Why was control over north Africa was important to the allies?
North Africa was important to the British, who had colonial outposts in Egypt and Kenya, and also were the rulers of the Mandated Territory of Palestine (divided today into the nations of Jordan and Israel). The main concern of the British was the Suez Canal, which was the shortcut to the crown jewel of the British Empire, India. If the Suez Canal could not be used, ships going from England to India had to sail all the way around Africa. North Africa also offered a way to frustrate the war goals of the enemy. Mussolini dreamed of reestablishing the glory of ancient Rome, when the Mediterranean was a Roman lake and the North African coast was Roman colonies. This brought the Italians into combat with the British, and the Italians bumbled along until Hitler had to send German troops to help out. After Germany overran France, they installed a puppet regime, called the Vichy Regime after the city where it was based in France. France had colonies in North Africa – Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, and under the Vichy French government this was enemy territory, because the Vichy French were allied with Germany. For the US, the only reason to fight in North Africa was that it was a place to get at the enemy forces, to come to grips with the foe. Strategically fighting over North Africa offered nothing the US really wanted or needed, except the chance to kill enemy soldiers and mature its own forces through exposure to the hard school of combat. The US was not yet strong enough to land in France and drive for the German heartland, and the British were skittish about that idea anyway, and none too enthusiastic over trying it until the chances of success were very good. The British Army had just been swiftly and easily ejected from the mainland of Europe only two years earlier, at Dunkirk, and they were in no hurry to try to go back. All this was very frustrating to General George C. Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staff (commanding general), who wanted only to get on with it, land in Europe and come to grips with the enemy, which was the only way the war could be won. Marshall regarded the campaigns in North Africa, Sicily and Italy as sideshows, diversions, strength-draining pointless exercises in doing something just for the sake of being doing something, because fighting in those places could never bring a decisive result. It could reduce enemy strength through attrition, maybe draw off some troops who would otherwise be fighting the Russians, and it could teach your own forces lessons that could only be learned under fire. But that was about it.