Such, by then, was the balance of forces in Germany's disfavour that these hopes proved vain in the event, and Hitler's policy produced only a continuous alternation between delay and further defeat for the remainder of the War.

He could insist that Tunisia, as he said on 19 November 1942, was ‘a decisive key point’; he could determine to hold it at all costs; he could reinforce it so effectively that on 6 January 1943 General Eisenhower represented to the Allied Chiefs of Staff that ‘unless this reinforcement can be materially and immediately reduced, the situation both here and in the Eighth Army area will deteriorate without doubt’. But, for all the appearance of near-success, the battle for Tunisia could be nothing more for Germany than a rearguard action, and this fact was recognised from the outset. The decision to fight on in North Africa was taken, as Raeder said on 19 November 1942, ‘because the presence of the Axis in Tunisia compels the enemy to employ considerable forces; it prevents enemy success since the passage through the Mediterranean is denied him’.

The German supply position in Tunisia was rendered desperate by March 1943; and if this fact, which led to the final collapse of the Axis in North Africa on 7 May, was due to the vastly superior strategic position of the Allies, that superiority was partly the result of the continued failure of the U-boats in the Atlantic. ‘The conquest of Tunisia by the enemy’, declared Hitler on 14 March 1943, ‘apart from leading to the loss of Italy, would mean a saving to him of 4 to 5 million tons of shipping, so that the U-boats would have to work for 4 to 5 months to effect equalisation.’ This statement not only confirmed the negative, rearguard nature of his purpose in hanging on; it exaggerated the current U-boat successes. Allied losses from U-boat attack had dropped to 336,000 tons in December 1942, to 200,000 tons in January 1943; and, though this figure rose again, at the end of the winter, to 627,000 tons in March, the months of April and May 1943 stand out as the period in which the offensive in the Battle of the Atlantic finally passed to the Allies.