What was needed was a fresh initiative on a fresh line, but one that left the troops already engaged to continue their advance without interruption. For the wedge and trap at Valmontone was only one possible vein for exploitation. What seems to have escaped the attentions of historians so far was the folly of not seizing the golden opportunity so unexpectedly offered by Juin’s success. By the time the Eighth Army had broken through the Hitler Line and was stalled beyond it Juin had laid open the flank of the 51st Mountain Corps for some miles and he had two divisions in reserve, the lère DMI and the 3e DIA.
The first option was to shift the inter-army boundary north so that Juin could cross the Sacco behind the 51st Mountain Corps and use the Via Casilina. The two divisions available could have been reinforced with British or Canadian tanks which, as they were US models, like their supporting armoured artillery, would have presented no logistic difficulties. He would also have required additional bridging, but in fact both the Germans and later Juin himself were able to cross the Sacco at will. If it had been done in time von Senger might have been trapped south of the Sacco, and von Vietinghoff forced into the difficult choice of either leaving Baade and Heidrich opposing Leese, with the risk of being cut off, or sending them against Juin’s new right flank, which would take the cork out of the Liri bottle and let the Eighth Army loose.
From Valmontone there were the possibilities outlined, had Clark followed Alexander’s order (or “suggestion”) of the 18th, of squeezing von Senger from both ends along the Via Casilina or, depending on the degree of disarray of Army Group “C”, making an armoured dash for the bridges over the Tiber behind him. A Patton or a Guderian might have dared to do it. It would be wrong to argue that any or all of these were certain to succeed, but it can be stated positively that to do nothing, to risk nothing, was absolutely wrong. That nothing was done was the consequence of the fatal conjunction of two such men as Clark and Alexander; the one with an iron determination to pursue a false aim, the other with the worthiest of intentions but lacking in backbone. Its malign influence was to be felt again in another botched operation before the year was out.
Another question is unanswerable or, at least, can only be the subject of conjecture: what might have followed had Army group “C” not escaped in good order? Hitler might conceivably have ordered a withdrawal as far as the foothills of the Alps to give him time to establish a new defence line in front of the southern approaches to the Greater Reich, ANVIL might have been modified. There might even have been the possibility of Alexander and Clark realising their dream of forcing the Julian Alps and the Lubljana “gap” and advancing into Austria before winter set in. The Allied armies might have reached the Apennines earlier, found the Gothic Line less well prepared and weakly manned and so been spared much hard and costly fighting that autumn and winter.
The rest of the story of DIADEM is soon told. Harmon and O’Daniel protested violently against the change of plan, with good reason, but Truscott told them firmly that these were their orders and had to be obeyed. The corps and divisional staffs activated TURTLE with speed and efficiency, and the first troop movements were under way on the night of the 25th/26th and the switch completed by the 26th. The 3rd Infantry Division Armored Task Force Howze and the 1st Special Service Force were to continue the movement against Valmontone, but only to form a defensive flank against the threat of counter-attack by the 715th Division, which in fact was completely shattered, and the Hermann Goering Division, of which only the reconnaissance battalion had arrived, TURTLE was to be carried out by the 45th Division, already in position, the 34th and 36th Divisions, which had to face left and the 1st Armored Division, which had to retrace its steps and then face to its right. The first attack failed. German troops, unshaken and in strong positions, could only be shifted by a carefully prepared attack; they could not be rushed, even when outnumbered and out-gunned. By the 30th the operation had still to be set moving again by the initiative of the commander of the much-battered and hitherto unlucky 36th Division, still General Walker. Owing to a misunderstanding compounded by a shortage of troops M. Artemisio, a large wooded feature with steep slopes overlooking Velletri, had not been properly secured by the 1st Parachute Corps and some enterprising patrols from the 36th Division found it almost free of enemy troops. Walker, seizing the opportunity, sent two regiments to steal undetected up its slopes, assisted by engineers, and followed by tanks. This broke the front of the 1st Parachute Corps, but Kesselring had other bad news. He, too, had had his eye on Valmontone and the gap between the Lepini and the Alban Hills for some time, and by the 31st the US 88th Division of the 2nd Corps had swung up to that area from the coast, the French Corps de Montagne was pushing through the Lepinis and the lère DMI was moving rapidly along the north bank of the Sacco. It was time to get out and he ordered a general withdrawal, and so saved Army Group “C” to fight another day.
