Description

The file contains a letter of General Mangeot in which he gives a short summary on the incidents of the past weeks. He talks about the release of French soldiers captured by the Allied Forces and the impact it had on the morality of the division. Besides, the interrogation of British/U.S.-American/French captives and their evaluation of the situation comes up. British soldiers, as an interrogation on 3th of April 1943 layed open, assumed that Germany´s position in the fights was weakened and that the war was about to come to an end when the battles in North Africa were finished. The Wehrmacht wasn’t regarded as that powerful anymore and many British soldiers wondered why Germany didn’t attack the British Isles after the battle of Dunkirk, since the situation would have offered the Germans a great chance to do so. In addition, there were intern disputes between French soldiers and the soldiers born in Tunisia, here referred to as “natives”. Firstly, the Tunisian soldiers struggled to get along with the new US-American weapons and besides that, they were constantly suspected of betrayal. The American captives were mainly complaining about the way they were treated by the Arab population. The British soldiers have a rather sceptical opinion on the volition of their American comrades, they regard them as weak and spoiled, which they reason with their luxurious “American” lifestyle. It is also talked about supply-chains and the strategic role of diverse ordnances. In the eyes of the British soldiers, the biggest threat after the war for Great Britain will be the economic imperialism of the U.S. which could harm Great Britain´s position in the world.