RETROSPECT is now inevitable if the Italian setting is to be understood. After the surrender in September 1943, the organisation of resistance to the Germans fell by default into the hands of an underground Committee of Liberation in Rome, and linked with the mounting activity of Partisan bands which now began activities throughout the peninsula. The members of this committee were politicians driven from power by Mussolini in the early 1920s or representatives of groups hostile to Fascist rule. Over all hung the menace of a recrudescence of the hard core of Fascism in the hour of defeat. The Germans certainly did their best to promote it.
Mussolini had been interned on the island of Ponza, and later at La Maddalena, off the coast of Sardinia. Fearing a German coup de main, Badoglio had at the end of August moved his former master to a small mountain resort high in the Abruzzi, in Central Italy. In the haste of the flight from Rome no precise instructions were given to the police agents and Carabinieri guarding the fallen Dictator. On the morning of Sunday, September 12, ninety German parachutists landed by glider near the hotel where Mussolini was confined. He was removed, without casualties, in a light German aircraft, and carried to yet another meeting in Munich with Hitler.
During the succeeding days the two men debated how to extend the life of Italian Fascism in those parts of Italy still occupied by the German troops. On the 15th the Duce announced that he had reassumed the leadership of Fascism and that a new Republican-Fascist Party, purged and uplifted from traitorous elements, would rebuild a faithful Government in the North. For a moment it seemed that the old system, now dressed up in a pseudo-revolutionary garb, might flare again into life. The results disappointed the Germans, but there was to be no turning back. Mussolini’s half-hearted “Hundred Days” began. At the end of September he set up his headquarters on the shores of Lake Garda. This pitiful shadow Government is known as the “Republic of Salo”. Here the squalid tragedy was played out. The dictator and lawgiver of Italy for more than twenty years dwelt with his mistress in the hands of his German masters, ruled by their will, and cut off from the outside world by carefully chosen German guards and doctors.
The Italian surrender caught their armies in the Balkans completely unawares, and many troops were trapped in desperate positions between local guerrilla forces and the vengeful Germans. There were savage reprisals. The Italian garrison of Corfu, over seven thousand strong, were almost annihilated by their former allies. The Italian troops of the island of Cephalonia held out until September 22. Many of the survivors were shot, and the rest deported. Some of the garrisons of the Ægean islands managed to escape in small parties to Egypt. In Albania, on the Dalmatian coast, and inside Yugoslavia a number of detachments joined the Partisans. More often they were taken off to forced labour and their officers executed. In Montenegro the greater part of two Italian divisions were formed by Tito into the “Garibaldi Divisions”, which suffered heavy losses by the end of the war. In the Balkans and Ægean the Italian armies lost nearly forty thousand men after the announcement of the armistice on September 8, not including those who died in deportation camps.
Italy herself was plunged into the horrors of civil war. Officers and men of the Italian Army stationed in the German-occupied North and Patriots from the towns and countryside began to form Partisan units and to operate against the Germans and against their compatriots who still adhered to the Duce. Contacts were made with the Allied armies south of Rome and with the Badoglio Government. In these months the network of Italian resistance to the German occupation was created in a cruel atmosphere of civil strife, assassinations, and executions. The insurgent movement in Central and Northern Italy here as elsewhere in occupied Europe convulsed all classes of the people.
Not the least of their achievements was the succour and support given to our prisoners of war trapped by the armistice in camps in Northern Italy. Out of about eighty thousand of these men, conspicuously clothed in battle dress, and in the main with little knowledge of the language or geography of the country, at least ten thousand, mostly helped by the local population with civilian clothes, were guided to safety, thanks to the risks taken by members of the Italian Resistance and the simple people of the countryside.
The bitterness and confusion were heightened in the New Year. Mussolini’s phantom republic came under mounting pressure from the Germans. The governing circles around Badoglio in the south were assailed by intrigues in Italy and despised by public opinion in Britain and the United States. Mussolini was the first to react. When he arrived in Munich after his escape he found there his daughter Edda and her husband, Count Ciano. These two had fled from Rome at the time of the surrender, and although Ciano had voted against his father-in-law at the fateful meeting of the Grand Council, he hoped, thanks to the influence of his wife, for a reconciliation. During these days in Munich this in fact happened. This aroused the indignation of Hitler, who had already placed the Ciano family under house arrest on their arrival. The reluctance of the Duce to punish the traitors to Fascism, and particularly Ciano, was perhaps the main reason why Hitler formed such a low opinion of his colleague at this critical time.
