THE FRENCH did resist, to Eisenhower’s fury. He hated wasting bullets on Frenchmen that had been made to kill Germans. He therefore approved when Clark, in Algiers, entered into a tentative deal with the French commander-in-chief, Admiral Jean Darlan. Although Darlan was a double-crosser who had an odious record as a collaborator with Hitler, he promised to have the French Army lay down its arms if Eisenhower would make him governor general of French North Africa. Eisenhower, anxious to move east toward the Germans in Tunisia and in need of a secure rear area to do so, agreed.
On November 13, Eisenhower flew from the Rock to Algiers to meet with Darlan and seal the deal. The tiny, fidgety French admiral was more than happy to shake and sign an agreement, promising to respect it “scrupulously” and to turn the “full fury” of the French colonial army and the fleet against the Germans.1 It was a momentous agreement that was to have far-reaching repercussions.
The irony was that by following the seemingly more cautious path of completing arrangements with Darlan to secure his rear area, Eisenhower took a much greater political risk, one that almost cost him his job.
When the Darlan Deal was announced, there was a tremendous storm of criticism. In their initial offensive of the war, the first thing the Allies had done was to make a deal with one of Europe’s leading fascists. Press and radio commentators were uniformly hostile, some passionately so. The intense reaction took Eisenhower by surprise; his usual good sense of public relations had deserted him. He was hurt by it, not so much at the criticism of the deal itself, which in some measure he had anticipated, but by the intensity of the criticism and, even more, at the charge that he was a simpleminded general who had gotten himself into political waters well over his depth. He grew to be defensive about the Darlan Deal, and refused to admit that he had been surprised by the reaction.
Despite the charges of the critics, Eisenhower was no fascist. To his son, John, he wrote, “I have been called a Fascist and almost a Hitlerite,” when the fact was that he had “one earnest conviction” about the war: “It is that no other war in history has so definitely lined up the forces of arbitrary oppression and dictatorship against those of human rights and individual liberty.” His single goal was to do his full duty in helping “to smash the disciples of Hitler.”2
Indeed, Eisenhower thought of himself as an idealist; “I can’t understand why these long-haired, starry-eyed guys keep gunning for me,” he declared. “I’m no reactionary. Christ on the Mountain! I’m as idealistic as Hell.”3
He could be eloquent in describing and defending democracy. He said that the Allied cause was an inspiring one, because it was “completely bound up with the rights and welfare of the common man.” He ordered his commanders to make sure that every GI was made to realize that “the privileged life he has led . . . His right . . . to engage in any profession of his own choosing, to belong to any religious denomination, to live in any locality where he can support himself and his family, and to be sure of fair treatment when he might be accused of any crime—all of these would disappear” if the Germans won the war.4
But his passion for democracy was essentially conservative, a defense of the basic principles of Anglo-American liberties. It was not offensive, a vigorous attempt to spread either democracy or its meaning. He had not come to North Africa to improve the condition of the Arabs, or relieve the persecution of the Jews. As he wrote Mamie, “Arabs are a very uncertain quantity, explosive and full of prejudices. Many things done here that look queer are just to keep the Arabs from blazing up into revolt. We sit on a boiling kettle!!”5
Deeply fearful of a revolt, Eisenhower never went beyond mildly urging Darlan to make some small reforms in the anti-Semitic legislation. Darlan asked for time, arguing that if “sensational steps to improve the lot of the Jews” were taken, there would be a violent Muslim reaction which the French could not control.6
Eisenhower agreed that governing the tribes was a “tricky business” that had best be left to the French. There were no changes in the anti-Jewish laws. Eisenhower had seen, in the Philippines, how to deal with natives—work through the local elite, don’t ask questions about local conditions, don’t interfere. Given Eisenhower’s beliefs and experiences, it never occurred to him not to deal with Darlan. It was because he could see no alternative that he was so surprised at the criticism.
Still in London, Smith was the first to inform him of the intensely hostile British response. Churchill claimed to be thunderstruck by the deal, and the British Foreign Office said that Darlan’s record was so odious that he could not be considered for the permanent head of North Africa. “There is above all our own moral position,” the British declared. “We are fighting for international decency and Darlan is the antithesis of this.”7
Roosevelt too was indicating that he was anxious to repudiate the deal and in the process, perhaps, repudiate the general who had made it. Eisenhower’s military campaign, to date, had been marked by hesitation and lost opportunities. Torch was already a strategic failure, and Eisenhower’s political activities had unleashed a barrage of criticism. He was vulnerable.
