Tough Old Gut

A machine gunner and two riflemen of Co K, 87th Mountain Infantry, 10th Mountain Division, cover an assault squad routing Germans out of a building
in the background. Sassomolare Area, Italy. Porretta Moderna Highway. 4 March 1945.
(U.S.Army Signal Corps Photo)

I can see Churchill now at his map with his pointer pointing out the soft belly of the Mediterranean and after I got there I often thought what a tough old gut it was, instead of the soft belly that he had led us to believe. - General Mark W. Clark

Welcome to the first installment of Sarge's "Off the top of my head" History Lectures*...

Juvat's tale of the leadership of 1LT Raymond L Knight on Monday got me to pondering about the Italian Campaign in World War II. It was brutal, it was nasty, and great heroism was shown on both sides. But truth be told, it was a fairly easy task for a defender to keep the Allies bottled up as long as they did, and it wasn't just the terrain that aided the defense.

Google Maps

See the map above? Look at Italy, then look at Germany, what's between the two? A crap ton of very big mountains, that's what. Why Churchill (who I admire greatly) thought that attacking Germany via the Mediterranean (Italy or Greece, oh look, Greece has mountains too) is beyond me. Especially when one thinks back to World War I where Sir Winston's big plan to knock Turkey out of the war gave us Gallipoli. A disaster of truly epic proportions. (Which also got Winnie kicked out of the government and sent packing to command a battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers in France. Oddly enough, my Great Uncle Robert was at Gallipoli in a different battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, he survived that one. Though he didn't survive the war. And yes, someday I should sit down and explain military organizations and hierarchies, perhaps in a new page on the sidebar, but not today. Gomen nasai.)

Truth be told, many in Britain were a bit "on edge" about the American desire to land troops on the shore of France and then drive into Germany. The Brits had already tried that, on a small scale, at a place called Dieppe. Where, like at Gallipoli, they had their asses handed to them by the Germans. (Though technically it was called a raid, it was, in essence, a rehearsal of sorts for the later landing in Normandy. Needless to say, the British were not very sanguine about the prospects of a larger landing in 1944. Out of approximately 10,500 men involved, over 4,000 became casualties. That right there, that's an ass whupping in anyone's book. Mind you, this was also against a fairly low quality German unit.)

The Dieppe Raid occurred in August of 1942, now as I recollect, the Americans were pretty hot to trot on getting ashore in Europe at the earliest opportunity. Like 1943, certainly we can do that General Marshal (back in DC, a fine staff officer but a man who had never led troops in combat) thought. Many American generals thought so as well. But those party poopers, the Brits, said, "Let's clear Jerry out of Africa first, I mean we've got him on the run, what-ho, now would be a jolly good time to bag the fox, dontcha think?"

Where in our first run in with the Jerries, we got our asses handed to us at Kasserine.

Yes, yes, Patton fixed everything (well him and a lot of other people) and the Germans gave up in Africa in 1943. So now what?

"Hey, let's invade Europe! We're ready!" Sayeth the Americans.

"Um, no, not so fast, we should, ya know, plan things first." Sayeth the Brits.

What to do, what to do. That's when Churchill said (yes, I'm paraphrasing), "Hey, the Italians have a terrible military, let's kick their butts and that will put us in the Germans' backyard!"

Well sure, while the individual Italians were magnificent soldiers, they had to be the most poorly led military on the planet. Hell, even the French made fun of them. (No, seriously. In 1940 when the Italians invaded Albania, yes, Albania, and got their asses kicked, the French allegedly put signs up along their border with Italy advising the Italian Army they should stop retreating as they were now in France. Or something to that effect. After the Germans had crushed the French Army, the Italians, no doubt remembering the insult, declared war on a defeated France. Talk about kicking a fellow when he's down!)

Anyhoo. So yes, Italians weak, Allies strong. However, the Germans, not being idiots, also knew that their ally was weak. They had a plan to occupy Italy should the Italians decide to quit. Yes, it was a very well thought out plan, as many German plans tended to be back then. Well, except for the "let's invade Russia" thing.

So, long story short, Allies jump from North Africa to Sicily. Some hard fighting, Germans scurry across the strait to the "toe" of the Italian "boot." Italians decide they've had enough (basically the King fired Mussolini, who's buddies decided that enough was enough and looked at Benito and essentially said, "Bye now!" Germans pour into Italy, just liked they planned to, and send their scar faced commando guy, Skorzeny, to rescue Il Douchebag, er, I mean Il Duce, while the Allies jump over the Straits of Messina onto the Italian mainland.

Which no one is defending, as near as I can recall. I mean, not much worth defending there, is there? I mean it's not like it's on the road to Rome now is it? Nope, the Germans are farther north, barring the way to Rome. The plan is to keep the Allies as far south in Italy as possible. With just a few divisions the Germans can hold for months. (Which they did.)