It was not until the declining strength of the “Republic of Salo” had fallen far, and the impatience of its German masters had sharpened, that Mussolini agreed to let loose a wave of calculated vengeance. All those leaders of the old Fascist régime who had voted against him in July and who could be caught in German-occupied Italy were brought to trial at the end of 1943, in the medieval fortress at Verona. Among them was Ciano. Without exception they received the death sentence. In spite of the entreaties and threats of Edda, the Duce could not relent. In January 1944 the group, which included not only Ciano but also the seventy-eight-year-old Marshal de Bono, a colleague in the march on Rome, were taken out to die a traitor’s death—to be shot in the back tied to a chair. They all died bravely.
The end of Ciano was in keeping with all the elements of Renaissance tragedy. Mussolini’s submission to Hitler’s vengeful demands brought him only shame, and the miserable neo-Fascist republic dragged on by Lake Garda—a relic of the Broken Axis.
We had meanwhile spent the first weeks of January in intensive preparations for Operation “Shingle”, as Anzio was called in our codes, and in preliminary operations by the Fifth Army to draw the enemy’s attention and reserves away from the beach-head. Fighting was bitter, for the Germans clearly meant to prevent us from breaking into the Gustav Line, which, with Cassino as its central feature, was the rearmost position of their deep defensive zone. In these rocky mountains a great fortified system had been created, with lavish use of concrete and steel. From their observation posts on the heights the enemy could direct their guns on all movements in the valleys below. Our troops made great efforts which, though gaining little ground, had the desired effect on the enemy. It distracted their attention from the approaching threat to their vulnerable seaward flank and caused them to bring up three good divisions from reserve to restore the situation.
By the afternoon of the 21st the convoys for Anzio were well out to sea, covered by our aircraft. The weather was well suited to a concealed approach. Our heavy attacks on enemy airfields, and especially at Perugia, the German air reconnaissance base, kept many of their aircraft grounded, and it was with tense, but I trust suppressed, excitement that I awaited the outcome of this considerable stroke. Presently I learned that the Vlth Corps, consisting of the 3rd United States and 1st British Divisions under the American General Lucas, had landed on the Anzio beaches at 2 a.m on the 22nd. There was very little opposition and practically no casualties. By midnight 36,000 men and over 3,000 vehicles were ashore. “We appear”, signalled Alexander, who was on the spot, “to have got almost complete surprise. I have stressed the importance of strong-hitting mobile patrols being boldly pushed out to gain contact with the enemy, but so far have not received reports of their activities.” I was in full agreement with this, and replied: “Thank you for all your messages. Am very glad you are pegging out claims rather than digging in beach-heads.”
But now came disaster, and the ruin in its prime purpose of the enterprise. General Lucas confined himself to occupying his beach-head and having equipment and vehicles brought ashore. General Penney, commanding the British 1st Division, was anxious to push inland. His reserve brigade was however held back with the corps. Minor probing attacks towards Cisterna and Campoleone occupied the 22nd and 23rd. No general attempt to advance was made by the commander of the expedition. By the evening of the 23rd the whole of the two divisions and their attached troops, including two British Commandos, the United States Rangers, and parachutists, had been landed, with masses of impedimenta. The defences of the beach-head were growing, but the opportunity for which great exertions had been made was gone.
Kesselring reacted quickly to his critical situation. The bulk of his reserves were already committed against us on the Cassino front, but he pulled in whatever units were available, and in forty-eight hours the equivalent of about two divisions was assembled to resist our further advance. On the 27th serious news arrived. The Guards Brigade had gone forward, but they were still about a mile and a half short of Campoleone, and the Americans were still south of Cisterna. Alexander said that neither he nor General Clark was satisfied with the speed of the advance, and that Clark was going to the beach-head at once. I replied:
I am glad to learn that Clark is going to visit the beach-head. It would be unpleasant if your troops were sealed off there and the main army could not advance up from the south.
This however was exactly what was going to happen.