Realizing this, he reacted quickly and decisively. On the morning of November 14 he sent a long cable to the CCS, written to defend his actions. “Can well understand some bewilderment in London and Washington with the turn that negotiations with French North Africans have taken,” he began. In explanation, he said that “the actual state of existing sentiment here does not repeat not agree even remotely with some of prior calculations.”
The first fact about life in North Africa was that “the name of Marshal Pétain is something to conjure with.” All French officers tried to create the impression that they lived and acted “under the shadow of the Marshal’s figure.” Frenchmen agreed that only one man had a right “to assume the Marshal’s mantle,” and “That man is Darlan.” They would follow Darlan, “but they are absolutely not repeat not willing to follow someone else.”
Eisenhower realized that “there may be a feeling at home that we have been sold a bill of goods,” but he insisted that without Darlan, he would have to undertake a complete military occupation of North Africa. The cost in time and resources “would be tremendous.”8
The message made a strong impression on Roosevelt. So did Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, who barged into the President’s office and insisted that Roosevelt absolutely had to support Eisenhower. Marshall told him the same thing. In addition, Marshall held a press conference, where he lambasted American reporters. He said that planning estimates had declared American losses might go as high as 18,000 in the Torch landings; since they were in fact only 1,800, the Darlan Deal had saved 16,200 American casualties.
Press reports from Morocco and Algeria had continued to emphasize that under Darlan the natives had no political rights, that the Jews were still persecuted, that Communists, Jews, Spanish Republicans, and anti-Vichy Frenchmen filled the prisons, while fascist organizations continued to bully the population and Vichy officials were still in office.
Marshall denied none of this, but told the reporters their criticism of Eisenhower and the Darlan Deal was “incredibly stupid.” It would play into the hands of the British, who would demand Eisenhower’s replacement by a Britisher. So, Marshall concluded, the press was criticizing American leadership, which, if successful, would put the United States into a position of world prestige beyond anything the country had previously experienced. One of Marshall’s aides said, “I have never seen him so concerned as he was on this occasion.” As a result of his press conference, a number of American newspapers refused to print critical stories about the North African situation.9
• •
For Eisenhower, the main result was that he had survived the crisis. He would have survived much more easily if he had had any progress on the battlefront to show as a result of the deal, but he did not. That was partly Darlan’s fault, partly Eisenhower’s. As early as the fourth day of Torch, Eisenhower was showing that as a field commander he would not take chances. He had a floating reserve, part of the British 78th Division; because it was at sea it had outstanding mobility. He could have sent it into Bizerte, but on November 11 he decided that Bizerte was too risky and instead put the men ashore in Bougie, only one hundred miles east of Algiers. Meanwhile, the Germans, taking much larger risks, continued to build their strength in Tunis.
The CCS had hoped for more from the employment of the floating reserve. The Chiefs proposed that Eisenhower broaden his operations in the Mediterranean by invading Sardinia. It would have to be a shoestring operation, the Chiefs recognized, but Sardinia was garrisoned by poorly equipped, dispirited Italian troops who would not put up much resistance. The Chiefs said that Eisenhower could divert the Torch follow-up troops from Algiers to Sardinia. The potential gain, for such a small investment, was great—possession of Sardinia would give the Allies airfields from which to attack Tunis, Sicily, and Italy, and it would threaten the southern French coast. Best of all, the entire Italian peninsula would be outflanked.
But to Eisenhower’s orderly, staff-oriented mind, now burdened in addition by the responsibility of command, it was a shocking proposal. He had no maps, no plans, no intelligence, no preparations, and was by no means satisfied with the situation in North Africa. “I am unalterably opposed to any suggestion at this time for reducing contemplated Torch strength,” he told the Chiefs. Like them, he said, he wanted to take advantage of any opportunity, but he insisted on moving ahead in an orderly fashion. “For God’s sake,” he said, “let’s get one job done at a time.” The first requirement was to create a stable rear area. “I am not crying wolf nor am I growing fearful of shadows,” he declared defensively, but as he told Smith later in the day, “Don’t let anybody get any screwy ideas that we’ve got the job done already.” 10
In retrospect, it was one of the great missed opportunities of the war. Had the Allies captured Sardinia by a coup de main in November 1942, the entire campaign in the Mediterranean would have been drastically changed. But it involved a degree of risk that Eisenhower was unwilling to accept.
