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Summary: Superb rendering of first American campaign in the west
Review: Atkinson's "An Army At Dawn" is one of the better popular World War II histories, and as far as I know, the best treatment of the first American land campaign in the Atlantic theater. Like Ambrose, Atkinson has a flair for interweaving personal anecdotes with the broader issues of campaigns, high-level strategies, and foreign relations. The book fills an important niche in addressing a period of World War II largely glossed over in the popular culture, which tends to treat the run up to D-Day as a side show or an unrelieved march of triumph (except, perhaps, for the business at Kasserine).As Atkinson makes clear in "An Army At Dawn," America's invasion of North Africa was frightfully complex and uncertain. Many troop transports had to cross the U-Boat plagued Atlantic, and thread their way past neutral Spain, and land on beaches in Vichy French territories. Would Darlan and the French fight? It always comes as a surprise that the first combat actions by American troops in the European-African theater were against French soldiers, not Germans or Italians (these showed up later in Tunisia). Many French units chose to fight, and did well until the French officials in Africa capitulated. In the excellent documentary film about the French occupation, "Sorrow and the Pity", it emerges that the Vichy French in 1942 actually approached Hitler to enter the war on the German side. Hitler refused their offer, considering them too inferior to fight alongside the German Army. Atkinson's narrative justly stresses that the first U.S. Army campaign was indeed FUBAR (see "Private Ryan" as a definitional reference). Inter-allied relations with the nettlesome British were still in evolution, and the Free French, who bore the brunt of initial combat in Tunisia, received little support and were decimated. One of the "heavies" in the story is U.S. Army General Fredendall, who improbably was given command of the first Army corps (II Corps) to go up against the Axis. (He's the fellow whisked off in a jeep at the beginning of "Patton.") Fredendall is surely a recipient of the "George McClellan" award for bad generalship along with a later contemporary, X Corps commander General Almond, who in Korea nearly lost the 1st Marine Division in 1950 at the Chosin Reservoir (that division extracted itself solely due to its own superhuman effort). Like Almond, Fredendall committed the cardinal sin in the first two months of 1943 by diddling and subdividing his units over a hundred mile semi-desert front, circumventing the warnings of his divisional and regimental commanders. Atkinson sets the stage and then narrates the virtual destruction of the First Armored Division in the Kasserine Pass battles at the hands of German general Erwin Rommel. As Eisenhower later put it, Fredendall "violated every principle" of modern warfare, and Kassarine is still studied as a paradigm for how not to wage a campaign in the face of a skilled and armored adversary.
The book concludes with the collapse of the Axis in northeast Tunisia in May 1943, which was (and not commonly noted) ever bit as disastrous to the Axis as Stalingrad as it involved the loss of another quarter-million soldiers (most lived as prisoners, unlike the Eastern Front). If Atkinson's style remains steady as in "Dawn", the second and third books in the "Liberation Trilogy" should be equally good. And thanks for the many maps. Ah, for simpler days.
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Summary: Reader from Jonesboro, AR who never read the book
Review: I question the motivation of this reviewer who points out a mistake another reviewer had made about the depiction of Patton firing his revolvers at enemy aircraft.
The reviewer questioned the accuracy of Mr. Atkinson's book without having read it simply because another reviewer made a mistake in describing the Patton incident. If the "reader from Jonesboro" had read the book he/she would have found that the passage reads: "After strafing the streets, the planes returned for a final bombing run, during which a melon-sized fragment blew through the conference room, where the generals were now sprawled on the floor. Plaster tumbled from the walls as Patton dashed outside to empty his revolvers at the fleeing bandits." (P.460 Paperback version).
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Summary: Brilliant, compulsively readable, and well balanced
Review: I read the first two pages of the prologue to this hefty volume and I was HOOKED! Mr. Atkinson writes beautifully, sensitively, and fairly about this huge, complex historical era. The first of a projected three volumes about the U.S. role in the World War II liberation of Europe, _An Army at Dawn_ deals with the North Africa campaign, which many general readers have tended to neglect in favor of Italy, Normandy, and beyond. Atkinson admirably addresses this problem. Somehow, the author has found just the right mix of detail -- from personal notes out of soldiers' diaries and letters home, to the reparations paid to Algerians for traffic fatalities caused by Allies -- versus big picture aspects, from the British and American political maneuverings at Casablanca to the larger troop movements and battle strategy. I got a kick out of the references to GI passwords in various battles, jokes and ditties (although it's not clear whether Atkinson realizes the couplet quoted on p. 526 is from Spike Jones's wartime hit, "Der Fuehrer's Face"), as well as the graver tales of of triumph and tragedy. Don't let the size of this tome intimidate you (541 pages of text, 83 pages of notes, 28 pages of bibliographical source listings) -- because the book reads smoothly and compulsively. And there are plenty of excellent maps sprinkled throughout the book, at just the right places. The author does not spare us the details of Allied political and personal squabbles (particularly British condescension toward American battleworthiness and courage -- not altogether undeserved, but not fair, either), absurdities, and atrocities. Hard core historians may quibble with some of Atkinson's judgments, or even his facts, but I can't imagine anyone writing a more excellent account for the general reader. General Fredendall is said to be "unencumbered by charisma." With excellent intelligence, Ike's team decided there would be no German offensive on the eve of Kasserine Pass, which was "measured, reasonable, and wrong." Don't take my word for it: Read those first two pages, and I guarantee you'll want to read this book (and await the other two volumes breathlessly) too.
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Summary: Military History at it's best! Can't wait for the Trilogy!
Review: In the tradition of John Toland and Cornelius Ryan, Rick Atkinson serves up a well written, easy to follow, tour de force about The North African Campaign in late 1942 and the first half of 1943. Book after book comes out about D-Day and The Bulge, so it was a real joy to dig into this relatively ignored part of America's World War Two saga. From the very first page, fragrant descriptive prose flows on for page after page. The book strikes a great balance between techical tactical battle descriptions and simplified pop history. Whether it is the labyrinth of Vichy politics, the greeness of Ike and the American Army or the Brit's skepticism of our fighting abilities, all of it comes through in vivid color. This book does what a great book should do;it makes the reader want to read more by the author and more on the subject. This is the first installment on the Liberation trilogy. The only drawback is the next volume is not due out for a few years! I can't recommend any book more highly than this!
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Summary: "Only imagination can bring back the dead"
Review: The son of a veteran of the 701st Tank Destroyer Battalion who survived the battles at the Kasserine Pass and El Guettar, I read "An Army at Dawn" in an attempt to supplement the war stories my father and several of his comrades in arms told when I was a small child. I have often dreamed of visiting those battlefields and the military graveyards which hold thousands of heroes that fell in the North African campaign, heroes who never lived to have sons like myself. While I have not yet fulfilled those dreams, Rick Atkinson right away set me off on my journey in his magnificent prologue, as if he knew me personally and knew exactly what I sought from his book. He writes, "Even when the choreography of the armies is understood ... we crave intimate detail of individual men in individual foxholes ... The dead resist such intimacy ... but history can take us there, almost ... For among mortal powers, only imagination can bring back the dead." While I read "An Army at Dawn" my father lived again as a 24 year old on the great adventure which shaped both his life and mine.
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