THE ADVANCE ON ROME

ANZIO, KESSELRING AND THE STRUGGLE IN ITALY

The advance from the toe of Italy after the landings at Salerno had been slow and beset by unseasonably cold, wet weather. By the late autumn of 1943, it had developed into a sluggish near-stalemate from which neither side was making significant progress. The topography of Italy's boot is mountainous and difficult for all but the best mountain troops. Field-Marshal Kesselring, having stabilised the military situation following Italy's surrender to the Allies and the blood-letting that followed, was defending positions along the Gustav Line to the South and West of Rome with divisions that were severely under-strength and short of artillery ammunition, but whose morale, given the worldwide decline in Axis fortunes, was surprisingly good. Every day, the Germans shelled from their vantage points in the hills Allied positions that were little more than a welter of mud. Modern weapons became useless and unmoveable with a choice only between the morass of the valley or the rocky heights of the hills. The Second World War in Europe, for the whole of that miserable winter, became an echo of the mud of Flanders.

The stalemate, and the underlying Allied conviction that Rome was the psychologically important target in Italy for both sides, brought forward a number of Allied proposals, but Winston Churchill's idea for "Operation Shingle" emerged by the end of 1943 as the plan that Roosevelt and Stalin had both accepted. A major attack in the South by Lieutenant-General Mark Clark's US 5th Army and Britain's 8th Army would draw Germany's depleted forces away from the areas around Rome, and from the Colli Laziali (or Alban Hills) between Rome and the coast. This was to make possible a surprise landing by the US VI Corps under Major-General John P. Lucas in the Anzio/Nettuno area, and a rapid advance into the Alban Hills to cut German communications and "threaten the rear of the XIV German Corps".

Clearly, the fundamental principle of the plan depended on speed at Anzio, since it was realised that a breakout towards Rome through the Alban Hills was unlikely to be realistically possible unless Kesselring had diverted a substantial part of the German forces defending Rome to the South and South-West. It was also clear that, once he was aware that a beach-head had been created at Anzio, Kesselring, a master organiser, would not be slow in plugging the gap in his defences.

When the plan was put into action, in January 1944, things did not go as Churchill and Roosevelt had hoped, although the reasons were less than simple. Journalists at the time, and some historians, have tended to place all the odium for the failure of the breakout from Anzio on Major-General Lucas, but, while there is no doubt that his approach to the problems that faced him was not the fire-eating "go gettem" approach of a General Patton, some of the blame must be ascribed to Lieutenant-General Mark Clark. For it is established that, instead of passing on Alexander's orders simply to seize the beach-head, and then cut the enemy's communications, Clark ordered Lucas to seize and secure the beach-head then advance on the Colli Laziali. In other words, Clark's order implied that, until the beach-head was secure, the breakout was not to be attempted. Furthermore, even when the breakout began, it was in order to "advance" on the Alban Hills, not to rush them and cut the enemy off from Kesselring's main forces as the original plan had envisaged.

Anzio

On January 16th 1944, General Clark's 5th Army once more attacked the German positions on and around Monte Cassino. This hill - or mountain - topped by a beautiful 14th century Benedictine monastery filled with priceless art treasures had already become symbolic of the Italian stalemate. Over the next four months it was to renew fears of apparent Nazi invincibility, and to become the focus of allegations of Allied vandalism that roll on into the Eighties.

Now, just before the amphibious landing at Anzio that was to come just under a week later, Monte Cassino was defended by General von Vietinghoff-Scheel's XIV Panzer Corps of the German 10th Army. The assault on the Cassino defile was to be carried out by the US II Corps under Major-General Geoffrey Keyes, supported on its right by General Juin's French Expeditionary Corps, which included Moroccan and Algerian troops who were to distinguish themselves many times during the ensuing months, and on the left by Lieutenant-General Sir Richard McCreery's British X Corps. The intention was to get across the Rapido, some five miles South of Cassino, and bypass the mountains along the Liri Valley towards Anzio. However, the plan took insufficient account of the terrain. Although X Corps got across the river - at that point the Garigliano, formed by the confluence of the Liri and the Rapido - they could advance little further and were badly mauled. The US 36th Division, which started North of the Rapido, was even thrown back across it, with terrible casualties. Only the French, who, because of their colonial mountain troops, had been given the task of taking the high ground, had any measure of success. But even they, having captured the mountains above the Rapido, did not have the necessary strength to descend to the valley behind the German defenders.

