Tug of War

by Shelfold Bidwell

  It may seem that in recapitulating these arguments we have put up targets made of straw for the purpose of knocking them down, but they were options seriously considered by at least some of the great personages involved, and deserve a mention before discussing the more practical aspects of the campaign.

  The overriding direction given to Alexander was to contain as many German troops as possible in Italy. First, therefore, the doubtful aid of statistics must be invoked to see how far he was successful in fulfilling the specific demands made on his gradually depleted armies. The Allied armies marched some 800 miles from Calabria to the Brenner Pass in almost exactly twenty months, fighting most of the way, and mounting five deliberate offensives, or six if Anzio is regarded as a separate operation. Throughout they had a numerical advantage on the battlefield, although it is not immediately apparent. The strength of Army Group “C” was 195,000 in July 1943, 411,000 in July 1944 and 439,000 when Kesselring’s command was briefly expanded in 1945 to include OB West, excluding the Italian troops in Liguria. Applying Martin van Creveld’s ratio of combat to supply in German Army theatres of war, 84.5 per cent of total strength may have been 339,480 in the final battle.4 US statistics give the Fifth Army strength including its British element in the last twelve months of the war as 359,565, and the Eighth Army in round numbers as 190,000 total forces. If 60 per cent of the Fifth and 70 per cent of the Eighth were combat troops, 216,000 and 133,000 respectively, the grand total is 349,000. The total strength of the Allied forces was the figure of 1,677,000, including the headquarters and line of communication staffs, the air forces and the logistical infrastructure required to support a force overseas. In terms of the divisional slice, that is, the total numerical strength available divided by the number of divisions, the US Army was more lavish than the British, and both were luxurious compared with the German Army.* These figures suggest that the forces actually engaged on both sides were roughly equal in numbers. The Allied commanders did not try (or at least not very hard) “to comb out their tail” to obtain more men on the battlefield.

  A second measure of relative strength is to compare the number of divisions in the battle zone and in the theatre as a whole, bearing in mind the warning already given of the wide variation of establishment strength, ration strength, weapon availability and fighting-power of German divisions. Those available in the battle zone is the significant figure, as Kesselring, though he had a larger reserve than Alexander, had to retain a number of divisions to secure his communications from partisans, overawe the anti-German population in the industrial north and guard against amphibious operations in his rear. The figures are:5

  Some of Kesselring’s reserve divisions were second-rate, but they enabled him to react swiftly and effectively in an emergency, as he did at Anzio. This, however was by no means the whole picture. The Allied presence in Italy and the Mediterranean roused, and kept alive, Hitler’s fears of Allied armed intervention in the Balkans, especially in Greece or Yugoslavia. It was also important to cut off logistic support to the active Yugoslav partisans. General von Westphal stated that “about one fifth of the German ground forces”, possibly about forty “divisions” of sorts, were stationed in the area to ensure its security. It can, of course, be argued that such units, with few heavy weapons, no tanks, low-grade personnel and rudimentary logistics, would have been of little value in the critical fighting in the West and that the demands of internal security would have required them to be stationed in the region anyway, but that ignores the fact that good German officers and men could not be used where they were most needed elsewhere. In terms of divisions pinned down, the Italian theatre seems undoubtedly to have been a profitable investment for the Allies.

  A third measure is the balance of killed, wounded and missing. This, however, has to be treated with the same reserve as the first two. Different armies used different systems of accounting. “Killed” may not include “died of wounds”, and wounded permanently incapacitated may not be distinguished from wounded returned to unit. The Germans, as they were always retreating, were unable to tell how many of their “missing” had been killed or made prisoners of war. The sick, whose numbers grew in the severe winter of 1944–5 in the Apennines, are not included, nor the cases of neurosis arising from battle exhaustion which were battle casualties as much as those caused by the bullet. Robert H. Ahrenfeldt, in Psychiatry in the British Army in the Second World War, refers to the work of two US Army investigators on the psychiatric “life” of infantrymen in the Fifth Army. It is not easily compressed, but they concluded that “just as an average truck wears out after a number of miles”, so did a soldier in combat, the figure being 200–240 combat days (ten “combat days” being equivalent to seventeen calendar days). The casualties were not necessarily young or poorly motivated soldiers, but more often junior leaders and decorated veterans. Some were irretrievably damaged though they could carry out useful non-front-line jobs. Many patients were “ineffective” after 140–180 days. The comparative British figure was of the order of 400 days, attributed to their policy of “left out of battle”, and frequent rest and relief. In the Fifth Army the American soldier might be in the front line without relief for twenty to thirty days, frequently for thirty to forty and occasionally for eighty.

