ITALIAN CAMPAIGN (WORLD WAR II)

The 'Italian Campaign' of World War II was the name of Allied operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to the end of the war. It is estimated that between September 1943 and April 1945 some 90,000 Allied and 110,000 German soldiers died in Italy.^[1]

Contents

Strategic background

Invasion of Sicily

Invasion of continental Italy

The Winter Line, Anzio and Monte Cassino

The final stages

Bibliography

References

See also

External links

Strategic background

Even prior to victory in the North African Campaign, there was disagreement between the Allies on the best strategy to defeat the Axis.
The British, especially Winston Churchill, advocated their traditional naval-based peripheral strategy. With a relatively small army, but great naval power, the traditional British strategy against a continental enemy was to fight as part of a coalition and mount small peripheral operations designed to gradually weaken the enemy. The United States, with a far larger army, favored a more direct strategy of fighting the main force of the German army in northern Europe. The ability to launch such a campaign depended on first winning the Battle of the Atlantic.
The strategic disagreement was fierce, with the US service chiefs arguing for an invasion of France as early as possible, while their British counterparts advocated a Mediterranean strategy. The American staff believed that a full-scale invasion of France as soon as possible was necessary to end the war in Europe, and that no operations should be undertaken which might delay that effort. The British argued that the presence of large numbers of troops trained for amphibious landings in the Mediterranean made a limited-scale invasion possible and useful. Eventually the US and British political leadership made the decision to commit to an invasion of France in early 1944, but with a lower-priority Italian campaign reflecting Roosevelt's desire that to keep U.S. troops active in the European theater during 1943 and his attraction to the idea of eliminating Italy from the war.^[2] It was clear that the Italian people had never been enthusiastic about their participation in the war, and it was hoped that an invasion would knock them out of the war, or provide at least a major propaganda blow. The elimination of Italy as an enemy would also enable the Royal Navy to completely dominate the Mediterranean Sea, massively improving communications with Egypt, the Far East, the Middle East, and India. It would also mean that the Germans would have to transfer troops from the Eastern Front to defend Italy and the entire southern coast of France, thus aiding the Soviets.
Once Italy surrendered in September 1943, on the eve of the Allied landings on the Italian mainland, a new strategic rationale evolved: this was to tie down as many German forces in Italy as possible so that they could not be used to reinforce the German defences in northwest Europe.^[3]

Invasion of Sicily

Main articles: Allied invasion of Sicily

A combined British-Canadian-American invasion of Sicily began on July 10 1943 with both amphibious and airborne landings at the Gulf of Gela and north of Syracuse. The Germans were unable to prevent the Allied capture of the island, but succeeded in evacuating most of their troops to the mainland, the last leaving on August 17, 1943. Allied forces gained experience in opposed amphibious operations, coalition warfare, and mass airborne drops.

Invasion of continental Italy

Main articles: Allied invasion of Italy

Forces of the British Eighth Army landed in the 'toe' of Italy on September 3 1943 in Operation Baytown. The Italian government surrendered on 8 September, but the German forces prepared to defend without their assistance. On 9 September forces of the U.S. Fifth Army landed against heavy German resistance at Salerno in Operation Avalanche and additional British forces at Taranto in Operation Slapstick, which was almost unopposed. There had been a hope that with the surrender of the Italian government, the Germans would withdraw to the north, since at the time Adolf Hitler had been persuaded that southern Italy was strategically unimportant. However, this was not to be although Eighth Army were able to make relatively easy progress for a while up the eastern coast capturing the port of Bari and the important airfields around Foggia. No reserves were made available from the north to the German Tenth Army which nevertheless came close to repelling the Salerno landing. The main Allied effort in the west initially centered on the port of Naples. Naples was selected because it was the northernmost port city that could be taken while under cover of Allied fighter aircraft operating from Sicily.
As the Allies advanced north, increasingly difficult terrain (characterised by a succession of fast flowing rivers and intervening ridges running at right angles to the line of advance) prevented fast movement and proved ideal for defense.