Eisenhower might have done better in his first command had he left behind him the emphasis on an orderly, systematic advance that he had imbibed at C&GS, and instead adopted the attitude Patton had expressed back in 1926, when he told Eisenhower always to remember that “victory in the next war will depend on EXECUTION not PLANS.”11 But Eisenhower had been a staff officer for twenty years and could not shake the patterns of thought that had become second nature to him. He concentrated on administrative matters and politics, and insisted on an orderly, rather than a bold and risky, advance, even when his superiors urged him to take more chances.
In mid-December, after Eisenhower had decided that the Allies were not strong enough to attack yet and ordered another delay in mounting the offensive toward Tunis, the CCS reminded him that “large initial losses in a determined assault were much preferable to the wastage inherent in a war of attrition.” 12 That was tantamount to accusing him of being too cautious, a charge that in Eisenhower’s view was completely unfounded. Yet shortly thereafter, when General Lloyd Fredendall, commanding the American troops on the right flank of the British First Army, proposed to attack in the direction of Sfax or Gabès, Eisenhower strongly disapproved. To make sure there would be “no misunderstanding,” he met personally with Fredendall and instructed him to concentrate on securing his position. “Only when . . . the whole region was safe from attack” could Fredendall contemplate any offensive action, and even then he was to make certain that no lead elements got cut off and isolated.13
In his diary, Eisenhower wrote that he had learned in his first month of combat that “rich organizational experience and an orderly logical mind are absolutely essential to success,” and that “the flashy, publicity-seeking type of adventurer can grab the headlines and be a hero in the eyes of the public, but he simply can’t deliver the goods . . .”14
Then and later, Eisenhower insisted that he had no choice but to wait for more men and supplies, and he may well have been right. One cannot help but wonder, however, what a bolder commander—Patton, for example, or Rommel—might have accomplished.
Eisenhower was “like a caged tiger,” Butcher recorded, “snarling and clawing to get things done.” 15 He was snapping at his subordinates, irritated by his superiors. Political problems continued to plague him. He resented the way his staff officers thrust their burdens on to him. He complained that they never seemed to realize that “when they receive orders to do something, they themselves have been relieved of a great load of moral responsibility.” To Mamie, he admitted that he had never worked so hard nor been so tired—“London was a picnic compared to this”—and added, “I hope I get home before I’m decrepit with age but since I sometimes think that I live ten years per week, I’m not so sure I’ll be any young, gay, darling blade!” He began one letter with the hope that it “won’t sound as irritated and mean as I feel this evening.”16
In public, Eisenhower had a remarkable ability to shed his weariness, self-pity, and pessimism. He held weekly press conferences and was consistently cheerful in his assessment of the situation. As he explained to Mamie, when “pressure mounts and strain increases everyone begins to show the weaknesses in his makeup. It is up to the Commander to conceal his; above all to conceal doubt, fear and distrust.” 17 How well he was able to do so was indicated by a member of his staff, who wrote at this time, “[Eisenhower] was a living dynamo of energy, good humor, amazing memory for details, and amazing courage for the future.”18
On December 22, Eisenhower started for the front, where he wanted to see conditions for himself and, he hoped, get an attack started. On Christmas Eve, he visited the units in the field. Steady rain had turned the entire countryside into a quagmire. It was impossible to maneuver any type of vehicle off the roads, and hard enough on them. Eisenhower decided to call off any attack, to wait for better weather and more reinforcements. He told the CCS that “the abandonment for the time being of our plan for a full-out effort has been the severest disappointment I have suffered to date,” and called it a “bitter decision.”19 The race to Tunis had been lost. A protracted campaign loomed ahead.
In his first command experience, Eisenhower had shown both strengths and weaknesses. His greatest success had been in welding an Allied team together, especially at AFHQ. His ability to get along with others and to see to it that British and American officers got along with each other was much appreciated. But at the point of attack, he had shown a lack of that ruthless, driving force that would lead him to take control of a tactical situation and, through the power of his personality, extract that extra measure of energy that might have carried the Allies into Tunis or Sardinia. He had not forced himself or his subordinates to the supreme effort; there had been an element of drift in the operations he directed.
• •
Between January 14 and 24, Churchill, Roosevelt, and their staffs met in Casablanca to agree on a strategy for 1943, to make the appropriate command arrangements, and to discuss world politics. Eisenhower went to Casablanca for a day, January 15, to report on the situation in his theater. Initially, he made a poor impression on Roosevelt, who remarked to his adviser Harry Hopkins, “Ike seems jittery.” Hopkins explained that it was the result of a harrowing plane ride (over the Atlas Mountains, Eisenhower’s B-17 had lost two engines, and he had almost had to bail out), a case of the flu, and his disappointment over losing the race to Tunis.20 He might have added that concern about his future was upsetting Eisenhower.
