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If another war comes there will hardly be room for neutrality. We must be sure that we understand our terms of reference, however, for their meaning has changed and broadened as a result of the enlarged area of modern conflicts and the development of new weapons. From Casablanca to Berlin, from Kiel to Gabès, everything interlocks, and because it does the whole area constitutes a single and indivisible theater of war. The real frontier of Europe, then, is the ancient Roman limes bordering the Sahara. Moreover, as in the days of the thalas-socracies, control of this inland sea is an essential condition to the acquisition of strategic supremacy. Far from being an obstacle to intercourse between the two continents, the Mediterranean is an element of economic and social unity. Without North Africa, Europe cannot breathe and cannot act unless it be to retreat. If tomorrow there should be another war, North Africa would resume its same all-important rôle, derived from the fact of its central position at the spot where the Mediterranean and African façades of the European and African continents meet. And to complete the picture, North Africa afterwards developed into an unequalled base of manœuvre and in addition supplied valuable fighting reserves. There could be no more vivid illustration of North Africa's strategic importance for Europe. In any event, the leap into Europe from the African springboard considerably facilitated the breaking of the Atlantic Wall and the formation of a second front nor would that front have been as effective if it had not stretched from the Adriatic to the Channel, welded together by the Allied forces coming from Africa through Provence. It is unnecessary to recall the sequel of "Operation Torch"- the blow against the "soft underbelly" of the axis, in Churchill's phrase, which was to lead the Allies to Rome and would, no doubt, have opened the way for them to Vienna had it been possible to broaden the strategic concept once it was already in process of execution. And the actual experience of the Allied leaders did in fact justify their confidence. This may be taken as an advance compliment for France's achievement in Africa. One anxiety, however, seems never to have entered the minds of the leaders of this expedition: they seem never to have been worried about the possible attitude of the natives in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Fifth Army, deployed in the north of Morocco, had orders from the start to be ready if need be to seize Spanish Morocco. Finally, there was the threat from Spain for though she was counted upon to maintain neutrality, the U.S. There was the risk that the Axis could stage a crushing counterattack. There might have been tenacious resistance from the French Army, bound in principle by its oath to Marshal Pétain.

Anyone who may be tempted to forget this fact because the operation was such a perfect success should reread General Eisenhower's "Crusade in Europe" or General Mark Clark's "Calculated Risk." Formidable contingencies were to be reckoned with.

This famous operation, which was to mark the decisive turn of the Second World War, was by no means a picnic.

ON November 8, 1942, a powerful armada landed American and British forces along the African coast from Casablanca to Algiers.