Prelude to Victory

Series

Series Name

The March of Time 8th Year

Issue

Issue No.

7

Date Released

1943

Length of issue (in feet)

1628

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1Prelude to Victory

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

The March of Time synopsis: In Washington in the early summer of 1942 the greatest drama of the second World War had already been set down on paper by its co-authors - Roosevelt and Churchill. Modestly described as "the end of the beginning" the campaign in North Africa has revealed the power of the United Nations to force the enemy to defend desperately on a second front. The threat to control the Mediterranean must be answered, and the March of Time in "Prelude to Victory" points the implications of recent heartening tactical successes in the grand strategy of the war.

Before the curtain could be raised on this most dramatic of military spectacles there had to be months of hidden internal activity, of great decisions, and of the most meticulous and farsighted preparations. In scores of North African seaports - from Casablanca to Alexandria - were posted hundreds of United Nations’ observers, whose constant task it was to check and re-check the political and potential military strength of the Axis, to report the movements of Axis naval units and to discover the identities of espionage and counter-espionage agents. But the most important task of all was to know with certainty those French officials - both military and civil - who were sympathetic to the Nazi cause, and those patriots who were still loyal to the eternal France of honoured memory. For upon the information supplied to the combined Chief of Staff would depend the final plans of the invasion.

Since the fall of France the administration of Algeria has been by Governors General and civil servants, considered in Vichy as tried officials who could be counted upon to collaborate with Nazi Germany. But to make sure of their collaboration Germany sent her own spies, whose job it was, apart from checking on the French officials, to see that the produce of this fertile region was shipped to Marseilles, not to be distributed to the starving millions of France but for consumption by the Nazis, which systematic looting has helped to keep alive the inborn hatred between French and Germans. The ultimate success of the campaign in North Africa will depend on the control of Tunisia, which commands the narrowest stretch of the Mediterranean Sea.

Most important strategic point in Tunisia is Bizerta - famous North African naval base, whose harbour is big enough to shelter the combined navies of the United Nations, and whose dry docks possess repair and shelter facilities unsurpassed anywhere between Gibraltar and Alexandria. With the control of the Mediterranean Sea possible from Bizerta, Hitler and Mussolini can be counted on to fight for this base to the last ditch, for if Hitler can hold Bizerta he may well be able to maintain control of the Mediterranean in face of the success of the United Nations’ campaign.

But across the Mediterranean one Axis partner knows that the day of reckoning is drawing near and that Italy will soon have to pay the price for having entered into the unholy partnership of the Axis. For but a few hundred miles away, firmly implanted on the African shores of what Il Duce was pleased to call an Italian lake stand legions of men of the United Nations - men who love freedom and are ready to fight for it - not only for themselves but for all the world.

Researcher Comments

This story was included in Vol.9 No.4 of the US edition.

Keywords

War and conflict; Military

Written sources

The March of Time Promotional Material   Lobby Card, Used for synopsis

Credits:

Production Co.

Time Inc.