General George S. Patton

The destruction of Panzer Armee Afrika left the United Kingdom Eighth Army and the American Seventh Army without a mission.

Early in the war Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, faced with grievous losses in the great encirclements of 1941, was agitating for a second front in continental Europe. The war in North Africa was not enough.

The Allies succeeded in landing on the coast of France, despite a tenuous hold on the center of their lines. If the German command structure allowed for independent action, they might not have stayed.