The Winter Line, Anzio and Monte Cassino

Main articles: Bernhardt Line, Battle of Monte Cassino, Operation Shingle

In early October 1943 Adolf Hitler was persuaded by his Army Group Commander in south Italy, Field Marshall Kesselring that the defense of Italy should be conducted as far away from Germany as possible. This would make the most of the natural defensive geography of Central Italy whilst denying the Allies the easy capture of a succession of airfields each one being ever closer to Germany. Hitler was also convinced that yielding southern Italy would provide the Allies with a springboard for an invasion of the Balkans with its vital resources of oil, bauxite, and copper^[4]. Kesselring was given command of the whole of Italy and immediately ordered the preparation of a series of defensive lines across Italy south of Rome. Two lines, the Volturno Line and the Barbara Line, were used to delay the Allied advance to buy time to prepare the most formidable defensive positions which formed the Winter Line, the collective name for the Gustav Line and two associated defensive lines on the west of the Apennine mountains, the Bernhardt Line and the Adolf Hitler Line. The Winter Line proved a major obstacle to the Allies at the end of 1943, halting their advance on the 5th Army's front, the western side of Italy. Although the Gustav Line was penetrated on the 8th Army's Adriatic front and Ortona taken, blizzards, drifting snow and zero visibility at the end of December caused the advance to grind to a halt. The Allies focus then turned to the western front where an attack through the Liri valley was considered to have the best chance of a breakthrough towards Rome. Landings at Anzio behind the line were intended to destabilise the German Gustav line defenses, but the hoped for early thrust inland to cut the German defenses off did not occur and the Anzio forces became bottled up in their beach head. It took four major offensives between January and May 1944 before the line was eventually broken by a combined assault of the 5th and 8th Armies (including British, US, French, Polish, and Canadian Corps) concentrated along a twenty mile front between Monte Cassino and the western seaboard. At the same time the forces at Anzio broke out of their beachhead but an opportunity to cut off and destroy a large part of the German Tenth Army retreating from the Gustav Line was lost when, on the brink of success, the Anzio forces changed their direction of attack to move parallel with the coast to capture Rome. Rome was declared an open city by the German army and the Allies took possession on June 4.

The final stages

Main articles: Gothic Line, Spring 1945 offensive in Italy

The Italian campaign had always been a secondary theatre, and this became much more obvious after the capture of Rome and the Normandy Invasion. Many experienced units such as the US 3rd, 36th, and 45th Infantry Divisions and the French Expeditionary Corps (with its specialist mountain divisions) were pulled out of Italy to participate in Operation Dragoon. In the period from May to September the Allies advanced beyond Rome taking Florence and closing up on the Gothic Line. This last major defensive line, just south of Bologna, was penetrated during the autumn campaign but there was no decisive breakthrough until April 1945. Churchill had hoped that a breakthrough in the autumn of 1944 would open the way for the Allied armies to advance north eastwards through the 'Ljubljana Gap' to Vienna and Hungary to forstall the Russians advancing into Eastern Europe (although the US Chiefs of Staff had until mid September strongly opposed the idea)^[5]. Paradoxically therefore the major long-term impact of the remarkable German defense in the autumn and winter of 1944 was to facilitate the post-war domination of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union. In the winter and spring of 1944-45, extensive partisan activity in northern Italy took place. Because there were two Italian governments during this period, one on each side of the war, the struggle took on some characteristics of a civil war. General Heinrich von Vietinghoff, who had taken command of the Axis forces in Italy after Kesselring had been transferred to Army Group West at the end of 1944, signed the instrument of surrender on behalf of the German armies in Italy on April 29 formally bringing hostilities to an end on May 2.^[6]

Bibliography

★ Gerhard Muhm : German Tactics in the Italian Campaign , http://www.larchivio.org/xoom/gerhardmuhm2.htm

★ "La Tattica tedesca nella Campagna d'Italia, in Linea Gotica avanposto dei Balcani", Gerhard Muhm, , , (Hrsg.) Amedeo Montemaggi - Edizioni Civitas, 1993,

★ The Gothic Line (The Autumn Campaign in Italy 1944), Douglas Orgill, , , Heinemann, 1967,

★ The Imperial War Museum Book of the War in Italy 1943-1945, Field Marshall Lord Carver, , , Sidgwick & Jackson, 2001, ISBN 0 330 48230 0

★ Alexander's Generals (the Italian Campaign 1944-1945), Gregory Blaxland, , , William Kimber & Co, 1979, ISBN 0 7183 0386 5

References

1. Orgill, ''The Gothic Line'', p6 although it should be noted that in Alexander's Generals (the Italian Campaign 1944-1945), Gregory Blaxland, , , William Kimber & Co, 1979, ISBN 0 7183 0386 5 , p11 Blaxland quotes a very precise 59,151 Allied deaths between 3 September 1943 and 2 May 1945 and giving the breakdown between 20 nationalities
2. Carver, pp4 & 59
3. Carver, p106
4. Orgill, ''The Gothic Line'', p5
5. Orgill, ''The Gothic Line'', pp114-115
6. Blaxland, p.277

See also

★ Military history of Italy during World War II

★ Italian Co-Belligerent Army

★ Italian Co-Belligerent Navy

★ Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force

★ Italian Social Republic

★ Italian resistance movement

External links

★ Canadians in Italy, 1943-1945 Lots of media and photos and info on Canadians in the Italian theatre.

★ ''Italy Volume I, The Sangro to Cassino'' the New Zealand Official War History

★ ''Italy Volume II, From Cassino to Trieste'' the New Zealand Official War History

★ WW2 propaganda leaflets - use in Italy: A website about airdropped, shelled or rocket fired propaganda leaflets. Italian campaign.

★ BBC's flash video of the Italian Campaign

★ Online Canadian World War 2 Newspaper Archives - The Sicilian and Italian Campaigns, 1943-1945

★ Hitler's Decision on the Defense of Italy

★ Liberatori: A website on the Po river breakout and the liberation of the small town of Cornuda.

★ Royal Engineers Museum Royal Engineers and Second World War (Italian Campaign)

★ CBC Digital Archives - The Italian Campaign

★ La Città Invisibile Collection of signs, stories and memories during the Gothic Line age.