Tug of War

by Shelfold Bidwell

  The French divisions in Italy were the surviving hard core of what in 1918 had been one of the finest armies of Europe, the softer tissues it had acquired in the inter-war years having been worn away by the harsh acid of defeat, capitulation and the occupation of the sacred soil of France. The men of the 1st Free French Division had either escaped from France, been caught by the war in North Africa, or had rallied to the flag from the most distant quarters of the French empire, including many women. The colonial units contained a high proportion of French, roughly in the proportion of one to every two indigenous soldiers, as it was the French practice to have French officers and under-officers commanding right down to platoon level, alongside relatively few Moroccan or Algerians of equivalent rank. The CEF, therefore, in spite of its predominantly colonial composition, was essentially French; in its heart, its leadership and notably its mental processes.

  In 1906 when the British Secretary of State for War, Haldane, took up his office and embarked on his period of reform, he was asked by an anxious general what kind of British Army he had in mind. “An Hegelian army” was his gnomic reply. A French general answered in such terms would not have been puzzled or surprised, although his own thought processes might, possibly, have been influenced more by the Frenchman Descartes rather than the German. General Juin would probably have responded to the accusation of being a Cartesian with some earthy barrack-room phrase, but he himself was a compelling example of the French belief in the application of pure reason to the solution of the problems of life, military or otherwise. His own “appreciations of the situation” and directives are models of logic and lucidity. It must not be thought, however, that the French system of command was based solely on arid, intellectual analysis. The French have given the word “martinet” to the universal military vocabulary, but their post-Revolutionary armies were remarkable for their individuality, dash and flexibility. They understood, as all good soldiers do, that discipline and obedience are essential, but also that they must be balanced by allowing free play to initiative, which means the freedom of subordinates to act on the spur of the moment but strictly in light of their mission. With this went a belief in the ardent spirit, the blazing courage French soldiers were expected to display on the field of battle; not suicidal, like the Japanese, but directed with intelligence. There is no exact translation for this quality in English. Montgomery, delving into his schoolboy slang, used to call it “binge”. Juin expressed it perfectly in a sub-paragraph dealing with the phase of exploitation in his directive setting out for his staff his outline plan for the forthcoming operation to break through the Gustav Line: “Le rythme de la manoeuvre sera adapté aux circonstances, ce qui nécessitera de tous ardeur, compréhension et souplesse.”1

  General Juin was of relatively humble origin, the son of a police officer from the Vendée and a Corsican mother, whose family had settled in Constantine, a small town in Algeria. He was an active lad, given to long rambles in wild country in search of game; once rashly taking on a wild boar with a charge of small-shot. Encouraged by his parents, he worked hard at school, winning a scholarship to the Lycée, thus ensuring his secondary education and then, the French Army being a career open to talent, to the great military academy of Saint-Cyr. There he passed out top of his term and so was allowed the privilege of selecting the regiment he wished to join. He chose the native regiment of his natal country, the Algerian Light Infantry or, to give it its proper title, the 1er Tirailleurs Algériens. Later he served with Moroccan troops, for whom he had the greatest admiration. The North African regiments, the Spahis, and the Moroccan, Tunisian and Algerian Tirailleurs resembled in many ways those of the British Indian Army. Their officers remained with them permanently, or for long periods, were expected to have a thorough understanding of the manners, customs and religion of their indigenous soldiers, and regarded themselves as an elite. Like the Indian Army, part of the colonial forces were almost always in action, sometimes against the very tribes from which they recruited their soldiers. Africa was an excellent school of tactics. Juin, had he ever met him, would have found much in common with the ex-Gurkha Rifleman, Francis Tuker, whose division was committed to what he later called the “idiocy” of Cassino. Like General Tuker, Juin had a profound aversion from bull-headed frontal attacks against strength – “bille en tête” – unless absolutely necessary, and a preference for surprise, the attack on the unexpected line and rapid manoeuvre.

