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Bloody Road To Tunis: Destruction of the Axis Forces in North Africa, November 1942-May 1943

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The Bloody Road to Tunis is a sweeping look at the ejection of the Axis forces from Tunisia by the British and American armies in 1942-1943. Most American readers are familiar with the battles around Kassarine Pass. While these are undoubtedly important for the development of the US Army in World War II, they are but a small part of the overall campaign. At the very least, Rolf's book puts Kassarine Pass into broader perspective. Rolf's book, therefore, is a good look at the operational decision making by the Allied top leadership as well as the tactical and logistical issues that faced both the Allied and Axis forces. The Bloody Road to Tunis is comprehensive as well, covering the initial Allied thrust into Tunisia from the Torch landings, the Axis counterattacks (Kassarine Pass was but one), Montgomery's push from the south, and the final knock-out blows delivered in early 1943.

Using this broad perspective, much of the book focuses on operational and tactical decision making. Rolf pulls no punches in assessing both Allied and Axis leadership. There were few brilliant minds in any of the armies doing battle in Tunisia, although each were deficient for different reasons. Most American commanders were inept and/or inexperienced; the Italian leadership suffered from poor operational and tactical flexibility; the German commanders were over-confident and fractious; the British leaders were arrogant and plodding. The reader comes away with the thought that the battles in Tunisia were not ones of decisive generalship, but rather were won because the other side made more mistakes. In the end, although Rolf does not explicitly make the statement, it is apparent that Tunisia was cleared of Axis troops because they ran out of logistical support rather than being beaten by superior Allied military skill.

Rolf's descriptions of how battle plans played out are quite good, and the reader is treated to a good view of how the various command problems on all sides manifested themselves (both on the battlefield and in terms of interpersonal and inter-army relations). The descriptions of the actual fighting is a bit mechanical and boring. Since the subject of the book is so broad, individual firefights do not get much attention outside of the some coverage of the key events. The books is not about war at the personal level (something that many readers have grown accustomed to with all of the personal accounts and "oral histories" that have been popping up like weeds), but rather its subject is operational. What Rolf offers is a critical assessment of the Tunisia operation, from both sides.

His final analysis shows that the Allies clearly made a mistake in not pushing hard right away into Tunisia. This let the Axis build up their forces and caused the campaign to stretch on for months rather than being wrapped up in a much shorter time (with less loss of life). Rolf correctly faults British for being timid and for their plodding generalship: British commanders were in charge of operational planning. Rolf additionally criticizes Montgomery's less-than-inspired leadership and decision making regarding his advance to and attack through the Mareth Line. In the end, Rolf argues that Montgomery's contribution to the Tunisian campaign was negligible and essentially served as a distraction to Allied leaders as well as to the Axis. Regarding the American army, he brutally assesses Eisenhower's failures: most of the blame for the poor performance and the debacle of Kassarine Pass can be ultimately be placed squarely on him. Eisenhower knew of the inabilities of his subordinates, as well as of the fact that British decisions were hanging American units out to dry, but failed to act by not replacing personnel and not making objections to British commanders. And although the Americans can not be faulted for being "green" (armies have to start somewhere, after all), Rolf does criticize unit commanders for being terribly slow to learn from the battlefield. Rolf faults German leaders with overconfidence, which lead to costly counterattacks that depleted resources for little gain. He also criticizes German commanders for squabbling amongst themselves (even fighting over control of divisions), which ended up seriously jeopardizing ongoing missions. In the end, however, strategic miscalculations regarding North Africa and failed logistical support sunk the chances of the Axis armies in Tunisia.

I liked this book because of its scale: few books cover the subject at the operational level, and instead analyze individual battles or units. Rolf puts these works into context, which is a great service.

A straightforward, blow-by-blow account of the Allied effort to eject Axis forces from North Africa with discussion of both the Montgomery-led British drive against Rommel out of Egypt and the Eisenhower-led drive with Allied forces from the west. The focus is primarily on the "what," "when" and "where" from a military (primarily land forces) perspective. Rolf wastes no time getting readers into the action, beginning with the Allied landings in Operation Torch. I was hoping to see more details on the planning and preparation of this operation, to include an analysis of the strategic situation late in 1942 and a better look at forces/resources/equipment & training of both sides, but Rolf apparently considered more details here to be outside the scope of his work.

Another complaint is that the narrative is frankly rather dry, although the use of diary/memoir/letter/personal interview excerpts from the highest ranks to the lowest keeps the book from sinking into a "this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened..." recitation. Still, the book is decidedly lacking in "color commentary". For example, there is not much discussion of the individual backgrounds and personalities beyond that immediately applicable to the campaign--e.g., a more intimate look at how and why Eisenhower, a man with no actual combat experience, was picked to lead Torch, would have been interesting.

Obviously, Rolf intended to maintain a more narrow focus. The book does highlight the difficulties in early Anglo-American cooperation, terrain, and logistics, and helps show why North Africa was a necessary proving ground (for the Allies in general, and the Americans in particular) before a successful invasion of the continent could be made good. An outstanding ground forces order of battle is provide for both Allies and Axis in an appendix. Maps are for the most part good, although there could have been more, especially detailing operations at the operational/tactical level described in the first third of the book.

I can't help thinking that Mr. Rolf missed a chance to write the first real "definitive" account of this campaign in World War II. There is precious little on the strategic debate that led the Allies to adopt a North African campaign or the political and strategic considerations that drove Churchill to push it and Roosevelt to acquiese. There could have been a lot more about the political turmoils and conflicting loyalties between Free French and Vichy that featured so prominently at the outset. Finally, from my own perspective and biases, the writing style is clearly meant to inform more than entertain. Certainly, the former is most important in writing history--which is why this IS a worthwhile book, even if as nothing more than a reference--but scores of writers have shown that objective historical accuracy AND entertainment value are not incompatible. I was not expecting this author to be on the McCullough/Ambrose/Tuchman/etc. plane, but for a subject that I have a lot of interest in, I found reading Mr. Rolf's account to be more of a chore than I would have expected.