Eisenhower need not have worried. His report was satisfactory and upbeat; Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to keep him in command. The CCS then made General Harold Alexander the deputy commander in chief of land operations, Admiral Cunningham the deputy in command of the naval forces, while Air Marshal Arthur Tedder took charge of the air forces, with Eisenhower as overall commander.
This solution to the command problem pleased Marshall, as it kept Eisenhower on top; it also pleased Brooke, who took the lead in arranging it, because it put control of day-to-day operations in the hands of Eisenhower’s British deputies. Brooke had been impressed by the way Eisenhower built an Allied staff at AFHQ, but distinctly unimpressed by Eisenhower’s handling of the campaign. “He had neither the tactical nor strategical experience required for such a task,” Brooke said of Eisenhower.
Just as bluntly, Brooke admitted his motive in elevating Eisenhower to the supreme command of the combined forces: “We were pushing Eisenhower up into the stratosphere and rarefied atmosphere of a Supreme Commander, where he would be free to devote his time to the political and inter-allied problems, whilst we inserted under him . . . our own commanders to deal with the military situations and to restore the necessary drive and co-ordination which had been so seriously lacking.”21
All three of the deputies outranked Eisenhower, whose permanent rank was still lieutenant colonel; he wore the three stars of a lieutenant general on a temporary basis, while his deputies all wore four stars. But Eisenhower was never awestruck by rank or title. He intended to work with his deputies, not by imposing his will on them, but through persuasion and cooperation, to draw on their talents by establishing a close personal relationship with them.
He already knew, admired, and got on perfectly with Cunningham. At Casablanca, he had a long talk with Alexander and was impressed. What Churchill called Alexander’s “easy smiling grace and contagious confidence” charmed Eisenhower, as it did everyone else.
With Tedder, he quickly hit it off. When they were introduced, Eisenhower gave his big grin and thrust out his hand. “Well, another Yank,” Tedder thought to himself. Once Eisenhower started to talk, however, Tedder decided “he made a good deal of sense.”22 Suave and handsome, Tedder had strong prejudices and concepts which he did not hesitate to express. He usually had a pipe stuck in his mouth and the amount of smoke it gave forth was a good indication of the amount of emotion he was feeling. Like Eisenhower, he preferred to work informally and hated conferences. He was to stay with Eisenhower through to the end of the war and become the British officer who had the greatest influence on Eisenhower’s thought and action.
Brooke’s hopes that the three deputies would get Eisenhower out of the way were soon dashed, primarily by Eisenhower himself, who resisted all attempts to impose the British system of command by committee on Mediterranean operations. When on January 20 the CCS issued a directive that indicated that actual control of operations would be in the hands of the deputies, Eisenhower—who described himself as “burning inside”—dictated a “hot message challenging such intrusion” into his command setup and insisted on maintaining the principle of unity of command.23 Smith pleaded with him to moderate the message, but Eisenhower would only allow Smith to tone it down, not change its meaning. As long as he was supposed to be the commander, he was determined to exercise that authority. “Manifestly, responsibility . . . falls directly on me,” he told Marshall.24
Marshall was equally determined to maintain unity of command. To help Eisenhower, he told him privately that he was recommending him for the rank of full general. The promotion came through on February 10. The four-star rank was the highest in the U.S. Army at that time (and was fairly recent; even Grant had worn only three stars) and had been reserved for the Chief of Staff. In 1943, only Marshall and MacArthur were full generals.
Two years earlier, Eisenhower had been a temporary colonel, and had told John that he expected to be retired at that rank. With his staff he downplayed the importance of the new rank, while with his wife he was appropriately modest. “Loneliness is the inescapable lot of a man holding such a job.” Subordinates could advise, urge, help, and pray, but only he could decide, “Do we or don’t we?” Furthermore, at his level, “the stakes are always highest, and the penalties are expressed in terms of loss of life or major or minor disasters to the nation.” In summary, he told Mamie that “I feel damned humble” as a result of the promotion, “but I do not feel that I’ve ‘arrived’—or that my major job is finished. I’ve just begun.” He promised “always to do my duty to the extreme limit of my ability.”25
• •
In Tunisia, American troops occupied the southern end of the line. They had seen little action and tended to be complacent, poorly disciplined, and unprepared to face Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps, which was arriving on their front after its long retreat from the Egyptian border. Eisenhower tried to tighten their discipline and improve their battle readiness, but without much success. Part of the fault was his, part of it Fredendall’s.