  Juin joined his regiment in 1911 and saw his first action in Morocco in 1912. The war took him to France with the Tirailleurs Marocains. There he was badly wounded in the right arm while leading an attack and afterwards served as brilliantly on the staff as in the field; famous for his left-handed salute, forthright manner and his perpetual cigarette. By 1940 he had been noted as an officer fit to hold the highest appointments and was in command of a French motorised division on which fell the full force of the Blitzkrieg. Juin kept his outnumbered force in being during a long withdrawal, from Gembloux to Lille, beating off repeated attacks and inflicting heavy losses, to surrender only when his exhausted troops finally ran out of ammunition. For this feat he was raised to the rank of Commander of the Legion of Honour. In the unhappy months that followed Juin was released from captivity and sent to organise the skeletal French forces in North Africa, ostensibly for defence against aggression from any quarter, in reality as far as Juin was concerned to prepare for the moment of liberation. He threaded his way deftly but without any loss of honour through the unhappy maze of post-war French politics, and when the Allies arrived in Algeria in the autumn of 1942 he was able to place a number of French units at the disposal of General Eisenhower, ill-equipped and with a strangely old-fashioned look, but full of enthusiasm and able to play a useful part in battle. Subsequent events brought him, in November 1943, to Italy at the head of the CEF, with the full backing of the emergent French leader, Charles de Gaulle.

  General Juin had not found much to admire in the Allied conduct of the war in Tunisia and still less in Clark’s efforts between Cassino and the sea, or the bille en tête efforts to force the Gustav Line at the strongest defensive position in Italy: Cassino. He represented, at that moment, France, and was in no way disposed to defer politely to the views of Clark and Alexander. Now that he was in position with his full force assembled he was determined on two things: he was going to fight the battle in his own way, and that the only active army of France should play a part worthy of the French soldier. This was made abundantly clear when, on April 12, Clark sent his trusted aide, Brigadier-General D. W. Brann, his head of G3 (Operations), to brief Juin’s chief of staff, General Carpentier, on his plans for the employment of the CEF. (And not his chief of staff, Gruenther, as would have been proper when dealing with a commander of Juin’s status, or indeed himself as army commander.) Brann’s message, in brief, was that the main thrust was to be made at Cassino, with a view to breaking through the Gustav Line to Rome. The role of the CEF was to open a route through the mountains and seize the important pass at Esperia. The US 2nd Corps would then go through, operating on the left flank of the Eighth Army, and the CEF would revert to army reserve.

  Brann, accustomed to US Army practice which barred any discussion or criticism of plans emanating from higher HQs and required subordinate commanders merely to obey orders, was surprised by General Carpentier’s hostile reception of his instructions. After vehemently expressed objections to the general plan which, as he understood it, was simply the repetition of an attack on an axis on which there had been already a complete failure and, moreover, was against the strongest part of the Gustav Line, Carpentier explained to him his own commander’s views on a suitable mission for the CEF, as Juin had already set out in an aide-memoire for the guidance of his staff. Brann was “stunned” and “shaken” by the audacity of the proposed scheme of manoeuvre. He was then taken in to see Juin himself, who snubbed him. It was his plan, he said, in his blunt way, and he would discuss it with no one but General Clark.2

