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Allied Battle Strategy Summary by Rachel Keeney (if you use this as a source, cite it!—see below)1. The North Africa Campaign, (attacking Germany from the South) (Operation Torch) At first this part of the war was confusing to me, so we’ll spend the most time on it. It seems almost unnecessary if the Allies’ enemies were Germany, Italy and Japan, why were they fighting in Africa? I'll try to boil down everything to a few key ideas. The Allies realized they needed to focus on defeating Hitler's German forces. They knew that Italy and Japan were both probably not serious long-term threats, but Germany was dangerous. If you look at this map you can see how little green (Allied controlled) was left. The orange (Axis) was beginning to take over. map courtesy of: , the Allies adopted a "Europe First" strategy, even though the ultimate goal was to win in both Europe and the Pacific. The front in Northern Africa actually came about because of Russia. They were getting tired of having to fight such strong resistance from the Germans on the eastern front alone. If you look at the map, there is a large area of orange and green striped between Germany and Russia, it was a really big area for Russia to try to hold and fight off the Nazis. Russia asked for the rest of the Allies to start a new front fighting Germany in France. They were hoping this might split the German troops up, because they would have to fight on both the west and east of their country and hopefully this would ease the Russian’s load on the eastern front. Well, the rest of the Allies were not ready for this type of fight yet, but they felt like they had a better chance coming at Germany from the south where they might be weaker. They decided to fight off a small Italian (remember they were part of the Axis) invasion in Egypt (northern Africa). The ultimate plan was to strike Hitler from the south, first taking North Africa, then go up and invade Italy next, before getting Germany on the South. You can see on the map that if the Allies already had North Africa it would be easy to just go straight up the boot of Italy and attack Germany on their southern border. The southern border should be least fortified because it was the border between Germany and their Axis friends. Rommel was the brilliant general Hitler sent to Northern Africa and it was really hard for the Allied forces to take him down. His nickname was "desert fox" and he had a lot of victories over British and American forces. (Rommel photo from: )Fighting in the desert was a challenge. Without trees, you could see your enemy coming for miles. The best method was tank warfare. The Allied strategy came together as the British started in Egypt and pushed west across North Africa and the Americans landed in Nazi-controlled Algeria and Morocco, and pushed East across North Africa. (Check out the red lines on the map.) This created a "pincher" effect with both sides ending up in Tunisia. The Allies were victorious taking North Africa in May 1943! , taking North Africa is only the first step. Next, the Allies worked their way up into Europe to attack Hitler from the south. They took the island of Sicily first, then headed up into Italy. It was really hard to take Italy. Many Italians gave up fighting and many joined the Allies, but the German army divisions that were still there fought hard. It wasn't until the very end of the war that the Allied troops had finally fought their way up through Italy to the Alps at the top. In the end, I think the North Africa campaign probably did work to stretch the Nazis out across three different fighting fronts. It definitely kept them busy and distracted from invading any other countries. Hopefully this helps you understand why the Allies were fighting battles in North Africa!2. The Russian strategy, (attacking Germany from the east): As you know, the Russians were being bullied by the Nazis who decided they would invade Russia in a massive campaign called Operation Barbarossa. The Russians decided to use the same plan that worked when Napoleon tried to invade a century ago. The Russians withdrew into their own country, drawing 464375532766000in the Germans. They used a “scorched earth policy” which means that they burned or destroyed anything that could have been used by the enemy. Yes, this did mean burning and destroying their own crops and supplies, but they felt like this was better than the enemy getting and using it. As the German Nazis advanced into Russia, winter set in. Russians are used to surviving in the cold, they live there. But the Germans were unprepared. They were freezing and starving! Before long, the Germans knew they had to leave. 3. The invasion of Normandy (attacking Germany from the west): Normandy is in France, which was controlled by the Germans by this time. The Allied forces planned a surprise attack using water, land, and sea forces. The Allies gathered in England and crossed the English channel to Normandy, France for the invasion called Operation Overlord or D-Day. First, the night before the invasion paratroopers were dropped behind enemy lines to begin sabotaging the Germans at any chance. Next, large battle ships began pounding the beaches trying to break the German strongholds that were entrenched at the top of the beaches. The battle ships pulled back and the transport ships pulled forward to allow the land troops to run up the beach to take it. Map courtesy of of the beaches were still pretty entrenched with Germans when the Allies got there. Omaha beach is one of the beaches the Americans were assigned to take and it was one of the bloodiest parts of the invasion. Eventually the Allies were able to gain control of the beaches of Normandy, then travel into the mainland of France and over time, liberated France from Nazi control.Those are the three parts to the Allied strategy to defeat Germany: 1. North Africa campaign, 2. Russian Winter, 3. D-Day invasion. How to cite this summary: Keeney, Rachel. Allied Battle Strategy Summary. Cornerstone Christian Online, 2015.Here is the source that I used to get most my information:English, June A. and Thomas D. Jones. Encyclopedia of the United States at War. New York: Scholastic, 1998. ................
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