An Army at Dawn

Operation VULCAN—the final Allied attack in the Tunisia campaign—begins on April 22. As he'd long planned, Eisenhower orders Patton to relinquish command of II Corps so he can begin preparations for the invasion of Sicily. This leaves II Corps in the command of Bradley who successfully lobbies Alexander for a greater role in the final push toward Tunis and Bizerte where a quarter of a million Axis troops await.

To capture Bizerte, Bradley must first capture the town of Mateur. Ironically, one of Bradley's first decisions as II Corps commander is to ignore Eisenhower's orders to follow a route through the narrow Tine River Valley, so obvious a site for an ambush that the commander nicknames it the Mousetrap.

While Alexander orders Anderson's First Army to take the lead on capturing Tunis, Montgomery is loath to allow another commander to take all the glory. As such, Montgomery attempts to beat Anderson to Tunis, but he finds that his Eighth Army is far better suited to desert warfare than the mountain warfare it encounters in Northern Tunisia. Having come to this realization, Montgomery transfers two of his divisions to Anderson, effectively ending Montgomery's role in the African campaign.

Over the next week, two British attacks from the south become stalled.