  Juin’s
“appreciation of the situation”, to use the British term, was very thorough, and developed his proposed operation to its logical limit. He began with a thorough study of the unpromising terrain fencing in his bridgehead. From the window of his office in his headquarters he had a magnificent view of a wall of snow-capped peaks, hiding the vast, tangled massif of the Auruncan Mountains some twelve miles square, varying in height between 3,000 and 4,500 feet, roadless, traversed by only two rough tracks barely fit for mules. The valleys were narrow and boxed in by cliffs, offering only narrow and difficult and easily blocked avenues of advance. Nevertheless, for a commander who understood warfare in mountains (which is not exactly the same as “mountain warfare”, apt to be elevated into a mystery by specialists) and had a suitably equipped and trained force, as a battlefield it had some promising features. It was crossed by two good lateral roads. The first ran from Pontecorvo on the Liri river to S. Oliva, through the Esperia pass and then south through Ausonia and the Ausente valley which lay immediately behind the Gustav Line, connected to Highway No. 7, the Via Appia, and one of the classic roads to Rome. The second, twelve miles to the west, connected Highway No. 6, the Via Casilina, the other highway to Rome, to Highway No. 7 from Arce via Pico and Itri. Intelligence reports indicated that the Germans were relying on the difficulties of the ground to economise in troops for the defence of the sector. The German positions, running more or less north and south-east of M. Maio, though as strong as engineers could make them, were linear in pattern and without any depth, and apparently with no supports or reserves close behind. On the far side of the Ausente valley south of the Esperia pass, where the way was barred by the massif Ms. Revole –Fammera–Chiavica–Petrella, there was not so much as an automatic weapon or a piece of artillery, let alone a complete unit. Moreover, the boxed-in nature of the terrain was as much a hindrance as a help to the defence, because if the attackers could penetrate the first mountainous stretch behind the Gustav Line and cut the Ausonia–Ausente lateral, it would be they who had the advantage of the ground and the defenders who would find it difficult, even impossible to move reserves to the area so unexpectedly threatened.

  Juin’s plan in outline was to break through, capture the pass at Esperia on the run and advancing on as wide a front as possible seize control of the second lateral, Highway No. 82; but it must be understood that though that was his objective, possession of a piece of useful ground was not his object: that was the vulnerable right–rear of the German Tenth Army. He intended to lever apart the Gustav Line and so free the 2nd Corps, the CEF and the Eighth Army to form a mass of manoeuvre for the break-out and the march on Rome. This was a bold operational concept, but it is perhaps understandable that both Alexander and Clark and their respective staffs looked at it rather doubtfully. Neither man possessed the strategical insight that distinguished Juin from “les bons chefs ordinaires”, but they could at least see that it did not detract anything from the DIADEM plan, and that it made sense to make full use of the four French divisions. As for the new role Juin recommended for the US 2nd Corps, to force a passage up the narrow strip between the sea and the mountains, it would be no more difficult than to try to fight along the narrow and winding road from the Esperia pass into the heart of the mountains. If Juin failed it could not do any harm, and if he succeeded, so much the better. The obstinate Frenchman was allowed to have his way.

  Juin’s plan as finally developed was as follows. The whole rested on the fact that through his foresight the CEF was an instrument well adapted for operations either on the plain or in the mountains. Its divisions were, with certain significant variations, organised and equipped on the US model. Each had nine battalions of infantry in three regiments, with a battery (or “cannon company”) of light artillery included in each. The divisional troops consisted of an armoured reconnaissance unit equipped with light tanks, an artillery regiment of three groups (battalions) of 105-mm and one of 155-mm howitzers, engineers, signals and supporting services.

  The order of battle was:

  1ère Division de Marche d’Infanterie, (lère DMI) Commander, Général de Division (equivalent US or British Major-General) Brosset. Formed as the 1st Free French Division in February 1943 and retitled as a normal French “marching” division in April 1944. Its infantry consisted of various independent battalions, including a “demi-brigade” of two battalions of the Foreign Legion, a North African battalion and battalions of marines grouped in three “brigades”. (Not “regiments”. The French are exact in their use of military terms. A regiment is a unit, of three battalions, with a single identity.) The armoured regiment had been formed by converting the 1st Regiment of “Fusilier-Marins”, commanded by a naval capitaine de frégate. (Equivalent to a commander RN or USN.) Effective strength was 15,500 all ranks, of which 9,000 were Europeans or ethnic Frenchman.

