Contents
The Italian Campaign
July 1943- April 1945
Imminent Allied success in Tunisia opened up the possibility of launching a major offensive against the Axis across the Mediterranean. After the usual Anglo-American disagreements had been smoothed over at the Casablanca summit, it was agreed the Sicily should be invaded by airborne and amphibious landings in July 1943 (Operation Husky). Though it ended in Allied victory, Operation Husky suggested that moving across the Mediterranean did not constitute, as Churchill had opined, a blow against a soft underbelly. A mixture of bad luck and friction between Montgomery (commanding the British 8th Army) and General George Patton (commanding the American 7th Army) resulted in poor co-ordination of Anglo-American forces. German forces in Sicily, though unable to launch successful counterattacks, fought hard and were able to carry out an effective fighting retreat. Over 100,000 men (40,000 of them German troops) and much equipment were ferried across the straits of Messina onto the Italian mainland in August before they could be cut off or interdicted by Allied forces.
Though they helped bring about the collapse of Italian resistance, the bsequent Anglo-American amphibious landings on the Italian mainland in September 1943 proved to be hard-fought operational successes from which no immediate strategic advantage accrued. German Army Group C under the able Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, aided by mountainous terrain and river lines ideal for defence, fought a series of bitter attritional engagements (the early battles for Cassino being among the most notorious) that bogged down the Allied advance south of Rome in the winter of 1943-1944. Indifferent Allied generalship, notably that of Mark Clark (commanding the 5th US Army), did not improve matters. An attempt to envelop the Gustav line, the main German defensive position, by making another amphibious landing at Anzio in January 1944, only reinforced the stalemate, a sluggish advance being contained through a swift German counterattack.
Through possessing a clear superiority both on the ground and (especially) in the air, the Allies were not able to pierce the Gustav Line successfully until May 1944. Though Rome fell in June, a combination of poor Allied generalship, good defensive terrain, and the switching of Allied resources to the campaign in France meant that the subsequent advance into northern Italy was slow and costly. The campaign to break through the Gothic Line defence in the autumn of 1944 and winter of 1944-1945 was yet another attritional slogging match, and only at the end of April 1945 did Kesselring finally surrender. Mussolini, meanwhile, trying to flee to Switzerland, was caught and shot by Italian partisans.
In operational terms, therefore, the Italian campaign was a greater success for the Germans than for the Allies. It was also generated a good deal of Anglo-American friction. The campaign did, however, tie down over twenty German divisions in Italy and dozens of other divisions in parts of Southeast Europe (placed to anticipate further Allied amphibious landing) which might otherwise have been used to try and steam the Russian tide or reinforce the German defences in France. By the winter of 1943-44, conversely, though there was much bickering over the allocation of resources such as landing craft, the British together with the Americans were able to wage the campaign while also building up forces for the cross-Channel invasion of France.