Meanwhile our attacks on the Cassino positions continued. The threat to his flank did not weaken Kesselring’s determination to withstand our assaults. The German resolve was made crystal-clear by an order from Hitler captured on the 24th:
The Gustav Line must be held at all costs for the sake of the political consequences which would follow a completely successful defence. The Fuehrer expects the bitterest struggle for every yard.
He was certainly obeyed. At first we made good progress. We crossed the river Rapido above Cassino town and attacked southwards against Monastery Hill; but the Germans had reinforced and held on fanatically, and by early February our strength was expended. A New Zealand Corps of three divisions was brought over from the Adriatic, and on the 15th our second major attack began with the bombing of the monastery itself.* The height on which the monastery stood surveyed the junction of the rivers Rapido and Liri and was the pivot of the whole German defence. It had already proved itself a formidable, strongly defended obstacle. Its steep sides, swept by fire, were crowned by the famous building, which several times in previous wars had been pillaged, destroyed, and rebuilt. There is controversy about whether it should have been destroyed once again. The monastery did not contain German troops, but the enemy fortifications were hardly separate from the building itself. It dominated the whole battlefield, and naturally General Freyberg, the Corps Commander concerned, wished to have it heavily bombarded from the air before he launched the infantry attack. The Army Commander, General Mark Clark, unwillingly sought and obtained permission from General Alexander, who accepted the responsibility. On February 15 therefore, after the monks had been given full warning, over 450 tons of bombs were dropped and heavy damage was done. The great outer walls and gateway still stood. The result was not good. The Germans had now every excuse for making whatever use they could of the rubble of the ruins, and this gave them even better opportunities for defence than when the building was intact.
It fell to the 4th Indian Division, which had recently relieved the Americans on the ridges north of the monastery, to make the attack. On two successive nights they tried in vain to seize a knoll that lay between their position and Monastery Hill. On the night of February 18 a third attempt was made. The fighting was desperate, and all our men who reached the knoll were killed. Later that night a brigade bypassed the knoll and moved directly at the monastery, only to encounter a concealed ravine heavily mined and covered by enemy machine-guns at shortest range. Here they lost heavily and were stopped. While this fierce conflict was raging on the heights above them the New Zealand Division succeeded in crossing the river Rapido; but they were counter-attacked by tanks before their bridgehead was secure and forced back again. The direct attack on Cassino had failed.
We must now return to the beach-head. By January 30 the 1st U.S. Armoured Division had landed at Anzio and the 45th U.S. Division was on its way. All this had to be done over the difficult beaches or through the tiny fishing port. “The situation as it now stands”, signalled Admiral John Cunningham, “bears little relation to the lightning thrust by two or three divisions envisaged at Marrakesh, but you may rest assured that no effort will be spared by the Navies to provide the sinews of victory.” This promise, as will be seen, was amply redeemed.
On the same day the Vlth Corps made its first attack in strength. Some ground was gained, but on February 3 the enemy launched a counter-stroke which drove in the salient of the 1st British Division and was clearly only a prelude to harder things to come. In the words of General Wilson’s report, “the perimeter was sealed off and our forces therein are not capable of advancing.” Though General Lucas had achieved surprise he had failed to take advantage of it. All this was a great disappointment at home and in the United States. I did not of course know what orders had been given to General Lucas, but it is a root principle to push out and join issue with the enemy, and it would seem that his judgment was against it from the beginning. As I said at the time, I had hoped that we were hurling a wild cat on to the shore, but all we had got was a stranded whale. We were apparently still stronger than the Germans in fighting power. The ease with which they moved their pieces about on the board and the rapidity with which they adjusted the perilous gaps they had to make on their southern front was most impressive. It all seemed to give us very adverse data for “Overlord”.
The expected major effort to drive us back into the sea opened on the 16th when the enemy employed over four divisions, supported by 450 guns, in a direct thrust southwards from Campoleone. Hitler’s special order of the day was read out to the troops before the attack. He demanded that our beach-head “abscess” be eliminated in three days. The attack fell at an awkward moment, as the 45th U.S. and 56th British Divisions, transferred from the Cassino front, were just relieving our gallant 1st Division, who soon found themselves in full action again. A deep, dangerous wedge was driven into our line, which was forced back here to the original beach-head. All hung in the balance. No further retreat was possible. Even a short advance would have given the enemy the power to use not merely their long-range guns in harassing fire upon the landing stages and shipping, but to put down a proper field artillery barrage upon all intakes or departures. I had no illusions about the issue. It was life or death.
