In early 1943, three Axis defeats changed the course of World War II: at Guadalcanal in the Pacific, Stalingrad in Russia and Tunisia in North Africa. Historians have recognized the significance of the first two campaigns, but not Tunisia which they have either ignored or characterized (as the Americans did at the time) as a sideshow. Yet it ended Axis seapower in the Mediterranean, destroyed more than 2,400 Axis aircraft (40 per cent of the Luftwaffe's strength), and resulted in the surrender of over 250,000 German and Italian troops, as many as were captured at Stalingrad. After Josef Goebbel's compared the scale of the defeat to the destruction of General Paulus's Sixth Army in Russia, it was known to the German public as 'Tunisgrad'. It was the first campaign fought by the Anglo-American alliance, and would determine how and where the Allies would fight for the rest of the war. It was where America first brought to bear the full weight of its industrial strength, and where the Allies learned, after early setbacks, how to defeat the Germans with a combination of air, land and sea power. But its chief significance is that it was the campaign that extinguished any lingering hopes that Italy could win the war and led, inexorably, to the dissolution of the Axis in Europe when Italy surrendered in September 1943. By destroying the Axis it marked, for Hitler, the beginning of the end. will be the first comprehensive 360-degrees history, told from the perspective of all the combatants, and ranging in focus from politicians and senior commanders to ordinary servicemen fighting in and over the mountains of Tunisia, and across the Mediterranean. It will use sources – many archival and never published before – from all the main nationalities involved: British, Indian, New Zealand, Australian, South African, Greek, French and Americans on one side; and Germans and Italians on the other.
