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An Army At Dawn Essay

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The book An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa 1942-1943 gives the reader valuable insight into the campaign in North Africa in 1942-1943 for both Allied and the German forces. The narrative follows the American and British armies as they fought the Vichy French in Morocco and Algiers, and then later when they fight the Germans and the Italians for Tunisia. The novel follows the inexperienced and ill-led soldiers from battle to battle as they gradually become a more cohesive and deadly fighting force. This novel also centers around the almost mythical but also flawed commanders who dominate the battlefield and write their names in the history books: Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, and Rommel. The author, Patrick Atkinson, lays out a spectacular narrative on what was happening during Operation Torch and in the North African Campaign. In analyzing the narrative, the author’s main points consist of the Allies (American and British) and German strategy/thinking during the campaign. The other main points consist of the ally defeats and failures during the campaign which resulted in them having to re-strategize and rethink of how to defeat the Nazi forces under the command of Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel. All of this cumulates to his important main point, which was that the Allies gained enough vital experience from their past defeats to win the overall campaign. There are parallels and tie-ins fro this book that correspond to the readings that we have had to do

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