Nonetheless, although the operation seemed to achieve little militarily, it did succeed in part in its primary objective. General von Vietinghoff called for reinforcements, and Kesselring transferred the 29th and 90th Panzergrenadier Divisions from Rome.

At 2am on January 22nd, General Lucas's US VI Corps began landing at Anzio and Nettuno, and by midnight the same day had put ashore over 36,000 men, more than 3,000 vehicles and virtually all the guns that were to take part in the operation. The Corps in fact included, in addition to the US 3rd Division, the British 1st Division, a regiment and a battalion of paratroops, a brigade of commandos and three battalions of US Rangers. The two battalions of Germans that were the only German forces in the area were quickly wiped out, and, on the face of it, Rome was 37 miles away, and there was virtually nobody in the way of a speedy advance to the objective. Had General Patton been in command, he would undoubtedly have set off at high speed to the Eternal City, revolvers gleaming and eyes glinting. But would he have been right? And would he have succeeded?

General Truscott, the commander of the US 3rd Division, who was something of a fire-eater himself, thought not, and defended his then superior, General Lucas, for following the orders General Clark had given him and "securing the beach head". In his view, Kesselring would have pulled back to the area between Rome and Anzio within days, regardless of how far VI Corps had pushed on to Rome, and would probably have been able to cut the communications of the over-extended Allied advance while at the same time shelling the under-defended beach-head and inhibiting the landing of reinforcements and supplies. Nonetheless, Churchill was furious that Lucas stayed put at Anzio landing the remainder of his Corps, building up an immense stock of vehicles - one report quoted 17,000 vehicles for 70,000 men - and preparing his armour, while Hitler was issuing his Directive for the Battle of Rome, and Kesselring was organising LXXVI Panzer Corps for a counterattack. In a famous comment, Churchill said "I expected to see a wildcat roaring into the mountains - and what do I find? A whale wallowing on the beaches!"

In fact, on the day after the Anzio landing, General von Mackensen arrived to take command of the already prepared German plan for tackling the problem, but had at that stage only a small detachment of the Hermann Goering Panzer Division and a few guns. By the 28th, he had three divisions in the defensive line. By the 31st he had eight, and the landing was effectively, for the time being at least, contained.

Hitler was, however, not content with containing the situation. He had ordered a counterattack that was to drive the Allies back into the sea, and had altered the plan by which LXXVI Corps was to carry out the attack so that the luckless Panzer Corps was to attack on a front only four miles wide without adequate air cover - for Field-Marshal von Richtofen's Luftflotte II simply did not have the aircraft, the pilots or, most important of all, the fuel for a sustained aerial assault and cover operation.

The German attack on February 16th ran into trouble almost as soon as it began. The initial barrage was, because of lack of ammunition, simply not enough to deter effective resistance to the first advance, and the Allied air attacks were pressed home effectively against tanks which could not leave the roads because of the softness of the Pontine marshes on either side. Air strikes also limited the quantity of supplies that the Germans could bring forward; nonetheless Mackensen's Corps had by the end of the first day advanced a third of the twelve miles to the Anzio beaches. On the second and third days, the German troops fought hard to pursue their initial advantage, but the Allied artillery and air power was too great for any significant progress to be possible. The Allied commanders reinforced the beach-head by bringing in the British 5th and the US 34th Divisions, and a new stalemate developed. The German artillery in the Alban Hills maintained constant harassment on the Allied position, and the Allies' guns and aircraft responded in kind. Nonetheless, the initiative had gone, and Rome had not been taken. Now the emphasis had to be returned to the route via Cassino.

The Battles of Monte Cassino

The failure of the Anzio landing to secure an immediate advance on Rome became the reason for some of the fiercest fighting of the war as the 5th Army struggled to take Monte Cassino from a remarkably tenacious German Army. The French Expeditionary Corps under General Juin had, as early as January 23rd/24th, been given the ultra-hazardous task of attempting to go round Cassino via Monte Belvedere and Colle Abate, with the objective of surrounding their enemy and attacking them from all sides, and, although the encirclement had not been achieved, they had succeeded brilliantly in diverting two thirds of the German defenders to the job of holding down the Algerians and Tunisians. Not for nothing did Kesselring feel uneasy whenever the French Expeditionary Corps was thrown in against his armies. Juin's force held their mountaintop positions, but the US 34th Division was bogged down in its beach-head on the Cassino side of the River Rapido.