But fortune, hitherto baffling, rewarded the desperate valour of the British and American armies. Before Hitler’s stipulated three days the German attack was stopped. Then their own salient was counterattacked in flank and cut out under fire from all our artillery and bombardment by every aircraft we could fly. The fighting was intense, losses on both sides were heavy, but the deadly battle was won.
One more attempt was made by Hitler—for his was the will-power at work—at the end of February. The 3rd U.S. Division, on the eastern flank, was attacked by three German divisions. These were weakened and shaken by their previous failure. The Americans held stubbornly, and the attack was broken in a day, when the Germans had suffered more than 2,500 casualties. On March 1 Kesselring accepted his failure. He had frustrated the Anzio expedition. He could not destroy it.
At the beginning of March the weather brought about a deadlock. Napoleon’s fifth element—mud—bogged down both sides. We could not break the main front at Cassino, and the Germans had equally failed to drive us into the sea at Anzio. In numbers there was little to choose between the two combatants. By now we had twenty divisions in Italy, but both Americans and French had had very heavy losses. The enemy had eighteen or nineteen divisions south of Rome, and five more in Northern Italy, but they too were tired and worn.
There could be no hope now of a break-out from the Anzio beachhead and no prospect of an early link-up between our two separated forces until the Cassino front was broken. The prime need therefore was to make the beach-head really firm, to relieve and reinforce the troops, and to pack in stores to withstand a virtual siege and nourish a subsequent sortie. Time was short, since many of the landing-craft must soon leave for “Overlord”. Their move had so far been rightly postponed, but no further delay was possible. The Navies put all their strength into the effort, with admirable results. The previous average daily tonnage landed had been 3,000; in the first ten days of March this was more than doubled.
But although Anzio was now no longer an anxiety the campaign in Italy as a whole had dragged. We had hoped that by this time the Germans would have been driven north of Rome and that a substantial part of our armies would have been set free for a strong landing on the French Riviera coast to help the main cross-Channel invasion. This operation, “Anvil”, had been agreed in principle at Teheran. It was soon to become a cause of contention between ourselves and our American Allies. The campaign in Italy had obviously to be carried forward a long way before this issue arose, and the immediate need was to break the deadlock on the Cassino front. Preparations for the third Battle of Cassino were begun soon after the February failure, but the bad weather delayed it until March 15.
This time Cassino town was the primary objective. After a heavy bombardment, in which nearly 1,000 tons of bombs and 1,200 tons of shells were expended, our infantry advanced. “It seemed to me inconceivable,” said Alexander, “that any troops should be left alive after eight hours of such terrific hammering.” But they were. The 1st German Parachute Division, probably the toughest fighters in all their Army, fought it out amid the heaps of rubble with the New Zealanders and Indians. By nightfall the greater part of the town was in our hands, while the 4th Indian Division, coming down from the north, made equally good progress and next day were two-thirds of the way up Monastery Hill. Then the battle swung against us. Our tanks could not cross the large craters made by the bombardment and follow up the infantry assault. Nearly two days passed before they could help. The enemy filtered in reinforcements. The weather broke in storm and rain. The struggle in the ruins of Cassino town continued until the 23rd, with hard fighting in attacks and counter-attacks. The New Zealanders and the Indians could do no more. We had however established a firm bridgehead over the river Rapido, which, with a deep bulge made across the lower Garigliano in January, was of great value when the final, successful battle came. Here and at the Anzio bridgehead we had pinned down in Central Italy nearly twenty good German divisions. Many of them might have gone to France.
Such is the story of the struggle of Anzio; a story of high opportunity and shattered hopes, of skilful inception on our part and swift recovery by the enemy, of valour shared by both. We now know that early in January the German High Command had intended to transfer five of their best divisions from Italy to North-West Europe. Kesselring protested that in such an event he could no longer carry out his orders to fight south of Rome and he would have to withdraw. Just as the argument was at its height the Anzio landing took place. The High Command dropped the idea, and instead of the Italian front contributing forces to North-West Europe the reverse took place. We knew nothing of all these changes of plan at the time, but it proves that the aggressive action of our armies in Italy, and specifically the Anzio stroke, made its full contribution towards the success of “Overlord”. We shall see later on the part it played in the liberation of Rome.