The US troops advancing in great spirits resumed their attack on the 31st and on June 4 Clark achieved his heart’s desire and drove into Rome, which had been declared an open city. There he hoisted the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack and, never a man to miss a trick, sent the first to the President of the United States and the second to the Prime Minister of England. Harold Macmillan, Old Etonian, signalled Harold Alexander to congratulate him on the liberation of Rome on so auspicious a date. Alexander, Old Harrovian, replied, “What is the Fourth of June?”
The two British divisions in the Anzio bridgehead played an undistinguished part in the final victory. They were hardly expected to do anything else, having been given the simple role of following up the retreating right wing of the 1st Parachute Corps. This they were glad to do, especially the infantry of the 5th Division who had been engaged in the murderous close-range fighting in their supposedly quiet sector, in the “wadis”; in particular between the 1st Inniskilling Fusiliers and the infantry of the 4th Parachute Division, neither belonging to the live and let live school of soldiering. They continued to clash in small-scale but bitter fights until the enemy disappeared. The British divisions were ordered by Fifth Army to halt and bivouac on the banks of the Tiber downstream of Rome. David Cole, the signals officer of the Inniskillings, was surprised to see that many of the formidable parachutists were no more than youths, in death still pink-faced and looking rather surprised. On June 5, having no duties to perform, Cole went into Rome for the civilised pleasures of a haircut and a cocktail in the Hotel Excelsior, in surroundings untouched and undisturbed by war. The Romans were very friendly, but they asked, “Why were you so long in coming?”
So ended DIADEM, marred in execution, but none the less a great victory. Alexander and his generals could justly claim that they had severely defeated the most powerful German army the Western Allies had yet encountered. Not the least benefit, bearing in mind the ultimate aim of the war, was the liberation of some three-quarters of Italy.
Kesselring with equal justice claimed that though defeated he had successfully carried out the Fuehrer’s orders against heavy odds, extricated his armies from a trap, and was ready to fight again. He could also congratulate himself with the thought that it was the optimism of “Smiling Albert” and not the croaking of the Hochwohlgeboren army generals which had proved the better guide.
All the same, he was faced with immediate and grave difficulties. He had had severe losses. Army Group “C” had suffered 38,024 casualties, of which 2,127 were killed. (The last a surprisingly low figure, even allowing for its being a defensive battle, and that at this stage of the war the Germans had, like the British, been forced to adopt a policy of parsimony in man-power and prodigality in fire-power.) The true measure of his defeat was the loss of 9,484 prisoners (counting only Germans), 2,100 machine guns, 306 pieces of artillery and 250–300 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles.
Kesselring soon patched up and rallied his divisions and was able to resume his fighting withdrawal. He intended to make his next stand on the Gothic Line, running from Pisa to Rimini along the forward
slopes of the great north-west south-east diagonal of the Apennines. To give his engineers time to prepare it he fought two delaying battles, one astride Lake Trasimene, and behind that, on the line of the River Arno. The two German armies broke away cleanly, and the Allied soldiery, indifferent to the news of the fall of Rome and the landings in Normandy two days later, trudged or motored northwards, according to arm, resuming the familiar routine of replacing blown bridges, lifting minefields, scouting for an elusive enemy, coping with the self-propelled anti-tank gun round the next corner and occasionally being shot or blown up for their pains.
Clark was by no means mellowed by his personal victory and continued to be obstructive in a petty way. Ordered by HQ AAI to allow Leese running rights inside the Fifth Army sector to enable him to have a chance of cutting off the enemy in Orvieto, he refused until he had the order in writing, the delay frustrating the operation entirely. This hardened Leese’s resolve never to fight adjacent to the Fifth Army if he could avoid it. What was now gnawing Clark was the certainty of soon losing seven divisions to ANVIL, together with HQ 6th Corps, which would make him numerically the junior partner in AAI. It exacerbated his by then obsessive dislike of the British.
