Why didn't the Russians consider Sicily and Italy a second front?

The invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy in theory opened up a second front on mainland Europe, directly invaded one Axis partner, and caused Hitler to move troops, including some of his best crack units, to the Italian theater with the theory that its better to fight them in Italy than in Germany. So North Africa and then Italy took good numbers of German troops from the East.

Not only that, but the bombing offensive going on at the same time as Italy forced the Germans to move 4/5 of the Luftwaffe back to Germany to defend the homeland, giving Russia complete air superiority in the East. These two offensives seemed to divert enough troops and resources to take heat off the Russians, so why weren't they happy until we invaded France?

 

Great topic, though about that myself a few times.

I think Italy was seen an an extension of the North African campaign, as the action was limited to the Mediterranean. The major issue is that Italy was only tying up about a hundred thousand Axis troops, which didn't really help Russia's efforts. Russia wanted the Allies to draw away entire German armies, which couldn't really happen until the Western Allies could field their own armies on the mainland to threaten Europe. Italy was just so small to deploy enough Allied armies to do this.

 

Thanks. The Mediterranean could have been looked at as the second front of the Allies massed huge armies up thru Italy and attacked Germany from the South through Austria and the also hit the Balkans. The Germans used about 200,000 troops during North Africa and at least another 100,000 plus for Sicily and Italy, plus the resources, with the air offensive tying up almost the entire Luftwaffe and giving Russia total air superiority.

Churchill and the English were pushing for Italy. I think they wanted to keep their sway in the Mediterranean as well as stay closer to the East and the Balkans for more Western Influence in Eastern Europe over the Russians after the war.

 

In truth Italy was by definition another front, but just not on the scale that Stalin was looking for. When Russian casualties were over 1,000,000 for Stalingrad and around 1,000,000 again for Kursk alone, you can see their point of view. Heck the Red Army suffered well over 300,000 casualties in the Winter War with Finland. Is it any wonder they wanted more from the Western Allies?

 

It really is amazing that after how many millions of soldiers they lost as POWs alone from Barbarossa thru the Battle of Moscow, and all the casualties they suffered, that Russia still massed huge armies for the offensives from 1943-1945. Their divisions were a lot smaller than Western divisions though and they had no problems running them understrength, but I believed they mobilized over 34 million men and women from 1939-1945.

 

From the Soviet perspective, depending on who you base your source of information on (Stalin's or Brezhnev's casualty statistics...)
Soviet Military KIA would have been between ~ 5 and 15 million dead, plus POW, plus plus by Sept 1943.

The British must have been sitting at about 200,000 KIA by that time with the Americans still barely into the conflict.

Being a generation removed, I've read quite a bit about this campaign, toured the Monte Cassino area thoroughly, trying to learn the why's and ifs of this campaign.
No family fought there, thank God, buy many close family friends.

The thought of a "piddly ass" campaign like Italy must have been crushing to the Russians is all I have been able to surmise.
(One has to wonder what part this played in post war antagonism.)

- Churchill's counter to this must have been the large number of German divisions that were thus held back from the eastern front.

I found a a good statistical report report once. Will pop it in if I find it. Not in Churchill. (Just did a quick browse.)

 

They never were happy,even after Overlord . The reason is political.

 

So............ Not only were we D Day Dodgers , we were also "Proper Front " Dodgers ?

Funny, when I was being bombed, shelled, mortared and sometimes merely having someone take a pot shot at me with mere small arms I wasn't really part of a new front movement but simply there as an irritant to make the enemy un-comfortable.

It's nice to finally know

Ron

 

One reason might be the topography. It was quite hazardous to dare to rush through Italy. First there were many Islands (Sicilly, Corsica in France , Elba etc...) to clean , then the Mountains, the historical cities which should be spared, then the Italinas, (who would they side with ?) , then Monte Cassino, the Alps and before even getting to Berlin there would be Austria and Bavaria . For Staline it must have seemed impossible and he believed only a few German divisions would keep the allies away. He was wrong and even if the German propaganda claimed the allies were slow , they did move and fought great. At some points tanks could not go through, so they used mules .

Another more political reason could be : let the Western powers open another front , so the Germans and they kill each other instead of killing more Soviet soldiers.