So the Allies are ashore in the toe (and eventually the whole foot of the boot), what's next? Well, build some airbases of course. Then what? Hey, rather than fight our way up the boot, let's do an amphibious invasion. Like, I know, here, at Salerno! (See the map below for the location of Salerno, and other places. Also note the rivers, something else that made Italy "easy" to defend for the Germans. This rivers had to be crossed. One American division, the 36th Infantry, a Guard unit from Texas, lost two regiments - out of three - attempting to cross one of the smaller rivers, not shown, near Cassino. A Congressional investigation after the war exonerated all of the big shots involved. Back then things weren't all that different than they are now.)

(Source)

Why Salerno? Well, it is near a big port (Napoli, or Naples if you prefer) which was needed to supply the armies fighting their way up Italy. So yeah, we land south of the port. I guess the Germans never expected that. In truth, they probably didn't care as their first defensive line was north of Napoli, the Gustav Line running through Cassino.

Yes, Monte Cassino, ancient monastery which the Germans were not using as a defensive position. But hey, generals are smart, so ours figured they must be using it, we would. So we bomb the living crap out of it. (As I recall, the Germans actually moved - "liberated" - many of the priceless works of art there. But we still leveled an ancient building belonging to the Catholic Church. In Italy. I'm sure that won us many fans.)

After we blasted it, the Germans said, "Oh look at all the lovely rubble our troops can take cover in." Which they did. While we were losing 55,000 men taking the place, and the Germans were losing 20,000, we landed at Anzio, to flank the Gustav Line. Thing is, General Clark told the guy leading the landing (a Major General Lucas as I recall) to "be careful, don't stick your neck out." Which apparently he took literally. The landing was made, then they sat there and watched the Germans reinforce.

Which led Churchill to quip (remember this entire mess was his bloody idea) "I had hoped that we were hurling a wildcat onto the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale."

Gee, thanks Sir Winston. (By the way, the Brits were fighting on the Adriatic shore of Italy, think east coast, while the Americans, and a host of others, were fighting up the Tyrrhenian shore, think west coast.)

Eventually we did take Rome. HUZZAH!! Must be big news right?

Nope, that happened on the 6th of June, 1944. The same day the "real" invasion landed in Normandy. So the whole thing went rather unnoticed. The fighting in Italy lasted until the war ended in May of 1945. As I recall, not a single Allied soldier made it into the Reich from the Italian campaign. At least not while the Germans were still resisting. But it wasn't for lack of trying.

The Italian campaign really damaged Mark Clark's reputation with many historians. I've talked to guys who served in Italy, they weren't big fans of the guy. But hey, Marshal liked him, so did Ike (but apparently not enough to have him in France). So like the French say, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." The more things change...

Anyhoo. One more thing, all those guys fighting in Italy, all that equipment? Well, after D-Day, in August of 1944, someone decided that Italy wasn't enough of a sideshow, no, we had to land in southern France as well. Using men and equipment taken from Italy.

My personal opinion? Fighting in Italy was to please an ally, i.e. Churchill. I suppose the British 8th and the American 5th Armies had to be employed somewhere. While Churchill would have liked Greece as well as Italy, we had to pick one. At least we were mad at the Italians. It did tie down a number of German divisions, but so did Norway, and we didn't bother attacking there. Heck, a feint at Italy probably would have had Hitler sending those divisions there anyway. Who knows?

But it was a bitter fight in the mountains, in the rain and cold of the Apennines. Terrain well suited for defense, which the Germans were really, really good at. A lot of nations fought in Italy: Brazilians (a whole division!), Brits, Canadians, Indians, Poles, South Africans, and New Zealanders. There were also Free French units, some from North Africa, I recall especially the mountain tribesmen, Goumiers from Morocco, some pretty fierce guys. There was even a Greek brigade and a Jewish brigade! I think it was the Poles who actually finally captured Monte Cassino, after paying a heavy price in blood.

Back in the day Avalon Hill had an interesting game covering the campaign, Anzio. I've played it a few times, as the Allies I would struggle to make it north of Rome. As the Germans my biggest headache was having to send units back to the Reich for refitting and eventual dispatch to the Eastern Front!

And that is the Italian Campaign in World War II, off the top of my head.

A tough old gut, that's for sure!




* Meaning which, I don't do a lot of research before writing, picture me answering a question about a topic while sitting down, face to face, avec moi, perhaps over an adult-type beverage. Hopefully which the questioner is buying. (Hint.) Reader suggestions for future topics along these lines are welcome. Of course, the post might wind up being. "Hhmm, I know next to nothing about that." Hey, it happens.