  The reliable official historian of the US Army states that the round number of Allied killed, wounded and missing in Italy from September 9, 1943 to the end was 312,000, of which the Fifth Army share was 188,746, the Eighth Army therefore approximately 123,254. Of the national contingents to take two examples, the Canadian figure from the landings in Sicily to their departure on March 25, was 26,254, the French 22,171 in DIADEM and the subsequent pursuit. In his final despatch Alexander reported that the total German loss was 536,000, which presumably included the mass of prisoners taken in the final débâcle. The US Army historian, relying on official German sources (which excluded the small number of Waffen SS, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine casualties and may have been incomplete for the last days of April 1945) gives the smaller figure of 434,646, which included 48,067 killed, 172,531 wounded and 214,048 missing. It would seem therefore, that the balance of attrition favoured the Allied armies, contradicting the accepted theory that the defence is more economical. The explanation possibly lies in the fanatical German belief in defence by local counter-attack, and certainly in the overwhelming Allied fire-power: in the opinion of many Germans far more severe than anything they experienced on the Eastern Front, where the Red Army generals calculated their fire-plans in terms of hundreds of artillery barrels per kilometre. The Allied losses in the far shorter campaign in north-west Europe were 766,294, and in the Battle of Normandy the ground forces lost only 209,672, of which 39,976 were killed, compared with the German loss of 240,000 and 210,000 made prisoner. It is clear therefore that in simply the grim figures of attrition the Allied effort in Italy was profitable and not unduly severe.*

  The next question, having reviewed the slippery evidence of military statistics, is the conduct of operations on the highest level. It has been claimed that the aim the Allied high command gave Alexander was consistent throughout. This is an over-simplification. We have seen that the aim changed repeatedly, from a cheap victory over Italy, to prove to the Russians that the Western Allies were really fighting in Europe, to support the strategic bombing policy, and finally to contain Army Group “C”. From the German point of view there were two threats. Operationally Kesselring feared amphibious end-runs round his flanks all through the campaign. In terms of grand strategy Hitler saw his whole rickety empire in the Balkans threatened. It was only by exploiting these threats that the vast military assets poured into Italy could have been made to pay a strategic dividend. It was not a question of waltzing off on some hair-brained strategy through the Lubljana gap into the Danube basin, Given the landing craft used for DRAGOON Alexander could have avoided the battles of attrition on the pattern of the Western Front, fought in muddy river valleys and up precipitous mountain slopes. Instead he could hav
e upset all Kesselring’s careful strategy and nice calculations. With the forces diverted to ANVIL-DRAGOON he would have had a fair chance of overrunning the Gothic Line in the summer of 1944. It is ironical that the final, definite order to remove them issued on July 5 was preceded four days before by an emergency conference Kesselring held with his generals to discuss their heavy losses, and the need for more elastic and early withdrawals. DRAGOON succeeded only in removing a whole army from effective action in both Italy and France for a vital four weeks. No hindsight is needed to imagine the consternation in OKW if the collapse in Normandy had coincided with an equal débâcle in Italy. The failure of Allied grand strategy, as determined by the Americans, was due to treating the two theatres as rivals when they should have been seen as a single, strategic whole. The American insistence on the elementary principle of concentration was in reality a rationalisation, to conceal misunderstandings, jealousies and rival aims.

  These are political and strategic questions, open to debate and disagreement, but susceptible to rational analysis. There were other, deeper, more opaque forces at work. The mere existence of two opposed armies within striking distance of each other seems to generate “offensive action”. We have seen how the generals, manifestly for the best reasons, all became identified with their armies and missions, feeling that what coincided with their ambitions was militarily correct. They were, after all, human.