The II Corps (consisting of the 1st Infantry Division, the 34th Infantry, and the 1st Armored) was badly stretched out. Further, the 1st Armored was divided into two parts, Combat Command A and B (CCA and CCB). Worst of all, Fredendall was excessively concerned with his own command post, which he had located miles to the rear and far up a canyon, where he had two hundred engineers blast underground shelters for security. “Most American officers who saw this command post for the first time,” an observer later wrote, “were somewhat embarrassed, and their comments were usually caustic.”
Eisenhower’s method was to lead through persuasion and hints, rather than direct action. Although he worried about Fredendall’s burying himself in his tunnels, all he did about it was to tell Fredendall that “one of the things that gives me the most concern is the habit of some of our generals in staying too close to their command posts,” and asking him to “please watch this very, very carefully among all your subordinates.” Eisenhower reminded Fredendall of the advantage of personally knowing the ground and that “generals are expendable just as is any other item in any army.”26 Fredendall ignored the hints and stayed at his command post.
On February 11 the AFHQ head of intelligence, or G-2, reported that the German commander in northern Tunisia, General von Arnim, was receiving reinforcements from Rommel’s Afrika Korps and would shortly be launching a major attack at Fondouk, the northern limit of the II Corps line. The information came from radio intercepts.
Eisenhower decided to go to the front personally to prepare for Arnim’s attack. On the afternoon of February 13, he arrived at Fredendall’s headquarters for a conference, followed by an all-night tour of the front lines. He was disturbed by what he saw. The American troops remained complacent. Eisenhower drove down to CCA headquarters, where he went for a stroll in the moonlit desert. Looking eastward, he could just make out the gap in the black mountain mass that was the Faid Pass. Beyond the pass, Rommel and his Afrika Korps were assembling, but in the pass itself, nothing moved.
At about 3:30 A.M. Eisenhower drove on to Fredendall’s headquarters, where he arrived two hours later to learn that thirty minutes after he had been at Faid Pass, the Germans had launched an attack through it against CCA. Still assuming that the main attack would be in the north, Eisenhower thought it was probably a feint and decided to drive on to his own advance headquarters at Constantine, where he could keep an eye on the whole front.
When he reached Constantine, about midafternoon of February 14, he learned that the attack out of Faid was a major one. Rommel’s panzers had destroyed an American tank battalion, overrun a battalion of artillery, and isolated the remaining American troops. Eisenhower spent the day trying to get reinforcements to the Faid area, but the distances involved and the poor road network made it virtually impossible to help the beleaguered CCA. Rommel continued his attack on February 15, in the process knocking out ninety-eight American tanks, fifty-seven half-tracks, and twenty-nine artillery pieces. For practical purposes, CCA had been destroyed.
On February 16, the Afrika Korps drove toward the next range of mountains and through the pass, named Kasserine. Beyond lay open ground and the major supply base at Le Kef. The situation was intolerable. Eisenhower could try to patch things up by relieving Fredendall, or by relieving all his subordinates. The second alternative was hardly feasible, and Eisenhower did not want to relieve Fredendall in the middle of a battle. He did relieve his G-2 because he was “too wedded to one type of information”—the radio intercepts.27 (The intercepts had been accurate enough, but Rommel had simply disobeyed his orders and launched the attack on his own.) He refused to relieve Fredendall, as the situation demanded.
He rushed reinforcements to the battle. He got the 9th Division artillery started on a 735-mile march for the front, stripped the 2d Armored and 3d Infantry of equipment to send to Fredendall, and cannibalized other units in Algeria and Morocco in order to get trucks, tanks, artillery, and ammunition to the front.
Despite the embarrassing and costly losses, Eisenhower was not disheartened. He realized that all his lectures on the need to eliminate complacency and instill battlefield discipline among the American troops had had little effect, but he also realized that the shock of encountering the Wehrmacht on the offensive was accomplishing his objectives for him.
“Our soldiers are learning rapidly,” he told Marshall at the height of the battle, “and while I still believe that many of the lessons we are forced to learn at the cost of lives could be learned at home, I assure you that the troops that come out of this campaign are going to be battle wise and tactically efficient.”28 The best news of all was that American soldiers, who had previously shown a marked disinclination to advance under enemy fire, were recovering rapidly from the initial shock of Rommel’s attack. The troops did not like being kicked around and were beginning to dig in and fight.
