The Press MONDAY, MAY 10, 1943. North Africa Won

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23943, 10 May 1943, Page 4

The Press MONDAY, MAY 10, 1943. North Africa Won

Reports from General Eisenhower’s command in Tunisia have been so restrained, even after the key successes at Mateur and in the Mejerda valley, that the news of developments which have carried the Allies to Bizerte and Tunis and' to the mastery of North Africa leaps ahead of expectation. It is the news of a triumph, and not less a triumph because it fulfils after six arduous, often anxious, and costly months a design that might have reached success at the outset and missed it, perhaps, by the narrowest margin. What might have been gained there and then—the possession of bases commanding the western passage of the Mediterranean, the planting of a powerful army in rear of the Afrika Korps, the breaking of Axis influence in French North Africa, the poising of a threat against the Axis southern front—had largely to be deferred; but it has been deferred, not diminished, and the advantage of delay has not been all to the Axis. It has cost Italy and Germany, materially, an immense price. It has not enabled them to dispose of Russia as an effective enemy and to concentrate against the invaders of Europe. It has ended in the destruction of the Afrika Korps and its Italian assistants. It has hardened and heartened one of the most, effective fighting organisations in the world. It has brought the Axis to the stage when it is menaced east, north, anfl south, has the initiative nowhere, cannot be sure where the blow may fall, and cannot guard every front impregnably. More than that, the Axis now sees control of the Mediterranean about to pass completely to the United Nations, and sees in that the prospect of swifter and greatei aid for Russia and for China and of new offensive strength to be gathered against Japan in India. The restraints imposed by General Eisenhower extend to the accounts of the victory so far released. They do not, for example, explain the astonishing ineffectuality of the Bizerte defences. Bizerte, a firstclass fortress, appears to have yielded as swiftly as Tunis. The defenders of both, or their remnants, are hemmed in with their backs to the sea, and divided by the cutting of the Tunis-Bizerte road. On the Pont du Fahs-Zag-houan front resistance appears to have been continued, with the result that the Axis troops here, cut off by the Ist Army’s thrust east of Tunis to the northern coast of the Cape Bon peninsula, have the choice of fighting to a finish where they stand, surrendering, or trying to escape by sea. Broadly, an immense superiority in armour, artillery, and aircraft became fully effective as soon as the Allies broke through the last of the Axis hill positions. The Axis forces could be divided and broken, and were. No campaign in this war has been brought to a more striking close; none has opened to the Allies more brilliant prospects; and New Zealanders will remember with pride and gratitude the share the New Zealand Division has had in laying the difficult foundations of this victory and in building it to its height.