  2e Division d’Infanterie Marocaine (2e DIM) Commander, Général de Division Dody. Raised May 1943. Basically Moroccan; its infantry three regiments of Tirailleurs Marocains, the reconnaissance unit a regiment of Moroccan Spahis; the guns manned by the African Artillery Regiment. Effective strength, 14,000 all ranks.*

  3e Division d’Infanterie Algérienne (3e DIA) Commander, Général de Division Monsabert. Raised May 1943. Infantry, Tirailleurs Algériens and Tunisiens, 3 e Régiment Spahis Algériens de Reconnaissance, artillery as above. Effective strength, 13,000 all ranks.

  4e Division Marocaine de Montagne (4e DMM) Commander, Général de Brigade Sevez (equivalent US Brigadier-General, British Brigadier). Raised June 1943. Effective strength, 19,000. Unusually for a mountain division, it also had an armoured regiment, 4e Spahis Marocains. The artillery consisted of three battalions US type M116 75-mm light mountain howitzers with a useful range of 8,000 metres carried in mule pack; and its first and second echelons of transport were also pack mules. Effective strength, 19,000 all ranks.

  “Corps” troops included medium and heavy artillery and the logistic services were adapted to work in mountainous country off the roads using pack animals as well as motor transport. US tank battalions were attached and anti-tank defence by a regiment of the famous Chasseurs d’Afrique equipped with M 10s. A large number of devoted Frenchwomen served in the hospital and ambulance units. When General Lucas met General Dody in January he expressed his anxiety about their employment in the forward areas, to which Dody retorted that they were as ready to the for their country as the men. Lucas wrote in his diary: “Surely France still lives!”

  When the French were establishing their colonial empire in North Africa their most intractable opponents were found among the mountaineers of northern Morocco, and on the principle of converting poachers to gamekeepers the French Army formed irregular levies recruited from the hill villages to act as local internal security troops. Accustomed from early youth to fight not only the French but each other in their private vendettas, they required little drill or training. The basic unit was a “gown”, based on a village or group of villages and families, led by specially selected French officers able to speak Arabic and well-versed in every nuance of clan and custom. A “goumier” was allowed to wear his own costume of djellaba, a striped woollen cloak, and trousers confined by tighiwines or woollen gaiters; the only concession to modernity being a steel helmet in action instead of the rezza, a small turban. The colour of undyed homespun plus the dirt collected in campaigning provided better camouflage than khaki battledress blouse and trousers. They were encouraged to fight in their own way as practised in their native mountains, as they were masters of the art of patrolling and reconnaissance, infiltration, ambuscade and minor tactics of every kind.

  When the CEF was committed to operations in Italy Juin immediately saw that there was an essential role for these resourceful quasi-guerrilla troops, and asked for a large contingent to act not as “auxiliaries”, their official rating, but front-line troops to work in close conjunction with the regular divisions, especially in the mountains. The units sent to Italy retained their basic irregular characteristics
and their riding ponies and mule transport, but were modernised by the addition of heavy weapons including mortars, Jeeps and radios for tactical control.

  A goum, equivalent to a company of infantry, had an establishment of 209 French and Moroccans, three goums plus an HQ Goum containing heavy weapons, signals and a troop of mounted scouts made a “tabor”, and three tabors a “Groupement de Tabors Marocains” (GTM), commanded by a French full colonel. The 1st, 2nd and 4th GTMs joined the CEF, their total strength being 7,883 all ranks (170 French officers, 422 French under-officers and 53 French privates) under the command of an officer with great experience of these unique soldiers, Général de Brigade Guillaume. Such were Juin’s resources.

  As shown, the right-hand boundary of the CEF with the British Eighth Army was the north (left) bank of the Liri. The left with the US 2nd Corps ran westwards through the mountains from Castelforte, skirting the southern slopes of the peaks of Castella, Petrella and Revoie to M. Calvo, after which it turned north-west. The 14th Panzer Corps held the right wing of the German line, and the garrison of the Gustav positions on the front of the CEF was approximately six and a half battalions of the 71st Infantry Division, lavishly equipped with machine guns and mortars, manning defences largely proof against anything but a direct hit with a 100-pound shell. This was the hard crust that had to be decisively broken by frontal attack if the whole daring manoeuvre was to develop.