Axis Collapses in Africa: Von Arnim Captured

Colonel General Dietloff von Arnim surrendered on the Cap Bon peninsula on May 12, 1943, ending three years of Axis warfare in North Africa. Over 230,000 German and Italian troops had been captured since the Allied encirclement of Tunisia began, a haul of prisoners comparable to Stalingrad just three months earlier. The surrender handed the Allies control of the entire southern Mediterranean coastline and opened the door to the invasion of Europe. The North African campaign had seesawed across Libya and Egypt since 1940. Rommel's Afrika Korps had driven to within sixty miles of Alexandria before being stopped at El Alamein in late 1942. The Anglo-American landings in Morocco and Algeria during Operation Torch caught the Axis in a vise. Hitler, repeating the mistake of Stalingrad, refused to authorize evacuation and poured reinforcements into a position that was already lost. The final weeks in Tunisia saw some of the war's fiercest fighting in North Africa. German and Italian units defended the mountainous terrain around Tunis and Bizerte with determination, inflicting heavy casualties on British, American, and French forces pushing from both east and west. But without air cover or resupply, the outcome was inevitable. When the perimeter collapsed, entire divisions surrendered intact. The victory in North Africa transformed the Allied strategic position. It secured shipping lanes through the Mediterranean, freed forces for the invasion of Sicily two months later, and gave American troops their first sustained combat experience against the Wehrmacht. For the Axis, the loss was catastrophic. An entire army group had been destroyed, and the defensive perimeter around Fortress Europe had been breached from the south.