Hold on there! Let’s get a few facts straight. The Americans under Patton landed in Casablanca and the Brits went ashore in Algeria. Operation Torch was a two prong invasion. Neither army walked ashore, but due to extensive efforts made by the Allies prior to Torch, there was some cooperation from the French which avoided a bloodbath on either side. I would suggest you read up on Operation Flagpole in which Mark Clark(2nd to Eisenhower)and a mall group of his officers, was put ashore from a Btitish submarine not far from Algiers to have a secret meeting with important French officers and civilians prior to operation Torch. At that meeting the Allies received a great deal of very useful information, possible landing sites, defenses, etc. The U.S. certainly did not drag France into the war because France had signed an Armistice with Hitler on June 22, 1940. Operation Torch (November 8, 1942) was the result of an agreement between Churchill and Roosevelt (against the advice of Gen. Marshall who wanted to land on the coast of France)to strike North Africa first, thereby enabling the future strike against— as Churchill put it,— “The Soft Underbelly of Europe.” (Sicily, and on to Italy).
Operation Torch was the answer to Stalin’s pleading with the Allies to open a Second Front which would force Hitler to fight two wars at the same time. The Ribbentrop - Molotov Agreement which was a pact between Hitler and Stalin to not attack each other (signed in August, 1939) which Hitler had broken when he invaded Russia, (Operation Barbarossa, June 22, 1941)changed the name of the game for Russia. From being a non aggressor to Hitler, they became an Ally. Take a strong look at the timeline and you should see that your statement that “all illusions disappeared for Europeans” is totally unfounded.
I have a real picture of World War II, both personally and educationally. YOU seem to have a lopsided anti-American view which is not only ill-founded, but smacks of propaganda. I’d suggest you do a lot of research.
I don’t have an anti-American view; I just refuse to pretend France was an “ally”. They did learn from the “Great War” (the war to end all wars); it was a waste of millions of lives. For all of your facts and figures, you don’t dispute the fact that French troops machine-gunned American soldiers landing in North Africa - because you can’t.
To this day European pacifism is rooted more in WWI than in WWII (which was just a continuation of the same). France was executing soldiers in 1917 because the soldiers knew their lives were being thrown away; WWII vindicated them. Again, in the end, the goal of France/Britain (preserving Polish independence) was never realized. For our part, we saved Stalin so we could fight wars later in Korea and Vietnam with the seeds he sowed.