 

ww2talk.com/forums/topic/9411-monte-camino/?p=129620

 

Ron Goldstein, I indeed think it was a second front and the Russians were just being political or irrational. They also were right on the front from a logistical point of view so they could keep throwing men and materiel to the front lines which I don't think the Russians took into account either. We were shipping men and materiel across the Atlantic and then having to move both by sea again once we arrived in England.

 

I absolutely agree, Russ, by the time Overlord had commenced, there were 25 German divisions fighting in Italy alone, that's hundreds of thousands if not a million troops who are unavailable to the other fronts, which no doubt helped to make the Allies advance to Germany from the western front a little easier(for lack of a better word) and perhaps less costly, the Italian campaign and the all the brave men who fought and died there deserve greater recognition, and lastly your father has my utmost respect.

Regards, Strike Eagle

 

The point is that after Tunisgrad,Husky and the invasion of Italy was the only option ,the alternative was to do nothing during a whole year till Overlord . The Soviets were sceptical,because they were afraid that the attack on Italy would delay Overlord one year more .

 

....or, of course, a GERMAN one!

Something remarkably simple didn't strike me at all until a couple of years ago when I heard an offhand comment in a documentary...the geography of Italy - it being a long THIN peninsula with inconvenient mountains down the middle of it...meant that any front line was only EVER going to be a couple of hundred miles long at the very very most....from sea to wine-dark sea.

And there's a finite number of men can BE in contact with an enemy on that sort of truncated front line. Italy, by definition, was never going to satisfy the Soviets; their generals could do the same sums about divisional frontages etc. that we could...and the Germans could..

 

Stalin believed rightly that Churchill did not want to actually fight the Germans, that he wanted the Soviets to bleed so Britain could reap the reward with out the cost the Soviets paid. Why else would Churchill argue to cancel Overlord so they could take Rhodes and other islands in the Mediterranean???

 

Up to 1944 there were more Axis divisions in the Balkans on garrison duty or fighting Tito and the other Yougoslav factions than there ever were facing the western allies directly in North Africa or Italy, at the time of the Salerno landings a large part of the German force was units rebuilding after Kursk and Tunis so not really "combat ready" by Eastern Front standards. By comparison with the Eastern front the Italian one was very small, both because of geography and of because US commitment to that campaign was half hearted at best.

Churchill did see Italy, and the Med in general, as critical to post war balance and wanted to avoid creating a power void there when the inevitable German retreat happened. The US mostly saw that going up the Italian peninsula one river and mountain a time just to possibly getting completely bogged down in the Alps did not pause a big enough threat to force the Germans to commit a large number of troops. Both arguments obviously didn't go towards Stalin's interests so while technically Italy was a second front he had very good motivations to argue it was just a sideshow.

Of course for the people who fought there the war was just as real and deadly as anywhere else, as an Italian I tend to approve of Churchill's position, what happened in Istria in 1945 was not nice and without British troops in the area, and the "strange armistice" negotiated by Wolf and Dulles things could have been a lot worse.

 

Glantz's When Titans Clashed and von Mellenthin's Panzer Battles both point out that the Soviets ran out of draftees of military age and physical conditioning after the summer battles of 1943. Thereafter the Red Army was patched together with boys, old men, citizens in recently reclaimed territories, ex-partisan warriors and even liberated POWs. Lt. Bessanov's memoir about his military service as a tank rider SMG platoon commander corroborated this. He said Kursk, his first battle, was also the last time he had large numbers of pre-war veteran soldiers under his command. The next batch of replacements were scrawny teenagers, who were replaced in turn by men in their 40s.

I think you can locate the relevant material in Glantz's chapter that dealt with Red Army organization and tactics between 1944-45 where he related to Soviet manuals which stated the comparatively low quality manpower reduced the combat effectiveness of Soviet rifle divisions, requiring ever greater concentrations of tanks, artillery and aircraft to do the job. Von Mellenthin commented that the only silver lining his comrades could see after the Kursk debacle was finding Russian teenagers and middle aged men among the prisoners: the Russians were finally scrapping the end of their barrel and their reserves were not inexhaustible.

 

My impression is that they weren't acting irrrationally at all. They wanted the western allies doing everything possible (and a bit more if they could get them to do it) to take the pressure off the USSR. As it was the Soviets had almost nothing left as far as an availble replacement manpower pool when the war ended and many of their divisions were at half strength or below. Even though they were advancing in 43 and 44 the situation must not have looked all that great from Stalin's POV.