History of the Second World War (81 page)

Meanwhile the American 6th Corps had come up level with the 10th Corps after a slow advance along the demolition-blocked inland roads — during which it had averaged only three miles a day — and entered Benevento on October 2. This corps now had a new commander, Major-General John P. Lucas, who had been brought in to replace Dawley.

The Fifth Army had taken three weeks since the landing to reach Naples, its initial objective, at a cost of nearly 12,000 casualties — close on 7,000 British and 5,000 American. That was the penalty paid for choosing a too obvious line of attack and place of landing, at the sacrifice of surprise, on the ground that the Salerno sector was just within the limit of air cover.

Another week passed before the Fifth Army closed up to the line of the Volturno River, to which the Germans had withdrawn. Muddy roads and sodden ground put a brake on the advance as rainy weather had set in during the first week of October, a month earlier than expected. Fifth Army’s attack on the Volturno line, held by three German divisions, was launched on the night of October 12, three nights later than intended. The U.S. 6th Corps gained a bridgehead over the river above Capua, but its development was cramped by the check which the right wing of the British 10th Corps suffered in trying to force a crossing at Capua, on the main road from Naples to Rome. The small crossings which the two other British divisions gained nearer to the coast were curbed by speedy counterattacks. Thus the German forward troops fulfilled Kesselring’s order to stay on this river line until the 16th before beginning to withdraw to the next line of defence, fifteen miles northward — a hurriedly improvised line starting near the mouth of the Garigliano River and continuing through the cluster of rugged hills which cover the approach, along Highway 6 and through the Mignano defile, to the upper reaches of the Garigliano and the valleys of its tributaries, the Rapido and the Liri, Kesselring hoped to hold this outpost line while he was fortifying, for a prolonged defence, a carefully planned line along the Garigliano and Rapido, pivoted on the Cassino defile. This slightly rearward position was called the Gustav, or Winter Line.

Bad weather and demolitions delayed the Fifth Army’s attack on the first of these lines for a further three weeks, until November 5, and then the Germans’ resistance proved so tough that after ten days’ struggle, with little progress except on the coastal flank, Mark Clark was driven to pull back his weary troops and reorganise them for a stronger effort. This was not ready for launching until the first week of December. The Fifth Army’s losses had risen to 22,000 by mid-November — of which nearly 12,000 were Americans.

During these long pauses Hitler’s view changed in a way that was of far-reaching effect. Encouraged by the slowness of the Allied advance from Salerno and Bari he had come to feel that it might not be necessary to withdraw to northern Italy, and on October 4 he issued a directive that ‘the line Gaeta-Ortona will be held’ — promising Kesselring that three divisions from Rommel’s Army Group ‘B’ in northern Italy would be sent to help him in holding on south of Rome as long as possible. Hitler was becoming more inclined to favour Kesselring’s case for a prolonged stand, but it was not until November 21 that he definitely committed himself to this course by putting all the German forces in Italy under Kesselring’s command. Rommel’s army group was dissolved, and its remaining troops were now at Kesselring’s disposal. Even so, Kesselring still had to keep part of them in the north to guard and control that large area, while four of the best divisions, three of them armoured, were sent to Russia and replaced by three depleted ones which needed to recuperate.

A smaller but valuable reinforcement came from the arrival of the 90th Panzergrenadier Division. This division had been in Sardinia at the time of the Italian armistice, but had been evacuated to Corsica, across the narrow Strait of Bonifacio, and then successfully carried by air and sea to the Italian mainland at Leghorn, in driblets over a period of two weeks, evading interception by the Allied air and sea forces, whose efforts to interfere were slight and spasmodic. Although the division was not put at Kesselring’s disposal until more than six weeks later, he then rushed it southward in time to help in checking the Eighth Army’s delayed offensive up the east coast of Italy.

Hitler’s decision to place all the German forces in Italy under Kesselring’s command, now named Army Group ‘C’, was taken the morning after Montgomery began a probing attack against the German position along the Sangro River — covering Ortona and the Adriatic extension of the Gustav Line.

