Franklin Roosevelt’s decision to commit U.S. troops to the seizure of French North Africa proved to be one of the most important of the war. It reflected the actual realities of the strategic situation in fall 1942. The British were right: The military forces of the Western powers were simply not yet ready to take on the Wehrmacht on the European continent. North Africa was sufficiently far from Germany that it minimized the potential of Nazi military power. And the unexpected commitment of substantial German forces to Tunisia provided the U.S. Army an excellent opportunity to learn how to fight a formidable opponent far from its homeland while eventually — together with the British — inflicting a major defeat on the Axis. Moreover, the opening of the Mediterranean, by shortening Allied sea lines of communications, provided enormous relief to the hard-pressed merchant navies on which the projection of Allied military power absolutely depended.

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By late 1943, the balance of power had swung so much in favor of the Americans that they were able to dictate that the main effort in 1944 would focus on a landing in northwestern Europe. Despite considerable hesitation on the part of senior British leaders, including Churchill, American strategists forced this crucial change in Allied strategy — a change that would inevitably lead Anglo-American forces into the conquest of western Germany, an accomplishment that laid the strategic groundwork for the eventual victorious confrontation of the Cold War. Torch had set the stage for all of that.

This article was written by Williamson Murray and originally appeared in the November 2002 issue of World War II. For more great articles be sure to pick up your copy of World War II.

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