Leese also had his troubles. He had formed a poor opinion of Burns during the Liri battle, and wanted him to be replaced if necessary by a British officer, which would have had unpleasant political results, and the staffs of Corps HQ and the 5th Canadian Armoured Division had not functioned well. Wisely the Canadian High Command was consulted and Burns on their advice was retained, but two senior officers were relieved: in retrospect unfairly, but that was a question for the Canadians. The 1st Canadian Corps was to show its prowess a second time in the Gothic Line battle.
Far more serious than these painful and difficult matters, after all part of the day-to-day work of generals, was the question of manpower. The British and Commonwealth commanders were already alive to this. The Americans so far were not. The US Army losses in DIADEM had been 17,931 (3,145 killed), the largest share of the total AAI casualties (some 40,000), but by June 4 the lavish and efficient replacement service had made them good. Casualty figures are notoriously difficult to interpret because of different methods of accounting and differing circumstances; besides cost-benefit equations are insoluble: what would have been a fair price for Cassino? The only thing that is certain is that battle is expensive; the French General Mangin said in 1918: “Quoi qu’on fasse, on perd beaucoup de monde.” To take a single example: the two British divisions in Anzio were employed in a static defensive role from April 1 to May 22. On the 23rd they mounted a feint attack and from the 29th to June 3 they followed up the retreating enemy. Their total casualties for the period were 520 killed, 2,385 wounded and 450 missing.
An admittedly unsophisticated way of assessing casualties for a given operation, but one that does not lead to any great distortion is to obtain a comparative coefficient by dividing the total casualties by the number of infantry battalions engaged. This gives us: Poles, 307; US Army, 271; French, 259; Canadians, 196; British, 188. This result is very much what might be expected. The French, for instance, were fighting for the longest without a break and had attracted the bulk of the German reserves. American commanders drove their units on remorselessly, attacking again and again if the first failed. It is fallacious, however, to try to deduce from this a sort of league table of self-sacrifice on the one side or good tactics on the other. The point is that even the lowest loss of the order above is not one that can be sustained for one battle after another without an ample reservoir of replacements. Clark was to his chagrin to discover that even the American reserves were dwindling by the end of the year. The Allied commanders were to be faced with very difficult operations in the autumn and winter with these grim statistics hanging over them like a dark cloud.
* The “C”, or Caesar Line was a projected but undeveloped defence position behind the Hitler Line. The title derived from the signals phonetic for “C”. It was not a classical allusion.
VIII
The Gothic Line
23
OPERATION OLIVE
I am told that the 5th Canadian Armoured Division was excellent…though not strong in numbers, the Canadians are right good soldiers.
Von Vietinghoff to Kesselring, September 7, 19441
The pursuit after DIADEM came to a halt in July, with Kesselring’s forces, battered but still intact and full of fight, ranged across Italy from the Metauro river on the Adriatic coast along the Arno to the Mediterranean, covering the Pisa–Rimini line according to plan. The long debate over ANVIL (renamed DRAGOON) had gone against Alexander, and he was forced to halt and redeploy to fill the huge gap left in the Fifth Army by the loss of seven divisions. The enforced pause enabled Leghorn to be opened as a forward base and supply port and the infantry were given a much-needed rest, for the pursuit had been a hard-fought affair costing Clark 18,000 and Leese 16,000 casualties.2 All hope, however, of bursting through the Gothic Line and reaching the plain of Emilia before the summer ended had evaporated and Alexander prepared for an autumn offensive.
