Crusade in Europe

by Dwight D. Eisenhower

  To provide the necessary protection the II Corps Headquarters, under General Fredendall, was brought up from Oran and directed to take station in the Tebessa region.17 To it was assigned the U. S. 1st Armored Division, by this time largely brought up to strength, even though some of its equipment was already of an obsolete type. Logistics staffs opposed my purpose of concentrating a full corps east of Tebessa. They wailed that our miserable communications could not maintain more than an armored division and one additional regiment. But, convinced that the enemy would soon take advantage of our obvious weakness there, I nevertheless ordered the concentration of the corps of four divisions to begin and told the logistics people they would have to find a way to supply it.

  The U. S. 1st Infantry Division was to be assigned to this corps as quickly as it could be assembled from its scattered positions on the front and brought into this sector. The U. S. 9th Division, less the 39th Regimental combat team which had participated in the Algiers assault, was gradually transferred eastward from the Casablanca area and was to go under command of II Corps when the movement could be completed. The 34th Division received similar orders, its duties in the line of communication to be taken over by the French.18

  The instructions given to the American II Corps were to provide a strategic flank guard for our main forces in the north.19 Fredendall was directed to hold the mountain passes with light infantry detachments and to concentrate the assembled 1st Armored Division in rear of the infantry outposts, ready to attack in force any hostile column that might attempt to move through the mountains toward our line of communications. General Fredendall was further authorized, upon completion of the assembly of his corps, to undertake offensive action in the direction of Sfax or Gabès in an effort to sever Rommel’s line of communications with Tunisia.20 A portion of the staff became obsessed with the idea of the potential results of such an operation and desired to order it forthwith. I disapproved: our immediate capacity for an offensive was nil. So that there could be no misunderstanding I held a personal conference with General Fredendall and completely outlined my purpose in concentrating his corps in the Tebessa area. These purposes were, as stated, to provide a mobile, strategic flank guard on our right, with its striking force represented principally in the concentrated armored division, which was stronger in tanks than anything the enemy could bring against it. Only when he could be assured that the whole region was safe from attack was he to be allowed to undertake offensive action in the direction of the coast line, and even under those conditions he was not to place any isolated infantry garrison in any coast town he might take.

  In this incident I came squarely up against the love of staffs for expressing operational ideas in terms of geographical points and objectives. The idea of fighting to protect ourselves where necessary and of concentrating at chosen points to destroy the enemy is difficult to express. Such an idea implies great fluidity and flexibility in operations, and consequently planners find it difficult to reduce the conception to writing. Because of this they resort to the habit of laying out a plan based upon the capture or holding of specific geographical points, and sometimes, particularly in strategic planning, this is necessary. Nevertheless such plans are dangerous because they are likely to impose a rigidity of action upon the commander who receives them for execution. A qualified commander should normally be assigned only a general mission, whether it be of attack or defense, and then given the means to carry it out. In this way he is completely unfettered in achieving the general purpose of his superior.

  During all these weeks it had been impossible to set up a unified command for the battle line, except that of Allied Force Headquarters itself. The French refused to serve under British command and maintained that there would be a rebellion in their Army if I insisted upon this arrangement, because of ill feeling still enduring from the British-French clashes in Syria, Oran, and Dakar.21 The British First Army was on the left, the French forces in the center, and the American forces on the right, but all occupying parts of a single, closely interrelated battle front, and all dependent upon a single, inadequate line of communications. It was an exasperating situation, full of potential danger. The best I could do was to set up a forward command post of my own, where I spent as much time as I could. I left there permanently a small staff under General Truscott, whose task it was to represent me in the co-ordination of details on the front.

  This condition persisted until French forces in the center, giving way in mid-January before small but determined German attacks, created a critical situation that demanded renewed dispersion of the assembling American troops in order to plug holes in the leaky front.22 Under these conditions, just after the middle of January, I peremptorily ordered General Anderson to take charge of the entire battle line.23 I personally visited General Juin, in command of the French forces in the line, to assure myself that he would take orders from General Anderson. Later I informed General Giraud of what I had done. He interposed no objection—the need had become too obvious.

  The picture, then, when General Anderson took over the entire battle front, was that of a long tenuous line stretching from Bizerte to Gafsa, with units badly mixed and with no local reserves. To support this long front there was nothing available until the American II Corps could be fully concentrated in the Tebessa region and until additional troops from England should be able to perform a similar service in the northern Tunisia area. The process of sorting out units and providing the mobile reserves started before Christmas but received a bad setback when the French forces gave way in mid-January and American units had to rush in to close the gaps.24 The French defeat could not be traced to any lack of gallantry or courage; it was merely the total lack of modern equipment, a deficiency we were struggling to correct.