Nevertheless, on February 21, Rommel got through Kasserine Pass. Eisenhower regarded this development as less a threat, more an opportunity, because by then his efforts had produced a preponderance of American firepower at the point of attack, especially in artillery. Rommel had a long, single supply line that ran through a narrow pass, which made him vulnerable.
“We have enough to stop him,” Eisenhower assured Marshall, but he expected to do more than that.29 He urged Fredendall to launch an immediate counterattack on Rommel’s flanks, seize the pass, cut off the Afrika Korps, and destroy it. But Fredendall disagreed with Eisenhower’s conclusion that Rommel had gone as far as he could; he expected him to make one more attack and insisted on staying on the defensive to meet it. Rommel, accepting the inevitable, began his retreat that night. It was successful, and a fleeting opportunity was lost.
In a tactical sense, Rommel had won a victory. At small cost to himself, he had inflicted more than five thousand American casualties, destroyed hundreds of tanks and other equipment. But he had made no strategic gain, and in fact had done Eisenhower a favor. In his pronouncements before Kasserine, Eisenhower had consistently harped on what a tough business war is and on the overwhelming need to impress that fact on the troops.
But the man most responsible for American shortcomings was Eisenhower himself, precisely because he was not tough enough. He had allowed Fredendall to retain command, despite his serious and well-founded doubts. He had allowed a confused command situation to continue. He had accepted intelligence reports based on insufficient sources. And at the crucial moment, when Rommel was at his most vulnerable, he had failed to galvanize his commanders, which allowed Rommel to get away.
Kasserine was Eisenhower’s first real battle; taking it all in all, his performance was miserable. Only American firepower, and German shortages, had saved him from a humiliating defeat.
But Eisenhower and the American troops profited from the experience. The men, he reported to Marshall, “are now mad and ready to fight.” So was he. “All our people,” he added, “from the very highest to the very lowest have learned that this is not a child’s game and are ready and eager to get down to . . . business.” He promised Marshall that thereafter no unit under his command “will ever stop training,” including units in the front line.30 And he fired Fredendall, replacing him with Patton.
When Patton arrived, Eisenhower gave him advice that might better have been self-directed. “You must not retain for one instant,” Eisenhower warned Patton, “any man in a responsible position where you have become doubtful of his ability to do the job. . . . This matter frequently calls for more courage than any other thing you will have to do, but I expect you to be perfectly cold-blooded about it.”31
To his old friend Gerow, then training an infantry division in Scotland, Eisenhower expanded on the theme. “Officers that fail,” he said, “must be ruthlessly weeded out. Considerations of friendship, family, kindliness and nice personality have nothing whatsoever to do with the problem . . . You must be tough.” He said it was necessary to get rid of the “lazy, the slothful, the indifferent or the complacent.”32 Whether Eisenhower could steel himself sufficiently in this regard remained to be seen.
Patton tightened discipline to a martinet standard while his whirlwind tours in his open command car, horns blaring and outriders roaring ahead and behind him, impressed his presence on everyone in the Corps. His flamboyant language and barely concealed contempt for the British created pride in everything American. When British officers made slighting remarks about American fighting qualities, Patton thundered, “We’ll show ’em,” and then demanded to know where in hell the Brits had been during the crisis of Kasserine. But Alexander told Patton to avoid pitched battles and stay out of trouble.
Not being allowed to attack, forced to stand to one side while Montgomery delivered the final blow to the Afrika Korps, was galling to Patton. He asked Eisenhower to send him back to Morocco, where he could continue his planning for the invasion of Sicily. Eisenhower did so, replacing Patton with the recently arrived General Omar Bradley, his old West Point classmate. Then Eisenhower told Alexander that it was essential that the Americans have their own sector in the final phase of the Tunisian campaign. Alexander replied that the Americans had failed at Kasserine and thus their place was at the rear.
Eisenhower held his temper, but his words were firm. He told Alexander that the United States had given much of its best equipment to the British. If the American people came to feel that their troops would not play a substantial role in the European Theater, they would be more inclined to insist on an Asia-first strategy. But most of all, Eisenhower insisted, Alexander had to realize that in the ultimate conquest of the Nazis, the Americans would necessarily provide the bulk of the fighting men and carry most of the load. It was therefore imperative that American soldiers gain confidence in their ability to fight the Germans, and they could not do so while in the rear. Alexander tried to debate the point, but Eisenhower insisted, and eventually Alexander agreed to place II Corps in the line, on the north coast.
