Two American commanders came to public attention during the North African campaign and would become two of the war’s most famous generals: Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., and his deputy, Maj. Gen. Omar Bradley.
Victory in North Africa was not inevitable. Rommel had urgently asked for reinforcements, but these were initially denied by Hitler, so the Germans could concentrate on their campaign against Russia, which would eventually stall and fail at Stalingrad. Finally when the situation was desperate late in 1942 and in early 1943 Hitler decided to heavily support Rommel. Hitler's belated decision to throw huge resources into holding Tunisia magnified the cost of defeat in North Africa for the Axis, even if those forces had extended the campaign by four or five months. Had Rommel been given these resources in July 1942 when the Allies were still weak in North Africa, and before Operation Torch landed in November of 1942, Rommel might well have been victorious in North Africa. When Rommel saw the end coming in North Africa, he was furious.
After the defeat at El Alamein, Hitler’s sense of pride once again overcame his grasp of strategy, and he committed a second field army to North Africa (about 50,000 troops and 250 tanks) that he could neither sustain logistically nor afford to lose. The forces Hitler threw away in May 1943 just might have made some difference for the Germans fighting in Russia or Sicily.
On the tactical and operational levels, several factors conspired against the Axis despite the battlefield brilliance of Rommel and the superb fighting of the Afrika Korps. Although North Africa was a logistician’s hell, logistics was the deciding factor. In the end, the Allies triumphed with sheer mass. The Axis forces could not overcome Allied air and sea power— both of which enhanced Allied logistics and degraded Axis logistics.
The Allies took their experience and the tactical and strategic skills they gained in North Africa and used them to take the attack to Europe and eventually to victory in Europe in WW2. I don’t think this would have been possible without the North Africa campaign.