His mission, to contain Kesselring, remained the same and Harding once again decided that the best course was an all-out offensive, with the full weight of both armies concentrated and an elaborate deception plan to conceal the point of attack. In the area of Ancona the Apennines turn north-west in a great mountain rampart, rising from the rolling foothills in the east to snowy peaks in Liguria, offering only two avenues of advance. Harding discarded the Adriatic, with its alternation of ridge and river valleys that had so troubled the Eighth Army in the winter of 1943. The most promising, he thought, was the main highway over the passes from Florence to Bologna. This plan, which suited Clark, was short lived.3
Kirkman’s powerful 13th Corps was halted in line south of the Arno astride Florence and in his view the natural defences of the mountains facing him were strong enough to delay a mechanised army indefinitely. He decided that of two difficult options the eastern end of the Gothic Line was preferable, for only there could the great assets of the Eighth Army, a mass of tanks and thousands of guns, be realised. On August 3 when Leese visited him he pressed for the plan to be changed and found the army commander receptive. Leese, for emotional and personal reasons, had resolved never to fight shoulder to shoulder with Clark again if he could avoid it, and Kirkman now supplied him with a persuasive tactical argument. On the 4th Leese met Alexander and Harding, and Alexander, as compliant as ever, agreed with it.4
On the 10th Alexander summoned Clark to discuss the sudden change of plan. Clark agreed in principle with it, but was not prepared to see his Fifth Army reduced to a secondary role. Like Alexander, he was convinced that the correct strategy was to burst into the Po valley and thence into Austria and the Danube basin, and determined that he was going to play the leading part in this great enterprise. The “British”, for whom by this time he felt nothing but profound contempt, could not “carry the ball” without his aid. (In DIADEM they had been “nothing but grief”.)5 There was also the danger that if Marshall and Devers thought the Fifth Army was not fully employed they might transfer it to France, a thought Clark could not endure. Keeping all this to himself Clark proceeded to negotiate in calm and masterly style. He brought the argument down to the tactical question of his right flank and who was to control the British division adjacent to it. His price for acquiescence was Kirkman’s corps, complete.* British troops were better than none, and they would enable him to concentrate his trusted US divisions as his spearhead. Alexander, as ever, concurred. It made sense to put the left-hand corps under Clark so as to allow him to coordinate its operations with his own, and free Leese to conduct the battle on the coast, but Alexander’s judgment of Solomon deprived Leese of a reserve, ignored the unsuitability of the central sector for tanks and divided his forces instead of concentrating them in one place or the other.
The staff, and the Canadians in particular, performed wonders transferring the Canadian Corps fr
om its position south of Florence to the coast and in reversing the deception plan that had pointed to an offensive being launched on the Adriatic. That proved superfluous, for in Kesselring’s opinion the landing of the US Seventh Army in the south of France on August 15 precluded any major offensive in Italy. What worried him was his weakness, for he had suffered some 63,000 casualties and he feared that he might have to transfer some of his elite troops, his trouble-shooting 26th Panzer and 29th Panzer Grenadiers to France, and other divisions as well. Meanwhile the 2nd Polish Corps was pressing uncomfortably hard on the Adriatic flank. He ordered von Vietinghoff to withdraw the 76th Panzer Corps into the “Red Line”, or forward defence zone of the Gothic defences in that sector, between the Metauro and the Foglia rivers, and awaited events.
Leese’s Operation OLIVE was simple, bold and enterprising. He was faced by three divisions in the Red Line, the 1st Parachute on the Via Adriatica (Highway No. 16), the 71st and the 5th Mountain inland in the hills. He disposed of ten divisions altogether, and intended to open his attack with three corps in line abreast. Anders was to continue on the coast until he had masked Pesaro, and halt. Burns then would extend to the right and Keightley’s powerful corps of five divisions, on his left, would press forward. Leese’s intention was to overrun the Red Line, the outpost zone of the Gothic defences, in a surprise attack without artillery preparation, bounce both parts of the Green Line, the main battle zone, before it could be properly manned and then use his mass of armour to break through the rear defences, the Rimini Line, into the Romagna, the flat alluvial plain beyond. Following Montgomery’s example, he visited as many units as possible, talking to the men and filling them with enthusiasm and confidence that this was to be the final victory in Italy. (“We’ll meet in Venice!” was the cry.) Surprise was to be complete, with von Vietinghoff and Heidrich, the parachute commander, both on leave.
Tug of War Page 41
