Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1943-05-11
North African Victory
Won by Genero|ship
Major Eliot Compliments
Allied Leaders on Proof
Of Superior Strategy
Blu Mai. GEORGE FIELDING Eliot.

SNs~NSS/
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot.
OF splendid promise for the future Is
the generalship displayed by United
Nations commanders in Tunisia. The
last phase of the Tunisian campaign was
marked by clearly superior Allied gen.
eralship on the highest plane.
The test was fair one, and we can
draw from it no small degree of salts
faction. The opposing generals were the
products of the best that the military
training and education of Britain and
America, on the one hand, and Of Ger
many, on the other, could produce.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the United
Nations commander in chief, is an
American professional soldier who Is a
graduate of the Command and General
Staff School and the Army War College.
The commander of the Allied ground
forces, Gen. Sir Harold r. l.. G. Alex
ander, is a British professional soldier,
graduate of the Staff College and the
Imperial Defense College. On the Ger
man side, Col. Gen. Jurgin Won Arnim
is Prussian professional soldier, a prod
uct of the carefully graduated German
system Of military education and ranking
high in the estimation of his colleagues.
Gen. Eisenhower and Gen. Won Arnim
are So, Gen. Alexander Is 81. All three
may be considered to be at the height
of their powers and at the peak Of their
professional careers.
They met on the battlefield. Let us
observe the result, for it is instructive.
Gen. Eisenhower began by producing
and emphasizing an erroneous impression
in the mind of his adversary. That i'm
preston was that the main Allied effort
would be made on the right flank and
that the main blow would be struck by
the British 9th Army.
Gen. Won Arnim fell for this hook, line
and sinker He found it easy enough to
believe, because the 9Th Army was the
most experienced of the forces facing
him, and because its appearance in the
Southern Tunisian campaign had been
Immediately decisive of the result. With
Prussian arrogance and self-suficiepcy
which Gen. Eisenhower and Gen. Alex
ander correctly gagged and made use OF,
Gen. Won Arnim had acquired comfort
able sense of superiority as regards the
British LIST Army and the French troops,
with which, up to that time, he had been
chiefly dealing. So that Gen. Won Arnim
began by doing something which not
even a junior officer at Fort Leaven-
worth would think of doing in the solu-
ton of map problem-he fixed his mind
on "the enemy's most probable inten-
tions"-and did the rest of his thinking
on the basis of that assumption.
He promptly was confirmed in his
error when the 9th Army attacked and
made moderate gain which was checked
by heavy German counterattacks and
the fire of major caliber guns. Gen. Won
Arnim obviously expected this attack
to be renewed and he shifted his reserves
to positions where they could deal with
such renewal.
The next thing that happened was the
sudden appearance of the American I'd
Corps on the left flank of the British
1st Army, far up on the northern sector
of the front. Whatever hint this may
have conveyed to Gen. Won Arnim that
his original assumption might be wrong,
he was given no time to make any
change in his dispositions. He was at
once attacked with great violence along
1,ic 1,o1o H1y Tho Tronch hrnari.
cans and British, working in unison.
Local reserves were unable to check
these advances; only by using what few
troops he still had in general reserve was
Gen. Won Arnim able to prevent the
British 1st Army from breaking right
through his center into the Tunisian
plain, and even then his counterattack
only checked the British advance and
did not force the commander Of the
LIST Army to put in his own reserves,
which were still kept in hand.
But Gen. Won Arnim had nothing left
with which to stop the Americans; when
they broke through to Mateur, he was
found vainly trying to stop up the gap
with cooks, labor units and Luftwane
ground forces
Meanwhile the cagey Gen. Eisenhower,
and the equally cagey Gen. Alexander,
were shifting the reserves of the 9Th
Army around behind the LIST; they
struck again, broke through the weak
ened German center, and through that
gap poured two British armored divisions
into the German rear areas, while to the
north the LIST American Armored Divi-
sion, likewise, broke through.
The rest is history: Bizerte and Tunis
fell at almost the same moment, the
German army was cut to pieces, $4,000
Axis prisoners are already in our hands,
organized Axis resistance has almost
ceased, and Africa is won.
The battle Of North Tunisia was q
true battle Of destruction, almost a battle
Of humiliation. It was a triumph of
superior generalship, Of the flexible,
imaginative, resourceful generalship Of
the democratic armies as opposed to the
rigidity Of the Prussian military mind.
1t is bright augury for the grave trials
which lie Immediately before US.