Having persuaded the reluctant Alexander, Eisenhower turned his attention to Bradley. He told Bradley that he realized the sector assigned to II Corps was poorly suited to offensive action, but insisted that Bradley had to overcome the difficulties and prove that the U.S. Army “can perform in a way that will at least do full credit to the material we have.” He instructed Bradley to plan every operation “carefully and meticulously, concentrate maximum fire power in support of each attack, keep up a constant pressure and convince everyone that we are doing our full part . . .” He concluded by warning Bradley to be tough. Eisenhower said he had just heard of a battalion of infantry that had suffered a loss of ten men killed and then asked permission to withdraw and reorganize. That sort of thing had to cease. “We have reached the point where troops must secure objectives assigned,” Eisenhower said, “and we must direct leaders to get out and lead and to secure the necessary results.”33
Eisenhower spent the last week of April touring the front lines, and was pleased by what he saw. Bradley was “doing a great job,” he concluded, and he was delighted to hear a British veteran say that the U.S. 1st Infantry Division was “one of the finest tactical organizations that he had ever seen.”34
By the first week in May, Arnim’s bridgehead was reduced to the area immediately around the cities of Bizerte and Tunis. On May 7, British troops moved into Tunis itself; that same day, Bradley sent Eisenhower a two-word message—“Mission accomplished.” The II Corps had captured Bizerte. Only mopping-up operations remained to clear the Axis completely out of Tunisia.
Eisenhower spent the last week of the campaign at the front, and it made a deep impression on him. In February, he had told Mamie that whenever he was tempted to feel sorry for himself, he would think of “the boys that are living in the cold and rain and muck, high up in the cold hills of Tunisia,” and be cured.35
In May, he heard about a story in the American press on his mother; the story stressed Ida’s pacifism and the irony of her son being a general. Ike wrote his brother Arthur that their mother’s “happiness in her religion means more to me than any damn wisecrack that a newspaperman can get publicized,” then said of the pacifists generally, “I doubt whether any of these people, with their academic or dogmatic hatred of war, detest it as much as I do.”
He said that the pacifists “probably have not seen bodies rotting on the ground and smelled the stench of decaying human flesh. They have not visited a field hospital crowded with the desperately wounded.” Ike said that what separated him from the pacifists was that he hated the Nazis more than he did war. There was something else. “My hatred of war will never equal my conviction that it is the duty of every one of us . . . to carry out the orders of our government when a war emergency arises.” Or, as he put it to his son, “The only unforgivable sin in war is not doing your duty.”36
On May 13, the last Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered. Eisenhower’s forces captured 275,000 enemy troops, more than half of them German, a total bag of prisoners even larger than the Russians had gotten at Stalingrad three and a half months earlier. Congratulations poured in on Eisenhower from all sides. He told Marshall he wished he had a disposition that would allow him to relax and enjoy a feeling of self-satisfaction, but he did not. “I always anticipate and discount, in my own mind, accomplishment, and am, therefore, mentally racing ahead into the next campaign. The consequence is that all the shouting about the Tunisian campaign leaves me utterly cold.”37
Eisenhower knew that the North African campaign had taken too long—six months—and cost too much—his forces had lost 10,820 men killed, 39,575 wounded, and 21,415 missing or captured, a total of 71,810 casualties. But it was over, and his men had won. His own great contribution had been not so much directing the Anglo-American victory, but insisting that they won as Allies. Thanks in large part to Eisenhower, the Alliance had survived its first test and was stronger than ever.
Following a victory parade in Tunis, Eisenhower joined his British political adviser, Harold Macmillan, for the flight back to Algiers. As their Flying Fortress passed over Bizerte, they looked down to see a huge Allied convoy proceeding unmolested toward Egypt. Macmillan touched Eisenhower’s arm. “There, General,” he said, “are the fruits of your victory.” Eisenhower turned to Macmillan, smiling with tears in his eyes. “Ours, you mean, ours.”38
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As the Tunisian campaign was drawing to an end, Eisenhower looked ahead to Sicily and beyond. He told Marshall that after Sicily was taken, he wanted to invade Sardinia and Corsica, then use them as springboards to invade western Italy. He realized that such an extension of the Mediterranean offensive ran directly counter to Marshall’s views. “I personally have never wavered in my belief that the Roundup conception is the correct one,”39 Eisenhower assured Marshall, but meanwhile—and here he sounded exactly like Churchill in July 1942—wasn’t it a pity that nothing could be done in the summer of 1943? Especially when it could be done so cheaply. The Mediterranean was a major theater already, Eisenhower pointed out, and the troops had to be maintained anyway, so with a relatively minor additional expenditure the Allies could keep the pressure on Germany and satisfy the public that something was being done.
