Would the Americans have been so willing to commit to the invasion of Italy if they believed the Germans would offer the resistance they did. Its my understanding that it was believed the Germans would retreat to northern Italy. It did make sense to take Naples and the airfields in the area, but debatable about farther north.
Probably. Any indication that the Germans would retreat up the "boot" was probably inspired by the strategic debate going on in the German camp, mainly between Kesselring and Rommel. Rommel felt that the Italian pinninula was too open to flanking movements by sea. Kesselring felt they could hold in the south of the country, or at least make the attackers pay dearly for every muddy nasty, mountainous foot of ground. Some of this may have played out in radio messages and the Allies learned of this throught ULTRA. Kesselring won the debate and was proven right. It should also be remembered that we had just taken Sicily and a jump over to the mainland was the next logical step. In fact, there were good solid strategic reasons for invading that country. Knocking Italy out of the war and having her change sides was one. Securing the Foggia airfields south of Rome was another and would put strategic bombers much closer to southern Germany. Another reason often mentioned was of tying down German troops, but actually one could debate just who was tying down whom. After Rome was taken and then Normandy invaded, the case for further major offensive moves in Italy becomes weak. IMHO, all we needed then was just enough aggresion to keep the Germans in Italy pinned down.
I don't believe that the Americans were all that "willing" to land in Italy. The US high command had been forced to consent to landing in even North Africa only after FDR had insisted on the operation. Marshall and King were never huge fans of what they considered Britain's strategy of periphery warfare. They wanted to attack the problem head-on and not waste their time and efforts in what they considered a secondary theater. In their opinion, the fastest way to end the war was to land in northwest Europe and anything that postponed that was to be avoided if at all possible. Unfortunately for them, superior British staff work at the inter-Allied strategy conferences trumped all their attempts to avoid further involvement in the Mediterranean area.
Sandwichery is right that the Med was not the Americans' theater of choice, but at that point there were few other options. A cross-Channel landing could only be conducted in summer and required extensive planning and preparation. As a few of us were just discussing in the 'earlier than 1944' thread, a 1943 Overlord would more likely have been an alternative to Husky than a follow-on option. The other option within the Med would have been to assault Sardinia and Corsica, which might have been done simultaneously, and which would set the stage for a landing in southern France - or, less likely and less valuable IMO, northern Italy, without the need to fight their way up the peninsula. Historically Sardinia and Corsica fell into Allied hands without serious fighting after the Italian capitulation, but that was tied to the landing of Allied forces on the Italian mainland.
The Americans were interested in Italy but only from an aviation point of view. After the terrible losses that they sustained attacking industrial targets in southern Germany, they saw the facilities at Foggia as ideal for the shorter flight into that part of Germany. For this task, they allocated 300,000 tons of shipping and 35,000 men. The trouble was that once Foggia had been secured, they were persuaded by the British to continue to push northwards. Marshall would much have preferred to switch to a holding/containing action in Italy with just enough troops to protect Foggia but he was overruled by Roosevelt. After the capture of Foggia, the strategic aim of Italy was neatly switched by the British to pinning down German Divisions in Italy. This aim was never really achieved and ended up with the Allies themselves tying up valuable infantry that the really needed in the early months in Normandy. FdeP
The Americans were never completely convinced to invade Italy; they would have prefered to attack France in 1943. In another topic we have discussed about the possibility of a landing in France before the year 1944, then I will not return on the matter. There are some good motivations to invade Italy in 1943: - With the end of the North Africa Campaign there were no Western Allies land forces that fought against German troops. Soviet Red Army was fighting alone in Europe from summer 1941 and Stalin made pressure to push his allied to open a "second front" in continental Europe (expecially in France). It was clear that there was no time to prepare a large landing in North Europe, then the last option was to carry out an operation in the Mediterranean Theatre. - A landing in Italy could be a logic continuation of the North Africa Campaign. It could have eliminate the main German allied and the main Mediterrean threat. - Italy was called "the soft underbelly of the Axis". Churchill was right because italian society was tired of the war and Italian Armed Forces were weak and demoralized. An invasion appeared simple and without efforts. - The capture of the italian airfields could have permit to attack Germany from the south and some other objectives in east-Europe and south-east Germany. Were the British that pushed for the continuation of the Mediterranean Strategy and they managed to convince the Americans because in 1943 a landing in North Europe was difficult and because the position of the USA inside the "Great Alleance" was not yet so strong. The following year the situation would be very different. The problems were that the Allied undervalued some factors when they planned the italian campaign (a too fast planning, I think). First of all the German Army reaction (even though inside the German High Command there were discussions about the retreat in North Italy). When italian government signed the armistice, it was fast to take the control of the situation. For all the campaign the German army fought very well against the Allied. Another undervalued factor was the ground. The geography of the italian peninsula is terrible for an invader army. The peninsula is narrow, with many rivers that flow from east to west (or from west to east) and there is a long mountain chain (the Appennini) that cuts the peninsula in two parts from north to south. There are also very few big plains and many marshlands that restrict the use of large armored units. The weather could be terrible; very cold in winter and rainy in spring and autumn (now it's raining from one month without stop; there are many damages). The condition on the ground were terrible for all the campaign, also because for many moths the Allied had not a great superiority in men (and their great advantage in tanks, vehicles and planes couldn't be expressed due to the type of the ground). Try to read books like Italy's Sorrow from James Holland; The day of the battle from Rick Atkinson; Montecassino from Mattew Parker and the old The Italian campaign from G.A. Shepperd. These books explain very well the ferocity of the ground fights in Italy in 1943-1944.
I would like to discuss benefits of Italian Campaign. 1) Landing Italy and knocking Italy out of war and collapse of Mussolini's goverment were no doubt important both in political and moral sense. Italian Armed Foces were out of war which made Allied cause much easier. ( Surrender of Italian Navy was big bonus especially ) There is another factor to be considered. Marshall Pietro Bodoglio and his goverment would never agree an armistice with Allies in September 1943 as long as Allies armies wouldn't land on Italian peninsula itself. Yes Mussolini was deposed on August but Italians were still wary of Germans. There would like to see a full Allied military support on their soil. Until then Italian Armed Forces were still fighting. In fact there was even a plan for landing 82nd US Airborne on Rome and capturing Italian capital. But this operation was cancelled at last moment. ( otherwise it would be an American Market-Garden ) 2) Tying at least 20 to 25 German divisions in Italy is also an important factor in sucess of Overlord , Invasion of France in June 1944. Not to mention all other strategic areas where Italian forces surrendered ( like Aegean and Adriatic Coast ) and Germans took over. This led to a further distribution of limited German Armed Forces. (at least 20 more German divisions were spared to occupy the positions Italians evacuated or surrendered in Balkans ) All these divisions to defend Italy and its former possesions might have been utilized to defend France in 1944 and made a significant difference in defeating Allied invasion in Normandy. 3) Capture of Foggia airfields in Central Italy made Strategic Bombing Campaign much easier. It opened up a southern front in Strategic Bombign Campaign of Allies against Germany. 4) Capture of Sicily and Southern Italian coastline made Mediterranean a complate Allied lake , complated the aims of Torch , made Allied shipping lanes secure in Med. and released thousands of Allied shipping free. 5) Nearly 12.000 Allied POWs hold in Italy escaped and returned to Allied forces or joined Italian partisans when Italy has surrendered.