  Through all this period the tangled political situation kept worrying us; it was difficult to pierce the web of intrigue, misinformation, misunderstanding, and burning prejudice that surrounded even the minor elements of the whole problem. A principal factor in the situation was the Arab population and its explosive potentialities. The French general in Morocco, Noguès, was untrustworthy and worse, but he was the Foreign Minister to the Sultan; all reports indicated that he enjoyed the full confidence and friendship of the Moroccans. The fierce tribesmen of that area were a force to be reckoned with; General Patton was fearful of the whole situation and still adhered to his estimate that if the Moroccans should grow antagonistic to us it would require 60,000 fully equipped Americans to keep order in that region alone. We could not afford—and did not have—any such force. Patton strongly counseled us to let Noguès alone!

  One complication in the Arab tangle was the age-old antagonism existing between the Arab and the Jew. Since the former outnumbered the latter by some forty to one in North Africa, it had become local policy to placate the Arab at the expense of the Jew; repressive laws had resulted and the Arab population regarded any suggestion for amelioration of such laws as the beginning of an effort to establish a Jewish government, with consequent persecution of themselves. Remembering that for years the uneducated population had been subjected to intensive Nazi propaganda calculated to fan these prejudices, it is easy to understand that the situation called more for caution and evolution than it did for precipitate action and possible revolution. The country was ridden, almost ruled, by rumor. One rumor was to the effect that I was a Jew, sent into the country by the Jew, Roosevelt, to grind down the Arabs and turn over North Africa to Jewish rule. The political staff was so concerned about this one that they published material on me in newspapers and in special leaflets to establish evidence of my ancestry. Arab unrest, or, even worse, open rebellion, would have set us back for months and lost us countless lives.

  So far as the Frenchman in the cafés was concerned—the individual who talked incessantly to newspaper reporters—the answer was beautifully simple. It was merely to throw out, arbitrarily, every official who had been identified with or had taken orders from Vichy and to put in their places those
who now claimed to be sympathetic to us. But since all the hated Vichy officials had carefully ingratiated themselves with the Arab population it was manifest that only through progressive changes and careful handling of personnel could we prevent the Arab-French-Jewish pot from boiling over.

  To illustrate the delicacy of the situation: very early we had insisted that the French authorities ameliorate anti-Jewish laws and practices, going far beyond the bounds of “Allied co-operation” in the forcefulness of our demands. Appropriate proclamations were issued and we felt that some progress had been achieved. Imagine my astonishment when Darlan came to my office with a letter signed by a man whom he identified as the “Rabbi of Constantine,” which implored the authorities to go very slowly in relaxation of anti-Jewish practices, else, the letter said, the Arabs would undoubtedly stage a pogrom! This minor example of the confused nature of the racial and political relationships was multiplied daily in innumerable directions.

  Politics, economy, fighting—all were inextricably mixed up and confused one with the other.

  On the political side Murphy and his British counterpart, Mr. Harold Macmillan, worked tirelessly, but they had had to deal with the dangerous Darlan, later with the gallant and honest but politically uninterested Giraud, the weak Yves Chatel, the notorious Noguès, and men of similar stripe. We insisted upon liberalization of the political systems but every day brought new complaints, most of them well founded, of continued injustices, lack of good faith, and lip service without performance. We determined to begin elimination of the most objectionable characters but were desperate over our failure to find satisfactory substitutes. Moreover, always we had to move in the knowledge that we were ostensibly in the land of an ally: we had neither the authority nor the responsibilities implicit in a military occupation. Nevertheless we early told Darlan he had to get rid of Chatel, governor of Algeria, and Noguès, minister to the Sultan of Morocco.

  In this type of problem General Giraud was no help. He hated politics; not merely crookedness and chicanery in politics, but every part of the necessary task of developing an orderly, democratic system of government applicable to the North African kaleidoscope. He merely wanted supplies and equipment to develop fighting divisions and, provided he could get these, he had no interest in the governmental organization or its personnel. His purpose was pure but his capacity for larger administrative and organizational tasks was doubtful.

  Darlan was assassinated on December 24, the same day that I was compelled to abandon all thought of immediate attack in northern Tunisia. I was at the headquarters of British 5 Corps near Béja when notice of his death reached me and I immediately started for Algiers. I arrived there after thirty hours of non-stop driving through rain, snow, and sleet.

  My entire acquaintanceship with Darlan covered a period of six weeks. His reputation was that of a notorious collaborator with Hitler, but during the time that he served as the administrator of French North Africa he never once, to our knowledge, violated any commitment or promise. On the other hand, his mannerisms and personality did not inspire confidence and in view of his reputation we were always uneasy in dealing with him. In any event, his death presented me with new problems.

