GERMANS, ITALIANS HUDDLE AFTER TORCH LANDINGS

Munich, Germany November 10, 1942

On this date in 1942, two days after Allied landings in Vichy French-held Morocco and Algeria (Opera­tion Torch), Itali­an dicta­tor Benito Musso­lini sent his son-in-law, foreign minis­ter Gale­azzo Ciano, to Munich in his stead to speak with Adolf Hitler. Musso­lini had wanted to meet the Fuehrer in Salz­burg, in the Austrian Alps, at the end of the month. But events at the top of the month in North Africa now totally consumed his attention and prevented him from leaving the Italian capital.

Meeting in the Fuehrerbau in the Bavarian capital, Ciano and Hitler, the latter looking tired and un­happy according to the Ital­ian dele­ga­tion, agreed to the imme­di­ate joint occu­pa­tion of Vichy collab­o­rator Marshal Philippe Pétain’s semi-auton­o­mous South­ern France and the Medi­ter­ranean island of Cor­sica (aka Vichy France or the “Free Zone”). The next month, Decem­ber, at Fuehrer head­quarters in Rasten­burg, East Prussia, Ciano, again at the behest of an in­creas­ingly frail Mus­so­lini, coun­seled Hitler to nego­ti­ate an armis­tice with the Soviets to avoid the deci­ma­tion of German and Ital­ian armies standing on the verge of an appall­ing dis­as­ter at Stalin­grad. It was clear to Il Duce (Italian, “the leader”) that the war in the East could no longer be won: The Soviets had just ham­mered their way through a sector held by the Ital­ian Eighth Army (Armata Ital­iana Russi, or ARMIR), handi­capped by obso­lete equip­ment, and the Germans blamed their Axis partner for not holding the line.

Predictably Hitler rejected Mussolini’s advice on shutting down the East­ern Front. Ital­ian for­eign minis­try offi­cials believed Hitler to be “on the edge of mad­ness,” and the Ital­ian em­bassy in Berlin went so far as to pre­pare a plan to “dis­en­gage” Italy and pos­si­bly other Axis mem­bers, including Roma­nia, Bul­garia, and Hun­gary, from their alli­ance with Germany, “iso­lating” that coun­try and leaving it to its own fate, but “in such a way as to pre­clude any accu­sa­tion of trea­son.” Ital­ian minis­try offi­cials did not be­lieve Mus­so­lini had the cour­age to push the plan, which was true: The Duce fired Ciano and almost all his other cabi­net minis­ters. Mussolini assumed Ciano’s empty chair as Italy’s new foreign minister.

The next month, March 1943, Mussolini ordered the Eighth Ital­ian Army, reduced by the car­nage at Stalin­grad by nearly half from the original 235,000-man force, to vacate the Eastern Front, leaving the German Wehr­macht to fight another failed opera­tion (Opera­tion Cita­del, or Unter­nehmen Zita­delle, July 5–16, 1943) on their own. It was not until after the dic­ta­tor him­self was over­thrown by the Grand Coun­cil of Fas­cism on July 25, several weeks after the suc­cess­ful Allied inva­sion of Sicily (Opera­tion Husky), that a new Ital­ian govern­ment under Marshal Pietro Badog­lio could nego­ti­ate a success­ful switch of alle­giances. For the next four months, the Allies clawed their way up the Italian boot, only to be stymied at Anzio (see below).


Battle of Anzio: The Drawn-Out Allied Effort to End the Stalemate in Italy, January–June 1944

Anzio beachhead in relation to Rome (due north)

Above: After the Italian armistices of September 1943 (there were two), the Allies, with the assis­tance of forces loyal to the new Ital­ian govern­ment, soon con­trolled most of South­ern Italy—this in the face of increasing oppo­si­tion from the Germans, who had thrown them­selves into the battle to turn back the Allied advance up the Ital­ian boot. On Janu­ary 22, 1944, the Allies launched an amphib­ious inva­sion in the area of Anzio, 40 miles south of Rome (upper left corner of map). The inva­sion, code­named Opera­tion Shingle, was a bold plan pushed by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to end the stalemate in Italy.

Company A, 3rd Ranger Infantry BattalionU.S. soldiers landing at Anzio, January 1944

Left: Soldiers of Company A, 3rd Ranger Infantry Battalion, board landing craft that will take them to Anzio. Two weeks later nearly all would be killed or captured.

Right: U.S. Army troops landing at Anzio, late January 1944. U.S. Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas was given the task of out­flanking German strong points along the Gus­tav (or Winter) Line (on the map, thick rust-colored line mid­way between Naples and Anzio) so as to enable an attack on Rome, 40 miles north of Anzio. The divisions at Anzio would link up with Allied forces farther south and break the stalemate.

British Eighth Army Sherman tank, Anzio, Jan. 22, 1944Wounded Allied POWs, Nettuno, Mar. 6, 1944

Left: A Sherman tank of the 23rd Armored Brigade attached to the British Eighth Army coming ashore from a landing craft at Anzio on the first day, Janu­ary 22, 1944. The Allies prac­ti­cally strolled ashore, taking the Germans com­pletely by sur­prise. Unfor­tu­nately Lucas failed to take advan­tage of the ele­ment of sur­prise. Within 48 hours of landing, Lucas had snatched defeat from the jaws of vic­tory by ordering his two divisions to dig in instead of ordering a march on Rome. A month later Lucas was replaced by his deputy corps commander, Maj. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott.

Right: German soldiers take captured Allied wounded to a first-aid station near Net­tuno (not far from Anzio), March 6, 1944. German Field Marshal Albert Kessel­ring’s Tenth Army, which Lt. Gen. Mark Clark’s U.S. Fifth Army intel­li­gence severely under­esti­mated, quickly massed ten divi­sions of armor and men, several of them crack com­bat units. Not since the Blitz­krieg of spring 1940 had Germans gathered such a large attacking force to do battle with the Western Allies.

German artillery piece near Nettuno, 1944British mortar at Anzio, May 18, 1944

Left: German paratroopers position an artillery piece near Net­tuno. Because the Allies had failed to move inland and seize the Alban Hills, the Germans were able to look down on each inch of the shallow beachhead and on the town of Anzio itself.

Right: A 4.2-in mortar of 1st Infantry Brigade’s sup­port group, firing in sup­port of the 5th Northampton­shire Regi­ment in the Anzio beach­head, May 18, 1944. Several days later the regiment was on its way to Rome.

U.S. Fifth Army Report from the Anzio Beachhead, January–March 1944 (Skip the first minute)