After the tough resistance he had met on getting across the Biferno in the first week of October, Montgomery had brought up the 5th Corps to take over the coastal sector and shifted the 13th Corps to the hilly sector inland, where German rearguards were imposing repeated checks on the Canadians’ advance. After this regrouping the 5th Corps pushed on to the Trigno (twelve miles beyond the Biferno) and gained a small bridgehead on the night of October 22, which it expanded by a larger night attack on the 27th. But it was checked by a combination of mud and fire, so that it did not break into the enemy’s main position until the night of November 3. The Germans then withdrew to the Sangro, seventeen miles northward.

Another long pause followed, while Montgomery was mounting his attack and bringing up the recently arrived 2nd New Zealand Division, a powerful reinforcement which increased his attacking strength to five divisions and two armoured brigades for the Sangro offensive. Meantime the so-called 76th Panzer Corps opposing the Eighth Army had received the 65th Infantry Division, to take over the coastal sector from the 16th Panzer Division, which was being despatched to Russia. But beyond this it had only the remnants of the 1st Parachute Division and a battle-group of the 26th Panzer Division, which was now returning bit by bit to the Adriatic side as the Allied Fifth Army’s pressure waned.

Montgomery’s aim in the Sangro offensive was to smash the Germans’ winter line, then drive on twenty miles to Pescara, get astride the east to west highway from there to Rome, and threaten the rear of the German forces winch were holding up the Fifth Army. For Alexander still hopefully adhered to his directive of September 21, two months earlier, which had set the objectives to be attained by the Allied armies, in four successive phases — the first to ‘consolidate’ the Salerno-Bari line; the second to capture ‘the port of Naples and the Foggia airfields’; the third to capture Rome, its airfields, and the important road and rail centre of Terni’; and the next having as its objective ‘the port of Leghorn and the communications centres of Florence and Arezzo’, 150 miles north of Rome. The speedy capture of Rome had been reiterated as the key point of the fresh directive which Alexander issued on November 8, after receiving a similar one from Eisenhower.

Montgomery’s offensive was planned for delivery on November 20, but the worsening weather and swollen river compelled him to reduce the initial assault to a limited effort which, after several days’ fighting, gained a bridgehead about six miles wide and a mile deep. This was maintained under great difficulties until the big attack was launched on the night of the 28th, a week behind schedule. Yet Montgomery still showed complete confidence in the outcome, and in a personal message to his troops on the 25th declared: ‘The time has now conic to drive the Germans north of Rome. . . . The Germans are, in fact, in the very condition in which we want them. We will now hit the Germans a colossal crack.’ But it seemed ominous that he delivered this message after stepping down from his caravan to stand in the rain under an outsize umbrella.

The attack started well, under cover of a tremendous air and artillery bombardment, backed by a 5 to 1 superiority in numbers. The enemy’s 65th Division — a raw and ill-equipped division of mixed nationalities — gave way under the impact, and the ridge beyond the Sangro was cleared by the 30th. But the Germans rallied on retiring to their main line farther back, and were helped by the way that their pursuers complied with Montgomery’s oft-repeated emphasis on establishing ‘a firm base.’ A particularly good opportunity for exploitation went begging at Orsogna on the inland flank during December 2 and 3. Thus time was allowed for the arrival of the rest of the 26th Panzer Division and of the 90th Panzergrenadier Division, which Kesselring brought down from the north. Thus the advance became increasingly sticky. There was always ‘one more river, one more river to cross’. It was not until December 10 that the Eighth Army succeeded in crossing the Moro, eight miles beyond the Sangro, and it did not clear Ortona, two miles beyond the Moro, until December 28. Then it was checked at the Riccio, barely half way to Pescara, the Pescara River, and the lateral highway to Rome. That was the stalemate situation at the end of the year, when Montgomery handed over command of the Eighth Army to Oliver Leese, and returned to England to take over the 21st Army Group in preparation for the cross-Channel invasion of Normandy.