  We argue that a great war in Italy was inevitable from the moment that the Anglo-American forces were built up in French North Africa. It was then found, as ever, that it is easier to start a war than stop one.

  Dominick Graham, Fredericton, N.B.

  Shelford Bidwell, Wickham Market, Suffolk

  * One-time professor of classical studies, brigadier and now MP for County Down, The Times, September 22, 1984.

  * The author was Aspinall Oglander, a soldier and the author of the volume of the official history dealing with Gallipoli. Archibald Wavell revised it later and added a further volume on grand strategy. The principles of war were drafted by J. F. C. Fuller, pioneer of armoured, mobile warfare. In 1929 Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice, Professor of Military History in King’s College, University of London, published British Strategy, the classic exposition of the “principles of war” as understood by the General Staff. For “economy of force” see his Chapter 6. In Chapter 2, especially p. 44, he explains the reason for exclusion of political considerations.

  * This figure also is only an imperfect indicator, as it does not take into account non-divisional troops such as independent tank brigades and corps and army artillery, unless specially adjusted, but it is a useful coefficient of efficiency. However, a modern army requires a large and effective logistic back-up, repair workshops, hospitals, reinforcement holding units, rest camps, etc., if it is to remain efficient for long periods. A large “slice” is as much an indication of efficiency as waste of man-power.

  * By way of contrast, on the Western Front, in the First World War when the BEF was made up to approximately fifty-five divisions, the average loss per month during “quiet” periods was 15,000, rising to 100,000 during intense fighting.

  Appendices

  CHRONOLOGY OF PRINCIPAL EVENTS

  August 1943

  Axis forces withdraw from Sicily. Allied high command approves BAYTOWN and AVALANCHE plans for invasion of mainland. Badoglio opens secret surrender negotiations.

  September

  3rd. Italian surrender signed, BAYTOWN launched.

  8th. Allied HQ orders broadcast news of Italian surrender, GIANT II (airborne descent on Rome) cancelled.

  9th. Germans disarm Italian armed forces, AVALANCHE (Salerno) and SLAPSTICK (Tarante) successfully launched.

  16th. Eighth Army and Fifth Army in contact.

  17th. Germans disengage at Salerno and begin phased withdrawal to winter (Gustav) Line.

  22nd. Eighth Army captures Bari.

  23rd. Fifth Army begins advance on Naples.

  27th. Eighth Army reaches Foggia airfields.

  October

  1st. Fall of Naples.

  3rd–6th. Eighth Army action at Termoli.

  12th–15th. Fifth Army forces passage of Volturno.

  November

  5th–15th. Fifth Army (British 10th Corps) fails to take M. Camino.

  8th–28th. Eighth Army crosses Sangro river but autumn rain and floods halt operations.

  December

  2nd–17th. Fifth Army resumes offensive. 10th Corps clears M. Camino and US 2nd Corps S. Pietro and M. Sammucro. Fifth Army faces Gustav Line from Cassino to mouth of Garigliano river.

  4th–28th. Eighth Army front: 2nd NZ Division fails to take key position at Orsogna, but 1st Canadian Division captures Ortona. All operations on Adriatic Front halted by bad weather. Leese succeeds Montgomery in command of Eighth Army. Harding appointed chief of staff to Alexander.

  January 1944

  8th. Maitland Wilson succeeds Eisenhower in Mediterranean theatre, with Jacob L. Devers, US Army, as his deputy.

  17th. Fifth Army offensive opens; 10th Corps establishes bridgehead across Garigliano.

  19th. 46th Division fails at S. Ambrogio.

  20th. 36th Division fails at S. Angelo (“Bloody River”).

  22nd. SHINGLE launched: US 6th Corps lands at Anzio.

  23rd. German counter-moves against Anzio landing begun: HQ Fourteenth Army and 76th Panzer Corps fence in bridgehead.

  24th. Fifth Army (US 2nd Corps and CEF) begin First Battle of Cassino.

  February

  Fourteenth Army fully operational. US 6th Corps at Anzio on defensive.

  Alexander reinforces Fifth Army in Cassino sector with ad hoc corps under General Freyberg composed of 2nd NZ and 4th Indian Divisions.

