THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN, 1943-1945

The bloody and prolonged fight that entangled Allied and Axis troops from Sicily up to the Brenner pass (10 July 1943 - 2 May 1945) was not the logical outcome of a clear war strategy. Instead, it came as a compromise between conflicting views by the US and Great Britain, as well as a result of German uncertainties on their Mediterranean strategy.

The US political and military leadership advocated a strategy based on the direct assault on the European heartland as the most effective way to assist the Soviet Union, destroy the German Army and deploy the full potential of the American military machine. The United Kingdom, instead, espoused a “peripheral strategy” of encirclement through the Mediterranean and the Balkans to defend British imperial interests in the Middle East, check Russian expansionism in Central Europe and minimize the battle attrition on Britain’s depleted manpower reserves. At the end of 1942, the Western Allies compromised by agreeing on the invasion of Sicily and Southern Italy as an intermediate objective to protect shipping routes in the Mediterranean, occupy the air bases in the Foggia plain and force Italy out of the war.

German leadership was also divided on the strategy to be adopted in the Mediterranean - to defend Northern Italy’s industries and food sources by consolidating along the Pisa-Rimini line (more or less the future Gothic Line) along the natural barrier of the central Apennines, or force a prolonged struggle up the Italian “boot”. Hitler, who initially advocated the first course of action, changed his determination after the able leadership of Generalfeldmarshall Albert Kesselring attained a successful containment of the Salerno beachhead during the fall of 1943.

The contrasts between the US and the British surfaced again during the following winter, while the opposing armies were stalemated on the bloody Cassino front and on the Anzio beachhead. When Rome was finally liberated on 4 June 1944, the British made a last attempt at winning Washington to the idea of a push through the Balkans. The US however held firm. A sizable portion of Allied military forces was shifted to Southern France to support the main offensive against Germany, and the Italian campaign became a war of attrition with the declared objective of diverting German resources away from the battlefields of Northwest Europe (and, incidentally, Russia).

When the Allies launched their offensive to breach the Gothic Line at the end of August, 1944, they had lost their wide margin of superiority over their well-entrenched and determined foe. The British 8th and US 5th Armies succeeded in breaching the German main line of resistance along the Adriatic coast and in the Tuscan Apennines, but the coming of the worst winter in years and the severe shortages in materiel and manpower brought the drive to a standstill short of its strategic objective - the breakthrough into the Po Valley. Soldiers and civilians alike had again to face a bitter winter of blood and sufferings. The Allied launched their final offensive on 9 April 1945, bringing about in less than a month the liberation of Northern Italy with the help of the general insurrection guided by the Italian resistance movement. On May 2, 1945, the German forces in Italy surrendered unconditionally. The campaign had cost the Allies about 312000 casualties. The Germans had suffered 336000. As for the Italians, twenty months of war had caused 187000 dead (including 120000 civilians, of which 40000 caused by bombings) and 210000 missing, including more than 100000 civilians.