In Marshall’s view that was precisely the problem: it was doing something for the sake of doing something. There was no strategic objective. Knocking Italy out of the war would be more of a burden than a help, as Allied shipping would have to be used to support the population. Marshall told Eisenhower, “The decisive effort must be made against the Continent from the United Kingdom sooner or later,” and it would come sooner if there were no more offensives after Sicily in the Mediterranean.40
In May, the CCS met in Washington to decide the issue. They argued for two weeks. The Chiefs finally agreed to a commitment to a cross-Channel attack in 1944, but made no decision on what to do in the Mediterranean after Sicily. They left that decision up to Eisenhower, directing him “to plan such operations in exploitation of Husky [code name for Sicily] as are best calculated to eliminate Italy from the war and to contain the maximum number of German forces.” Eisenhower could decide for himself how to accomplish those goals. He could use the forces he already had in the theater, minus seven divisions that would be transferred to the United Kingdom on November l.41
No one was satisfied with the result. Since Eisenhower would decide, Churchill flew to Algiers to persuade the general to go for Italy. Brooke and other staff officers accompanied him, as did Marshall—Churchill had insisted that he come along, completing the spectacle of the superiors come to woo the subordinate.
They stayed a week, Churchill talking constantly. He did not want Eisenhower to invade Sardinia, but Italy; Sardinia would be a “mere convenience,” he said, while Italy would be “a glorious campaign.” The glory would come from the capture of Rome, which “would be a very great achievement” and a fitting climax to the Eighth Army’s odyssey.
“The PM recited his story three different times in three different ways last night,” Eisenhower complained on May 30. That night, Churchill called after dinner to ask if he could come over. It was nearly 11 P.M. and Eisenhower wanted to sleep. He said he was tired of going over the same ground again and again. Churchill insisted. Eisenhower said all right. Churchill arrived fifteen minutes later, then talked steadily for two hours. Butcher finally more or less had to push him out the door. Brooke saw the “very sleepy Eisenhower” the next day and admitted, “I smiled at his distress, having suffered from this type of treatment [from Churchill] repeatedly.”42
Marshall did not want either Sardinia or Italy. He urged Eisenhower to begin drawing down in the Mediterranean as soon as Sicily was over. He was suspicious of the British, doubted their resolve for the cross-Channel attack. On this point he was right. Brooke came privately to Eisenhower to have his say, which was that the Allies ought to apply their naval and air strength toward blockading Germany and leave the ground fighting to the Russians. He said that in northwest Europe, the Allies would be fighting at “a great disadvantage and would suffer tremendous and useless losses.” They should therefore limit themselves to fighting in Italy.43
Eisenhower heard them all out and kept his own counsel. Much would depend on how hard the Germans fought for Sicily, and whether or not they moved additional divisions into Italy. Eisenhower was left with the power to decide, based on enemy reactions, what to do after Sicily.
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In addition to all his official responsibilities, only just outlined here, Ike had some worries about Mamie. By May of 1943 the couple had been separated for almost a full year. Ike had his never-ending work to occupy him, and in addition was surrounded by old and new friends. But except for Ruth Butcher, Mamie was alone, and Ruth was not much help, as she was a heavy drinker and her marriage was in trouble (when the war ended, the Butchers were divorced). Ike, robust as usual, could drive himself right through an occasional cold or touch of diarrhea; Mamie, delicate as always, was ill and bedridden much of the time. She had little interest in food and her weight had slipped to 112 pounds. In her own words, she “lived after sorts, read mystery thrillers through the nights—and waited.”44 She was being plagued to make public appearances, which she detested, and was receiving voluminous mail, which helped her pass the time, as she answered by hand every letter.
Writing letters to her husband was much more satisfying, to her and to him (the first thing he looked for in every incoming mail pouch was a letter from his wife), but no matter how cheerful and chatty she tried to be in her notes, he could read between the lines. “Your letters often give me some hint of your loneliness,” Ike wrote in June, “your bewilderment and your worries in carrying on . . . when you’re lonely, try to remember that I’d rather be by your side than anywhere else in the world.” He was also concerned by reports from Washington that people were “darn near placing you on a royalty basis.”