  While it was known, of course, that the person in the French Government I trusted most was General Giraud, my headquarters was still in no position to sponsor a puppet government. Such a resort to Nazi methods would have been a far more serious violation of the principles for which we were fighting than would the mere temporary acceptance of some individual whose past record was, from our viewpoint, distasteful. Moreover, in our inner councils we doubted Giraud’s ability to establish himself firmly in the chief position—but no one else was both acceptable and immediately available. Without delay the French local officials named General Giraud as the temporary administrator of North Africa to succeed Darlan.25 Giraud visited my headquarters and his first request was that I “cease treating North Africa as a conquered territory and treat it more as the ally which it was trying to become.” This attitude, on the part of one who, I thought, understood our motives so well, was something of a shock.

  The governor in Algeria, Chatel, was a weakling who held the trust of none of us. He and General Noguès were two individuals we were determined to get rid of quickly, even though in the case of the latter General Patton constantly insisted that he was working effectively for the Allies in Morocco. My own belief was that General Noguès might co-operate with us as long as he thought we were winning but at the first sign of weakness he would unhesitatingly turn against us. Darlan had met every expression of our dissatisfaction with these two men by replying, “I don’t want them either but the governing of Arab tribes is a tricky business that requires much experience with them. As quickly as you can produce any men, of your own choice, who are experienced in this regard and are loyal Frenchmen, I will instantly dismiss the incumbents and appoint the men you desire.”

  In the search for satisfactory individuals we decided to bring Marcel Peyrouton to Algiers. It was reported to me that Peyrouton was then a virtual exile in Argentina, unable to go back to France because of the bitter enmity of Pierre Laval toward him. It was also reported that he had previously established a reputation in North Africa as a skillful colonial administrator. Nevertheless he had been, for a considerable time, a member of the Vichy government and was therefore regarded in the democratic world as a Fascist. We explained our problem to the State Department and after some exchange of messages on the subject were informed that the State Department was in agreement with us.26

  Bringing Peyrouton to Algeria as governor was a mistake, even though he was a vast improvement over his soft and vacillating predecessor. It was difficult indeed to find men who had any experience in French colonial administration and at the same time bore no trace of the Vichy trademark. Our first thought had been to use Mast, Bethouart, and a few others who had, by their actions, proved their friendliness to us. Here the difficulty was the attitude of the French Army, whose assistance we badly needed. We forced official acceptance, even the promotion, of Mast and Bethouart, but we could not force social acceptance at that time. Their wives were coldly treated, even insulted, by the wives of other officers. The feeling against them was initially so strong that they themselves, and Giraud, counseled against the attempt to use them in administrative positions.

  In this period I made another error, even though from a good motive. It was the application of censorship to political news from North Africa for a period of six weeks. Because of personal dislike of censorship, I had to be convinced that the reason for such action was important. In this case it was. The plan of my political advisers and myself was to promote an eventual union between the local French administration and the De Gaulle forces in London. It was, we felt, a difficult but necessary development.

  The local antagonism in the French Army and in all echelons of government against De Gaulle was intense, but he enjoyed a distinct popularity with the civilians and this sentiment progressively increased as prospects of Allied success brightened. Through every possible outlet open to them the De Gaulle forces in London and central Africa were fiercely attacking every French military and civil official in Africa, and the latter wanted to reply, publicly, in terms no less harsh. I believed that to permit the growth of such a public name-calling contest would create conditions which would make future reconciliation impossible. By imposing political censorship on all I prevented local French officials from participating in the public quarrel. They argued bitterly, as did the press representatives in the theater. I think the censorship had some of the desired effect, and it was lifted the second I learned that Giraud and De Gaulle had agreed to meet at Casablanca. The reasons for the censorship could not be explained, however, and were of course misinterpreted at home.

  The intricacies of the situation, military and political, were complicated by the economic situation. North Africa was stripped of usable goods, and shipping was so scarce that every available ton was required for mil
itary uses. Wheat, coal, cloth, medicine, soaps, and a myriad other items were sorely needed. While we took military needs as our criterion—that is, every problem was decided upon the basis of its bearing upon the military situation—still it was frequently difficult to tell, for example, whether military requirements would be best satisfied by a shipload of bombs or an equal amount of coal!

  The Christmas season brought to me the dismaying realization that there are certain limits of physical stamina that cannot safely be exceeded. I inherited a hardy constitution from sturdy forebears and, heretofore always careful of health requisites, I had come to believe myself immune from the fatigues and exhaustions that I frequently observed in others. Long hours and incessant work were easily enough sustained, I thought, so long as one refused to fall victim to useless worry or to waste his strength in any kind of excess. But as the December weeks kept me constantly on the road or in the air and shorter and shorter hours of sleep became broken by an unaccustomed nervousness, I definitely felt a deterioration in vigor that I could not overcome. On Christmas Day I contracted a severe case of flu, and, convinced that I must not go to bed, I finally became really ill.

  The doctors then took charge. For four days they would not let me move, and during that time I not only recovered my health, I learned a lesson I did not thereafter violate: a full measure of health is basic to successful command. I did not have another sick day—aside from minor accidents—during the war.