  15th–18th. Second Battle of Cassino. Abbey (“Monastery”) on Montecassino bombed, NZ Corps attack fails.

  16th–21st. German counter-offensive against US 6th Corps (FISCHFANG) at Anzio fails.

  Combined CoS agree that proposed removal from Italy of troops and landing craft required for invasion of southern France (ANVIL) should be postponed pending spring offensive by AAI.

  March

  15th. Third Battle of Cassino unsuccessful. Allied offensive operations halted. British 13th Corps relieves NZ Corps, which is disbanded.

  April

  Preparations for spring offensive (DIADEM), planned by Harding. Garigliano front reorganised, CEF and US 2nd Corps take over from British 10th Corps, inter-army boundary moved south to Liri river, Eighth Army concentrates 13th, 2nd Polish and 1st Canadian Corps in Rapido–Cassino–Montecassino sector.

  May

  11th. D-Day, DIADEM. After initial setbacks Allies break through on all fronts. Spectacular success of French.

  26th. Clark orders Truscott to change the axis of his attack and make for Rome. Tenth and Fourteenth Annies extract themselves from potential trap.

  June

  4th. Fall of Rome.

  Kesselring relieves von Mackensen of command of Fourteenth Army. Army Group “C” withdraws in good order.

  July

  HQ US 6th Corps with three US divisions and the whole CEF, plus supporting troops, withdrawn from Italy to prepare for ANVIL, now called DRAGOON.

  18th. Ancona falls to 2nd Polish Corps.

  19th. Leghorn falls to Fifth Army.

  Pursuit by AAI halted. Pause to rest and reorganise.

  August

  Army Group “C” completes its fighting withdrawal to outposts of Gothic Line north of R. Arno.

  10th. Alexander sets aside provisional plan for concentrated attack by both armies in centre directed on Bologna in favour of two separate attacks, by Fifth Army in centre and Eighth Army on Adriatic coast. British 13 th Corps transferred to Fifth Army.

  25th. Eighth Army opens offensive (OLIVE). Canadian Corps drives in German outposts.

  September

  2nd. Canadian Corps breaks through Gothic Line, but 5th Corps fails in attack on Coriano. OLIVE temporarily
checked.

  10th. Fifth Army opens offensive.

  13th–21st. Fifth Army forces Il Giogo and Futa passes and drives towards Bologna.

  12th–21st. Canadian Corps breaks through main Gothic defences at Coriano. Rimini falls. Eighth Army continues methodical advance.

  October

  1st. McCreery succeeds Leese in command of Eighth Army. Fifth Army, accepting heavy losses, fights through central Apennines to within nine miles of Bologna.

  27th. Fifth Army halted for lack of infantry replacements. End of its autumn/winter offensive.

  Eighth Army advances across Fiumincino, Savio and Ronco rivers.

  November

  9th. Eighth Army reaches Forli.

  16th. 13th Corps, having reverted to Eighth Army, clears the trans-Apennine Highway No. 67 to the Emilian plain. Eighth Army reaches Lamone river.

  24th. Alexander relieves Maitland Wilson in command of the Mediterranean theatre, Clark relieves Alexander in command of Allied armies in Italy, renamed 15th Army Group, Truscott appointed to command Fifth Army; all effective in December.

  December

  4th. Eighth Army advancing up Highway No. 9 (Via Emilia) captures Ravenna.

  16th. Eighth Army captures Faenza.

  26th–28th. German spoiling attack in Serchio valley against US 4th Corps.

  29th. Eighth Army winter offensive closed down.

  January–March 1945

  Fifth Army carries out local operations to improve its position preparatory to the spring offensive. The 1st Canadian Corps leaves the theatre for N.W. Europe. SS General Wolff begins clandestine negotiations for an armistice in Italy. Kesselring departs to become C-in-C West, succeeded by von Vietinghoff. (Von Vietinghoff had already stood in for Kesselring when he had been gravely injured in a motor accident. Traugott Herr who went to HQ. Tenth Army in von Vietinghoff’s place, retained that appointment when von Vietinghoff was posted to the Russian front, from which he was recalled.)