March 28, 2015

Finest Hour 127, Summer 2005

Page 43

The Path to Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in World War II, by Douglas Porch. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 800 pp., $35, member price $28


As the memory of World War II slips away and the veterans of that conflict answer their last roll call, the national recollection of that titanic struggle has centered on the D-day landings at Normandy on 6 June 1944. Decisive as that event remains, however, it is well to remember that the war extended far beyond just one invasion or one D-Day.

Douglas Porch, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, builds a persuasive case that the Mediterranean theater, which stretched from Spain to Syria and from Italy to Ethiopia, was the pivotal Anglo-American theater of the war. Without it, there could have been no triumph at Normandy. The evidence lies in his brawny volume, The Path to Victory. Full of sprightly prose, keen insights and extensive research, his text deserves to be read and then re-read to gain its full flavor and wisdom.

Mr. Porch argues that after the collapse of France and the British evacuation at Dunkirk in 1940, Winston Churchill understood that the Mediterranean represented the only area where Britain, fighting alone, had any chance to defeat the Axis. In doing so, Britain could prove her worth as a future ally to a still neutral but very watchful United States. At the same time, Hitler would be hindered by a chronic shortage of fuel, burdened by the lack of an effective navy, and dragged down by Mussolini, an incompetent ally.

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Once the United States entered the war, U.S. Army chief of staff George C. Marshall forcefully argued that the Mediterranean was an unnecessary British sideshow that should be avoided, and that, instead, the Allies should invade Western Europe as early as 1943. President Roosevelt overruled Marshall, committing U.S. forces to join their British comrades in the invasion of North Africa in 1942 and Italy in 1943.

Roosevelt understood that an invasion of France in 1943 would be too risky. A defeat might have fractured the Anglo-American alliance and spelled political doom for both Churchill and Roosevelt. Instead, by adopting a Mediterranean strategy, FDR purposely postponed the invasion of France until 1944, giving the United States a chance to test its Army. Additionally, it provided the Allies essential time to gain experience in amphibious operations, to defeat the German U-boat menace, and to secure needed air superiority. None of these crucial ingredients would have existed in a 1943 invasion of France.

There was more to Roosevelt’s thinking. Ever the astute politician, he knew that by 1944 the U.S. would furnish the majority of the troops for the invasion of France and the liberation of Western Europe. This would inevitably mean that an American, rather than a British general, would command the invasion, confirming American dominance in the Western front and the postwar world to come.

In arguing for the Mediterranean’s pivotal role, Porch concludes that it “made the difference between victory and defeat.” In short, it provided the essential path from Dunkirk to Normandy.


Mr. Christman leads WW2 battlefield tours to Europe, teaches military history at Cedar Valley College, and contributes to The Dallas Morning News. This review is reprinted by permission of the newspaper and the author

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