 48 hours too late to have created significant pressure.

   When Monty finally attacked the Mareth Line on the night of 20/21 March, despite his assertion that "...we made the enemy dance to our tune the whole time," the battle was a close run thing, especially given the disparity in strengths. Fortunately, the left hook led by Freyburg's New Zealanders—either a feint or main effort according to Montgomery at different times as the situation changed—carried the day and 8th Army swept onward to meet 1st Army and II Corps. While the latter two stumbled and waited, Monty crashed through the Axis position at Wadi Arakit, but failed to act in a timely manner and allowed the enemy to get away again.
   This theme of Allied rivalries, lack of cooperation, and lost opportunities runs through the end of the campaign. Montgomery in particular emerges from the book as unwilling to exert himself to go out of his way to assist 1st Army and especially unready to take any risks which might end up tarnishing his reputation. Approaching the Axis position at Enfidaville, he seems to have expected an easy time of it. When the position proved too strong to storm, he absented himself from the battlefield at a moment found quite curious by all concerned. Thus, the final successful attacks against the unsupplied Axis forces were carried out by 1st Army and II Corps, destroying defensive positions, capturing Bizerte and Tunis, and denying any opportunity for Hitler and Mussolini to pull off a Dunkirk-style evacuation. Nevertheless, newspaper accounts mistakenly credited 8th Army with liberating Tunis, much to the annoyance of Anderson and his 1st Army.

   Judged by its original objectives, the Allied campaign in Tunisia was a failure. Eisenhower's early expectations were to be in Tunis by Christmas 1942, and trap Rommel in Libya. Due to a combination of Allied mistakes and determined German resistance, neither proved possible Had the proportion of troops assigned to capture and hold harbours and bases in the Torch invasion forces been reduced, particularly the Algiers contingent, in favour of a more mobile strike force, the initial move eastwards on 10 November might have proceeded with greater dash than it did.
   Anderson was not best suited to direct this, nor to mollifying the Americans who remained prickly when told by British officers—often deliberately or unintentionally supercilious—how to do their job. A potent source of trouble, never quite resolved, was the proper application of airpower and the campaign in Sicily would reveal quite conclusively that channels of control, basic allegiance and differences in national aims could still cause problems.
   As it was, the failure to wind up the North African campaign until some months later than Eisenhower expected led to unforeseen advantages. By pouring scarce resources into Tunisia in order to keep Italy in the war, Hitler was forced to divert them away from the hard-pressed Eastern Front and ensured that in the end the Allies captured far more men and materiel. This was not what the Allies had thought would happen though much virtue was made out of necessity at the time as if it had been planned that way.
   Had two very big 'ifs' been resolved—that is, had Tunis been taken within six weeks of the TORCH landings and Montgomery been able to cut off and destroy the best part of the retreating German and Italian armies—it is possible, as Eisenhower suggested, that the Italian mainland might have been attacked in early summer 1943 and units firmly established in the Po Valley far to the north before the onset of winter. The timing of the Tunisian campaign was always under severe pressure because of the contingency of other plans waiting upon it; as it turned out, the Allies kept to their revised schedule in North Africa with just two days to spare.
   In the process, Americans became battle-hardened and sorted out some of the worst of their training problems. Pitted against them had been German troops, especially the Afrika Korps, whom Bradley considered the best fighters they met in the whole war, 'young men, early twenties, seasoned veterans... good physical condition. Never knew they were beaten.' As late as August 1943 some were still being captured, coming down out of the hills, having refused to give in until completely out of food and ammunition.

   While describing the battles in Tunisia, Rolf also describes the generals who fought those battles. He's certainly not the first to do so. In Crucible of War: The Fight for Tunisia, 1942-1943, for example, Kenneth Macksey offers some stern opinions of some of the generalship exhibited in Tunisia. While Rolf offers a few opinions of his own, in his account he mostly paints portraits with the generals' own words and the words of other officers who were on the scene.

   A few days later, Fredendall told [Ward] to mind his own business after a request for photo-reconnaissance. Ward was enraged: "He is a spherical SOB [son-of-a-bitch]. Two-faced at that...a drunk, a coward, and incompetent.'

   . . .

   ...Howze (Ward's G-3) considered the divisional commander should have got rid of McQullin because he was a 'dummy,' and though pleasant, 'just as wooden as could be,' as did Lieutenant-Colonel Simons, another 1st Armored Division officer, who thought the broad-shouldered ex-cavalryman brave but, 'in many ways a genuine blockhead.'

   . . .

   'Crasher' Nichols, commanding 50th Division, was about to be replaced by Major-General Kirkman for his poor showing at the Mareth Line: 'He has no brains and is really stupid,' complained Montgomery.

   . . .

   Alexander confirmed that he proposed to attack all along First Army's front with Freyburg commanding IX Corps in place of the wounded Crocker. Montgomery dismissed this at once—Freyburg was, 'a nice old boy, but...a bit stupid.'

   . . .

   Writing to Eisenhower in 1948 [Anderson] confessed that, 'I have always had to fight against a queer sort of inhibition, or shyness, which prevents me coming out of my shell except with very intimate friends or a few naturally sympathetic acquaintances. Often I would like to expand, but find it very difficult; a queer thing in human nature.'

   This kind of uncensored back-stabbing and self-confession goes far beyond what the official histories can offer. Another advantage Rolf has over Howe and Playfair (and Macksey as well) is that The Bloody Road to Tunis was written after the revelations of Ultra intelligence. While not a main thread in his book—and perhaps one that might have been exploited a bit more—Rolf is able to better explain some events by placing them within the context of what had been revealed to the Allies by Ultra. As he shows, especially at Kasserine, this kind of intelligence was not always available nor always infallible.
   Rolf also adds a great deal of immediacy to his account with many telling flourishes in the form of insights and quotes from veterans. These kinds of personal touches emphasize that the campaign was much more than just a matter of marking arrows on maps. This point is made over and over again with memories of horrible wounds and gruesome deaths. Most of these asides are fully documented, but occasionally the overall account is sidetracked by unsubstantiated tales of odd events, some more believable than others, such as the Luftwaffe dropping booby traps "resembling fountain pens, pocket wallets, and watches," American tanks firing practice ammunition in combat against panzers because armor-piercing ammo had not yet arrived at the front, an unnamed Italian colonel who surrendered but refused to part with his little dog, and so on.
   A few questionable points notwithstanding, this is very good book, thorough and enjoyable. More than anything else, it's a book about ground operations and tactics, rich with detail and including rigorous identification of units involved and the men who commanded them. (For an excellent complement, by the way, readers should look into The War against Rommel's Supply Lines, 1942-1943 for a very strong account of air-naval action during the campaign.) Using a multitude of archives, documents, papers, microfilms, and unpublished memoirs as well as secondary works, and densely footnoting most of his material, Rolf has synthesized a well-rounded account of British, American, German, Italian, and—to a lesser extent—French forces and actions in Tunisia. Highly recommended, and quite possibly a contender for our annual Top Ten awards.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Greenhill and Stackpole.
   Thanks to Stackpole Books for providing this review copy.