Meanwhile Mark Clark’s renewed offensive west of the Apennines had started on December 2. By this time the Fifth Army’s strength had risen to the equivalent of ten divisions, but two of these, the British 7th Armoured and the U.S. 82nd Airborne, were being withdrawn to England for the coming cross-Channel attack. Kesselring’s strength had also risen, and four divisions now held the front west of the Apennines, with one in reserve.

In the first phase of the renewed offensive the objective was the mountain buttress west of Route 6 and the Mignano gap. The British 10th Corps and the newly arrived U.S. 2nd Corps, under Major-General Geoffrey Keyes, were employed in this attack, supported by over 900 guns, which fired over 4,000 tons of shells onto the German positions in the first two days. The British came near to reaching the 3,000 foot summit of Monte Camino by December 3 but were driven back by counterattacks and did not secure it until the 6th. That brought them up to the Garigliano river line. Meanwhile the Americans, on their right, had captured Monte La Difensa and Monte Maggiore, which were lower, but closer to the highway through the gap. In the second phase, starting on December 7, the U.S. 2nd and 6th Corps attacked towards the Rapido on a wider front, hoping to clear the enemy off the mountain buttress east of Highway 6, by a deep thrust on each side of it. But they met increasing resistance, achieving only a few miles ‘inching’ progress in successive efforts during the next few weeks. By the second week of January this offensive had petered out, while still short of reaching the Rapido and the forward edge of the Gustav Line. The Fifth Army’s battle losses had risen to nearly 40,000 — a total far exceeding the enemy’s. In addition the Americans alone had suffered a loss of 50,000 in sick during the two months’ duration of this bitter winter struggle in the mountains.

The sequel to the invasion of Italy had been very disappointing. In four months the Allied forces had advanced only seventy miles beyond Salerno — mostly in the first few weeks — and were still eighty miles short of Rome. Alexander himself described the process as ‘slogging up Italy’. But a more general description that came to be used in the autumn was ‘inching’. ‘Gnawing’ would have been an even more apt term in view of the country’s geographical resemblance to a leg.

Even when full allowance is made for the difficulties of the terrain and the bad weather, it becomes evident in examining the campaign that favourable opportunities of faster progress were repeatedly missed through the Allied commanders’ heavy emphasis on ‘consolidating’ each advance and establishing a ‘firm base’ before pressing on, together with their predominant concern to ensure ample strength and supplies before advancing. Time after time they were ‘too late’ from fear of having ‘too little’.

In comment on the campaign, Kesselring significantly remarked:

The Allied plans showed throughout that the Allied High Command’s dominating thought was to make sure of success, a thought that led it to use orthodox methods and material. As a result it was almost always possible for me, despite inadequate means of reconnaissance and scanty reports, to foresee the next strategic or tactical move of my opponent — and thus to take the appropriate counter-measures so far as my resources allowed.*

*
Liddell Hart:
The Other Side of the Hill,
p. 364.

But the original source of the trouble which the Allies suffered lay in their choice of Salerno and the toe of Italy as their landing sites — a choice which conformed all too closely to the opponent’s expectation, from experience of their cautious habit. Kesselring and his Chief of Staff, Westphal — the beneficiaries of that too obvious decision — considered that the Allies had paid heavy strategic forfeit for their desire to ensure tactical security against air attack, and that this was an over-insurance in view of the then scanty strength of the German air force in southern Italy. They felt, too, that the Allied High Command’s habit of limiting the scope of its strokes to the limits of constant air-cover had been the defenders’ salvation, by simplifying the multiple problems of the defence.

As to the course that the Allies should have taken, Westphal expressed the view that:

If the forces employed in the landing at Salerno had been used instead at Civitavecchia [thirty miles north of Rome] the results would have been much more decisive . . . there were only two German divisions in Rome and . . . no others could have been brought up quickly enough to defend it. In conjunction with the five Italian divisions stationed at Rome, a combined sea and air landing would have taken the Italian capital inside seventy-two hours. Quite apart from the political repercussions of such a victory this would have resulted in cutting off at one blow the supplies of the five German divisions retreating from Calabria. . . . That would have brought all Italy south of the line Rome-Pescara into Allied hands.*

*
Liddell Hart:
The Other Side of the Hill,
pp. 364-5.