To give new impetus, Alexander provided General Clark with General Freyberg's New Zealand Corps - but Freyberg, believing that the historic abbey of Monte Cassino was being used as a German headquarters and stronghold, demanded its destruction by bombing to give his force a chance in the forthcoming battle. Clark opposed this bombing, partly because he was far from sure it was necessary, partly because it was to him an act of vandalism. But Freyberg's view won the day. On February 15th, 229 Allied bombers in three waves dropped 453 tons of high explosive on the venerable building and reduced it to total ruin.

In fact, before the attack, there were no Germans in the monastery other than two military police whose sole function was to protect it from incursion by troops. The only occupants were the abbot and his monks. But, once the damage had been done, the Germans moved into the ruin in force, and used the magnificent vantage point it provided to drive back first the 4th Indian Division and then the 2nd New Zealand Division as they attempted to storm the mountain top. Worse was to follow. On March 15th, the Allied commanders attempted once again to use the same tactics to dislodge the Germans from Cassino by heavy bombing. A total of 775 aircraft dropped 1,250 tons of bombs on the town of Cassino and the country immediately around it. As the Allied troops attempted to capitalise on the effect of the bombing and take the town, the extent of the destruction and cratering made it impossible for the tanks to enter the town. The infantry were on their own, and the ferocity of the fighting was appalling. Anti-personnel mines inflicted terrible casualties, and little progress was made against the crack German parachute troops defending Cassino and the area around it.

An equal lack of success was experienced on the hill below the monastery. It was like Verdun all over again - mud, blood and frustration. On March 23rd, Freyberg recognised the obvious and called off the attack. The losses of the attempts to take Cassino were frighteningly high. Over 22,000 Americans, more than 22,000 British, almost 8,000 French and nearly 400 Italians were killed, wounded or missing for virtually no gain. Alexander now decided to reorganise his force. The British X Corps passed from the 5th Army to the British 8th Army, which had been since December 23rd under the command of General Sir Oliver Leese following Montgomery's recall to Britain for his part in "Overlord". Leese was given the sector of the Italian front between the Abruzzi heights and the Liri valley. Clark's 5th Army was responsible now only for the Anzio beach-head and the area between the Liri and the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Alexander's objective remained the smashing of the German 10th Army, and on May 11th he launched his newly reformed forces into the Battle of the Gustav Line. After a night of bombardment and surprise Allied attacks along a 25 mile front, neither the British nor the Americans had made significant progress, and even General Anders' fearless Polish II Corps had been repulsed on the slopes of Monte Cassino. But, after enduring heavy attack, minefields, flame throwers and just about everything the German Army had, General Juin's tough French Expeditionary Corps took Monte Majo on May 13th, and then went on to capture Monte Petrella on the 15th. On the 17th, the Poles finally made it to the ruined monastery on Monte Cassino, only to find it deserted. By May 23rd, the US II Corps was approaching Terracina, and Kesselring, to stop the advance, took reinforcements from Colonel-General von Mackensen's forces that were restraining the US VI Corps at Anzio. As a result, VI Corps, now under the command of General Truscott, broke out, captured Cisterna and, on May 25th, II Corps and VI Corps joined forces.

The Advance on Rome

Now the Allied offensive against the regrouping German 10th and 14th Armies was stepped up, and Churchill began sending signals urging Alexander to cut off as many of the German divisions from retreat as possible. There is no doubt that General Clark had a magnificent opportunity to capture much of Kesselring's army in a pocket - but instead of turning North to Valmontone to achieve this, Clark headed for Rome, sending only a small detachment towards Valmontone. Kesselring meanwhile was endeavouring to hold a line from the Alban Hills to Monti Lepini, and looked like succeeding until May 31st, when the US VI Corps pierced the German defences, scaled the Alban Hills, and started to advance on Rome. Kesselring had little option but to withdraw and proclaim Rome an open city, to avoid its bombardment and the destruction of its ancient buildings and historic treasures. On June 4th, the American 88th Division was the first Allied force to enter the Eternal City, for which so many had fought for so long.

This was by no means the end of the war in Italy - it had almost a year yet to run before the Italian people could begin to clear up the turmoil into which Mussolini's Fascists had let them fall. But the attention of the world now switched to "Overlord", the great amphibious invasion of Normandy, which began only two days after the entry into Rome. We too shall look at "Overlord" - but let us first take a look at the great bomber offensive; the war in the air.